The Angel and the Outlaw (24 page)

J.T. swore under his breath, wondering what Brandy’s fate would be if he failed to locate her. He knew nothing of Pawnee customs. Would Brandy be passed from warrior to warrior? Would some Pawnee take her to wife, or would she be no more than a slave in some warrior’s lodge, mistreated and humiliated? The thought of his woman and child becoming the property of another man cut through J.T. like a rusty knife.

The Pawnee, obviously expecting to be followed, were riding hard. J.T. worried about Brandy, about the effect such hard riding would have on her in her condition.

He cursed each minute that went by, each hour without her. Time had become a precious commodity. He had so few days left to share with Brandy, it grieved him to know that two of those days had been lost.

It was late afternoon when J.T. reached the place where the Pawnee had paused to rest the horses. Dismounting, he searched the ground for some sign of Brandy, some clue that she was all right. Moving in an ever-widening circle, he was about to give up when he saw it, a small heart drawn in the dirt behind a clump of sagebrush. Within the heart, she had drawn B.C. loves J.T.C.

He felt a lump rise in his throat as he stared at the heart.

Brandy Cutter loves J.T. Cutter. Impulsively, he drew a heart of his own beside hers. Inside, he wrote J.T.C. loves B.C.

It seemed a foolish thing for a grown man to do, but he felt better for it.

J.T. stood up, cussing softly as the wound in his side reopened. He felt a sudden wetness against his skin and knew the wound was bleeding again.

Lifting his shirt, he removed the sodden bandage, rinsed it out, and tied it tightly over the wound again.

Climbing slowly into the saddle, he pulled a strip of jerky from his war bag, then urged his horse into a gallop. Time was wasting, and he had none left to waste.

He rode hard all that day and into the night, always heading north. He was about to call it quits when he saw it, a faint glow off in the distance.

All thought of rest fled his mind as he drew his horse to a halt. He would give the Indians time to turn in for the night, then scout their camp.

Dismounting, he hunkered down on his heels to wait.

It was near midnight when he made his way toward the Pawnee camp. He crawled the last few yards, conscious of every breath he took, of every sound that broke the stillness.

There appeared to be only one sentry keeping watch. Everyone else seemed to be asleep.

J.T.’s gaze darted from one sleeping person to the next, then came to rest on Brandy. She, too, seemed to be asleep. Just looking at her caused his heart to turn over in his chest.

Using all the stealth at his command, he made his way toward the sentry. He took the man unawares, knocking him unconscious with the butt of his rifle.

Moving quietly, he ghosted toward Brandy. He placed a hand over her mouth, then gently shook her shoulder. “Brandy, wake up.”

She came awake with a start, her eyes wide with fright until she saw his face. He saw the recognition in her eyes, felt her smile beneath his hand.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice hushed.

She nodded, and he realized his hand was still covering her mouth.

Lifting his hand, he bent down to press a quick kiss to her lips. “Let’s go.”

Brandy nodded. She took the hand he offered, letting him pull her to her feet. No easy task these days, she thought. And then they were hurrying away from the Pawnee camp.

She tripped once, and J.T. was there to steady her.

When they were out of sight of the camp, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Just one kiss. Quick. Possessive. Thorough.

Minutes later, he was lifting her onto the back of his horse, swinging up behind her.

Eyes closed, she leaned against him, felt his arm curl protectively around her. Home, she thought as she placed her hand over his. She was home.

“Are you all right?” J.T. asked.

“I am now.”

“They didn’t hurt you?”

“No. What about the others, J.T.? We can’t just leave them there.”

“Tatanka Sapa and Nape Luta will find them.”

“But…”

“It’s my decision, Brandy, and it’s not open for discussion. I’m taking you away from here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m taking you back to Cedar Ridge.”

“Why?”

“My time’s running out. I want you settled somewhere safe before it’s too late. I’ve got to know you’ll be all right when I’m gone.”

Time, Brandy thought. It was their enemy now. Each tick of the clock, each sunset, shortened their time together. She didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to plan for a future without J.T.. But the time for procrastination was over. She had to face reality, had to think of the baby. She had to think of J.T. instead of herself.

But one thing bothered her. “Is it safe, going to Cedar Ridge?”

“I don’t know. But it’s where all this started. It seems to me that going back is your only chance of getting home again.”

Home. Brandy blinked back the tears burning her eyes. Didn’t he know home wasn’t a place? It was being with the one you loved. The one who loved you. J.T. was her home.

It was late the following afternoon when they met Tatanka Sapa. He was riding at the head of about forty warriors.

“
Ho
, brother,” J.T. said, reining his horse to a halt.

Tatanka Sapa smiled at Brandy, then looked at J.T.. “I see you could not wait for us.”

“No. Keep riding north, and you’ll find the Pawnee camp.”

“
Hin
, we will. Tatanka Ohitika, Nape Luta and Mato are following the other trails.”

“Good.”

“Will you ride with us?”

“No.” J.T. took a deep breath. “I’m taking Brandy back to her own people.”

Tatanka Sapa frowned. “Is this her wish?”

J.T. shook his head. “It is my wish. Goodbye, my brother.”

Tatanka Sapa nodded. “May
Wakan Tanka
smile on you both until we meet again.”

J.T. nodded. “And you.”

The two men clasped hands. J.T. felt a lump rising in his throat. He would never see this man, or his mother’s people, again.

They rode until nightfall, then took shelter in a stand of heavy timber.

Alone in the wilderness, J.T. dared not risk lighting a fire for fear they might draw unwanted attention. They ate jerky and pemmican for dinner, washed it down with water. Then, wrapped in a buffalo robe, they bedded down for the night.

J.T. drew the robe over Brandy’s shoulders. ”Are you comfortable? Warm enough?”

“I’m fine.” She snuggled against him, her back against his chest. She reveled in his nearness, in the security of his arms. “I knew you’d come for me.”

“Did you?” His breath fanned her cheek.

Brandy rolled toward him, heard him groan softly as her arm hit his side. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing serious,” J.T. said.

Alarmed, she threw back the buffalo robe and lifted J.T.’s shirt. “You’ve been hurt!”

“I’m all right.”

Lightly, she touched the cloth wrapped around his middle. Even without seeing the wound, she knew that it was more than a scratch. “What happened?”

J.T. shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, not wanting to worry her. “Just a little run-in with a couple of Pawnee.”

“You might have been killed.”

“But I wasn’t.” He drew the buffalo robe over them again. “I even took another scalp.”

“You’re getting good at that.”

“Next time I take a scalp, you’ll have to carry it for me in the Scalp Dance,” J.T. said, grinning. “I can’t wait to see how you’ll look with your face painted black.”

“Yes,” she said, fighting back her tears. “Next time.”

“Brandy, don’t cry.”

She sniffed. “I’m not.”

Loving her the more for the lie, he brushed a lock of hair away from her face, traced the curve of her cheek with his forefinger. The touch of her skin was familiar, so familiar.

“I don’t want to live without you, J.T.,” she whispered tremulously. “Please don’t leave me.”

“I’d stay with you forever if I could, Brandy love. You know that.”

“I know.”

He drew her into his arms and held her against him as tightly as he dared. Eyes closed, he let himself absorb her nearness. Her breasts were warm and firm against his chest; the bulge of her belly reminded him that she carried a new life beneath her heart. His son, the child conceived out of their love; a lasting link forged between two people whose lives had miraculously merged across time and space.

“What will you name the baby?” J.T. asked after a while.

“John Tokala, of course.”

“I’d like that.”

“I love you, J.T.. You won’t ever forget that, will you? Or me?”

“What do you think?”

She made a soft contented sound as she snuggled against him. A moment later, she was asleep.

The weather remained mild during the next couple of days. J.T. rode warily, stopping often so Brandy could rest and stretch her legs. He knew the long ride must be tiring for her, but she never complained.

Though it was J.T.’s intention to take her back to Cedar Ridge, he wasn’t about to risk it in the dead of winter and so he headed for Copper Flats, an old mining town with a population big enough to support a small mercantile and a boardinghouse, and yet still too rustic to warrant having a newspaper or a telegraph office. With luck, no one would be aware of who he was, or conscious of the fact that J.T. Cutter was a wanted man.

By the time they reached Copper Flats, Brandy fervently hoped she’d never have to sit a horse again.

It wasn’t much of a town. The main street was only two blocks long; the buildings were all weather-beaten. There was a mercantile store, a blacksmith, a feed store, a barber shop, and a small saloon.

J.T. reined his horse to a halt in front of a run-down two-story house located at the east end of town. The paint, once white, was a dingy gray. Water from a recent rain stood in muddy puddles in the yard. One of the shutters was hanging loose, a handful of hand-hewn cedar shingles lay in an untidy heap along the side of the house.

“It doesn’t look like much,” J.T. muttered, lifting Brandy into his arms. “But it’ll have to do.”

Brandy nodded as she wrapped her arms around J.T.’s neck. Right now, she didn’t care about anything but a hot bath and a bed.

A moment later, a tall, buxom woman with iron-gray hair and sharp blue eyes answered J.T.’s knock. “What do you want?”

“I’d like a room.”

“I don’t rent rooms to no Injuns.”

“My wife’s expecting a baby,” J.T. said, stating the obvious. “We need a place to stay, at least for the night.”

The woman grunted softly. “She Injun, too?”

J.T. nodded curtly. He could feel his anger growing with each passing minute.

Brandy squirmed in J.T.’s arms, irritated by the woman’s surly attitude, and by the fact that J.T. and the woman talked about her as if she couldn’t speak for herself. “Put me down, J.T..”

“No,” he muttered. “Just hold still.”

“Put me down!”

“Hush, Brandy.” J.T. settled her more firmly in his arms as he waited for the landlady’s decision. A faint grin had softened the woman’s stern expression. He took that for a good sign.

“I don’t like Injuns much,” the woman said. “Don’t trust ’em, but since your missus is expectin’, I might make an exception, long as you don’t keep me up nights with yer quarrelin’. A room’ll cost you two dollars a day. In advance.”

J.T. swore, certain she was charging him at least three times what the room was worth. “I’m broke.”

The woman grimaced and took a step back, and J.T. knew she was about to slam the door in his face.

“Wait! Dammit, lady, do you want me to beg? My wife needs a place to stay.”

“I ain’t running no charity house.”

“I’ll work for our keep,” J.T. said, feeling desperate. “This place could use a coat of paint. I could fix that shutter. Repair your roof. Whatever you want.”

A muscle flexed in J.T.’s jaw as he waited for the woman to make up her mind. He hated begging, hated having to ask for help, but he’d get down on his belly and crawl like a snake if the woman asked him to, anything, so long as it would ensure a place for Brandy to spend the night.

“You’re in trouble with the law, ain’t ya?”

For a moment, J.T. considered lying, and then he nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I am.”

“Well, that’s honest,” the woman allowed. “As a rule, I got no use for men. They’re trouble, and nothing but. Married two of the most worthless men to ever walk the earth, but, now that you mentioned it, I reckon this place could use a little fixin’ up.” She took a step back and motioned J.T. inside. “You can have the room upstairs at the end of the hall.”

“Obliged,” J.T. said, forcing the word through clenched teeth. “Do you think we could get some hot water for a bath?”

“Cost ya extra. You’ll find a tub in your room. I’ll heat the water for you, but I got a bad back, so you’ll have to haul it up the stairs yourself. My name’s Missus Thomason.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ma’am. I’m John Shayne, and this is my wife, Brandy.”

Mrs. Thomason nodded. “Supper’s in an hour.”

J.T. nodded. Relieved to have a place to stay, he carried Brandy up the stairs and down the hall.

“She’s got a hell of a nerve, charging two bucks a day for this dump,” J.T. muttered as he lowered Brandy to the bed, then closed the door.

Brandy nodded as she stretched out on the bed. The mattress felt like heaven and she decided then and there that the bed alone was worth two dollars a day.

* * * * *

Wrapped in a heavy blanket, with a shawl draped over her head, Brandy sat on the front porch, watching while J.T. pulled the weeds from Mrs. Thomason’s front yard. In the five and a half weeks since they’d been there, J.T. had painted the house, front and back, fixed the shutters, all of them, and repaired the hole in the roof.

Brandy sighed as she rested her hands on her swollen abdomen. The weather had been remarkably mild for February. It had snowed the day after they arrived in Copper Flats, but since then the weather had been cold and clear. J.T. hadn’t mentioned going to Cedar Ridge again, but she knew it was always there, in the back of his mind. As much as she hated the thought of leaving J.T., she knew he was right. She had to go back. Cedar Ridge had to be the key to unlock the door to the future. She didn’t want to stay here, in the past, without J.T.. If she couldn’t stay with him, share her life with him, then she wanted to go home where she could have their baby in a nice clean hospital, with her mother at her side.

But she didn’t want to think about that now.

J.T. stood up, stretching his back. Mrs. Thomason was certainly getting her money’s worth, he thought. He’d been working like a field hand ever since they arrived, but he couldn’t really complain. Once they had got to know each other, Leona Thomason proved to be a decent woman. She made a fuss over Brandy, cooking Brandy’s favorite foods, insisting Brandy take a nap every afternoon. She had even volunteered to do their laundry so Brandy wouldn’t have to bend over a washtub.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Brandy sitting on the front porch, watching him. He felt his heart quicken when she smiled and waved at him. Lord, he was going to miss her. Even Heaven, should he be lucky enough to find himself there, would be a lonely place without her.

He returned her smile, then turned his attention to the army of weeds choking Leona Thomason’s flower beds, ever conscious of Brandy’s gaze on his back.

More and more, he found himself wondering if he had done anything to redeem himself in Gideon’s eyes. True, he didn’t miss his old life, didn’t miss the gambling, the lying, the stealing. Maybe, if things had been different, he would have made a good life for himself. Considering the fact that he was part-Indian, it wasn’t likely that he would have been considered a pillar of the community, but given half a chance, he might have raised horses for a living instead of stealing them.

J.T. swore softly. He had given up stealing and cheating, mainly because Gideon had always been looking over his shoulder, but that was about all. As far as he could tell, he hadn’t really changed. What would Gideon say when they met again? Would his guardian angel be pleased with how J.T. had spent his probation, or would J.T. find himself wandering the furthest reaches of Hell, in endless torment knowing he would never see Brandy again?

And where on earth had Gideon been these last few months?

J.T. frowned as he yanked a weed from the earth. It was February twenty-third. Assuming Gideon intended for him to have one whole year, he only had forty-five days left. If the weather held, the journey to Cedar Ridge would take about a week, give or take a day.

He swore under his breath as he jerked another weed from the ground. Forty-five days, and then Brandy would be lost to him forever. And what if she couldn’t get back to her own time? How would she survive on her own, with no one to look after her and the baby?

Damn! He lifted his head and gazed up at the sky. “Are you there, Gideon? Can you hear me? Tell me she’ll be okay, that she’ll get back home. Tell me that I haven’t ruined her life the way I ruined mine!”

He sat there for several minutes, staring into the vast blue vault of the sky, waiting for an answer that didn’t come.

Some guardian angel
, J.T. mused sourly. Hell, maybe he’d imagined the whole thing. Maybe he was really dead and Heaven, or Hell, was nothing more than one long dream…

J.T. lifted a hand to his throat. He hadn’t imagined hanging, and he hadn’t imagined that celestial white light. And Brandy was as real as anyone he had ever known. Brandy…

He sensed her presence and when he glanced over his shoulder, she was standing behind him, a cup of hot coffee in her hand.

“Here,” she said, “I thought you might need something to warm you up.”

“I’d rather have you in my arms for that,” he drawled, “but this will do for now. Thanks.”

He stood up, his fingers brushing hers as he took the cup from her hand. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” She patted her stomach. “I think Junior’s doing somersaults. Here, feel.” She took J.T.’s hand and placed it on her belly.

A surge of love flowed through J.T. as he felt his son move beneath his hand.

“Does it ever hurt?” he asked as he felt one tiny foot kick his palm.

“No, it feels wonderful, although sometimes it’s hard to believe there’s a real person living inside me, that he eats and sleeps. I hope he’ll look just like you.”

“That’s a terrible curse to hang on an innocent kid.”

“It is not! You’re the handsomest man I’ve ever known.” Better looking than Kevin Costner, Brad Pitt and Mel Gibson all rolled into one, she thought, grinning as she pictured J.T. on the cover of
People Magazine
.
J.T. Cutter, The Sexiest Man on Earth.

Her praise washed over J.T. like liquid sunshine. Finishing the coffee, he laid the cup aside and drew Brandy into his arms. “I feel like there’s a basketball between us,” she said, laughing.