Outlaw’s Bride Read Free

to elbow her way through the crowd of gawkers who had converged on the street, because it parted like the Red Sea before her.
    “Are you the sheriff?” she demanded.
    Sheriff Careless Lachlan was bent over Johnny Two Toes, who was deader than a doornail. He looked up over his shoulder. Startled by the imposing dignity of the woman behind him, he snapped up like a bent willow branch and yanked his hat off his head.
    “I’m Sheriff Lachlan.” He smiled, exposing tobacco-stained teeth. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”
    “Why didn’t you stop this gunfight before it started?”
    “Why, uh …” He scratched his balding pate and said, “Someone mighta got hurt.”
    She stared down at the dead man at her feet, then toward the other three men who lay sprawled in various postures on the street, her pointed gazefinally landing on the broken window of the Silver Buckle Saloon. “It seems to me someone did get hurt, Sheriff.”
    His face turned beet red. “Only this riffraff, ma’am.” He frowned and muttered, “I told Mr. Trahern this wasn’t a good idea.”
    “You
knew
these men were hired killers, and yet you did nothing to stop them?”
    The sheriff pulled at the neck of his shirt and loosened a string tie that was already half undone. “Now I wouldn’t exactly say that, ma’am. I did warn the boy they was after him,” he said. “Told Ethan he oughta get outta town and go back to that ranch of his’n. But Hawk, he insisted on stayin’ in town, facin’ ’em down.” Careless shrugged in a characteristic way that showed how little he cared, which was, in fact, what had gotten him his name. “You see how it turned out.”
    “What if Mr. Hawk had been hurt?” Patch asked.
    “Nobody can kill that son of Satan,” the sheriff muttered. “Not that they ain’t been tryin’ more years than I can count. Ever since …”
    “Ever since what?” Patch asked.
    “That’s history now. The boy’s paid for what he done.”
    “What do you mean?” Patch asked. “How has he paid? And for what?”
    “Why, for killing Jefferson Trahern’s boy, Dorne. Claimed it was self-defense, Ethan did. Only thing that kept him from gettin’ hung was Boyd spoke up for him.”
    “Boyd?”
    “Boyd Stuckey. Old friend of Ethan’s from when they was kids. Boyd’s near rich as Trahern these days. Anyway, that Hawk boy finally got out of prison ’bout a month ago. Been there nigh on to seven years. I say he’s paid his debt. Oughtta be able to walk the streets like a free man. Only …” He frowned up at the sun and put his hat back on—lady or no—to keep off the noonday heat.
    “Only what?” Patch asked, impatient to hear the rest.
    “Only Trahern don’t figure it that way.”
    “So Trahern hired these men to kill Ethan—because Ethan killed his son? Even though Ethan has paid his debt to society by spending seven years in prison?”
    “Jefferson Trahern don’t forgive nor forget.”
    “How do I get to Ethan’s ranch from town?” Patch asked.
    “Head southwest ’bout five miles, you’ll find it right along the Neuces River. But you don’t want to go there, ma’am.”
    Patch arched her most intimidating brow. “Why not?”
    “Ain’t safe.”
    “Why not?”
    The sheriff grimaced. “Lady like you has no business bein’ ’round a fella like him. Convicted murderer and all.”
    Patch squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I’ll have you know that Ethan Hawk is—” Patch cut herself off. She couldn’t call Ethan her fiancé, not without stretching the truth. Nothing had beensettled that day eight years ago when Ethan had said good-bye.
    Patch had waited as long as she could for Ethan to return to Fort Benton. Both her father and stepmother had advised her to keep on waiting. “He’ll come back when the time is right,” her pa had said. But Patch hadn’t been satisfied with that.
    When her parents began planning a trip to Boston for her to visit her stepbrother, Whit, she realized it