Outlaw’s Bride Read Free Page A

was the chance she had been waiting for. She had smiled a guilty good-bye, knowing she was heading for Texas, not Boston.
    She had come to this small south Texas town because Ethan had once told her he was born and raised in Oakville, Texas. It was where she had planned to start her search. Darned if she hadn’t found him!
    Only her journey wasn’t quite over yet.
    “Can you tell me where I might purchase some gentlemen’s clothing?”
    Sheriff Lachlan pulled the scruffy hairs on his chin. “Suppose you could check at the Oakville Mercantile, ma’am. Only, why you wantin’ men’s duds?”
    “I could hardly ride five miles cross-country dressed like this.” Patch turned her back on the sheriff, stepped up onto the shaded boardwalk, and marched straight into the Oakville Hotel.
    Knowing Ethan was an ex-convict didn’t change Patch’s intentions toward him one whit. She had known he was on the run from the law when she first fell in love with him. Ethan had once told Patch’s stepmother, Molly, that he’d had a goodreason for killing the man he had killed. Patch wasn’t about to pass judgment until she heard Ethan’s reasons herself. Assuming Ethan didn’t throw her out before she had a chance to ask for them.
    Patch felt the color skating up her throat as she remembered what had happened in the Oakville Hotel. She wasn’t very experienced in such matters, but it seemed to her Ethan found her at least a little bit attractive. She was ready now to approach him as a woman rather than a child. Surely he would give her the chance to convince him they belonged together.
    As Patch entered the hotel lobby, the clerk Ethan had called Gilley said, “You’ll have to wait for that bath until I get this glass swept up.”
    “That’s all right,” Patch said. “I have some errands to do first.” The first thing she did was to retrieve her purse from the registration desk. She gave it a little pat and was relieved to discover that Max was still inside. She had rescued the mouse from a hungry cat at the stage depot in Three Rivers. As soon as she found a catless barn, she planned to release him.
    “I’d like to write a letter. Do you have stationery and a pen I can use?” Patch asked.
    “You can sit over there at that table,” Gilley said. “You should find everything you need.”
    Patch made her way to the table and chair in the corner Gilley had indicated. She found pen, paper, and ink and sat down to let her parents know she had arrived safely in Oakville—especiallysince they thought she was on her way to Boston—and that she had found Ethan Hawk.
    She laid her purse carefully on the polished cherry surface, then placed a piece of paper in front of her and took pen in hand. She smiled as she thought how much she owed to her stepmother, Molly Gallagher Kendrick.
    When Patch was twelve, Molly had come to Montana from Boston to be Seth Kendrick’s mail-order bride—and brought along her ten-year-old son, Whit, and six-year-old daughter, Nessie. If Molly hadn’t come into her life, Patch knew she would still be wearing scruffy shirts and torn jeans and fighting everyone in town to prove her father wasn’t a coward. Instead, she was a lady close to realizing a childhood dream.
    Dear Ma and Pa,
You don’t need to worry about me. Everything is fine. I know you both wanted me to wait for Ethan to return to Montana on his own. I hope you’ll understand that I couldn’t wait any longer.
So, when I got off the steamship in St. Louis, instead of taking the train to Boston to see Whit, I exchanged my ticket and headed south to the town where Ethan told me he grew up. I arrived safely in Oakville, Texas, today—and found Ethan!
Oh, by the way, there was a very good reason why he didn’t keep his promise to me. He was in prison!
Ethan has a ranch not far from here, and I’llbe going there early tomorrow morning. You can write to me care of the Oakville Post Office.
    All my love,
Patch         
P.S. Please