The Outlaw Takes A Bride (The Burnett Brides) (2 page)

Hell of a way to end a holdup, a robbery that hadn’t gone well from the start. He was supposed to rejoin the gang here, not ride in the opposite direction. Oh, well, it would have to wait another day.

With a careful gait, his horse moved down the road, bouncing the lovely young woman in his arms. Tanner glanced at Miss Anderson’s drawn face. Maybe he could save her, unlike his best friend, Carter.

***

Tucker Burnett watched his older brother, Travis, and his bride giggling on the loveseat together. He shook his head. It was almost more than he could stomach to believe that this hopelessly infatuated man was his older brother. The same man who had held Rose Severin, the woman he finally married, captive for months, believing she had stolen his mother’s wedding band, which now glistened and shone on Rose’s left hand.

His own mother had played matchmaker by hiding the ring, hoping all along that Travis would fall in love with Rose. They were just lucky the incident had turned out as well as it had.

Though he did think that his aging mother’s hair had turned a bit grayer during the ordeal, her brown eyes still held a twinkle in them whenever she talked about the episode.

Eugenia Burnett walked into the parlor, and Tucker couldn’t help but glance at her empty left hand. Although he missed seeing his mother wear her wedding ring, he knew she had wanted Rose to have the band of gold. Somehow it was the least Eugenia could do after everything Travis had put Rose through.

“Tucker, would you mind accompanying me for a walk?” his mother questioned. She winked at him and nodded her head toward the happy couple on the loveseat.

He shook his head knowingly.

God, why had he decided to come out to dinner today?

He should have used the excuse he was too busy. He could have lied and said there was no one to watch the jail. Instead, he had agreed to attend this little get-together. And now the sight of his smitten brother was both funny and irritating. Funny because responsible Travis had fallen and fallen hard; irritating because Tucker would never have a chance to experience love.

“Sure, let’s go, Mother,” he said, walking across the room, his boots clunking softly against the oval rug covering the parlor floor.

His mother slipped her hand in the crook of his elbow. “Are they always this mushy?” he asked.

She laughed. “They’re in love, dear, and the emotion is so new. Let them enjoy it before the newness wears off and the babies come.”

Tucker swallowed. “Babies?”

“Well, I certainly hope they have children. After all, I’ve not gone to all this trouble for nothing. I want grand-children. Can you imagine a little girl with Rose’s dark curls and green eyes or a little boy with Travis’s brown eyes and sandy hair?”

Eugenia sighed. “It’s what I hope for you, too. To meet a nice young woman, fall in love, and give me lots of grandchildren.”

“So, how’s the new bam,” he asked, trying his best to change the subject. Surely, since Travis was settling down, his mother would be happy that one of the Burnett boys was finally married, and maybe she would leave him alone.

He pushed open the front door, and they stepped out onto the wooden porch.

“I know you’re trying to shift my attention to other matters, Tucker, but I really must speak with you about a pressing issue.”

Tucker glanced down at his aging mother and noticed for the first time that she seemed nervous. “What’s wrong, Mother?”

“Well . . . you know, dear, sometimes in the heat of the moment, you do things that later you regret. Things that you know you should have left alone, though you do them with the best intentions, especially where your children are concerned.”

“What did you do, Mother? Travis has not gotten over the fact that you lied about your wedding ring. I hope you aren’t keeping anything else from him.”

“No, dear.” She took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Come sit on the swing with me.”

She led him over to the porch swing, and they both took a seat. His mother picked up his hand and patted it. “Tucker, you have to remember that I was really upset when your brother Tanner disappeared, and then, when it looked like Travis and Rose were never going to get married, well ... I did something I shouldn’t have.”

Tucker felt his heart speed up. Whatever his meddle-some mother had done affected him. “What, Mother?”

“I—I placed an ad for a mail-order bride.” She paused “For you.”

“What?” He jumped up out of the swing, unable to sit beside his mother another moment. She had really gone too far this time. It was bad enough what she’d done to Travis, but she was not going to mess with his affairs.

“Well, things just sort of got out of hand. I started writing to this young woman who responded to the ad and then the next thing I knew, I started signing you name to the letters. And now, well, now, she’s on her way here.” She paused. “To meet you.”

“Me! You’re the one who’s been corresponding with her. You meet her.”

How could his mother do this to him? He could never marry. A gunslinger turned marshal didn’t need a wife, didn’t need to make someone a young widow.

“Now, son, I know you’re upset. But remember, you don’t have to marry her unless you want to. But since I’ve been signing your name to her letters, you would be such an understanding son to be nice to her.”

“This is an out-and-out lie, Mother. What have you been telling her? How can I act like I know what you’ve said?”

“Well, I thought of that, so I’ve saved her letters so you could at least see her replies back to you.” Eugenia threw up her hands. “I never should have done this, but she is such a nice young woman, I just didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth after I got to know her.”

“Mother, she’s going to figure out I never wrote those letters. I hardly think we’d say the same things.” He took his hat and hit the side of his leg with it. “Besides, did you ever consider that just maybe there was someone I was interested in already?”

“Really? Who, dear? You’ve never even mentioned seeing anyone.”

Tucker clenched his fists in anger. Once there had been someone he really cared about, but he wasn’t about to tell his mother. Nothing could ever come from the situation, for he wasn’t a marrying kind of man. And he was not about to give his mother the ammunition she needed, because she would soon have an arsenal.

“Never mind.”

“No, dear, tell me if there is someone else.”

Tucker couldn’t stand this. Now his mother had turned her matchmaking sights on him. He pushed his hat down on his head.

“There’s no one, Mother. Absolutely no one.” He walked to the edge of the porch. He had to get away. He was in a fine pickle now.

“So will you at least meet the woman?” she asked earnestly.

Tucker strode to his horse, his steps heavy and hard. “No. You meet her stage; you marry her.”

“Think about it. You don’t have to give me your answer today. You have until Wednesday before she arrives.”

“That’s just great! When were you planning on telling me, Mother? As we drove up in the wagon?”

“Don’t take that tone with me, young man. This is the first time I’ve seen you in weeks. If you came out more often, I would have told you.”

“Between you and the lovebirds, I’m safer with a jail filled with criminals,” he muttered under his breath.

“What did you say, dear? I couldn’t hear you.”

“Between you and the lovebirds, it’s hard to stay away.”

His mother looked at him, puzzled, and watched as he swung up into the saddle. “Tell Rose and Travis I said good-bye.”

She ran to the edge of the porch and leaned over the white railing. “So are you going to go with me to pick up Beth?”

Beth. The woman his mother had chosen for him to marry was named Beth. He turned his horse toward the gate. “I’m working that day, Mother.”

“But... ”

He shrugged and rode away. Let her stew over the situation for a while. She needed to be nervous about his going with her to pick up this woman. It was the least he could do to teach his mother to stay out of his business.

Hell, Beth probably had buck teeth, stringy hair, and bad breath. Why else would a woman travel hundreds of miles to marry a man she’d never met.

***

Elizabeth Anderson never awoke during the ride to San Antonio, and Tanner wondered if she would live. He gazed down at her ashen complexion, her freckles standing out against her pale skin. She moaned several times as if she were in pain, but she never opened her eyes and looked at him.

When he arrived in town, Tanner found the doctor’s house. As gently as he could, he lifted Beth off his horse and carried her up the steps to the infirmary, grateful he had managed to get her there alive.

A sign directed him to the side of the house, where a shingle hung over the door with the word Doctor painted in bold letters. He rapped on the door.

A man in his late fifties with graying hair slid open a small wooden window on the door that he could simply peer through. “How can I help you?”

Tanner stood there holding the woman while the man never even opened the main door. “She’s got a bullet in her shoulder. I think she may have lost quite a bit of blood. She hasn’t awakened since the accident. I’d like to leave her here.”

The doctor glanced at her. “That’s impossible. I’m not accepting any more patients right now. I have a patient who may have cholera. It’s best you take your wife on to the hotel in town. I’ll come meet you there in an hour.” The man assumed that Beth was his wife and that she would stay with him. But Tanner hadn’t planned on staying in town. He had a gang to find. Though what kind of reception he would receive after they rode off and left him, he didn’t know. Yet he was the one who’d told them of the gold shipment.

He hadn’t planned on delaying, but he couldn’t walk away from the woman, either, even if that meant not meeting up with the Bass gang as originally planned. They would just have to wait.

“I’ll meet you at the hotel,” Tanner acknowledged. He carried Beth back to his horse and lifted her up in the saddle, then rode back down the main street of town, where he’d seen a hotel.

A little later, Tanner walked into the hotel with Miss Anderson in his arms. “Which room is available?”

The clerk stared at him open-mouthed. “Ah, number fifteen on the second floor is ready.”

Tanner took the stairs two at a time, carrying the woman. She was light, but he felt as if he’d carried her everywhere and he noticed that the wound was beginning to bleed again.

With a quick twist of the doorknob, he threw open the portal and strode into the room. Gently, he laid Beth on the double bed, centered against a wall in the room.

Her long auburn lashes lifted slowly, then fluttered briefly before she focused her hazel eyes on him. She glanced up at him in surprise and tried to rise from the bed. With a gasp of pain she sunk back down.

“Don’t move,” he commanded.

She looked at him groggily. “Where am I?”

“You’re okay. You’re in a hotel in San Antonio.”

“San Antonio?” She tried to rise up off the bed again and then groaned. “Stage? What happened?”

“We were robbed, and you were shot,” Tanner said, hovering over the bed.

“The stage,” she said, her eyes fluttering as if she were trying to focus. Her voice became distant. “I’ve got to get back on the stage.”

He laid a hand on her chest, just below her good shoulder, and applied pressure. “You’re not in any shape to go anywhere.”

She opened her eyes and gazed up at him in confusion and then winced in pain. “My arm. What’s wrong with my arm?”

“You’ve been shot, Miss Anderson,” he said, feeling so guilty that she’d taken a bullet because of him.

He could see her trying to remember and when she glanced at him, her eyes widened with fear. “You . . . you were on the stagecoach?”

“Yes, I’m trying to help you. I carried you to town, and a doctor is coming to see about that shoulder,” he clarified, hoping she would accept his explanation.

Her eyes were dazed and frightened. “I—I can’t stay here.”

“You have to. The doctor is on his way to get the bullet out of your shoulder,” he said, gently trying to ease her fears.

She eyed him warily, a frightened expression on her ashen face. He could tell she was still not convinced he was not going to hurt her.

“I’ve got to get out of here. I have to get to Texas,” she said deliriously. She tried to rise off the bed again, but he held her down.

“You’re not going anywhere right now.”

“But I can’t be in a hotel room with a strange man,” she whispered, her strength ebbing.

“You don’t have any choice, lady. You’re hurt. Now lay still before you open up that wound again. The doctor is supposed to be here soon. He’ll fix you up, and then we can both be on our way.”

“I. .. can’t stay,” she said, drifting off again, her eyes slowly closing.

Gratefully, she sank back into unconsciousness once again. He took a blanket from the bed, covered her, and then took a step over to the window and leaned against the wooden frame.

The people of San Antonio bustled on their way to some unknown destination as Tanner looked out onto the street below. He gazed upon the men and women going about their lives and felt more alone than he’d felt in the last ten years.