She shook her head at him, frustration filling her at how she’d thought he was kind for helping that family. Why, when she began to believe he was a nice guy, did he say something that made her want to smack him? “You are such a weasel.”
“I aim to please,” he said and gigged his horse.
The break was over, and once again, Annabelle was jostled in the saddle as they headed down the trail.
*
With only the moonlight guiding them they continued on down the trail until Beau knew he had to admit it was time to call it a night. When Annabelle learned they would be camping without a fire, she was going to be angry. But he wasn’t taking a chance on either the smell or the sight of a campfire luring in the Harris gang. No, it wouldn’t make for a comfortable night, but being dead wouldn’t accomplish what he needed to do.
He pulled his horse into a grove of trees far enough off the trail that they would be hidden.
“Your hotel for the night,” he said to Annabelle.
“Your choice in accommodations is lousy,” she replied, swinging her leg over the saddle. “And the light is so bad it’s going to be hard to find wood.”
“No fire tonight.” He was certain she would now begin to throw a fit because they couldn’t have a fire to keep warm and keep the animals at bay. But he was worried more about two-legged animals than four.
She turned and he could feel her gaze on him, but he couldn’t see her expression. “Oh.”
For a moment, he was stunned. She wasn’t complaining, in fact, she accepted the fact that there would be no fire for them to cook on or get warm by.
“It’s going to be a chilly night.”
“Yes,” he replied, thinking of how he was going to feel with no bedroll to snuggle down into, only the cold hard ground beneath him.
“I’ll see about opening us up a jar of peaches,” she said. “Or you can have cold green beans.”
He laughed. “Frankly, I’d be happy with some peaches, and there’s some dried beef jerky in my saddlebags. I’ll get it.”
Together the two of them unsaddled their horses and tethered them to a nearby tree. Beau pulled out some oats and fed both animals. They worked side-by-side in the dark to set up their camp.
A few moments later, he joined Annabelle on the horse blankets she’d laid on the ground. She handed him a fork.
“Where did you get forks?” he asked.
“Since I had to clean the dishes back at the Harris encampment, I thought maybe they just might not need these utensils any longer. I slipped two of them into my dress pocket.”
A chuckle erupted from within him at the thought of the gang sitting around the campfire to eat and someone having to use his fingers. “You stole from a band of thieves? Doesn’t that make you a thief?”
“Hey, I learn from the best. Besides, it was payment for washing their dirty dishes.”
They sat in the darkness, the stars shining down upon them, the glow of the moon their only light.
“Did you like being a farmer?” she asked.
He thought about his time on the farm. Until she’d brought it up, he hadn’t realized how much he missed the routine—the early mornings, the seasons, the caring for their animals, and the harvests. The way his mother and even his father had helped make the hard work fun. He’d enjoyed his life until the Civil War ended. That had been the beginning of the end.
His family had owned slaves and sided with the South, believing the South would once again be resurrected. His brother Jesse had fought and even today continued to fight for the Southern cause, but Beau didn’t agree.
And for that reason, he’d been ostracized by his family. Told to leave when he didn’t agree to join what his brothers were fighting for.
The memories were painful. Even now, his chest ached with the knowledge he was the true rebel in the family. The one who believed both sides were wrong. And yet, people assumed he was just another outlaw in the family. Another fighter for the Southern cause.
Just like Annabelle.
“I miss the farm. I miss my family,” he said, and he did. An aching sense of sadness filled him at the thought of his family, his mother. She’d suffered so much at the hands of her children. Including, losing a limb last year to the incendiary device the Pinkerton’s threw into the house and the subsequent blast that killed his half-brother. All because Jesse continued the rebel fight.
The war was over. And so was Beau’s connection to his family.
“Papa use to talk about the James brothers,” she said. “He’s probably rolling over in his grave right now with me sitting here beside you.”
“Yeah, we’re all a bad lot,” he said sarcastically. “The Union army tortured my father, trying to learn where my half-brother Frank’s group of men were. They made us abandon our farm in Clay County. My mother suffered the loss of her arm, and my youngest brother was killed. Not to mention the everyday harassment by the locals.”
A fierce anger filled him. He took a deep breath, calming the pulsing hatred, while reliving the worst days of his life. “Clay County, Missouri was ‘Little Dixie’, and the culture was extremely pro-slavery, but there were local Unionists who hated us.”
She gazed at him with what appeared to be understanding in her eyes, not contempt or aberration, but rather sympathetic perception. A sense of belonging came over him. He felt the words tumbling from his mouth that he’d never voiced to another human being, though secretly they’d known.
“I didn’t believe in slavery. As a little boy, my best friend Joshiah was a slave on our farm. We’d played together as far back as I can remember, until they put him to work in the fields.” Beau remembered that day like it was yesterday. “My father told me it was past time for Joshiah to earn his keep. He had to work. And he had, right up until the day Jesse killed him.”
Annabelle gasped. “What happened?”
“He got caught stealing.”
“That’s hardly a killing offense.”
“It is when you belong to an owner who believes your life means nothing,” Beau said. His brother had been young. Home from the war recovering from a chest injury, Jesse had been filled with hate and distrust and fear that his way of life was ending before it had barely begun. Killing Joshiah had been a power move, one to show the Negroes that Jesse was in control. It had cost Joshiah his life and Beau his friend. It had been stupid and senseless, and Beau hated Jesse just as much today as he had back then.
An owl hooted somewhere nearby, and Annabelle shivered.
“Cold?”
“I’m not sure if I’m cold or disturbed by what you just told me. We never had slaves. Our papa didn’t believe in slavery. Joshiah was your friend, your playmate. Couldn’t you stop them?”
When Beau heard Joshiah was in trouble, he’d gone running to the slave quarters, but he’d arrived too late. And Jesse…his brother had seemed almost gleeful when he’d seen the pain on Beau’s face. He’d called Beau despicable names for befriending a black boy.
“He was dead before I found out. It was the first time I’ve ever wanted to kill someone. Jesse told me Joshiah was just a blackie and asked me why was I getting myself all worked up over his killing. Then he told me I needed to grow up and become a man. I learned to hate at that moment. Hate what my brother had become.”
That hate still fueled some of Beau’s decisions, though lately, it seemed to have backed off some. If it hadn’t been for his mother, he would have killed his brother.
Annabelle sighed. “I’ve been plenty mad at both of my sisters, but I’ve never hated one of them.”
“I did. We’ve never been close, but I still have to live with his actions every day.”
A cloud covered the moon, and for a moment, he couldn’t see anything. A dark night would certainly cloak them well, but still, he kind of liked to see what was out there.
“I bet most people think everyone in your family is just like Jesse. People assume a lot about a person before getting to know them.”
He put down the jar of peaches he’d been eating and glanced over at her in the darkness, wishing he could see the expression on her face. Was that understanding he heard in her voice?
“Once they learn I’m related, they believe I’m just like my brother. Some people have even run from me. Some want me to join their rebel cause. Others become very protective of their family members and slink off quietly in the night,” he said. “Even if I had obeyed the law, people will think I’m an outlaw. With Jesse’s reputation, I have no chance.”
The first time he’d been arrested, he’d barely been eighteen. They’d held him, hoping his brother would come break him out of jail. Finally, they realized after almost a month that no one was coming to rescue him. No one, and he was okay with that.
Finally, they’d released him.
“I guess I’m assuming a lot. But you seem different from what I’ve heard about your brother. Of course, much of what I’ve seen and read could be enhanced for those dime novels.”
He laughed and realized she did understand. It was hard to know what was fact and what was fiction when it came to his two older brothers. “Yeah, I don’t even know what the truth regarding Jesse is anymore. We learned a long time ago not to believe everything the newspapers said. He was seriously wounded and laid up at my uncle’s when he was given credit for a robbery we know he couldn’t have committed.”
He sighed and lay back on the ground. “A lot of people don’t connect the last name Samuel and Jesse, so as long as I stay away from Clay County, Missouri, I’m all right.”
Her hand reached out and covered his. “I love my sisters, and I can’t imagine them hurting me so badly and then being forced to live with their reputation every day. It must be difficult.”
Warm feelings overwhelmed him at her words. Tears sprang into his eyes, and he had to blink to keep them from falling. No one ever understood. Yet, Annabelle recognized his pain, his predicament.
“As long as I don’t let people know who my family is, I’m usually all right. But it’s also why I don’t have a lot of close friends. I have acquaintances. They know who I am, but not who I really am.”
She leaned onto his arm and hugged him. “You should become a farmer. I think you’d enjoy being settled and not on the constant run to acquire more money.”
“We’ll see,” he said. “First, I have to prove to the state they really don’t want to hang me.”
His fingers touched her silky hair. He wanted to put his lips over hers again, but knew that wouldn’t be wise.
“I think I’m going to turn in,” she said and moved over to the blankets she’d set up in the dark.
He wanted nothing more than to join her in those blankets, instead of out here in the cold with no fire to warm him. And yet, he didn’t dare try to insist on lying next to her. She’d probably shoot him.
“As long as you act like a gentleman, you can share the bedroll with me tonight. It’s cold and you’ll sleep better. We both could use a decent night’s sleep.”
Beau smiled. He didn’t know for certain how much sleep he would get, but he was colder than frog legs. The thought of cuddling around Annabelle’s sweet body was a temptation he couldn’t deny.
“I’m freezing,” he said and hurried over to her. Quickly, he crawled inside the blankets and wrapped his arms around her. “Now, this is nice.”
She didn’t respond, and he could feel her shivers slowing. “You were chilled as well.”
“Yeah, it’s cold tonight. Feels like winter is determined to return.”
He took a deep breath and inhaled her essence. She smelled of peaches and a soft womanly scent that reminded him of the comfort and safety of home, not the hostile months before the Civil War or the aftermath and all the tensions and destruction.
Being with Annabelle made him realize everything he missed and how by leaving Missouri, he’d run from everything—his family, their reputation, his own demons. And lying here beside Annabelle, he wanted his life to return to normalcy.
Didn’t he deserve happiness? Didn’t he deserve to have a home and family, one that was not riddled with strife and anger and violence?
He shuddered at the memory of Jesse and his band of cutthroats. That was not the kind of life he wanted for himself or anyone else he hitched his wagon to.
Annabelle snuggled up against him and he sighed. This feeling of a woman wrapped in his arms, warming his body, heating his soul was something he could get used to. Not just a woman, but Annabelle.
“You’re not shaking any longer,” he said, his voice coming out husky and deep and filled with desire for this gorgeous woman cocooning with him.
“No,” she said, her voice quivering. “I’m feeling very warm, maybe I should crawl out for a while. You know sit up and gaze at the sky.”
He chuckled. “Go to sleep, Annabelle. I’ll watch over you tonight, keep you warm and safe in my arms. Nothing's going to happen between the two of us that you don’t want.”
She sighed. “That’s the bad thing…you make me crave things I know I shouldn’t want.”
Unable to resist any longer, he kissed the back of her neck, his mouth warm and insistent on her flesh. A shiver rippled through her.
“Things like that?” he whispered, knowing he affected her just as much as she was getting to him.
“Yeah, stop that, so we can both get some sleep.”
“Kiss me, goodnight,” he said against her hair.
“Oh no, I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because that kiss would last all night. And I’m not ready for that.”
A
ll the next day a wall of tension existed between Annabelle and Beau. They didn’t have that easy teasing and bantering going between them that had been there before. In fact, he seemed more on edge than ever and the nearer they got to the Red River, the more withdrawn he became. Where once he would have regaled her with stories and ribbed her, now he answered in one-syllable answers, short and to the point, and she was just about sick of it.
They’d spent the night wrapped up in each other’s arms, and she had to do everything in her power to keep from rolling over and saying, “Just get on with it and take me here and now on the cold hard ground.”
She wanted him like nothing ever before, but she knew it was crazy. Making love with Beau would be taking a huge risk that could leave her heartbroken. He was wanted for a hanging offense, yet every day she liked Beau just a little more. He wasn’t a cold-blooded killer like she’d imagined. In fact, he seemed the exact opposite.