Outlaw (27 page)

Amy rose on her knees, and the quilts fell
away. "You're not leaving now, are you? After all we've said,
I—"

"All the more reason to leave."

Mason squinted toward her, wishing he could
remember her this way. Just a pretty woman who wanted his company
for the night. Hell, if he was better at pretending, in that moment
he could've convinced himself they might really be together.
Convinced himself he could love someone again—be loved in
return.

Damned fool dreams. Pretty words and hoping,
that's what love had turned out to be. Bitter in the end.

Confessing it all left him raw and exposed.
Surely something begun like this would have to end bad. Frowning,
Mason scooped up his shirt from the chair and slid it over his
shoulders.

"It won't take long to get to Tucson
tomorrow," he said. "I asked Juana to wire ahead, find out if that
damned stagecoach took your bags of books all the way to the Wells
Fargo station in the city. She ought to know by morning."

Amy blinked at him. "I guess you've got this
all planned," she whispered. She stared down at the quilt, her
fingers plucking at the edges of a dark calico square. "How to get
rid of me, I mean."

Her voice held an edge that spoke of pain,
but her bearing was one hundred percent proud lady. Whatever pain
she felt, Amelia O'Malley was too proud to show it to the man who'd
caused it. Even half-sunken into the soft feather mattress and
blankets, she somehow managed to keep her spine straight and her
chin lifted.

Hell. Why did she always turn gritty on him
just when he least expected it?

Rubbing his sandpapery jaw, Mason stepped
closer. "Curly Top—"

"It's all right." She raised her over-bright
gaze to his and squared her jaw. "I have work to do, anyway. Books
to be delivered. I almost forgot, what with everything that's been
happening. But my father and brothers are counting on me."

Counting on her to get back to the States
and work her fingers to the bone caring for them, Mason thought,
taking a step closer to the bed. If all she'd told him about her
family was true, he doubted they'd rely on her to conduct business.
But it was too late to argue, and in a few days her book orders
wouldn't matter to him anyway. More, he didn't want to hurt her by
pointing out any of that.

"The future of J.G. O'Malley & Sons
rests on my shoulders," Amy was saying. She lifted them higher, as
though to resume her duty, and her face took on a determined cast.
"It's high time I paid attention to a matter I can do something
about," she added, giving him a meaningful glance.

Her chin wobbled crazily for an instant,
then her lower lip trembled. She bit down on it, trying to hide its
unsteadiness. "Instead of a stubborn, set-in-his-ways man who
wouldn't know how to accept help if it sat on his head like a
two-ton ostrich and refused to b—budge."

She flopped onto the mattress, searched
rapidly for the corner of the quilt, and then yanked it over her
head. Beneath it, Mason saw her turn onto her side. The inviting
curve of her backside and hip rounded the quilt into the most
alluring gown he'd ever seen.

"Goodnight," she muttered from beneath the
heavy covers.

He sighed, biting back a smile. This woman
exasperated him, pestered him—demanded things Mason had no
intention of ever handing over. Like trust. Like agreeing to let
her 'help' him in whatever harebrained, naïve manner she had in
mind.

Yet still she drew him.

He stepped closer. "What you're saying,
then," he drawled, keeping his eyes on the bumpy shape in the
middle of the bed, "is that help is really a two-ton ostrich?"

She didn't move. The quilt raised and
lowered slightly with her breathing, but that was the only sound.
Mason stepped closer, and his heart lightened with every inch he
came nearer to her.

"No wonder I never recognized it."

He shucked his boots, dropping them onto the
rag rug that covered the clean-swept, packed earth floor. He'd told
her everything about his past, Mason realized as he paused beside
the bed. Everything. And still she hadn't turned away from him.

Forgive yourself, Mason. For your own
sake. For your son's
.

Her words had made her forgiveness
understood.

Hope niggled at him, pestered him. He hadn't
felt so blamed confused since the night Ben was born—half of him
despairing it would be the end of his wife, the other half
overjoyed at the arrival of his child.

Mason bent his knee onto the mattress and
lifted a corner of the quilt covering her. "You don't look like a
two-ton ostrich to me," he told Amy as he peered beneath at her
shadowy figure. "but you sure as hell refuse to budge. Move
over."

Chapter Eighteen

Amelia, half-suffocated beneath the heavy
quilts, listened in amazement. When she could remain silent no
longer, she folded them back at the top and stuck her head out.
Cooler air rushed at her, tasting unbelievably fresh.

"Are you actually making a joke?" she
demanded of Mason, staring at him suspiciously.

His weight made the mattress yawn to her
left like a boat sinking underwater. She rolled over to get a
better look at him and just kept right on rolling until his knee
stopped her descent. It pressed against her hip, pinning her in
place with nowhere to look except up at Mason.

So she did. Beginning at his bent knee,
Amelia's gaze traveled the length of his trouser-clad thigh,
skimmed over the wrinkled creases leading to his pants buttons, and
wound up at the place where his chest hair tapered and disappeared
beneath those buttons. Feeling her cheeks heat, she boldly followed
that brown sprinkling of hair upward where it swirled across the
broad, flat muscles of his chest, just barely visible between the
opened ends of his shirt.

He was a beautifully made man. Whatever work
he did all day on his farm near the Gila River certainly had
benefited him, Amelia thought, letting her gaze wander across his
shoulders and then down the length of his arms. She remembered the
cherished feeling of being held in those arms, and knew that
however piqued he might make her, Mason was the man she truly
loved. No one had ever made her feel more special, more
desired.

"Yes," he said, and even though she wasn't
looking at his face, Amelia heard the smile in his voice.

Yes what? she thought, trying desperately to
remember the course of their conversation. No one had ever made her
feel more scatterbrained, either.

"But a two-ton ostrich begs for a joke the
same way your lips beg for a kiss," he added, propping his hand
just to the left of her head atop the lofty goose down pillow. "I
couldn't resist."

He meant her remark about how he didn't ever
want help. Feeling justified in her comment after having
practically ambushed him with kisses just to get him to talk to
her, Amelia said nothing. Undaunted, he only nudged her sideways a
bit with his knee and settled further onto the bed.

The motion brought him closer, close enough
that his chest almost brushed hers. Suddenly, the quilt between
them felt like an absolute necessity. Amelia clutched the top edge
of it, feeling the smooth stitched fabric soothe her fingertips. If
only it soothed her breathing as well—her breath came subtly faster
the nearer Mason came, and there wasn't the least thing she could
do about it.

"Curly Top," he said, brushing his free hand
across the tops of her knuckles along the quilt edge, "I need your
help."

Back and forth, back and forth, his palm
gently brushed over her knuckles. The rhythmic motion stole her
attention, made answering him twice as difficult.

"Wh—why should you want my help now? You've
tol—told me enough times that I can't help you with anything," she
finally managed to say, and it was hard, so hard, to keep the hurt
out of her voice.

It was true enough. She'd offered to help
him at every turn, to comfort him at least. Only a little while
ago, he'd refused her at the very moment he'd needed her most.

His fingers lifted to her cheek, followed
its curve warmly upward to the hollow of her temple. The care in
his touch made her heart lurch, then beat faster.

"This is something only you can help me
with," Mason said. With no warning at all, he raised his knee,
braced his hand on the mattress beside her, and an instant later he
was straddling her.

"Mason!" Shocked and surely red-faced,
Amelia slapped her hands onto the mattress and tried to push
herself back and away from him. She only succeeded in raising her
torso partway—the rest of her was still trapped beneath Mason's
strong, solid thighs.

Although it didn't hurt, she was well and
truly pinned beneath him, and his body sent warmth searing straight
through the quilt as easily as if it were nothing at all. She
balanced herself on her elbows and stared up at him.

As though she'd never spoken, he went on:
"Seems to me we were in just about this same position a little
while ago." His gaze darted to each of her elbows, then higher.
"Except I'm pretty sure your hands weren't plastered down there
before."

He frowned, as though he were trying to
remember and couldn't. Amelia recalled their earlier, intimate
position well enough that her heart starting beating faster at the
memory alone. Did she dare risk herself again, though? Mason
Kincaid was a hard man to know and an even harder man to help.
Maybe there really was nothing she could do for him.

"I do recall you saying something about
comfort," he murmured.

His hands touched her bare shoulders,
smoothed lower to stroke her upper arms in a wordless urging that
she begin again what had started between them before. His
work-roughened palms rasped faintly over her skin, reminding her of
all that was different between them...of all that might still
be.

"Please," Mason whispered hoarsely, and his
eyes echoed his plea in their soft shadowed brown depths.

He wanted her still, Amelia realized. But
the decision to take things further between them was hers to
make.

She could no more refuse him than she could
leave him alone in his pain. The past had been cruel to Mason, had
taken away the people he cared about and the life he'd known
before. It was more than a good man should be made to suffer.
Especially alone.

Especially when he was the man she
loved.

Amelia raised her arms and pushed down the
quilt separating them, smiling as she opened herself to him. "Yes,"
she whispered, closing her eyes as she drew him closer. "Yes."

His lips touched hers, and it was like a
homecoming. Mason kissed her, and her whole body trembled at their
union. Deftly, he opened her mouth to him, teasing, touching,
slipping his tongue inside to meld with hers. Joyously, she
accepted his kiss and gave all she could in return, arching to meet
him, pulling him closer.

Inexplicable tears prickled beneath Amelia's
closed eyelids, joining with a rush of new sensation as Mason
kissed her anew. Slowly, softly, his lips touched hers and then
retreated, slid luxuriously from one corner of her mouth to the
next, only to leave her crying out for more when next he kissed her
jaw and neck instead.

This was what loving meant. This care, so
new to her, and this joining, so right between them. Tongue-sweet
and thrilling, his kisses went on and on, now returning to her
mouth, now gently nipping the side of her neck. Amelia clutched his
head in her hands, trying to guide him where she needed him, and
still he tortured her with slow kisses she yearned for but could
never predict.

Rising slightly, Mason pushed the quilt away
completely, then straddled her again. Before she could react to
their renewed closeness, he swept her hair from her forehead,
gazing at her, and any thoughts of protest she might have
entertained flew straight out of her head as though coaxed from it
by his skillful, loving fingers.

"Thank you," he whispered, and his smile was
the most endearing she'd ever beheld.

"Thank you for what?"

"For knowing when not to listen to me."

His lips curved into hers, still smiling as
he kissed her, and she wanted to smile, too, both at his jest and
at the new lightness in his bearing. Mason's shoulders moved
against the dark with an ease she'd never sensed in him, as though
a great weight had been magically lifted away. Had she truly helped
him, after all?

"Thank God for stubborn women," he added,
pressing kisses to her temple, her cheek...her mouth. Distracting
her.

She cupped her palms around his shoulders
and held him slightly away. "Stubborn? Stubborn women?"

"Mmmm." He swirled his tongue in a gentle
arc along her lower lip, then suckled it. His eyes closed, and so
did Amelia's—for a moment.

She'd never have guessed it would be so hard
to kiss and have a conversation at the same time. His touch made
her wits fairly scatter.

"Have you known so many stubborn women,
then?"

"None so stubborn as you," Mason replied,
his gaze still on her lips. "And none I wanted like this. God, I
need you, Amy."

His hands slid warmly to her shoulders. His
fingers slipped beneath her chemise strap, stroked the skin it hid,
then hooked it away from her shoulder. He pressed his lips into the
curve of her neck, setting her skin atingle.

"Mmmm...so beautiful."

"Mason..."

"Shhh."

Frowning slightly, he traced a reverent path
from her shoulder to her upper arm, then lifted her chemise strap
and slid it in place again. Disappointment made Amelia twist
beneath him, silently urging him to go on touching her.

His hands cupped her jaw, and his fingers
delved into her hair. "I'll give you everything you need," he
promised with a kiss. "Everything. Everything..."