The Outlaw Takes A Bride (The Burnett Brides) (10 page)

Tanner glanced up and noticed a man walking toward him. Something about the man was familiar. Something about him set off warning bells, and he tensed as he realized who the man was. He watched the outlaw approach, wondering if he would stop and say something to him on the street.

Sam Bass tipped his hat at Tanner and glanced curiously at Beth. That single glance at Beth almost caused Tanner’s heart to stop beating.

Curses filled his mind, and he muttered one under his breath. He was endangering Beth by being seen with her. If Sam Bass recognized her from the holdup and realized that Tanner was with her, there was no telling what he might do. While Tanner wasn’t too worried about himself, Beth was entirely a different story. Sam Bass was a cruel man who would do whatever he felt was necessary to get rid of anyone he thought was a threat to his safety.

Tanner watched him walk away. As soon as he felt Bass was out of sight, he slowed Beth down.

“Let’s cross the street,” he said, deliberately taking her by the arm and all but dragging her to the other side. He had to get her out of here. “I think it’s time we went back to the hotel. There’s no sense in wearing you out on your first trip out.”

“But we haven’t been gone that long.” She gazed at him, a bemused expression on her face. “I’m not even tired.”

He took her by the arm and turned her toward the hotel, his mannerisms clearly showing that the walk was over. “Let’s go.”

He knew his manner was abrupt. He knew she was gazing at him with a stunned expression on her face, but he’d already endangered her life once; he couldn’t risk her safety a second time.

Tanner was not going to be responsible for yet another death.

***

Beth watched Tanner close the door behind him as he walked out of the room.

As soon as they had gotten back to the hotel, he made an excuse and left Beth alone to sit and wonder about their odd walk through town. Part of her wanted to rebel, run out the door after he left. She wanted to find the stage office and redeem the rest of her ticket to any city but here. But she knew there was no stage this late in the day, and she had no money.

And Beth had lied when she said she wasn’t tired. Even though they had only walked for a short distance, it had been long enough to completely wear her out and make her realize she needed to rebuild her strength slowly.

Beth sank in a chair by the open window and looked down into the streets of San Antonio. She watched Tanner hurry down the street. Her blood seemed to thicken within her body, her heart pounding as she watched him go. His hips moved in a rhythm that was more swagger than walk, his guns clinging to his thighs.

No banker she’d ever known had worn guns like a gunslinger. And after today’s outing, she doubted more and more that he was a banker. His mood had changed dramatically from the time they started until he brought her back.

In fact, the entire outing had been strange. He had started out friendly, laughing and talking. But once they stopped in front of the sheriff’s office, he’d grown tense and snappy. And after she noticed the Wanted posters, he’d become quiet and stiff, practically bruising her to force her farther down the street. Then he had completely withdrawn, leaving Beth to feel as if she were alone.

So what had made him suddenly so moody, so remote?

One minute he’d been fine, and the next he’d blown colder than a spring blizzard.

What about the sheriff’s office had caused him to react? They had halted there for just a few moments while she gazed upon the Wanted posters, hoping to find the bandits that had held up the stagecoach. There was only one thing that could have possibly upset him, and that would have been the Wanted posters.

The sketch had borne a striking similarity to Tanner. However, he hadn’t given her the chance to read what the man was wanted for. Moreover, the man’s name had been Jackson, not Tanner. He had practically yanked her down the street when he’d noticed her gazing at the sketches. But why would looking at the faces posted on that board have upset him?

Something about Tanner was wrong. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it just yet, but somehow she knew that he was not telling her the complete truth, and she wanted to know the realities about Tanner. How he could be so gentle one moment and tough the next.

Was Tanner the man on the Wanted posters, or was he someone else she didn’t know?

When Tanner came in later that evening, Beth sat her body in front of the window, stiffer than a male virgin in a whorehouse.

Questions whirled through her mind like a dust storm. The events over the last two weeks had shaken her more than she cared to admit, and today’s walk had left her head spinning.

“You been sitting there all afternoon?” he asked, staring at her from the open doorway.

“Yes,” she informed him.

She had gazed out the open window, not really seeing the street below, instead reflecting on Tanner, comparing him to the drawing on the Wanted poster. Had it really been him?

The urge to ask about that Wanted poster was strong, but she resisted. If he were a criminal, why had he stayed and cared for her? She wanted to know about his background and if it really was his likeness on the Wanted poster, but she was afraid. She couldn’t rest, however, until she knew more about Tanner.

If that was even his real name. Could he be this outlaw called Jackson?

Tanner shut the door behind him with a decisive click, his expression uncertain as he stared at her. He pulled off his hat and sat the black Stetson on the table. Slowly, he removed his gun belt and methodically laid his Colt navy revolvers next to the bed, where he could reach the pistols quickly. He looked every bit like a dark and dangerous gunfighter, and her pulse pounded, not from fear but from a feeling that began somewhere lower.

He glanced at her, his dark blue eyes questioning. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, unable to ignore the way, with just one glance, her breathing quickened at the sight of the solidly built man.

“You feel all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said, her voice quivering, her eyes unable to meet his gaze.

“Dinner will arrive in about an hour,” he acknowledged. “I’m going to wash up.”

Before she could protest, he pulled his shirt out of his pants, unbuttoned it, and let it slide off his back to expose his rippling muscles. He pitched the garment on the bed and walked to the pitcher and water bowl sitting next to the window. She was so close she could almost touch him, and he was naked from the waist up.

It was the first time she had seen him without his shirt, and the urge to close her eyes was strong, but something inside her resisted.

She wanted to stop him, but the sight of those muscles undulating as he bent over and splashed his face with cool water halted her protest.

As he stood before the water bowl, his chest gleamed in the dwindling sunlight, his hardened muscles clearly outlined for her perusal. And the trepidation she’d felt all afternoon suddenly dimmed as she stared at the man she realized could never be a banker.

Counting money could not give a man the kind of physique Tanner possessed. She’d never seen a banker without his shirt before, but she doubted that any of them had muscles that rippled down their stomachs, arms that bulged beneath their shirts, or a back that appeared strong and healthy.

No, Tanner had a body that was well-toned, hard, and tanned, with a scar that ran around his muscled back, from beneath his rib cage, before disappearing beneath his waistband to . . .

Her face flushed, and she thought she was beginning to break into a sweat as the heat suddenly felt oppressive.

She turned away from the sight of him splashing water over his glistening muscles and reminded herself that she knew little about this man. Nothing except that she was afraid it might have been his face on that Wanted poster hanging outside the sheriff’s office that afternoon.

She glanced at the bed and noticed how normal it looked for a man’s shirt to be lying across the quilt. This was how married people lived every day, sharing intimacies in close proximity. But she and Tanner weren’t married, and he wasn’t the type of man to want marriage. Yet her body responded to his in the way a woman responds to a man. She had to remind herself that she was practically engaged to someone else.

“You’re awfully quiet this evening,” he said, drying his face with the towel.

And he seemed unusually talkative and more edgy than normal.

“Uh, the walk tired me out more than I thought,” she said, focusing her gaze on the streets below the window and not on the man whose half-naked state she was trying to ignore.

What was the harm in asking him what he really did for a living? He was probably nothing more than a hired gun. A man who did another man’s dirty work.

He took the towel and briskly dried the droplets of moisture from his chest and back. She looked away, her eyes searching the room for something to focus on. Anything besides the man whose very presence seemed to engulf the small room, suffocating her with his nearness.

A warm feeling came over her, and she knew he was watching her, wondering about her silence.

“What’s wrong?” he questioned.

His query surprised her. He was not the type of man to ask about feelings, to inquire about the other person’s emotions.

But the Wanted poster had resembled him so much, and he didn’t seem like the type of man who worked in a bank. Beth couldn’t stand not knowing a moment longer. “Are you really a banker, Tanner?”

She swallowed, the feel of his blue eyes staring at her intently, shredding what little confidence she had managed to retain. His face was unreadable, almost as if he were bored with her question.

“I’ve worked in a bank before,” he said with a drawl that sent tingles down her spine.

“But you’re not a banker now, are you?” she asked. “Who are you really?”

He drew the towel around his neck, sat down in a chair at the table, and let his hands rest comfortably between his legs, his elbows supported by his knees.

All she could see was his glistening, rock-hard flesh glowing at her, filling her mind, tempting her to run her fingers down the smooth expanse of his flesh.

“Lady, here in the West people don’t ask these types of questions. They just accept a person as they see them.”

He stared at her, his blue eyes intense. “If you’re going to stay, you better learn that principle.”

“I don’t know who you are, and I can’t help but wonder who I’m sharing a room with. And what you were doing on the stage that day.”

He shrugged, his face a bored expression. “I was traveling, just like you.”

A shiver passed down Beth’s spine as she looked at him. From all outward signs, he appeared relaxed, but she sensed a tenseness about him that, although subdued, was there just the same.

Though Tanner didn’t like the fact that she was asking questions, at a casual glance he appeared just fine with her interrogation.

“Elizabeth, do you think I’m going to harm you?” he asked, watching her carefully.

He’d drawled her name, not the shortened version but her full first name. Her mother had only used Elizabeth when she was in trouble, her father, when he was trying to convince her his way was best. So what did it mean when Tanner used her full name?

She stared at his lips and briefly remembered the way they had felt against her own, how he had tasted and his unique smell, which somehow soothed her when he was near. No, she didn’t think he was going to hurt her.

“I’m not worried you’re going to harm me,” she said, her voice almost a whisper in the dwindling sunlight. “I just want some answers.”

“To what?” he asked. “You know my name. I told you my profession. I’ve taken care of you since the accident. Why are you questioning my motives now? If I’d wanted to hurt you, I wouldn’t have brought you back to town.” He used her name just as her father had, to convince her to see reason. And everything he said seemed so logical, while she appeared a melodramatic fool.

She couldn’t even tell him the reason for her sudden suspicions: a Wanted poster that held a certain resemblance to his handsome face papered on the outside wall of the sheriff’s office.

No wonder he was looking at her as though she’d lost her mind maybe she had. Now that he mentioned her fears, they seemed so minor, so inconsequential.

She shrugged. No, the pit of her stomach was telling her that he was not only handsome; there was so much more that he wasn’t telling her. And that’s what made her nervous.

“You’re right. I guess being ill has made me edgy.” She glanced at his naked chest. “I just need to relax.”

How did she loosen up when a half-dressed man whose very presence reeked of masculinity and danger stood before her? She needed to ignore the feelings being near Tanner evoked. She needed to forget about the handsome man she had every reason to suspect was a hired gun, or worse.

All her energy needed to be focused on getting to Fort Worth, and to Tucker Burnett, before she did something really foolish that could jeopardize her future.

***