Authors: Stolen Ecstasy
Hannah Howell (16 page)
Leanne wiped frantically at her tears, keeping her face averted. She had not intended to cry, had not wanted to. Once alone, however, all the hurt she had felt upon discovering Hunter’s lies swept over her. She heartily wished Hunter had not been the one to find her giving in to her tears.
“Leanne,” he began as he sat next to her, “I know it looks bad.”
“Nice to see you have the wit to reach that remarkable conclusion.”
Although it was hard not to return her anger, he found it easier to handle than her tears. “My life was at stake. Any hint that I wasn’t who I said I was, and I was a dead man.”
She turned to glare at him. “Did you really think I’d risk your life? I was in the same position as you.” Her eyes widened as she caught his fleeting look of guilt. “You thought I was lying. You never trusted me.”
“That’s not true, Leanne. In the beginning I did doubt you. Can you blame me? Your tale was rather wild. The reason I got into this mess was because I trusted too quickly. I trusted Watkins’s man, didn’t question his claim that he was a bank official. I practically gave him the payroll I was responsible for. I also trusted the woman he used as a lure to put me in the wrong place at the wrong time, so I would have no alibi. It all left me looking guilty as hell. I didn’t dare trust you. I nearly lost my life before. I couldn’t risk it again.”
His explanation made sense. However, it only excused his initial distrust. She knew she had done nothing to justify his suspicions, nothing to warrant his lingering wariness. The hurt he had inflicted was not so easily banished.
“And even after we made love, you were afraid I was going to stab you in the back?”
He took her hands in his. “Not at all. By then I knew you were exactly what you claimed to be.”
“Did you. Strange, but I don’t recall your telling me who you were. You still didn’t trust me.”
“It wasn’t lack of trust that kept me quiet, but lack of courage. I knew I should tell you, but I didn’t want to face what I’m facing now. I put off the confrontation until there was no avoiding it. The only lie between us, Leanne, is that I am not really the outlaw you thought me.”
Yanking her hands from his, she spat out, “Oh, and such a little one it is, too. Nothing to bother about, right? Shouldn’t bother me at all to think I’m lying down with some outlaw. Shouldn’t trouble me at all that I’m taking up with a man who’s only future is jail, a bullet, or a rope. Why should I worry that I’m sinking myself deeper into the mire of outlawry by joining him instead of running from him? Why should I care that my first lover doesn’t consider me worth enough to even let me know who he really is?”
Hunter felt wracked with guilt. He realized that he had given little thought to what she might be feeling. It was not just the lie he had to make amends for. He had cost her a great deal of peace of mind. He doubted that she had voiced all of the conflict she had been suffering.
“I’m sorry.”
“How nice.” She hated the sneering tone of her voice but was unable to soften it.
“It was blind of me, but I never thought of how it would affect you to keep thinking I was an outlaw. I should have. The moment I accepted the truth of who you were, it should have occurred to me. A woman like you doesn’t usually take up with the kind of man you thought I was.”
“Especially not when she could be throwing away her chances of proving her own innocence.”
“My only excuse, and it’s a weak one, is that I really didn’t see myself as the man I was pretending to be.” He took her hands back into his. “Especially not when I was with you. With you I had to constantly remind myself of the role I was playing and act it.”
He seemed so honestly sorry that her hurt and anger began to lessen. “And all that business about keeping me close so I wouldn’t talk and endanger you? Was that all a lie too?”
“No, just the results I left you to imagine. I couldn’t risk anyone looking too closely at me or anything I was involved in. If I had gotten pulled in by the law, Tuckman probably would’ve gotten me out of it. He’s not a sheriff, but a federal marshal. It would’ve ruined months of work, however. It might’ve even lost me my place in Watkins’s gang.”
“Of course. Your getting free would have been suspicious in itself.” She took a moment to think over everything that had been said, then frowned. “Wait a minute. You keep talking about Little Creek, Texas, and this Tuckman. Didn’t we meet him at the start of our journey way the other end of New Mexico?”
“That meeting was arranged as soon as I knew what job Watkins was sending me on. It was the one place we could meet without raising suspicion. It would require little deviation from the route we needed to take, and the chances of any of Watkins’s men being there were pretty slim.”
“And you didn’t know about Tom? I mean, Sebastian?”
“Nope. I didn’t know about him until exactly when you did. I guess Tuckman decided it was safer for both of us, less chance of giving ourselves away.”
He watched her closely as she bent her head to stare at their joined hands, hiding her eyes from him. Her anger had faded, but not all her wariness and hurt. He wanted to take that pain and suspicion away, but he was not sure how to go about it. She had trusted him and he had rewarded her trust with a lie. It was not surprising that she now wondered if she had been a fool. He knew he would have felt the same.
Leanne was uncertain of what to do next. She felt lost, confused. Every step she had taken, every decision she had made, had been based on a lie. She felt unsure about Hunter himself; was he the same man she had fallen in love with? Perhaps, like Tom, he had kept more than his name a secret—perhaps he had hidden his real nature as well.
“Leanne, I know it was wrong,” Hunter said softly. “Unfair as well. I was constantly asking you to trust me, yet I never told you the whole truth. All I can say is I’m sorry. I swear this—nothing else that happened between us was an act or a lie.”
“It’s just—” She took a deep breath to steady herself, then looked at him. “I’m not sure I know who you are now.”
Cautiously, he pulled her into his arms. “I’m Hunter.”
“No, you’re Tarrant Hunter Walsh of Little Creek.”
“I’m Hunter.”
“Tom seems changed. He’s Sebastian now—talkative and not so cold. What’ll change about you?”
“Very little. I can hold your hand now or kiss your bruises without thinking I’ll look too soft to the men. What changes happened in me happened before I met you. I’m a little harder, a little more wary. Other than that, I’m the same man they know in Little Creek. I swear it. I’m not as skilled as Sebastian at playing a role.” He felt some of the tension leave her and inwardly sighed with relief.
“What does your family call you?” In his arms, the last of her hurt began to fade.
“Tarrant. But if you like it better, there’s no reason for you to call me that. You can keep calling me Hunter. I’ll admit I’ve grown sort of used to it.”
“And after our names are cleared? Will you help me find my father? Once you’re back with your family, I’ll need a place to go. Grant Summers might not want me around, but at least he can help me get settled somewhere.”
“You’ll be settled somewhere—with me.”
She leaned away from him to look directly into his face. “Hunter, what’s acceptable when you’re an outlaw on the run is not something you can carry on with back in the bosom of your family. Our names will be cleared, and we’ll be upright citizens again. More or less. I know that I couldn’t bear the consequences of being your mistress.”
“Then be my wife.”
Briefly he felt as surprised as she looked, then decided it was the perfect solution. Now that his troubles were almost over, he knew it was the right step—the only step—to take. He did not want to lose her, and the surest way to keep her at his side was to marry her.
Brushing a kiss over her mouth, he murmured, “Well? Nothing to say?”
“You don’t have to do that. I became your lover thinking you were an outlaw. There were no promises made then. You don’t have to make them now.”
It was hard to say those words. Her first impulse had been to grab his offer with both hands and hang on tightly. It was what she wanted. Second thoughts had come quickly. She did not want him marrying her simply because he felt it was what he should do, because he felt he had to. That was not the way to establish and build a good marriage.
“I know I don’t.” He sighed. “Leanne, I haven’t got a lot of pretty words for you. The only thing I’ve given much thought to in over a year is clearing my name and getting home. Since we stumbled into each other in that little town, I haven’t taken much time to think about us, but I know how badly I want you. That I’ve always been sure of.
“When you spoke about our parting ways,” he went on, “I knew there was one more thing I was sure of. I don’t want you leaving. I want you to stay at my side just as you have since Clayville. I can’t think of a better way to keep you there than marrying you.”
Cupping her face in his hands, he smiled crookedly. “Not real romantic, I know. But I’m not just offering what I think I ought to because you were a virgin.” He smiled briefly over her deep blush. “I do want to marry you. The reasons may not be the kind to put stars in your eyes, but they’re good, solid ones. I don’t intend to tuck you away as a duty done. I mean this marriage to be a real one in all the ways it should be.”
He was right. It was not romantic. However, he expressed the desire to keep her near him and did not want her to leave him. That, she knew, was not something to scoff at. It was a start. She could build on that need, would be a fool not to try.
“All right.” She laughed softly when he hugged her tightly, but her laughter was stopped by his heated kiss. “Shouldn’t we get back to camp?” She gasped when he pushed her down onto the ground.
“Tonight’s about the safest time we’ll have until we reach Little Creek. I intend to take advantage of that.”
“I can see that,” she murmured as he undid her shirt.
“I promise you, Leanne, you won’t regret saying yes. I might not be the best husband you could get, but I don’t think I’ll be the worst.”
“No.” She sighed her pleasure when he began to brush heated kisses over her breasts. “I don’t think you will be either.”
Their lovemaking was rough, fierce, and heated. Leanne savored every moment of it. Reeling from the strength of the release they shared, she held him close and thought about the future. There was hope that one day he would love her as deeply as she loved him. He needed to keep her at his side. That had to stem from some deeper feeling for her. She would simply strengthen it and bring it forward.
Nuzzling her neck, Hunter murmured, “I have a confession to make.”
“Another one?”
“ ’Fraid so.”
“Well, since you asked me to marry you, I must assume you are not about to tell me of a wife and a dozen children tucked away somewhere.”
“You assume right. This is going to sound crazy. There was another, smaller reason I didn’t tell you the truth about myself, a totally selfish reason. I reckon the others could be called selfish too.”
“Protecting your life could be called selfish but it’s something anyone and everyone would do. You do believe I never would have . . .” She met his gaze when he placed a finger against her lips to halt her words.
“I trust you, Leanne. You’ve been the one person I have trusted in all this. When you gave up a perfect chance to escape to tend to Jed’s wound, I began to trust you.”
Rolling onto his back, he settled her on top of him. “This selfish reason was—well, wanting you to want me even though I was an outlaw.” He laughed ruefully when she frowned. “Whatever was happening between us was happening despite your thinking I was nothing but a bank robber with no future. I wanted that. Hell, I needed it.
“When everything went wrong, people turned against me. Even my father and two of my brothers. Theirs was a short desertion but it cut deep. Only my brother Owen stuck with me from the start, asking if I was guilty, but prepared to stay with me whether I was or not. There are still those, including my own mother, who’ll need Watkins’s confession before they believe in me again. When you came to me, you did so thinking I was a bank robber on the run. There was a part of me that needed your trust. I’m not explaining this very well.”
“Well enough.” She brushed a kiss over his mouth. “You’re talking to someone who’s been through the same. I know all about those crazy needs that spring up when you’ve been accused unfairly or tossed out.”
“Of course.” He kissed her, slowly but with a growing hunger as he smoothed his hands down her slim back.
A little breathless, she smiled at him when he finally released her mouth. “Then, too, there was my big plan to reform you.”
“Oh?”
“Um—hmmmm.”
“Into a farmer?”
“Maybe a storekeeper. After all, I wouldn’t want you too tired when you came home at night.”
“Heaven forbid.”
“Hunter, just what do you do? What’ll you—we—be going back to when your name is cleared?”
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