Outlaw for Christmas (9781101573020) by Lori Austin Read Free Book Online Page A

twenty, he’d had an ice-cutting business of his own. But it was the war that made him rich before he was thirty.
    Receiving beef from the West and selling it to a ravenous Union Army had given Kelly enough money to move from Chicago to Kansas when the fighting was through.
    He’d bought the land around Kelly Creek, having been promised that the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad would come through there, and it had. The town boomed, and so did Robert Kelly’s pockets. But wealth could not cheat death, and Kansas had taken all that he loved.
    So Robert loved nothing anymore, or so it seemed to Ruth. His desire was to be obeyed, and Ruth did that fairly well. Luckily, he had not forbidden her to go to the station on Christmas Eve. He hadn’t liked it, but he’d never forbid her. Ruth wasn’t sure what she would have done if he had.
    She joined him in the parlor. Her first glance was for Susan, as was his. Forever plump and pretty, forever ten years old, Susan Kelly smiled in dimpled wonder from the painting that dominated the room.
    Ruth poured her father’s tea from the cart Tildy had no doubt prepared before dragging her poor old bones to bed. Dinner for recalcitrant adopted daughters was one thing, tea for the master was obviously another.
    They sat back in their chairs. Her father stared at Ruth over the rim of his cup. “What were you thinking about half the night? If I didn’t know better, I’d believe you’d met a new man.”
    Ruth bobbled her cup, sloshing tea onto her gown. The spreading brown liquid mixed with a dried drop of blood on her skirt. She squinted against the flickering firelight. There were quite a few spots of blood all over her skirt.
    The cup clattered when her hand jerked. Robert Kelly gave an exasperated sigh. “I don’t understand how a dainty, little thing like you can be so clumsy. Susan, even at her age, never spilled a thing.”
    Somehow Ruth doubted that. But her father seemed to need Saint Susan much more than he needed skinny, clumsy Ruth.
    Carefully, she placed the cup and saucer back on the tea cart, then twitched her skirt and folded her hands over the blood and tea stains. In this light, her father wouldn’t see the spots, but she’d have to burn this dress or Tildy would. The woman might be as old as dirt, but age had not dimmed eyes that were as sharp as a bird of prey.
    Ruth’s father still stared at her as if he expected something. At her blank stare he gave another sigh, this one more exasperated. “You said you were thinking the night away. What could be so important?”
    Leon!
She’d forgotten all about him—his posse, his latest proposal, her newest answer. She’d forgotten everything but Noah the moment he’d fallen into her arms.
    â€œLeon asked me to marry him again.”
    â€œExcellent. Of course, this time you accepted.”
    â€œI . . .” She frowned. “Why of course?”
    He raised an eyebrow, and she fought not to bow her head at his silent rebuke of her questioning him. “We’ve discussed this. I’m not getting any younger, Ruth. I’d like to see you settled. You need a man who can protect my holdings.”
    Settled, not loved. Protected, not cherished. Holdings, not her. She shouldn’t be surprised. So why was she?
    â€œI said I’d think on it.”
    â€œThink? What’s to think about?”
    â€œI’ve told you before. I don’t love him, Father.”
    â€œForget about love. It’ll destroy you.”
    Shadows flitted over his face. From the fire or the past? Ruth couldn’t tell.
    â€œChoose a husband based on the future and not your feelings. That’s the sensible way to go about these things. You’ve always been sensible, Ruth. I like that about you.”
    He
liked
that about her. Ruth stifled an exasperated sigh of her own. She
was
sensible. At least whenever her father could see. When he