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

wasn’t watching, she did all sorts of unsensible things.
    Like walking barefoot in the spring grass, hiding her corset in the closet all summer, taking off her bonnet in the brightest sunshine, and dancing all alone in her room when the winter moon shone. She couldn’t help herself. Inside, sometimes, there was a whole different Ruth screaming to be free.
    Standing, he moved to the doorway and paused. “Think on it if you must. But Leon is a sensible choice. He’s the perfect man for the job.”
    Job? Marrying her was a job? Ruth couldn’t speak, she was so shocked. Taking her silence as acquiescence to his wishes, since it always had been in the past, her father went to bed. Ruth continued to stare into the fire.
    If things had turned out differently tonight, she might have agreed with her father and married Leon. She could wait until she was as old as Tildy and never fall in love. Because no man, however gentle and kind, could ever be Noah.
    Ruth hurried upstairs, gathered a few things, then put on her coat and let herself out of the house. She need not worry that anyone would hear her. The groom was as deaf as an ax handle, and once asleep, neither her father nor Tildy would awaken until the rooster crowed. By then Ruth would be snug in her bed with no one the wiser.
    In the warmth of the barn, Annabelle nickered a welcome. Ruth had left the mare only an hour before, but the horse was used to secret night rides. Ruth often took Annabelle out when she needed to be free of her father’s stifling expectations, which she never seemed able to meet.
    Ruth mounted her horse and raced back into the snow-shrouded night.
    * * *
    Shots. Mayhem.
    Shouting. Dying.
    Horses galloping. Bullets flying. Bodies falling.
    Just hold on.
    Noah was hot; then he was cold. He hurt everywhere, then nowhere at all. The lack frightened him more than the pain had, and he swam through a dark river of nothing toward a shore of bright light and shining agony.
    Keep going. Have to hide. Somewhere safe. Find peace.
    Peace.
    â€œRuth?”
    The sound of his own voice, hoarse and dry, broke Noah free of the dragging current and tossed him amid waves of torment. His moan made him flinch, and the movement sent him back under the dark water to his memories of her.
    Pixie face, fairy eyes, flame in her hair. Throughout the hardships, the brutality, and the lies, the recollection of Ruth had been a comforting, constant presence.
    His favorite memory of her was at the train station, as she searched for him. He’d known even then how to dissolve into a crowd, had learned that talent young in order to survive. He’d honed it to perfection since then. He could now melt into the flat planes of Kansas or the hills of Missouri as easily as he’d disappeared on the streets of New York. Men like Noah could survive anywhere.
    As he drifted on the current, the childish image of Ruth altered. She had become a woman grown, different in many ways but in many others just the same.
    Over the years he’d said her name in his sleep often enough to make a whole lot of women angry. But it had never been the way they’d thought. To Noah, Ruth was peace of the soul and love unconditional, the only person who saw him as more than he could ever be.
    Because of that he’d stayed away so she’d never know how low he’d sunk. But in his darkest hour he’d returned to her, and if he wasn’t careful, she’d discover everything. Then the only dream he’d ever kept alive—that Ruth would always see him as her hero—would be as dead as all the men he’d called friends up to a few days ago.
    Noah awoke. Pain swamped him, caused the room to waver, made it difficult to think. Where was he? What had awakened him? Where the hell were his guns?
    His vision cleared, and every question fled. Framed in the half-open doorway, the body of a woman touched by firelight. Shadows shrouded her face; the echo of darkness