Outlaw’s Bride by Joan Johnston Read Free Book Online

feet. But now, seven years later, she was a stranger to him, and it felt awkward treating her like the sister she was.
    Leah was so tough on the outside that it had taken him a while to see how frightened she was inside. She kept to herself, and he was having a hard time breaching her defenses. His sister reminded him a great deal of another rebellious tomboy he had known.
    Patch
.
    Ethan had tried not to think about Patch, but the image of her as she lay beneath him at the Oakville Hotel kept creeping back. He had spent the day wondering what she was doing in south Texas and wishing that his life were in better shape than it was. She had grown up into a beautiful, desirable woman.
    Ethan swore as his body tightened in response to the mere thought of her. He had no business thinking about any lady in those terms. Least of all Patch!
    Even if he were not a convicted murderer, it was becoming increasingly clear that Jefferson Trahern was never going to let him be free to marry and settle down. Ethan always had to watch his back for an ambush.
    As he approached the ranch house, the sun was nearly down. He was dog-tired, but there was work yet to be done. The horses and hogs and chickens had to be fed. He didn’t keep a milk cow because he was never sure he would be around to milk it. He hoped Leah had made some supper,but it wasn’t always a sure thing. Maybe tonight he could make some headway on the mess in the house.
    Dusk had reduced the landscape to shadows by the time Ethan had brushed down his horse and fed the animals. He trudged to the house, wondering why Leah had lit so many lamps. When he shoved open the front door, he stopped dead.
    The parlor was immaculate. The cat and her litter of kittens had been consigned to a basket in the corner. The top was down on his rolltop desk. The hole in the arm of the horsehair sofa had been covered with a neatly pressed doily. His spurs still hung from the hat rack, but his old saddle blanket was nowhere to be seen. There wasn’t a speck of dust to be found. And he could smell food. Delicious food.
    Biscuits and … ham?
    Ethan’s first thought was that his mother must have made a miraculous recovery. She was the only one he knew who could have wrought such an astonishing change in the state of things in a single day. He looked for her first in the kitchen, but when he didn’t find her there, he figured she must have lain down for a rest after all that effort.
    Ethan headed for her bedroom, his stride confident despite his limp. He felt really, truly happy for the first time in the month since he had come home.
    He shoved open the door and was treated to the appalling—but utterly appealing—sight of a woman’s fanny wriggling out from under hismother’s bed. You could have knocked him over with a feather when he saw who it was.
    “What on God’s green earth are you doing down there, Patch?”
    Patch reached up to tuck in the hank of hair that had fallen across her brow. She brushed her nose where the piece of lint she had picked up under the bed tickled her. “Hello, Ethan.”
    Patch’s heart was beating lickety-split in her chest. Of all the times for Ethan to arrive! She knew she ought to get up, dust herself off,
do something
! But she sat there like a bump on a log, just staring at him.
    His hair was darker than she remembered. That was to be expected after all the years he had spent confined in a cell. Lines bracketed his mouth, and deep crow’s feet fanned out from piercing green eyes that had seen too much sorrow and disillusion and disappointment. His angular face showed the harshness of a life spent running from the law. But to her, every line, every wrinkle was dear.
    His features were blunt, his nose straight, his chin strong, his cheekbones high and wide. Right at this moment his eyes were wide with worry and surprise and … confusion. She had the sneakiest suspicion that he wasn’t glad to see her.
    “Hi, Ethan!” Leah jumped up, the snarling