Millie And The Fugitive

Knowing she had no choice—not with a gun pointed at her—she untied and slipped off her pinafore, then began to hurriedly undo the multitude of tiny pearl buttons down her front. There were enough of those to make Sam worry that Ed and Toby would catch up with them before they could all be unbuttoned. Finally, however, Millie was able to step out of the yellow frock, and Sam prepared to turn away.

Only, to his surprise, he discovered there was no need. Stripped down to her underwear, Millie had on more clothes than most women wore to church.

Her face flushed under his prolonged stare. “You said you wouldn’t look!”

Sam was still in shock. “You put on all that gear just to pick a few pears?”

Her jaw dropped in astonishment. “Of course!” She looked down her front. Over a corset she wore a thin short-sleeved cotton camisole that gathered at her narrow waist, and under the corset there appeared to be a sleeveless shift. And that wasn’t even counting the petticoats, which had to number three, at least.

Sam’s expectations had by necessity been drawn from the women he’d seen undress in the past—but those women had been from a different class altogether from Millie Lively. He’d forgotten that the richer you were, the more uncomfortable you had a right to be.

“You’d better set aside one of those petticoats to dry yourself off with.”

She complied, grumbling all the while. “All right. But I’m not going to so much as wade in that filthy muck. You can’t make me.”

“I don’t care if you only wet your toes. You were the one who was all fired up to get clean.”

He wasn’t surprised to see that shedding a petticoat barely made a dent in her layers of skirts. He picked up her yellow dress and watched as she untied and stepped out of her boots, then reached out with one small, pale foot to test the water. It was still too dark for her to trust that there wasn’t a snake nearby, so she took a tentative step forward — and, with a loud splash, was suddenly swallowed up by the pond.

“Millie!” Sam hollered, running to the edge of the bank. With all those clothes on, the poor girl was apt to sink like a stone! He looked anxiously at the wildly rippling surface, preparing to strip down to his long underwear and rescue her.

But before he could so much as tug at a shirttail, Millie surfaced again, coughing and sputtering.

“Are you all right?” he asked, still ready to dive in and save her. “Can you swim?”

Her shoulders poked above the water, and through the darkness she sent him a withering look as she coughed up the last of the water she’d swallowed. “I don’t have to swim,” she said. “I can stand.”

“Thank heavens,” Sam said, relieved. Remembering the dress, and the work he had to do, he turned away.

“I’m so touched that you care,” Millie’s voice said bitingly. “And it’s such a relief that you didn’t have to go to the trouble of getting wet just to fish me out.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” Sam agreed, smiling as he heard more splashing and sputtering behind him. He spread the yellow dress out across the bank and began to walk across it in a shambling shuffle.

The girl released a strangled cry. “What are you doing!”

“Mussing your dress. It’s too clean.”

“Too clean?” she exclaimed. “It’s never been so filthy!” He bent down and flipped the dress onto its other side, and Millie groaned in dismay as he repeated the process. “Until now...”

“This way we’ll be a better match,” Sam told her.

“Just what I’ve always dreamed of,” she said scathingly, “to look like I belong to the criminal class.”

Sam finished with a little jig before stepping off the dress. “There,” he said with satisfaction as he inspected the now dingier garment. “You won’t attract as much attention now. It’s hard to tell whether this is yellow or beige, I’ll wager.”

When his commentary was met with silence, Sam turned quickly. But Millie hadn’t disappeared—she was standing very still in the water, her expression pained. And angry. Very, very angry.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

Her mouth clamped shut. Then she mumbled, “Nothing.”

“You can come out now,” he told her, holding out a hand. “Here, I’ll help you.”

“Don’t you dare touch me!” she cried ferociously. “You, you — dress-musser!”

Sam smiled. “You wound me.” Kneeling at the very edge of the bank, he grabbed her by the arms and lifted her bodily out of the water and onto dry land. Millie managed to get him at least half as wet as she was in the process.

He handed her the dress, which did nothing to soothe her. She looked at the garment in seething silence. “I loved this dress,” she said at last.

Sam shrugged. “It’s just clothing.”

“That’s all you know!” she retorted, her eyes flashing. “That dress was my very favorite. I sewed it myself — it took me months!”

Months? Sam wasn’t sure about these things, but he doubted it took most women months to finish a dress. Especially women like Millie Lively, who had all the leisure the world had to offer.

But maybe he just didn’t know what he was talking about. Needle and thread were tedious tools he’d always tried his damnedest to avoid using. “I suppose being called a dress-musser is better than being called a murderer.”

“You are a murderer,” she said, scrambling away from him up the bank as fast as she could. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten those two deputies!” She began drying herself with the petticoat she’d put aside. “I’ll bet hundreds of people are going to be combing the area for you today.”

“We’ll be ahead of them.”

“Not for long. Word of my disappearance will get out, and then you’ll be in big trouble.”

Sam found it difficult to concentrate on the prospect of being hunted at the moment. Instead, his eyes kept glancing in amazement at Millie, whose shape was silhouetted against the lightening sky. The girl might appear to be mere skin and bone while buried under her mounds of clothes, but when those same clothes were wet and clingy, the womanly curves they revealed were definitely...eye-catching.

He remembered, back at the pear tree, thinking the legs poking out from it were mighty appealing. But that had been before he was faced with the spoiled princess that went with them. Most of the time she seemed more girl than woman. It would be hard to think of her that way now....

He looked away, feeling his face redden. His throat was suddenly dry, and he cleared it uncomfortably.

“What’s the matter?” Millie asked. “Are you sick?”

Ironically, anger over her dress seemed to have knocked the bashfulness clear out of her head, so that she stomped around, heedless of his gaping, as she whacked her dress against the trunk of a tree, hoping to flog some of the dirt off. Sam wished she’d go ahead and put the damn thing back on, already.

“No, I’m not sick,” he answered, getting to his feet. “We just need to push on.”

“You’re the one who’s wasted our time this morning,” Millie lectured him primly as her fists rested on her curvaceous hips. “You can’t blame me.”

No, he couldn’t. This was all his fault. If he hadn’t gotten that fool notion about Millie’s dress into his head, he could have gone on thinking about her as a... well, a troublesome hostage. A burden to be shed. But now he was going to be hard-pressed to look at her again without thinking of her as she appeared now, that camisole sticking to her collarbone and cleavage, her petticoats outlining her tiny waist, her hips and her shapely legs.

Damn. He trained his eyes away, on the spot where they’d left the horses. “All right. It’s my fault. Now hurry up and get your clothes on.”

She shot him an exasperated look. “First you want them off, now you want them on! And all the while you keep pointing that gun at met — How do you expect me to act efficiently under these circumstances?”

Patience, Sam told himself, turning away as he listened to her fuss over the scads of little buttons she had to contend with. The rippling pond mocked him now. If only there were time, he could use a therapeutic dunk in that cold water himself.

Tom McMillan, Chariton’s sheriff for going on twenty years, was well-known for being a man of few words, so when the few he chose to tell his hastily gathered but handpicked posse were shoot to kill, Horace Lively was sure the sheriff meant them.

Poor Millicent, his little princess, all alone with that brutal outlaw. And her so unused to the rough conditions she was probably being exposed to! How would she survive?

He swallowed, fighting back a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that had been there ever since the sheriff had come around with Millie’s bonnet, asking a lot of questions. But, of course, he’d begun to anticipate the worst when Millie wasn’t home for dinner that afternoon. Oh, he never should have quarreled with her! If only he could be sure she had survived thus far. He was an old man, had been through four years of battle during the War between the States, but he’d never faced anything so frightening as the prospect of losing his dear daughter.

He just had to stay calm, keep himself together, as he had been doing. Now if only he could convince Lloyd Boyd to comport himself in the same dignified way. Millie’s fiancé had completely fallen apart when he discovered she was missing. Even now he was fondling the little redbird on Millie’s bonnet, which he held in a white-knuckled grip.

“Shoot to kill?” Lloyd wailed, jumping up from where he was sitting on the wooden sidewalk in front of the sheriff’s office. He looked beseechingly from Horace to the sheriff and then back again. “With Millicent nearby?”

“The sheriff knows what he’s doing, son,” Horace tried to explain. If only he could be certain of his own words.

Sheriff Tom continued instructing his men. “Now you all heard Ed and Toby’s story. Sam Winter is a shifty, brutal character, just like that brother of his, and apparently he’s a lot stronger than he looks. Any man who could overtake two lawmen on horseback while his hands are cuffed would have to be.” He eyed his red-faced deputies sternly.

The sheriff thought the incident of the escaped convict made a laughingstock of him and his deputies in the eyes of the community. There was talk of incompetence going around, though not about Tom. That man had a will of iron, everyone knew, and tended to be overzealous in pursuit of justice. Especially when it involved somebody he didn’t particularly like. And he very clearly disliked Sam Winter and his brother.

“Tom,” Horace said, stepping forward, “don’t forget Millicent is riding with the man. I don’t want Millicent hurt.”

“Oh, right,” Tom drawled for the benefit of the others. “Try not to hit the girl. Now we’re going to branch out in two groups....”

The perfunctory words failed to comfort Horace. As did the directions that followed. The trigger-happy sheriff was going to head the posse himself, and leave Ed and Toby in charge of Jesse Winter at the jail. Oh, Horace was glad that so many had turned out to join the search party, and he would be following the sheriff so that he could hear about events as they developed. Still, all the men in front of him seemed more interested in the prospect of catching the escaped criminal than ensuring the safety of his daughter.

All except Lloyd Boyd. And precious little good the hysterical young bank clerk was going to be in the search.

“Poor, poor Millie!” Lloyd wailed, combing his hands through his pale hair in a gesture of anguish. “Will we ever see her again, see her lovely face, hear her bright, tripping laughter?”

How a man could think so flowery in the midst of a crisis was beyond Horace’s understanding. “We’ll find her, Lloyd. Pull yourself together.”

“I know. I must be strong. For Millicent,” Lloyd said in an earnest attempt to tamp down his emotions. “But if there were only something more I could do!”

Lloyd’s hysteria, signaling as it did a genuine concern for Millie, touched Horace’s heart. He had been right to tell Millie that the young man would make a good match for her. Millie got engaged and disengaged with dizzying regularity—and Lloyd was an upstanding, sober young man. Or had been. Now he seemed to crumble before Horace’s eyes.

“You’re doing all you can by riding with McMillan’s posse, son,” Horace assured him. Then, looking at the young man’s red, anxious face, he added, “Just remember to stay out of the way.”

Unoffended, Lloyd nodded. “I’ll stay right with you, sir.”

Horace took a deep breath. Though it grated on his nerves, the boy’s hysteria was easier to stomach than the bloodthirstiness of the other men gathered.

More than his own deputies’ embarrassing loss of their prisoner, Sheriff Tom had used Millicent’s apparent kidnapping as a call to arms. But now that they were all assembled, no one seemed especially concerned about whether she was dead or alive. Except Lloyd.

And one other man. But Horace didn’t notice him, and neither had anyone else. He had disguised himself so that he could blend into the crowd as just another citizen, and was hanging back — but not too far back—listening and watching, examining the gray-haired, droopy-eyed colonel’s wary reaction to the sheriff’s directives.

Horace P. Lively was worried sick about his daughter. Anybody could see that—even a man who could barely see at all. The old gentleman was as despairing in his silence as the younger man next to him was in all his breast-beating grief. Lively didn’t think the sheriff was going to find his daughter.

Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t, the man thought. But the old codger was right about one thing. The sheriff didn’t give a flip about Millicent Lively. Just about Sam Winter.

The stranger saw things differently. Whether Sam Winter lived or died was of no importance to him. But Millicent Lively—now she was another matter entirely....

“I’m certain I’ll catch cold now after being wet the entire day,” Millie said crossly. She knew she was whining, but she couldn’t help it. She was bound to a tree trunk, and uncomfortable, and hungry again.

Wasn’t Sam Winter human? Didn’t he get hungry, or tired, or cold?

How would she know? she wondered in frustration. They had been riding side by side for two days now, and she knew as little about him tonight as when they’d left Chariton. His continued silence alarmed her. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t understand a person who didn’t talk—although that was puzzling—but, even stranger, that he seemed genuinely to want to say things to her. Otherwise, why would she have caught him watching her in that odd, almost pained way so often today?

Unless she looked funny. That was always a possibility, given that she’d dressed this morning so hurriedly, without a mirror, in a mud-caked frock. Even her normally perky, fashionably curled bangs drooped down to her eyebrows. But whose fault was that?

“Sam...”

He was leaned up against another tree, his long, lanky legs stretched out in front of him. “What?” he said, his voice annoyed and completely devoid of curiosity.

“Well, if you’re going to be that way about it, never mind,” she answered peevishly.

She heard a long sigh, then noticed that he sat up straighter. “What is it?” he asked, his tone only slightly more patient.

She sniffed proudly. “I only wanted to ask you if you thought I looked all right, but you don’t have to tell me.”

“Why? Are you sick?”

“No, I was just concerned with my appearance.” When he failed to say anything, she added, “You know...my physical appearance.”

“You look fine.”

“How would you know? You didn’t even glance at me!”

Reluctantly, he turned his head. She could see his gray eyes watching her across the darkness, with that same strange look in them that she had noticed so many times that day as they rode.

He really wasn’t unattractive, even though he was badly in need of a shave and generally scruffier than when she’d first seen him. His face was almost handsome, in a common sort of way. It had taken her a while to get used to his rough, sun-darkened skin. He was almost bronze, which provided a stark contrast to his other features, gray eyes and light brown hair.

The odd look in his eye she chalked up to the same discomfort she felt. “You know what your problem is?” she asked.

The question brought a sharp laugh. “I know what several of them are, Princess. There’s the fact that the law is after me, that my brother might hang. Oh, and there’s you to deal with—”

It annoyed her when he called her “Princess” now, especially when he said the word with such a sneer of derision. “You’re hungry,” she said, interrupting him. “What you need is some real food.”

“Too bad. We don’t have any, and we don’t have time to forage, either.”

“You’ll never make it far on an empty stomach,” Millie told him. “We need to stop in a town.”

“No,” he said flatly.

As far as Millie could tell, getting Sam to take her into a town was her only chance of escape. “Why not? I wouldn’t do anything stupid,” she promised, lying baldly. She’d pictured it so many times during their long ride — getting away from him, running like a crazed woman down a sparsely populated, dusty street of a strange town, flapping her arms and yelling about the madman who had abducted her. Her daydream always ended with Sam being caught by a mob of angry townspeople, which made her feel a little sad, but relieved. Sam had kidnapped her, after all.

Daddy was probably worried out of his mind. It nearly made her cry to think about it. Yet she couldn’t help wondering what was going on in Chariton—Sam’s escape must have created quite a stir. Just her luck. Something exciting finally happens in that dull little town, and she gets abducted!

Oh, well. She was sure her father was doing something on her behalf, which did make her the center of attention, even if she wasn’t there to enjoy it. Her best friend, Sally Hall, was probably going crazy with wanting to know what had happened to her. Alberta would be fretting, too. Oh, and Lloyd Boyd. Her situation would suit the misfit bank clerk’s love of drama.

And with good reason! She had never been so dramatically worn out and hungry. She’d spent many leisurely days riding her gray mare, but never on punishing rides like these. Poor Mrs. Darwimple! Millie felt almost as sorry for her horse as she did for herself. She simply had to convince Sam to head back to civilization.

“It would be stupid trying to get away from me,” Sam told her. “And don’t tell me that’s not what you’re planning, because I can see it in your sneaky eyes.”

The accusation fascinated her. “You think my eyes are sneaky?” No one had ever called her that before. Imagine, being branded sneaky by a desperado! “You know, I do believe that’s the first thing you’ve noticed about me.”

“Hardly.” He laughed bitterly. “Besides, I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”

“Oh, that’s all right. A girl does like to be noticed, though.”

He tossed his hands in the air. “You are the most confounded woman I’ve ever run into. Don’t you know you’re in danger? You should be angry!”

“I was.”

“Then you should have stayed that way.”

She made a tsking noise. Stay angry for two whole days? “That wouldn’t be very pleasant for either of us.” She had never had any call to endure that much emotional turmoil. Until now, of course. “Though I am mad about your decision not to go into town. I wouldn’t do anything to get away, Sam. On my honor.”

“I know, I know,” he muttered. “You’re renowned for your trustworthiness.”

“That’s right.”

“And your riding expertise.”

“Well, of course, I don’t like to brag—”

“Forget it.”

She couldn’t let him see her frustration—which was escalating rapidly. She’d never yet met a man she couldn’t wheedle into doing what she wanted. Sam might prove the first. Usually all it took was a little pleading, but he wasn’t softening a bit. Perhaps it was time to take more dire measures —like showing him exactly what kind of woman she was.

“Sam...”

After rolling his eyes, he looked over at her in irritation — until he saw that with what little mobility she had she was lifting her skirt up past her knee. Irritation turned to slack-jawed curiosity.

“I bet I can change your mind about going into town,” she said sweetly, flexing her small foot enticingly. “I have something for you....”

His eyes bugged at the glimpse of leg, but he shook his head vehemently. “S-see here now,” he stuttered in dismay. “Put your skirt back down!”

“It’s just my legs,” Millie said. “Same ones I had this morning. You didn’t seem to mind them then.”

His mouth clamped shut. “Never mind. Cover up.”

“But I wanted to show you something,” she argued, untying the small satchel at the waistband of her petticoats. She removed it, straightened her skirts and held out her offering primly.

“Oh...” he said, looking sheepishly at the velvet bag.

“It’s money. Count it,” she told him, “and you’ll see that you can trust me.”

Tentatively he reached out and took the bag from her, weighing it for a moment in his hand before loosening the drawstring. He upended the little purse and listened appreciatively as the heavy coins fell into his large hand.

“There’s twelve dollars here,” he said.

Millie smiled. “There! You see? I’ve shown you how much money I have. You can borrow however much you want. And the next time we see a town, we can just detour a little and buy ourselves some supplies. Maybe even stop over at a hotel...”

But even as she spoke, she got the oddest feeling that Sam really wasn’t giving much credence to her words. He calmly put the coins back in her purse, folded it over and placed it in the pocket of the deputy’s saddlebags he kept by his side.

“Aren’t you going to give me my money back?” she asked.

He looked at her as if she’d just sprouted two heads. “Hell, no!”

“But that’s stealing!”

Sam laughed at her. “Millie, didn’t that daddy you’re always going on about teach you to have a lick of sense? For two days you’ve been calling me a murderer, a criminal, a desperado. What did you think was going to happen to your money when you handed it over?”

“I showed you that money as an act of faith,” she argued. “So that you could trust me if we passed a town. I only wanted something decent to eat.”

He shook his head. “Good Lord, listening to you, a person would think you’d never been hungry before.”

For a moment, Millie racked her brains. “I haven’t,” she told him, a little surprised by the discovery herself. But why would a store owner’s daughter have to go without? “Until yesterday. And I must admit, I was rather excitable then—a little nervous about being kidnapped, naturally — so I didn’t notice so much. But today is entirely different.”

“Are you saying you’re not nervous anymore?”

“Well...maybe a little. But I’m just so hungry I don’t care,” she added with a moan. “And sore, and tired.”

“Then go to sleep.”

“I will when I’ve gotten my money back,” she insisted.

The petulant refusal brought her captor to his feet. He stomped over, fists balled at his sides, and towered over her. “Let’s get this straight. You’re not going to see that money again, unless I do think it’s safe to go into a town. But that’s for me to decide, you understand?”

His harsh tone irritated her — and scared her a little, frankly. She’d never seen such a hard look in his eye, or noticed him so on edge. She had half a mind to answer that she was a little on edge herself, thanks to him, but that she had the good manners to mask her foul humor. At the same time, something told her he wouldn’t appreciate a lecture on his bad breeding at this precise moment.

She tilted her chin up and contented herself with a curt “fine.” What more could she do? She was tied to a tree.

But, apparently, he wasn’t through with her. “You seem to forget sometimes who I am, and what you’re doing here.”

“As if I could!”

He paced restlessly in front of her. “Don’t you understand? You should hate me. You should be trying to escape, not giving me money.”