The Outlaw's Bride

“Just keep quiet about tonight’s business,” Noah instructed the group. “We’ll do the same.”

As Isobel watched her companions head north in the darkness, she and Noah turned their horses east. Less than an hour later, they arrived at an old cabin with a sagging front porch. With some trepidation, she followed this man who was no more than a stranger up the steps.

Without speaking, he lit two oil lamps and began to build a fire. She watched him work, appraising biceps that bunched as he placed logs on crackling kindling, brown fingers that set an iron pot he had filled with water on a hook above the blaze. Broad back. Shaggy brown hair and beard. Muddy boots. Leather chaps. Such a common man, this Noah Buchanan.

“Like to wash up?” He asked the question so abruptly that she took a step backward.

He dusted his hands on his thighs before pushing open a door and carrying her bag into a small bedroom. She followed, surveying with some dismay the narrow iron bed, the washstand with its chipped white crockery, the window fitted with paper. Noah filled a cracked bowl with heated water, then shut the door behind him.

Isobel walked to the door and listened to him whistling in the other room. Dare she trust the man? She slid her revolver from her bag and set it on a table near the tub. With another glance at the door, she changed into a nightgown. Then she removed her comb, dipped her hands into the water and finally began to relax.

Curling onto the narrow bed, she sighed deeply. But as sleep crept over her, a movement rippled behind her eyelids. Horses cantering up a trail. Men shouting. Gunshots.

Noah sat on a three-legged stool before the fire and warmed his hands. A second pot of water had begun to steam. The woman in the next room would be asleep by now. No matter how hotheaded, she must be exhausted.

He smiled and shook his head as he filled a large basin with hot water and set to shaving his whiskers off with Dick Brewer’s straight razor.

Good old Dick. As Tunstall’s foreman, he was bound to get into the thick of the trouble. Noah peered into a mirror hung by the iron cookstove. If Dick got hurt, he couldn’t stand by, no matter what he’d promised the señorita.

Of course, the way she’d acted today, he’d probably have trouble keeping her out of it.

He dipped his head into a second bowl of fresh water and scrubbed his scalp. She was crazy to come after her father’s killer all by herself. Of course he was just as loco to have married her. John Chisum would take some fancy convincing to swallow that one.

Trail dust was getting a little old. Noah looked forward to settling down and fixing up his own cabin. Then he could really begin to make his dreams come true.

He stared for a long time at the flames, thinking of the small packet he had brought in his saddlebag from Arizona, filled with pens and ink bottles. Soon he would start to put down the thoughts he had been having for years. Stories about trail rides, roundups, cowboys. Images and memories he didn’t want to forget.

The thought of writing sent him searching Dick’s cabin for paper. Maybe he would start right now—the tale of the señorita and the Dolan gang. He wished he had a blank notebook with him, but they were back at his cabin.

Dick never kept paper. He searched the first room and hesitated at the bedroom door, then knocked. When he got no answer, he wondered if the woman had left. He leaned closer, peered into the room, caught his breath.

She lay curled on the bed, asleep. A fan of dark lashes rested on each pale cheek. Her chin was tucked against her arm. Long, golden hair draped around her shoulders and down her side.

Noah took a hesitant step toward the bed. She wore a silky white gown but her feet were bare. He was staring at her slender ankles when she turned. A soft moan escaped her lips as she lifted her head.

Rising up on one elbow, she whispered, “¿Mamá? ¿Dónde está?”

She lifted her hand to her eyes.

“Who…who are you?” Her voice was husky in the night air.

“I’m Noah Buchanan,” he answered. “I’m your husband.”

Chapter Two

“Noah Buchanan?” With a gasp, Isobel scrambled out of bed. What on earth was the vaquero doing in her room?

“That blanket,” she ordered, pointing. “Now!”

As he fetched a faded homespun coverlet from a nearby chair, she sorted through images of this so-called protector. Shaggy black beard, dusty denims, travel-worn leather.

Outlined in lamplight, his strong, clean jaw was squared with tension. His hair shone a damp blue-black.

“You look different, señor,” she said, glancing at her pistol on the table.

“I shaved.” His blue eyes sparkled as they flicked down to her ankles.

Before he could speak again, she snatched the gun and leveled it at his heart. “Take your hungry eyes away from me!” she commanded, cocking the gun for emphasis. “Stand back, Buchanan.”

“Whoa, now.” He held up his hands. “I didn’t mean any harm. I was looking for paper.”

“Paper? Why paper?”

He didn’t answer. “Why paper?” Her fingers tensed on the pistol handle.

“I wanted to write.” Swifter than the strike of a rattlesnake, his hand shot out and knocked the pistol from her grip. A blast of flame and smoke erupted from the barrel. The hanging glass lamp shattered. The gun clattered across the wooden floor. As the light died, he grabbed her shoulder and stared hard into her eyes.

“Don’t ever pull a gun on me again, woman,” he growled. “You hear?”

“Let me go!” she cried out, the nearness of the man plunging fear like a knife into her heart.

Relaxing his shoulders, he stepped back. “I won’t hurt you, Isobel. I made a vow.”

She swallowed in confusion at the change in him. “I must trust you to take me to Lincoln Town. Yet I know nothing about you.”

“You know me real well. John Chisum says if you want to know a man, find out what makes him mad. If you draw a gun on me again, you can say adios to the best shot west of the Pecos.”

“The best shot west of the Pecos?” She laughed. “I will have to see that to believe it, señor.”

The moon kindled a silver flame in his eyes as he spoke. “Stick around Lincoln County and you’ll see it. I can outdraw any man in the territory. But that’s not what I aim to do with myself from here on.”

She lifted the blanket to her chin. “And what is your aim?”

“The minute John Chisum gets out of jail, I’ll introduce you as Isobel…no, Belle. Belle Buchanan, a slip of a lady I met and married on the trail.”

“My name is Isobel Matas.”

“You’d better be Belle Buchanan if you don’t want Snake Jackson after your hide. And Belle is just the shiest, quietest little thing Lincoln Town has ever seen.”

“If I’m to be Belle Buchanan, quiet and shy for your John Chisum, you had better be the fastest gun west of the Pecos—or your little wife will change swiftly into Isobel Matas, the fastest gun in Catalonia.”

Noah chuckled. “I’ve tangled with a few women in my time, but never one as sure talking, high strung and mule stubborn as you.”

“Nor as pretty,” she added.

“Ornery is more like it,” he said with a grin. “You put on a shy smile, and I’ll keep my trigger finger ready. We’ll settle the matter of my land first. Then we’ll check into this question of your father.”

“My father first. Then your land.”

“The trouble over Tunstall’s death needs to die down before we start poking around in Lincoln. We’ll go see Chisum first.”

“I have waited five years,” she told him. “I have traveled many miles. I will wait no longer. Now, leave me to sleep, Buchanan. I must speak to the sheriff tomorrow.”

“Sheriff Brady deputized that posse you saw today. He gave Snake Jackson a lawman’s badge. Brady’s a Dolan man. You ride into Lincoln tomorrow and you’ll be eating hot lead for supper.”

He headed for the open door, but he paused with his hand on the latch. “And it’s Noah…Noah to you…not Buchanan. Don’t forget I’m your husband.”

As he shut the door behind him, Isobel sagged against the bed frame. How could she forget? The man would be with her every moment, ordering her around, insisting on his own way. He was a bull. Rough and unrefined. Headstrong and stubborn. So powerful he frightened her.

Sinking onto the lumpy mattress, she closed her eyes. But instantly she saw him. Noah Buchanan. She felt the grip of his hand on her shoulder. He was a brute—nothing like Don Guillermo Pascal of Santa Fe.

At that thought, she left the bed again and searched through her saddlebag until her fingers closed on an oval locket. Holding the pendant up to catch the moonlight, she studied the tiny painting of her intended. His jutting chin, firm mouth, deep-set brooding eyes and shock of black hair made her proud. Here was the splendid Spaniard who could outwit the roughshod cowboy. This was the torero who could defeat the bull.

For ten years Isobel had known that Guillermo Pascal would become her husband. He owned a sprawling hacienda, a fine stable, countless cattle, land that stretched many miles across the New Mexico Territory. He was wealthy, noble, Spanish. And he was hers.

She snapped the locket clasp and slipped the golden chain back into her bag. As she crossed to the bed, she noticed the shards of glass from the shattered lamp. She ought to sweep them up.

But Isobel Matas had never touched a broom in her life. She was to be served—not to be a servant. Someone else would have to sweep the glass, someone meant for menial tasks. Shrugging, she found the fallen pistol, pushed it beneath her pillow and climbed back into bed.

The first rays of sunlight were slipping over the pine trees when Isobel waded from the shallows of slumber. She fought to catch the remnants of her dream—of that magnificent man who strode through the purple-ribboned depths, his chest broad, his shoulders strong, his eyes so blue. Blue?

Isobel frowned. Guillermo Pascal’s eyes were not blue.

At a tinkling sound in the room, she eased onto one elbow. In the gray light she made out a tall figure. Noah Buchanan.

His black hat tilted toward the back of his head. His shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows. He wore a leather belt with a silver buckle. In his hand he held a stick. A rifle?

No…a broom.

Humming, he swept the broken glass. Unaware of her watchful eye, he raked it into a tin dustpan and stepped out of the room. She shook her head. This vaquero who could knock a loaded gun from her hand, who could guide his horse through darkness, who had walked through her dreams all night…this cattleman of the plains was sweeping!

As she rose from the bed, she caught the smell of frying bacon. He sweeps, he cooks, what else? Mystified, she peered around the door frame.

His worn brown boots thudding on the floor, the bull stalked across the room. His shoulder grazed a hanging pot, one knee knocked a rickety chair aside. But as he leaned over the fire, Noah Buchanan might have been a cocinero in a nobleman’s kitchen. As he broke six eggs into sizzling grease in a frying pan, he hummed.

Bemused, Isobel eased the bedroom door shut and propped a chair beneath the handle. She wanted no intrusions this time. As she took a petticoat and faded skirt from the bundle Susan Gates had given her, she smiled. Noah Buchanan was rugged and earthy, but he was gentle and unpretentious, too. Perhaps they would do well together for the few days of their marriage.

A wash of guilt crept over Isobel as she slipped on Susan’s petticoat. She had married Noah Buchanan under God’s eyes. For as long as she could remember, she had faithfully attended church and said her prayers. She knew this marriage was a sin worthy of the harshest punishment.

As she fastened the row of buttons lining the bodice of the blue gown, she wondered what she would suffer. Would she lose her chance to wed Guillermo Pascal? Would she never learn the truth behind her father’s death? Or something worse?

“Dear God,” she whispered in prayer. “Forgive me, please.” She knew God was harsh, vengeful, given to anger. His sacraments were not to be treated lightly. Yet she had done just that.

Struggling with the shadow such thoughts cast across the morning’s bright sunlight, she slipped on a pair of boots and laced them. She would make the best of the situation, she decided. She would see to it that the contrived marriage lasted no longer than necessary. Noah Buchanan would remain the stranger he had been from the beginning. For a few days Isobel would become Belle Buchanan—a soft-spoken, common woman, like Susan Gates, the schoolteacher.

Setting her shoulders, Isobel wound her hair into a tight chignon and buried her tortoiseshell comb deep in the saddlebag. Facing the world without her mantilla was uncomfortable. To be bareheaded in public was a disgrace.

Sighing, she thought of the trunks making their way by mule train to Lincoln Town for transfer to Santa Fe. Gowns of silk, ivory linen, satin and taffeta. Lace mantillas, velvet jackets, cloaks, stockings of every hue. She had packed ebony combs, gold pendants, pearl earrings.

But an uneven hem, sagging petticoats and a limp cotton dress were the lot of Belle Buchanan. Drawing a shawl around her shoulders, she recalled the hours she and her mother had spent choosing the perfect gowns for a dance or a visit with friends.

What would Noah think of her transformation? Cautious, she opened the bedroom door. He stood beside a rough-hewn pine table, setting out chipped white plates and spoons. Her heart softening to this strangely gentle man, she stepped out.

At a sound from the door, Noah glanced up, straightened, and let his gaze trail down the slender figure approaching. Like some Madonna of the prairie, the woman wore a gown of soft blue with a white cotton shawl around her shoulders. Sunlight from the front window framed her, backlighting her golden hair.

“Well, I’ll be.” He shook his head to clear the surprise and let out a low chuckle. “You sure have changed. You look regular now.”

The light in her eyes dimmed as she glanced at the fire. “Susan Gates gave me the dress.”

“It looks fine.” He wanted to rectify his careless comment, but the words came hard. “You look pretty, ma’am. Like you belong here.”

“But I do not belong here.” She crossed the room and seated herself. “I belong at the Hacienda Pascal in Santa Fe. I have been trained as a marquesa—to oversee many servants, host officials of the government, plan fiestas and bear sons and daughters for my husband in accordance with our Spanish tradition.”

“Sounds like a real humdinger of a life.” He sat down opposite her. “Care for some scrambled eggs, marquesa?”

She bristled until he held the frying pan under her nose. “Sí. I suppose I should eat.”

Noah set a spoonful of fluffy yellow eggs on her plate and a slab of crisp bacon beside them. He reached into an iron kettle, pulled out two steaming biscuits and tossed them onto her plate.

Bowing his head, he spoke in a low voice. “God, thanks for this new day and Dick Brewer’s grub. Amen. Whew! Good thing Dick had his chickens penned up. Otherwise, we’d have been scrounging for breakfast.”

At her silence, he glanced up to find her staring at him. “Was that a prayer?”

“Sure. Talking to God like always.” He spread butter on a biscuit. “Tunstall did right making Dick foreman. He’s got education. He can read and keep record books.”

“And you? Have you an education, Buchanan?”

“Name’s Noah.” He took a sip of coffee. “I can read and write. Mrs. Allison taught me.”

“Who is Mrs. Allison?”

“Richard and Jane Allison. He owns land around Fort Worth. English folks.” He smiled, remembering. “Mrs. Allison took a liking to me. She didn’t have children of her own, see. She used to invite me into the library—books from floor to ceiling. She read me all kinds of stories, mostly from the Bible. Taught me to read, too. I reckon I read nearly every book in that library.”

“But where were your mother and aunties to care for you? Why did you live with Señora Allison?

“I didn’t live in the big house. Mr. Allison put me in with the other hired hands when I was six or seven. I worked in the stables. What about you? Are you educated?”

“Of course,” Isobel replied. “I had a tutor. Later, my father sent me to a finishing school in France. I speak six languages, and I am accomplished in painting and embroidery. Arranging homes is my pleasure.”

“Arranging homes?” Noah looked up from his plate and glanced around the cabin with its tin utensils, rickety furnishings and worn rag rug. “What’s to arrange?”

“Chairs, tables, pictures. My fine furniture will arrive with my trunks. You would never understand such things, Buchanan. Yet we are alike in some ways.”

“How’s that?”

“Books. Horses.” She sat back in the chair and studied the fire. “I was away at school when news came of my father’s murder. I wanted to go to America immediately and avenge his death. But my mother was devastated, and she knew nothing of my father’s businesses. So I stayed with her, preparing the books, paying debts, managing the hacienda. Five years passed, and I learned that my greatest love was the land. The cattle. The horses.”

“Then you’re a vaquero yourself.”

“Oh, no!” She laughed. “I am a lady.”

“And the land in Spain? Will you go back one day?”

Her smile faded. “My mother has remarried, and my brother is grown. Now he and my stepfather fight. In Catalonia, we follow the tradition of the hereu-pubilla. Only a firstborn son can inherit. My brother is the hereu, the heir. He will win the legal battle against my mother’s new husband.”

“And what about you, Isobel? What about all that work you did while your little brother was growing up? You ought to get something out of it.”

One eyebrow lifted. “I’m not considered worthy to own land. Nothing is left for me in Spain. I cannot marry there, because my father betrothed me to Don Guillermo of Santa Fe. I’m old now, a soltera, a spinster. So I came here to avenge my father’s death and find the man who stole my land titles.”

“It’s the land, then.” Noah poured himself another mug of coffee. “You want your land a lot more than you want to marry that don in Santa Fe.”

“I do wish to marry Guillermo Pascal, of course. But by law the land is mine. I intend to have it.”

“You won’t have it long if you marry him. The Pascal family is ruthless. They’ll take your property and set you to planning fiestas.”

“That is not how it will be!” She pushed back from the table and stood up. “I shall manage my own land. Those grants have belonged to the familia Matas from the earliest days of Spanish exploration. Don’t presume to predict my future, Buchanan. You are a vaquero. You know nothing. Now, saddle my horse while I prepare for the journey to Lincoln Town.”

“Hold on a minute there.” Noah got to his feet and caught her arm. “A cowboy is as worthy of respect as any land-grubbing don. And I didn’t take an oath to be a servant to the grand marquesa. I’ll see to your horse while you wash dishes, but we’re not going to Lincoln today. We’re headed for Chisum’s South Spring River Ranch until the trouble dies down.”

Nostrils flared, she peeled his hand from her arm. “You may go to the Chisum ranch, Buchanan, but today I speak to Sheriff Brady.” Starting for the bedroom door, she paused and looked back. “And Isobel Matas does not wash dishes.”

Biting back a retort he would regret, Noah banked the fire and set off for the barn. He tried to pray his way through the silence as he saddled his horse, and he had just about calmed down when he heard the woman step outside.

“You finished with those dishes?” he called.

She lifted her chin. “I am not a servant, señor.”

He was silent a moment, his jaw rigid. Then he left the horse and strode to the porch. “Listen, señorita. We have a rule out here in the West. It’s called, ‘I cook, you clean.’ Dick let us use his cabin, and we’ll leave it the way we found it. Got that?”

Her pretty lips tightened. “And in Spain we have a rule also. ‘A woman of property does not wash dishes.’”

“But you don’t have any property, remember? So you’d better—”

Noah stopped speaking when the haughtiness suddenly drained from her face. Her brow furrowed as she focused on the distant ridge, and her lips trembled.

At that moment he saw her as she saw herself: fallen from social class, power, wealth. Linked with a mule-headed cowboy who sassed her and ordered her around. Threatened by a cold-blooded killer. Unsure of her future, maybe even afraid.

“I…I don’t know how to wash dishes.” Her voice was low, soft. “It was never taught to me.”

At her confession, he took off his hat and tossed it onto a stool. “Come on, Isobel. I’m an old hand at this. I’ll teach you how to wash dishes.”

Chapter Three

The sun painted the New Mexico sky a brilliant orange as Noah Buchanan and his bride, Belle, rode into Lincoln.

She had not expected this victory.

While up to her elbows in soapy water, Isobel had told Noah about the letter informing her family that someone in Santa Fe had begun proceedings of land transfer. Unable to learn the name of the man who possessed the Spanish land-grant titles—no doubt the same man who had killed her father and stolen them—Isobel had departed for America.

As she dried dishes at Noah’s side, he suddenly relented. They would go to Lincoln instead of Chisum’s ranch. But the town would be up in arms over Tunstall’s murder, he warned. Rattlesnake Jackson, Jesse Evans and the rest of the posse would be there, along with Alexander McSween and Tunstall’s men. It would be a powder keg waiting for a match.

“You’d better get to know New Mexico if you want to run cattle here.” Noah spoke in a low voice as they entered the town. “That plant with the spiky leaves is a yucca. The cactus over there is a prickly pear.”

Riding a horse borrowed from Dick Brewer, she pointed to a twisted vine. “That’s a sandía, a watermelon.”

Noah shook his head. “We call it a mala mujer.”

“A bad woman?”

“Looks like a watermelon vine. Promises a man relief from his hard life on the trail. But the mala mujer grows only cockleburs.”

“And so it’s a bad woman—promising much but delivering only pain?”

“Yep.” He straightened in the saddle. “There’s Sheriff Brady’s place. His neighbor is my friend Juan Patrón. We’ll stay with him.”

A lump formed in Isobel’s throat. She was here at last, in the town of her father’s burial. And no doubt a place well known to his killer. A dozen flat-roofed adobe houses lined the road. Where it curved, she saw a few finer homes and a couple of stores.

“Listen, Isobel.” Noah slowed his horse. “I brought you to Lincoln, but while we’re here, you’ll do as I say. Got that?”

“Sí. But if we disagree, you may go your way. Isobel Matas makes her own decisions.”

“You’re not Isobel Matas anymore, sweetheart. You’re Belle Buchanan—and you’d best not forget it.”

He reined in outside a small house with two front doors. “Patrón’s store. He used to be a schoolteacher and a court clerk. When his father was killed in seventy-three, he took on the family business.”

“Seventy-three?” She slid from her horse into Noah’s arms. “My father was killed in seventy-three.”

For an instant she was drawn into a dark cocoon that smelled of worn leather and dust. Resting her cheek against Noah’s flannel shirt, she relaxed in its warmth. But at the sound of his throbbing heartbeat, she caught her breath and stepped away.

“Seventy-three,” she mumbled. “My father—”

“Old Patrón was murdered by a gang,” Noah cut in. “The Horrell Gang went on a rampage, killing Mexicans.”

“But my father was from Spain.”

“Wouldn’t matter. If you speak Spanish around here, you’re a Mexican.” He absently brushed a strand of loose hair from her cheek. “And remember, you’re an American. You don’t understand a word the Patróns are saying. Your name is Belle Buchanan. You’re my wife.”