OUTLAW'S BRIDE.

Kendrick.

Johnston, Joan.

This book is dedicated to all the readers, fans, and bookstore owners who read The Barefoot Bride and asked for Patch and Ethan's story.

Here it is.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

I want to thank romantic suspense author Sherryl Woods for her invaluable a.s.sistance in keeping the mystery in Outlaw's Bride.

I would also like to thank Mark Bledsoe, owner of the present-day Oakville Mercantile, for his helpful background history and information about the town of Oakville, Texas.

The Inheritance.

She was a lady. Ethan recognized the breed, though it had been a long time since he had seen one quite so fresh from finishing school-feathers in her hat, gloves on her hands, and a steel rod running down her spine. He was hidden from view, sitting in a high-backed chair in the lobby of the Oakville Hotel. Waiting. Every so often his green eyes flicked to the dusty street outside. Watching.

His eyes were drawn back to the lady. The soft complexion of peaches and cream and a short, up-tilted nose contrasted with a strong, determined chin. His lip curled cynically. A lady used to getting her own way, he amended. She looked up at the hotel clerk from under long, feathery lashes that concealed big blue-not quite innocent, he thought-eyes. Her voice was melodious, not demanding, but not demure, either.

"I'd like a room, please," she said.

"For how long?" the clerk asked.

Ethan watched the lady's brow furrow. Her black-gloved hand reached up to smooth already perfectly arranged golden tresses bound up in a very ladylike bun at her nape. "I don't know," she said. "I'm looking for someone who-" She cut herself off.

Ethan was distracted by something on the registration desk. The lady's velvet drawstring purse, which exactly matched her rose red dress, seemed to be moving of its own accord. A moment later a pointed pink nose and long whiskers appeared at the center of the drawstring opening. Ethan grinned. Somehow a field mouse had gotten into the lady's purse.

He started to call a warning but looked out the plate gla.s.s window first. He didn't want to let them know where he was any sooner than necessary. Instead of speaking, he leaned back into the comfortable winged chair and waited for the fun to start.

To his amazement, elegant gloved hands surrept.i.tiously poked the mouse back into the purse and once again drew the strings tight. Ethan's brow arched in speculation. She wasn't quite what she seemed, then. No lady in his experience had ever carried a mouse around in her purse.

"I don't know how long I'll be here," the lady repeated. "I would love to have a bath sent up to my room. It's been a long trip."

From where? Ethan wondered. And who had she come to find in Oakville, Texas? Lucky man. Because besides being a lady, she was also a woman. Full b.r.e.a.s.t.s that would overflow a man's hands, a tiny waist-unfortunately corseted-and long legs that he could imagine wrapped tight around him while he thrust deep inside her.

Ethan felt his body respond, felt the heavy pulse in his throat, the tightness in his groin. He reminded himself that the steel rod down a lady's back didn't usually bend for the finer pleasures in life. Besides, he thought bitterly, no lady was going to want anything to do with him-ever again.

"Hawk! Ethan Hawk! We know you're in there. Come on out!"

Ethan rose slowly from the high-backed chair. He saw the stunned look on the lady's face as she turned to stare at him. He grinned and tipped his Stetson to her. From the corner of his eye he saw the flash of sunlight on blue steel out on the street. He launched himself at the lady and yelled to the clerk, "Duck, Gilley!"

Ethan twisted in midair, trying to keep the lady from being crushed beneath him as he s.n.a.t.c.hed her out of harm's way. Several bullets crashed through the hotel window, sending gla.s.s flying. He landed on his shoulder and rolled several times away from the splintering gla.s.s.

The lady was a lovely package, but enough to knock the wind from him. He knew every second counted, but he lay frozen for a moment, infinitely aware of the curves lying beneath him. Her hat had come off, and her hair had come loose from its tight bun. A stray curl was tickling his nose, which was pressed against her throat. He blew it away, and felt her shiver.

Ethan lifted his head and looked into big blue eyes that seemed to swallow him in their depths. Her hair lay like a golden nimbus around a heart-shaped face. She had her lower lip caught in straight white teeth. He surveyed that perfect complexion-now pale with fright-and realized that powder half hid a dozen freckles across her nose. So he had exposed another of the lady's secrets. He wished he had time to discover them all. But there were men waiting outside for him. Dangerous men.

He reached across her for his Stetson, which lay amid scattered gla.s.s on the tapestry carpet, and settled it back on his head. He was aware of her femininity as firm b.r.e.a.s.t.s cushioned his chest. His body naturally slipped into the cradle of her thighs. He swore at his instantaneous reaction to such intimate contact. From the way her eyes widened and darkened, she felt it, too.

She struggled to get up, but he put a hand to her shoulder to hold her down. "Stay here," he warned. "Don't move!"

He started to slide off her but stopped when she said his name.

"Ethan?"

Her eyes searched his face and for a moment he thought she looked familiar. Especially with those freckles and a strand of that glorious golden hair falling over one eye. "Do I know you?"

Her eyes showed pain, as though a shard of gla.s.s had cut her deep. "Are you all right?" he asked. His hands quickly roamed her body, searching for some wound.

That perked her up. Her face got that indignant look he might have expected from a lady not used to having a man handle her like a woman. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, there was another cry from the street.

"Hawk! Come on out, Hawk!"

He grinned and touched the brim of his hat to her. "Sorry I can't stay to get better acquainted. If you're smart, darlin', you'll get out of Oakville while there's still some starch in your drawers."

She gasped, but his attention was already focused on the men out in the street, hired killers who wanted him dead so they could collect their blood money from Jefferson Trahern. Ethan had learned that he couldn't expect help from the sheriff. Careless Lachlan owed his livelihood to the town council. And the town council was owned by the richest rancher in Oak County, Texas-Jefferson Trahern.

Ethan realized the lady was trying to wriggle out from under him. "Keep your head down!" he snapped, grabbing a handful of those golden tresses to hold her still.

"Ethan, it's me! It's Patch!" she hissed at him, her head bobbing up again. "Patch Kendrick."

He stared with dawning horror at the once impeccably groomed lady lying beneath him, the beautiful stranger who had stirred his l.u.s.t. He released her hair and rolled off her as though she had become a ma.s.s of angry ants.

"Don't move! Not an inch! Your pa'll kill me if anything happens to you!"

He crawled quickly toward the side window and slithered out into the dark alley before another call came from the street.

What the devil was Seth Kendrick's tomboy daughter doing in Oak County, Texas? And when, by G.o.d, had she become a lady? Ethan stood in the shadows of the alley near the front of the hotel and waited for the hired guns to make their move. And remembered.

The last time he had seen Patch Kendrick was eight years earlier in Fort Benton, Montana. She had been a pugnacious twelve-year-old brat with elfin features, budding b.r.e.a.s.t.s-and the crazy idea that she was in love with him! He had been twenty-five, her father's best friend-and on the run from the law.

Jefferson Trahern had been hunting him even then. Ethan had ridden hard and fast out of Fort Benton to avoid the detectives Trahern constantly had trailing him. He hadn't been caught-not for another year, anyway. Then ...

What was it Patch had made him promise her when he had left Fort Benton eight years ago? That he would marry her when she was grown up? No, he wouldn't have-couldn't have-promised that! Not, leastways, to a kid who spent more time sporting a black eye than any three prize fighters, who collected wild animals like marbles, and who swore like a bullwhacker who had been to Sunday meeting. He could hear her ranting now with her garns and durns. Danged if he didn't!

Ethan smiled at the memory of the precocious child she had been. So what had he promised that rumpled hoyden-now elegant lady-the last time he had seen her? She had made him cross his heart, he remembered that. He frowned, trying to dredge up the memory of that long-ago conversation.

But he couldn't recall it. She had just been a kid with romantic notions. He hadn't paid much attention to exactly what he had said to her, something about returning to Fort Benton when she was all grown up. His mouth flattened and his eyes narrowed as he thought of the reason he hadn't gone back to see her again.

Otherwise, he had promised her ... nothing. Which was a d.a.m.ned good thing, considering the fact that no decent woman would have anything to do with him now. Whatever she might once have been, now Patch Kendrick was one h.e.l.luva lady.

Ethan couldn't believe the carnal thoughts he'd had about her. And the way he had touched her! Ethan felt the heat in his face. How was he ever going to look Seth Kendrick in the eye? Ethan grimaced. Reluctant as he was to admit it, Patch Kendrick was about the most arousing piece of femininity he had ever held in his arms. Even thinking about her had his body thrumming with desire.

Unfortunately, if Seth ever got wind of the thoughts Ethan was having about his daughter, Ethan wouldn't have to wait for Trahern's vengeance to put him six feet under. Seth would kill him first!

"Come out and get what's comin' to ya, Hawk!"

Ethan pulled his Colt and fanned the hammer as he charged out of the alley, spraying bullets at the five men who converged on him from all sides of Main Street.

He saw one go down near the horse trough. Another fell on the wooden porch of the mercantile. A third dropped where he stood in the center of the rutted street. The fourth dove for cover behind the livery. The fifth got off one shot before he pitched headlong through the plate gla.s.s window of the Silver Buckle Saloon.

By then, even with his awkward gait-long step, halting step, long step, halting step-Ethan had reached his horse. He launched himself into the saddle and spurred the big black stallion. The animal hit his stride long before the ma.s.s confusion Ethan had left behind him cleared enough for anyone to grab a rifle.

"Ethan! Ethan Hawk!"

He heard Patch Kendrick calling him from the front porch of the hotel and reined his horse to an abrupt stop at the end of the short main street. The urge to answer her was strong. But she could have no idea of the trouble he was in. And he wasn't about to let her get involved. The instant Trahern found out Ethan cared anything about her, Patch would become a target for the old man's revenge.

He pulled off his hat, letting his sun-streaked hair blow in the wind, and gave her a gentleman's bow from the saddle. Then he spurred the black stud and raced out of town, disappearing in a cloud of Texas dust.

Patricia Wallis Kendrick had watched the gunfight unfold with a mixture of terror and awe. She had traveled all the way from Fort Benton, Montana, to find the man who had just ridden h.e.l.l-for-leather out of this G.o.dforsaken south Texas town. She had an old debt to settle with Ethan Hawk. Years ago he had promised to return to court her when she was a grown woman-and to marry her. Patch was here to hold him to his promise.

She angled her hat in a rakish tilt over her brow and tucked a stray blond curl back into the ma.s.s of hair she had repinned into a stylish bun. Then she marched down the front steps of the hotel toward the man who had arrived on the scene-well after the gunfight-wearing a badge on his brown leather vest. There was no need to elbow her way through the crowd of gawkers who had converged on the street, because it parted like the Red Sea before her.

"Are you the sheriff?" she demanded.

Sheriff Careless Lachlan was bent over Johnny Two Toes, who was deader than a doornail. He looked up over his shoulder. Startled by the imposing dignity of the woman behind him, he snapped up like a bent willow branch and yanked his hat off his head.

"I'm Sheriff Lachlan." He smiled, exposing tobacco-stained teeth. "What can I do for you, ma'am?"

"Why didn't you stop this gunfight before it started?"

"Why, uh ..." He scratched his balding pate and said, "Someone mighta got hurt."

She stared down at the dead man at her feet, then toward the other three men who lay sprawled in various postures on the street, her pointed gaze finally landing on the broken window of the Silver Buckle Saloon. "It seems to me someone did get hurt, Sheriff."

His face turned beet red. "Only this riffraff, ma'am." He frowned and muttered, "I told Mr. Trahern this wasn't a good idea."

"You knew these men were hired killers, and yet you did nothing to stop them?"

The sheriff pulled at the neck of his shirt and loosened a string tie that was already half undone. "Now I wouldn't exactly say that, ma'am. I did warn the boy they was after him," he said. "Told Ethan he oughta get outta town and go back to that ranch of his'n. But Hawk, he insisted on stayin' in town, facin' 'em down." Careless shrugged in a characteristic way that showed how little he cared, which was, in fact, what had gotten him his name. "You see how it turned out."

"What if Mr. Hawk had been hurt?" Patch asked.

"n.o.body can kill that son of Satan," the sheriff muttered. "Not that they ain't been tryin' more years than I can count. Ever since ..."

"Ever since what?" Patch asked.

"That's history now. The boy's paid for what he done."

"What do you mean?" Patch asked. "How has he paid? And for what?"

"Why, for killing Jefferson Trahern's boy, Dorne. Claimed it was self-defense, Ethan did. Only thing that kept him from gettin' hung was Boyd spoke up for him."

"Boyd?"

"Boyd Stuckey. Old friend of Ethan's from when they was kids. Boyd's near rich as Trahern these days. Anyway, that Hawk boy finally got out of prison 'bout a month ago. Been there nigh on to seven years. I say he's paid his debt. Oughtta be able to walk the streets like a free man. Only ..." He frowned up at the sun and put his hat back on-lady or no-to keep off the noonday heat.

"Only what?" Patch asked, impatient to hear the rest.

"Only Trahern don't figure it that way."

"So Trahern hired these men to kill Ethan-because Ethan killed his son? Even though Ethan has paid his debt to society by spending seven years in prison?"

"Jefferson Trahern don't forgive nor forget."

"How do I get to Ethan's ranch from town?" Patch asked.

"Head southwest 'bout five miles, you'll find it right along the Neuces River. But you don't want to go there, ma'am."

Patch arched her most intimidating brow. "Why not?"

"Ain't safe."

"Why not?"

The sheriff grimaced. "Lady like you has no business bein' 'round a fella like him. Convicted murderer and all."

Patch squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. "I'll have you know that Ethan Hawk is-" Patch cut herself off. She couldn't call Ethan her fiance, not without stretching the truth. Nothing had been settled that day eight years ago when Ethan had said good-bye.

Patch had waited as long as she could for Ethan to return to Fort Benton. Both her father and stepmother had advised her to keep on waiting. "He'll come back when the time is right," her pa had said. But Patch hadn't been satisfied with that.

When her parents began planning a trip to Boston for her to visit her stepbrother, Whit, she realized it was the chance she had been waiting for. She had smiled a guilty good-bye, knowing she was heading for Texas, not Boston.

She had come to this small south Texas town because Ethan had once told her he was born and raised in Oakville, Texas. It was where she had planned to start her search. Darned if she hadn't found him!

Only her journey wasn't quite over yet.

"Can you tell me where I might purchase some gentlemen's clothing?"

Sheriff Lachlan pulled the scruffy hairs on his chin. "Suppose you could check at the Oakville Mercantile, ma'am. Only, why you wantin' men's duds?"

"I could hardly ride five miles cross-country dressed like this." Patch turned her back on the sheriff, stepped up onto the shaded boardwalk, and marched straight into the Oakville Hotel.

Knowing Ethan was an ex-convict didn't change Patch's intentions toward him one whit. She had known he was on the run from the law when she first fell in love with him. Ethan had once told Patch's stepmother, Molly, that he'd had a good reason for killing the man he had killed. Patch wasn't about to pa.s.s judgment until she heard Ethan's reasons herself. a.s.suming Ethan didn't throw her out before she had a chance to ask for them.