Outlaw Bride (Lawmen and Outlaws) (8 page)

But something deep and meaningful twitched him all over, deep in his bones. He almost stopped dead in his tracks but that would be a dead giveaway, and Cleeland Redd had to think things through careful before he gave his heart again.

His fingers possessed a mind of their own, though. Took her hand, and hers curled inside his fist, trembling like a featherless bird.

They arrived at Sister Adelaide’s dark little office.

“Welcome.” She pointed to some old wood chairs better off as firewood.

Polite, holding his breath at what his heart was learning about itself, Redd unlaced his fingers from Jessy Belle’s so she could sit. Her white face discomposed him, his hand ached with emptiness. While her chair peeped like a chick when she sat down, his groaned against his strength and weight. He sat careful of moving too much on the decrepit furniture. Sure enough, that reward money from turning in Ahab Perkins would come in handy for this good nun and her establishment. Surely Jessy Belle would see the sense.

Especially since she’d told him she’d turned respectable now. If he loved her, he had to believe her. And he was fast thinking he did both.

“Child, it seems you have things to say.” Sister Adelaide took her own chair behind a long table, old but polished and carved with flower buds up the legs. After she poured water from a pitcher, Jessy Belle spent some time drinking. Redd shook his head at the refreshment.

“Indeed, she does, Sister,” he said instead, but Adelaide waved her hand to shut him up. Like nuns in school had when he’d spoken out of turn. His cheekbones burned.

“Jessy Belle, Redd has explained how he found you and why you were in such desperate circumstances. How you managed to survive. I am grateful you still have life, God be praised.” Adelaide waggled her fingers, looked Jessy Belle straight on. “But the fact is, we now know your true identity. And you are wanted by the law.”

“Oh, no, Sister. I’ve changed. I truly have changed. Mister Redd will tell you. I came clean.”

“But only after he found you out. Did you come to me, to us, with false pretences?”

Jessy Bell’s pretty forehead wrinkled like a lakebed fried from drought, cheeks fired bright as dawn. “I did. I wasn’t addle-pated at all. But I was scared. I....” She breathed hard, stared at her toes. Redd’s righteous urge to protect flared up again. “The thing is. Ahab has collaborators and fanatics everywhere. After those fool dime novels, some folks admire him. I...had to make sure. And I knew I’d be safe here.”

Sister Adelaide’s gaze upon Jessy Belle’s worried face was kind. “It is true. We give sanctuary to those in need. But Jessy Belle...”

“Oh, I know what you think, Sister. But Perkinses didn’t kill your niece. I swear it, I promise it. I vow it with whatever’s left of my soul.”

“My niece?” Sister Adelaide’s face swiveled in question from Jessy Belle to Redd.

“The girl you raised as your daughter,” Redd said, smoothing things along. Needing Sister to know he hadn’t blabbed her secrets. “Nuns not having kids and all.”

“Oh, yes.” Real grief crinkled Sister’s eyes, and Redd almost wished Perkins were the killer, to alleviate his good friend’s pain. But he believed Jessy Belle. She had lied to him yesterday, but as a scout, he’d told his own lies from time to time in order to preserve his life and safekeeping. And that’s all she’d done.

Hadn’t come easy, him walking in somebody else’s boots, and he’d never tried it concerning outlaws. But Jessy Belle deserved the chance. She loved him.

“Jessy Belle,” Sister Adelaide folded her hands like a prayer. “If you’ve changed your heart, why, that’s a wonderful thing. But I’ve had Pinkertons on the case. I don’t doubt your gang killed my...Elena. She deserves justice.”

“And I don’t blame you one whit. Pioneer Meadows wanted justice. All they got was me. But the gang didn’t kill a single soul. Never been our way. Well, their way.”

“Well.” Sister Adelaide closed her eyes during a long drink of the cold water.

Redd’s tongue turned dry. He believed Jessy Belle, didn’t he? But the Pinkertons...they were a group masterful at deduction. But Jessy Belle, didn’t she sound sincere?

“Tell me your tale, Jessy Belle.” Sister Adelaide set down her cup. “The leader is your brother, yes? Are you well enough to speak?”

“Yes, ma’am. If I go soft.”

“How came you to be an outlaw?”

Sister’s question amazed Redd, why she wondered. Why it might matter.

Jessy Belle leaned back, the chair squawking loud this time. “I loved my mama. But life was ramshackle. Like this place. No offense, Sister.” She glanced from him to Adelaide, worry crinkling her forehead.

“No offense taken, child. We have many needs.”

“A hideous slum, backwater St. Louis. Pa coopered. Made barrels enough to keep starvation from the door.” She hung her head. “But he came to spend an unrighteous pocketful on beer and whiskey. Mama did her best. Even taught me to read the Scriptures. Ahab would have none of it. I was six....”

Her voice turned so lost Redd ached to take her in his arms against his heart. Might have if he wasn’t sitting across from a nun, pretend or not. Her habit with the black bat wings never failed to discompose him.

“Go on, if you can, child.”

Jessy Belle’s fingers tore at the calico dress, and Redd gave in to taking her hand, holding the withering bird tight against his knee.

“I’m a woman grown now, ma’am. But when I was six, Pa shot dead a little pup my mama had befriended for my birthday present. Laughed the whole while. I screamed so hard...Ahab held me back.” Jessy Belle’s breath heaved, and she sat a spell looking out the window like she didn’t see a thing. Redd’s thumb found its way rubbing the top of her hand. As if some miracle, ’Gade came through the door and laid his head on Jessy Belle’s lap. And she kissed it.

Finally Jessy Belle looked at Sister Adelaide again, free hand rustling ’Gade’s fur. “Mama took Pa to task for it. He didn’t much like being back talked by a female, so he whacked her against the bricks on the hearth. Wasn’t the first time, truth to tell. Just the worst time. And the last.”

Then Jessy Belle’s fingers wrung his like a swift current might sweep her away. And he held tight as he could without snapping her bones.

“Mama was bleeding. Not moving.” Her whisper took on a new edge, clear and unmoving like glass. “Ahab was thirteen. Got her a blanket. I dabbled water on her face. Pa, he left for the doctor, but he never came back. Died that night in a beer brawl. In between, Mama slowly drew her last.” She looked at Redd then, beseeching. “Made Ahab promise to care for me. And she made me promise to safeguard her own mama’s pearls.”

“Had you no friends? No sheriff?” Sister Adelaide asked this of her, her tone soft as a cloud, for Redd couldn’t think of a thing to say. Cold horror swamped him, same as finding his mama dead at The Devil’s hands.

Jessy Belle didn’t reply directly. Didn’t look at him or Sister Adelaide. “Ahab had no learning, no money. Just a kid sister to drag along. He proved right good at robbing folks” She looked at him then.

For one second, no more.

“We started small,” she said. “Picked pockets. Drifted in some mercantile and out again with goods stuck in our boots. Under our hats. Tied in my hair.”

“A preacher, a neighbor should have taken you in,” Sister Adelaide muttered, cheeks tight.

Jessy Belle glanced first to her, then Redd. Eyes bleak as midwinter. “Sometimes there’s nobody else but yourself. And sometimes along the way, Ahab attracted other boys to move along with us. Some good. Some evil. Then he started in, nabbing horses. And me? Well, I never let him down. Nor him me...until last week. For all his sins, Ahab protected my virtue.”

“Just not your life.” Redd still tugged at her hand but anger roiled, letting a female die in your stead. A sister yet. Find Ahab Perkins and he’d send him on to hell himself.

“No, he didn’t. And for that he might be damned to hell. Mama told me once of Cain and Abel.” Her blue gaze bore into Redd’s, deep, into his soul. “And I ain’t cussing this time, Redd. I stopped doing that. I learned Hell is a true place. But so is Heaven.”

“We have taught you well in just a short time, child.” Sister Adelaide nodded at Jessy Belle, who smiled.

Right off Redd figured Adelaide was still wearing her nun disguise, and he himself must go along. Teresa might have bared her soul, poor tragic girl—and Redd would never blush or regret his snooping—but Adelaide’s secrets still must be kept. She had the fake postulants to protect.

“Yes, you did.” Jessy Belle said, almost too soft for an ear to hear. “I fear I have found my truth.”

Sister Adelaide smiled with triumph. “You may stay here. But you must reveal yourself to the sheriff. If you confess your crimes it’ll go easier for you, I’m sure. He will have questions for you. Your answers might lead a posse onward to apprehend your brother. Whether or not he killed my....Elena, he is a wanted man and known horse thief.”

One more time Redd heard the fake nun’s pain, his brain spelling out the rest of her unspoken words. Reward and justice. But Jessy Belle shook her head so fast her face fuzzed before his eyes.

“That he is, Sister,” said Jessy Belle. “But I cannot put you in danger. Ahab must never know I was here.” She pulled from her pocket the stick Redd recognized. The stick that had been her grave marker. She handed it to Redd. The scrawl would take too long for him to cipher, but the panic rolling Jessy Belle’s eyes got him scared enough to sweat.

Chapter Six

Redd rolled his eyes, but Jessy Belle now knew he was no ignorant fool like her brother. Not this kind, good man who she loved. Even so, the heat of shame colored Redd’s face.

“Spell it out for me, Jessy Belle,” he said, holding the stick back to her. “Reading’s never made much sense to me. No matter how much alphabet I tried.”

Jessy Belle shook her head, knowing it all by memory. “‘
Little Sister, I’ll be joining you soon.’”

Renegade whined. Bad quivers crawled up her spine just saying words. Redd opened his mouth to react, but she shook her head again, hugged the dog’s neck to calm down. “Ahab knows nothing about reading or writing. Somebody else wrote this.”

“Let me see it.” Sister Adelaide held out her hand, squinted at the hatchings. “So...he’s coming to find you?”

“Thought he always left folks behind.” Redd spoke up, gazing upon Sister Adelaide’s wrinkled up forehead.

Jessy Belle’s hand left the dog to wipe her nose, but she was done crying around Redd. He needed to see her brave and durable. Not tears sprouting. “That’s true enough,” she said, all ten fingers wrestling with ’Gade’s coat. “It means the whole
gang’s
coming back for me. I mean...”

“Why, child? Do you bear a secret?” Sister Adelaide’s asked, fingers uniting in prayer.

Jessy Belle reached for Redd’s arm and squeezed so hard he jumped. “I mean, they’re coming for Ma’s pearls.” She grabbed the hem of her dress.

“Then we must contact the sheriff immediately.” Sister plunked her hands down on the arms of her chair like she was readying to get up.

“No. No.” The loudness of Jessy Belle’s voice surprised ’Gade so much Redd smiled even in this dangerous time. “No. You can’t let anybody know I’ve been here. Teresa and Sister Avery and Veronica and Will...I can’t bring Ahab’s treachery upon their very lives.”

Sister Adelaide’s face grew stern. “But you’ve tried to assure me the gang does not kill.”

“It’s been true in the past, and I believe it yet. But there are others with Ahab who hold no disinclination toward fire.” Jessy Belle peeked out at the ramshackle buildings. “And well...” Mortification grabbed her. “The postulants are beautiful. Get enough likker inside some of those scoundrels and...”

Jessy Belle shuddered. Teresa’s painful words slammed in her brain again. “It’s best I sneak off. I know the tricks that will keep Ahab off my heels.” Across the table she reached for Adelaide’s hands. “I thank you for all you did. Someday I’ll restitute you, Sister, for all you spent on me. Including the purchase of Blossom. But leaving here, please, Sister? Redd? My leavin’s the only way.”

Redd’s fingertips danced on the tabletop. “She’s right in some respects, Sister. We need to draw Ahab away from the mission. He knows she’s not dead. Right as rain he’d track her here and do your group no good. You nuns, bless your souls, have no defense.”

“We have...Padre Cardeñas,” the nun said, slow.

Jessy Belle had no choice but interrupt. “He’s a holy man, Sister. He knows nothing about guns and outlaws. Prayer won’t hold off Ahab. Believe me, Mama tried it enough against Pa.”

Sister Adelaide closed her eyes. “I can assure you Padre can handle a gun. But perhaps we should give you sanctuary nonetheless. Jessy Belle, I cringe at the thought of you loose in the wild. Alone.”

Sister Adelaide’s words warmed her to the tip of her toes. Nobody since Mama had ever cared much. But Redd rushed in before she could get in even a sideways word.

“Nope. Jessy Belle’s right,” he said. “Her being here puts your...postulants in danger. We can’t chance it.”

Jessy Belle whirled her own fingers now. “I could confess to the sheriff. I could keep safe in jail. But I know Ahab. He won’t ever creep around near prison guards.”

“If Tinker Lewis stands up for you revealing the thievery, you likely won’t face jail time.”

Jessy Belle shrugged. “Fine by me. Whatever way, it’s me out and free and alone that’s the easy taking for Ahab.”

“Too easy.” Now Redd’s fingers ran like a toy horse across the table. “I think I have a plan,” he said after a fashion. “It’s a good one. I’ll take Jessy Belle with me. To Whisper Ridge.”

“Take me? To Whisper Ridge?” An unimagined joy burst inside Jessy Belle’s spirit, for she loved him and longed to be with him. ’Gade licked her hand like he understood. But of course Sister Adelaide, a holy nun who couldn’t ever love or wed, would discount such a notion. Turning, Redd met Jessy Belle’s gaze full on. Her bones turned to water but she had strength enough to take his hand.

“I can truly keep you safe. Keep an eye out for the gang....” he said.