Read Online Liz Ireland by The Outlaw's Bride - Free Book Online

she dealt out a last hand. “She’s so nervous these days….”
    Something in the change in Emma’s tone made him stiffen. “Why? Because her time’s coming?”
    Green eyes met his flatly. “Because of the outlaw.”
    The air between them crackled with tension.
    “Outlaw?” he asked, scratching his uncomfortable beard. “I, uh, guess I haven’t heard.” He glanced at the cards she’d dealt him, still face down on the coverlet. His hands felt too heavy to pick them up.
    “It’s all anyone talks about,” Emma said.
    “What’s this fella done?”
    She picked up her cards and inspected them. “Murder, they say.”
    The room began to spin. Lang was certain he’d heard her wrong, but her eyes told him he hadn’t. Murder? As if bank robbing and horse thieving weren’t enough! “Who…” His mouth was so dry he could barely rasp out a question. “Who did he murder?”
    “A bank clerk.”
    Lang ran through the day of the robbery over and over in his mind; but he would have remembered killing someone. He’d never done serious harm to another person in his life. And the only person who’d been shot that day was himself.
    Then he remembered. Moments before his brother and his cohorts had run out of the bank, two shots had been fired in quick succession. The sound of the first gunshot had so surprised Lang, he’d turned to see who had fired. Then the second shot had struck him. Now he couldn’t be sure from whose gun either bullet had come, but he was fairly certain Amos had been behind him. Amos, who didn’t want a big brother’s interference.
    And Lang looked just enough like Amos to confuse a witness…. The light-headed queasiness he’d experienced when trying to walk up those stairs returned.
    “Murder,” he breathed, his voice reedy and thin.
    “Terrible business.” Emma clucked her tongue. “The sheriff was here just yesterday telling me about it.”
    Lang bit his lip. Maybe he should turn himself in, and tell the truth. He shouldn’t be lying here taking advantage of Emma’s kindness when he was a wanted man. For murder. Good God! Sweat poured out of him.
    “I sure could use a drink,” he said.
    Emma looked over at the full water pitcher by his side.
    He frowned. “I mean something with teeth.”
    “Oh.” Emma frowned. “I had some brandy—medicinal brandy, mind you—but…”
    Just his luck. “You probably used it all the night I arrived.”
    Faint color touched her cheeks, which made him wonder if he hadn’t been the recipient of the last drops of spirits. “Well…yes.”
    Never in his life had he had a real craving for liquor—but just this moment his thirst for it was fierce. Drowning himself in alcohol was all he could think of to do to forget—forget Amos, forget the past month, forget that his life, his future, was ruined. Maybe if he drank enough, he would gather up the nerve to march into town to see Emma’s friend the sheriff and turn himself in, and make his future that much shorter. He felt sick. Never had he expected to finish his life at the end of a rope.
    “Mr. Archibald, is there something wrong? You haven’t looked at your cards!”
    Emma’s pretty face, those intelligent eyes, inspected him. She knew. He knew she knew. So why was she hiding him? Did she pity him for some reason he couldn’t fathom?
    He looked at her lips and thought of another way to forget his troubles. How easily he could imagine leaving all thought behind and losing himself in the pleasures of her lips, her flesh. He could almost sense the fresh scent of verbena he would smell when he buried his face in her hair. Or maybe she would prefer camellias. He’d never felt so weak, so much at someone else’s mercy.
    “Mr. Archibald.” Emma said his name and reached out to him.
    He pulled his hand back, pulled himself together andgathered his cards in his shaky fist. When he could focus at all, he found himself looking at an inside straight.
    Lucky. It was hard to believe that anything in