Read Online Outlaw for Christmas (9781101573020) by Lori Austin - Free Book Online

and then discover you were kissing someone else.”
    He blinked, uncertain if he’d understood her. “Kissed how?”
    â€œAs if there was no one else in the world but you and me. As if nothing mattered but that kiss and this moment.” She sighed. “For a first kiss, I’d have to say you gave me a good one.”
    Noah rubbed his aching forehead. “Took, more like.”
    â€œGive, take.” She shrugged. “Isn’t that what kissing is all about? I’m twenty years old, and I’ve never been kissed on the mouth by a man. I’m glad that man was you, Noah, even if you didn’t mean for the woman to be me.”
    Her smile was so sad, Noah nearly admitted the truth, until she picked up the bowl of water and some strips of cloth that appeared familiar. “Isn’t that the same material as the dress you had on earlier?”
    She looked at the rags in her hands. “Same dress.”
    â€œYou tore it up? Why?”
    â€œThere were bloodstains on it and I couldn’t explain those away, so I burned it. But I kept enough for rags and bandages.”
    He cursed himself. A few hours in his presence and she was burning her dress and lying to her family.
    â€œI’ll leave as soon as I’m able.”
    She nearly dropped the bowl. Water sloshed onto the floor. “No! You need to regain your strength.”
    â€œThat won’t take long, thanks to you.”
    â€œYou lost a lot of blood.”
    â€œI’ve lost more. I’ll be all right in a few days.”
    â€œThere’s no reason for you to run off.” She went very still, her face drawn and white. “Unless there’s somewhere you have to be. Are you married? Will your wife be worried for you?”
    Noah almost laughed. His life left no room for anyone but himself, no women but those he paid. Women like those forgot a man the second he left their bed. Women like Ruth remembered a man forever, it seemed.
    â€œNo wife,” he answered. “Nowhere to be but away from here.”
    â€œWhy can’t you stay? My mother died shortly after I came here, but my father would love to meet you.” Somehow Noah doubted that. “If you have nowhere else to go, you could live in Kelly Creek. It’s a nice town.”
    â€œWhat would I do here, Ruth?”
    â€œThe same thing you’ve been doing.”
    Somehow he doubted that, too.
    She left the room, and he heard her toss the water outside, then cross the kitchen before reentering the bedroom to sit upon the chair at his side.
    â€œWhere did you go from here? Who took you in?” She folded her hands in her lap. The calm pose did not reflect the anguish in her eyes. “Why didn’t you come back?”
    He’d known she’d ask these questions if he lived long enough to answer them. But he’d been too pained and feverish to prepare a reply. Perhaps the truth, or part of it, was best.
    â€œA farmer took me west. Several days’ ride. I was to work for him until I was eighteen.”
    â€œYou were eighteen seven years ago.”
    â€œI can count.”
    A slight tightening of her lips was Ruth’s only reaction. “I waited at the train station every single year.”
    â€œI thought it best if you didn’t see me again.”
    â€œBest for whom?”
    â€œYou.” He moved his hands, indicating the bed, his wound, everything. “Look what happened the first time I stepped back into your life.”
    â€œWho shot you, Noah, and why?”
    â€œI don’t know who shot me.” There the truth ended. “I have no idea why. The rest of Kansas isn’t Kelly Creek. There are men out there such as you could never imagine. Men who’ll do whatever they please for no reason at all.”
    Noah knew men like that very well. On occasion he was one of them.
    The room wavered and spun. Weariness washed over him, and he laid his head back on the pillow and closed his