The Outlaw Takes A Bride (The Burnett Brides) (20 page)

“No, Mother.” His voice was firm, sure. “I’ll never marry. Don’t even think about trying to set me up with anyone.”

“All men say that. Your brother Travis said the same thing, and look, he’s happily married now,” Eugenia exclaimed.

“I’m different.”

“You are no different from any other man. Stubborn as can be when it comes to settling down.”

“But Tucker is going to marry Beth?” Tanner asked. Eugenia gazed at her older son. “Well, Tucker hasn’t sworn he’ll marry her. Only that he will give it some time before making up his mind.”

“What?” Tanner said, his voice rising. “He better damn sure marry her. He should be glad to be getting a woman as fine as Beth.”

Eugenia watched the anger cross Tanner’s face like a flash fire in a drought. He was furious, and she didn’t understand. Had she missed something?

“She has no one. The war has taken everything from her. She has to marry,” he said the frost in his voice so noticeable that it surprised Eugenia.

She watched in interest. Tanner was tense; his eyes glared, but his words were sincere.

“We’ll take care of Beth, Tanner. No matter what happens, I’d never turn someone out into the cold with no place to go.”

***

Later that same morning, Tanner almost ran over Beth in the hallway outside her room. She was just coming out of her bedroom, her hair neatly in place. A dress, the golden brown of burnished autumn, brought out the color in her cheeks and made her hair glisten. God, he wanted to take her right here in his mother’s house.

He glanced down the empty hall and grabbed Beth by the arm. She tensed and resisted him, but he managed to push her back into her room.

“What are you doing?” she hissed between clenched teeth.

Beth’s room was across the hall and down two doors from Rose and Travis’s room, but they were out riding this morning, and his mother was in the office taking care of business. They were upstairs alone.

“I’d like a word with you,” he said, firmly shutting the door behind him and blocking any escape route.

“Are you crazy? If your mother or brother were to find us, we’d arouse suspicion. Get out, now!”

“Not until I’ve asked a few questions.”

“Like what?” she said, jerking loose of his hold.

He stepped to within inches of her. “Like why in the hell you never told me that my brother was the man you were going to marry?”

“I would have loved to have shared that information with you, but Tanner and Tucker? How was I to know you were related,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her words. “And you never asked for the name of the man who was going to marry me, remember.”

“He’s my brother, damn it!” Tanner said, his voice louder than he’d intended.

“Shh!” she said right back at him, her face inches from his. “How was I to know? The better question would be why weren’t you honest with me? Why didn't you give me your full name?”

“I didn’t think it was information you needed.”

“I’d say you were wrong.” She took a deep breath, her chest rising with indignation. “If you had used Burnett just once, I would have known. Instead, I was as surprised as you!”

He wanted to reach out, smooth back her hair, touch her, taste her full lips until she was begging him to take her, but she belonged to his brother now, not him. She was strictly off limits.

He grabbed her by the arm, bringing her close to him. “My brother can never know what happened between us. You’re going to marry him, just like before.”

Her hazel-green eyes turned to emerald stones that glittered as cold as ice. “Why would I tell him? You’ve made it clear that our one night was a mistake. So why would I give up marrying the man I originally planned to for you?” She pushed him away. “Don’t worry about me; I’m a survivor. No matter what, I’ll be fine.”

Tanner ran his hand through his hair, wanting to clear his thinking. He hadn’t been honest with her. He hadn’t told her his last name. He had made it clear that their night of passion was just that, a night, not a lifetime. But God, how could those simple decisions come back to haunt him, hurt him, as they were at this moment. Why did life always seem to be so complicated?

And no amount of reasoning could shake the awful feeling of frustration that seemed to overwhelm him at the thought that Beth belonged to his brother and not him.

“I don’t like it any better than you, but what’s happened is over and done with. From here on you’re Tucker’s woman, my future sister-in-law.”

She glanced at him and swallowed hard. “Get out! Get out now before I scream and bring the entire house in here.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Don’t test me. I’m angry enough to risk it all. Just get out and leave me alone,” she said, her voice suddenly choking.

Tanner glanced at her and knew he had to leave. He had to go before one of them said something they would always regret, but bitterness choked him. It wasn’t fair. Why this woman and his brother?

Quickly, he opened the door and peered outside. The hall was clear. He glanced back at Beth one last time, feeling that things would never be the same.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said before he quickly slipped out the door.

***

Beth watched him shut the door and wanted to scream, but tears were clogging her throat. He hadn’t meant to hurt her? What had he meant, then? Just to teach her that sex could be truly beautiful between a man and a woman and then go his merry way as if nothing had happened?

Tears streamed down Beth’s face, and she felt as if a chapter of her life had just closed along with that door— a brief moment of happiness that had left her reeling with the knowledge that she had betrayed the man she was supposed to marry, only to find out her deception had been with his brother.

It couldn’t get any worse. Though she had never meant to hurt Tucker, she felt she had deceived him in the worst sort of way. How could she tell him that she had been with Tanner in a way that could convey the complex emotions behind what happened between them, that she had come to rely on Tanner’s strength, his kindness, his compassion, and that he had appealed to her in a way no man ever had? Part of her wanted to forget about Tucker’s letters and follow her heart to Tanner.

But Tanner didn’t want her. He had apologized for having sex with her, and that had hurt her even more. The general had taken her, no apologies, no regrets, but sex with him had been a duty to fulfill. With Tanner, it had been so much more than a duty, and that was what frightened her most of all.

She could not marry Tanner. He had made it painfully clear that he wasn’t interested in her, that he didn’t care. Their brief night together was just that one night of great sex to him, though their lovemaking had seemed so much more. He’d bluntly told her he would show her just how bad he could be, and he had certainly fulfilled that promise.

Maybe the hired gun was not capable of showing his feelings or emotions. Maybe the war had permanently damaged him to the point that no matter what happened, he was unable to be with a woman on a permanent basis? All she knew was that he didn’t want to be with her.

The tears came faster as she thought of what she had done. Unintentionally, she had cast a shadow of pain and doubt over her budding relationship with Tucker. And even worse, every time she looked at Tucker, the resemblance was just enough to remind her of Tanner.

She swiped at the tears that rolled unheeded down her face. She would get over Tanner. She would forget about him in time, and she would make her relationship with Tucker work. She had no choice.

For if she didn’t marry Tucker, she had no idea what would become of her.

Tanner was tempted to just keep on riding. Not to stop in Fort Worth but to continue riding until either he or his horse dropped from exhaustion. But the image of his mother’s face, filled with joy when she’d seen him in the hotel restaurant yesterday morning, returned like a blow between the eyes.

And he knew he could never hurt her like that again.

No matter how much he wanted to run away from the problems of Beth, the Bass gang, and even his brother, the marshal, he could not leave town again without saying good-bye.

With his unexpected homecoming, he was enjoying the family he’d long since given up ever seeing again. He just didn’t have the strength to say farewell right now. He’d missed his family, their oddities, the way they bickered among one another, and the way his mother still hovered over them. And he had missed being home when his father had died.

So many years had passed, yet they’d welcomed him back with open arms and even fewer questions. He’d never expected such a homecoming, and he wondered why he hadn’t come home when he had the chance, before he lost everything.

At the time he hadn’t thought, he’d only been running from the horror of war, of men dying and the nightmare he was living, which plagued him even now in his sleep.

And then there was Beth. Sweet, beautiful Beth, whom he thought about way too much, who it seemed was engaged to his brother but had given him the most pleasurable night of his life. Images of Beth lingered, ever present on the fringes of his mind.

He had to give her up; she was Tucker’s intended. He had no right to even think about her, let alone remember how she felt in his arms, the sweet smell of lavender on her neck, or her quiet strength and dignity. Somehow he had to abandon his memories of Beth and never forget she belonged with his brother.

If it hadn’t been Tucker that Beth was to marry, it would have been some other faceless man, but never Tanner.

After the life he’d led, he had no right to be happy, to consider a woman coming into his life. Robbing banks had made his life transient. He was constantly on the move, leaving at a moment’s notice. His was a life in which no permanent commitments were possible. He didn’t deserve a good woman like Beth.

Yet Beth’s mission had been to find a husband. And Tanner knew he had nothing to offer her. He could only give her heartache, and somehow he thought she might have had a life already filled with that terrible emotion. His brother at least had a job and a place to live, which was more than Tanner could provide.

Still, it hurt to think that Beth had not told him it was his own brother she was engaged to. He would never have intentionally slept with Tucker’s woman. However, she hadn’t known any more than he had. Now they had this moment in time that he and Beth shared, a night spent exploring each other’s bodies and consuming each other’s souls. That one night would forever haunt him in memory and guilt.

Their weeks together would be like a pleasant remembrance to take out and replay over and over as he sat around a lonely campfire. She would be safe in the arms of Tucker while he was wandering from town to town, solitary and cold, searching for his life.

How could he blame Beth for what had happened between them? He hadn’t given her his last name. He hadn’t told anyone his real last name in many years because he’d been afraid that somehow his family would find out he was alive. Now one tiny slip of a woman had done more damage to his exile in the weeks he’d known her than all the years he’d been missing.

The thought of turning her over to any man had been painful enough, but the thought of her with his own brother made him totally irrational—one night of pleasure exchanged for a lifetime of guilt and deceit.

Tanner spurred his horse into a full-blown gallop, dust rising from the horse’s pounding hooves. Trees and bushes whipped by him at an uncontrolled speed. He was a fool. He didn’t deserve the love of a good woman, the pleasure that one night had brought, being loved and cherished by any human being.

But somehow Beth had managed to break down all his barriers and had shaken him to his very core. And no amount of running was going to clear that fact from his mind.

Beth was beautiful. She was a strong woman who had endured and survived the War Between the States, which was more than he could say. Somehow he didn’t feel as if he had survived but only lived through the battles, and now he existed until his nightmares caught up with him and jerked him out of a sound sleep.

Tanner pulled on the reins, slowing the chestnut mare to a slow trot. It wasn’t the horse’s fault his life was in total disarray.

Regardless of the situation with Beth, he couldn’t stay with his family for long or else they would be touched by his past, and he refused to soil them with his tainted history. However, leaving Beth behind with his brother was going to be the toughest thing he’d ever done.

***

Beth watched as Rose sat in a comer of the parlor and picked up a pair of knitting needles once again.

“I’m going to learn how to use these blasted things,” she said, frustrated at her jerky movements. “If Eugenia can do this, I can, too.”

She paused, looking at Beth expectantly. “Do you knit?”

“No, I occasionally embroider, but even that I haven’t done in ages,” Beth said, watching Rose clumsily work the needles.

“Travis wanted a lady for a wife, so I’m trying to learn a few of the finer arts in my spare time,” Rose admitted.

“Oops! I think you just dropped a stitch,” Beth warned as she watched a piece of yarn form a bubble in the middle of a row of neat pearl stitches.