The Outlaw's Secret Read online

  Her eyes widened in disbelief. “Forget you? How can you say that?”

  “You’re beautiful and lively, and will make some other man very happy. But you need to know that man isn’t me.”

  “I see,” she bit out, dragging her hand away from his. “Is it because you care for that other girl?”

  Tate frowned in confusion. “What other girl?”

  Isabelle waved away the question. “The one you brought with you. That Essie girl.”

  “No, I don’t—”

  “I told Winny I thought you liked her. Especially since you couldn’t stop staring at her all through dinner.”

  He glared down at her, ready to argue that she was mistaken. Until he remembered Essie walking into the room minutes ago, her unfettered hair shining in the lamplight and her blue dress enhancing the green in her hazel eyes. She’d seemed surprised when he’d referred to her being beautiful the other day, but he’d meant it. And when she smiled...

  A weight tugged at his heart at the realization he hadn’t seen that smile in hours. He needed to talk to her—now. Even if he wasn’t sure what to say. It didn’t matter what Isabelle or anyone else thought of them; he and Essie could only be friends. But he feared they were no longer even that.

  “Again, I’m sorry, Isabelle. I’ve got to go.” He stepped past her, ignoring her angry expression and tightly crossed arms. Outside the parlor, he stopped, unsure which way Essie had gone. Was she back upstairs? Or had she gone somewhere else?

  A glance at the front door revealed it was partially open. Tate headed out to the porch and found her sitting there, her arms wrapped around her knees. Closing the door softly behind him, he shored up his courage and determination, then approached her.

  “Mind if I have a seat?” he asked, fully expecting her to bolt the instant she saw who’d come outside.

  Instead she simply glanced up at him and then away. “It’s not my porch, so you’re welcome to sit where you want. Won’t you be missed inside, though?”

  “No.” He knew she was referring to Isabelle. “We came to a mutual understanding that it’s over.”

  Her lips parted as if she wanted to say something, but then they tightened as she lowered her gaze to the ground.

  Tate took a seat next to her. Tension rippled off her hunched shoulders. He’d never seen her so despondent. “I’m sorry, Essie.”

  “For not telling me the truth or for...” Her voice trembled and she coughed to clear it. And yet the tiny crack in her composure made him want to tell her everything. “Or for breaking my trust?”

  Tate stared down at his hands. “Both.” How had the simple job of impersonating his brother become so complicated? “I don’t blame you one bit for not trusting me anymore. But I didn’t lie to you this morning.”

  Her chin whipped up, her eyes smoldering with accusation. “What do you mean?” she countered, each word louder than the last. “You told me you’d never been here before.”

  Looking over his shoulder, Tate hoped the music inside would muffle their words. He didn’t want to have to explain Essie’s outburst to anyone. “Can we discuss this away from the house? Please?”

  She pushed out a sigh and stood. “Fine.”

  Without thought, Tate took her elbow in hand to guide her to the corral across the yard, but Essie tugged her arm free of his hand. “I can walk. Where to?”

  “Over by the corral is fine,” he said, waving her forward toward the fence. He reached up to adjust his hat then remembered he wasn’t wearing it. Without its brim to hide beneath, he felt unprotected and defenseless.

  Essie stopped beside the fence, her arms wrapped across her middle. “Well?”

  “I can’t tell you the reason behind the discrepancy.” She sniffed in annoyance as Tate glanced upward at the few glittering stars. “But you can still trust me, Essie. I need you to trust me.”

  “How?” she asked, but her bitter tone had softened.

  Tate considered her entreaty. Telling her anything that might cause her to doubt he was the Texas Titan was out of the question. But was there something else he could offer? Some part of his life that would allow him to maintain his disguise but also help her trust him again?

  You’re my brother, Tate. I trusted you to have my back.

  The barbed words from eight years ago flashed through his memory. They were something he could share with Essie. Though the idea of talking of that fateful day sparked fresh pain inside him. He’d have to tell the events from Tex’s viewpoint instead of his own, but it would still be something personal, something for her interview.

  Facing her, Tate sucked in a full breath of the cool night air. “I want to tell you the story about the last time I saw my brother.”

  She straightened, her arms falling to her sides. “Really? Why?”

  “You said it yourself—I didn’t give you much to go on that first time you interviewed me. So I’m going to make it up to you now.” He fisted his hands and then forced his fingers to relax. “I also hope it inspires you to trust me again.”

  “Are you sure?” She reached out as if to touch his arm, but stopped herself. “I don’t understand why you said what you did, Tate, but I’m not as angry now. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

  Ignoring the out she’d just presented him with, he sat, his back against the fence rail. “You might want to sit, too. This is a potentially long story.”

  The glimpse of a smile lifted her lips as she settled next to him on the ground. “I love a potentially long story.”

  He chuckled, but he didn’t feel any real mirth. “You might not like this one.” She watched him silently, waiting.

  Where should he start?

  “The last time I saw my brother was eight years ago. We were still living in Idaho then.” He rested his head on the rung behind him, thinking how Tex would tell this story. “Things between us had been strained ever since our mother died two years earlier. I didn’t love the land like my brother did. The only reason I didn’t up and leave earlier was because...well, because I was in love with this girl. Ravena.”

  He hadn’t said her name aloud in ages, but it still had the power to conjure up a thousand memories. There had been a few years when he’d been as besotted with her as Tex had been. Tate had even attempted to win her affections. But she and Tex had had something, a bond as unbroken as the sky and as deep as a chasm. A bond she and Tate had never been able to form, despite their efforts. A bond Tex insisted Tate had helped destroy that night.

  “What was she like?” Essie asked, her tone inquisitive but gentle.

  Tate studied his hands. “She was very pretty and determined and kind. But also serious, more likely to see the clouds than the silver lining.”

  “Sounds a bit like you.” She nudged his shoulder with her own and he attempted to return her teasing smile.

  But Essie was right. He and Ravena were too alike, which was probably one of the reasons they hadn’t worked out. Tex had been the one to coax her into a smile or to get her to laugh so hard tears leaked from her dark brown eyes. She liked talking to Tate, but Tex had brought the sunshine and lightheartedness to her life.

  “What happened?”

  He cleared his throat, bracing for the next part of the story. Tell it from Tex’s side, he reminded himself. “I decided I didn’t want to stay in Idaho anymore. Maybe I was just restless or maybe I was just tired of my older brother always lecturing me about responsibility and the fruits of hard work and not being like our father, who never did much but sleep and gamble.” The words were a perfect match to those he’d voiced to Tex, and he inwardly winced as he imagined what his brother must have felt hearing them over and over again. “Whatever the reason, I made plans to leave, but I wasn’t going alone.”

  “Ravena was going with you,” Essie murmured.

  T
ate nodded. “We made plans to secretly elope. No one knew, not my brother or Ravena’s grandfather. I had everything ready.” He swallowed the tightness in his throat. “My brother had gone over to Ravena’s to return something to her grandfather. Ravena had been packing, as well. When he found me in the barn, saddlebags ready, he put our plan together right away.

  “He was angry at me for leaving, or ‘sneaking off,’ as he put it. How could we leave her grandfather behind? How did we plan to eat and live without a job or money?” Tate shook his head, pain pooling in his stomach as the angry assault of words from both him and Tex filled his memory. “I was angry, too. I loved Ravena and knew it would work out, even if we didn’t have much but each other.”

  Essie shifted beside him but remained quiet, letting him purge the story from his heart.

  “That’s when my brother realized I was holding our mother’s jewel earrings,” Tate said. “They were the only nice things Ma ever owned—a gift from our father when they first married. Even when Pa would go on rampages, searching for anything in the house to gamble away, our mother never said where she’d hidden those earrings. It wasn’t until a few years after he’d left us that she finally removed them from their hiding spot.”

  His lungs squeezed with hurt at the recollection of seeing those glittering jewels in Tex’s fist. It had felt as if that same fist had lodged in his gut. “It was the one thing we had, besides memories, to remember her by. But I wanted to sell them, desperate for money for me and Ravena. My brother accused me of stealing and told me that Ravena deserved better than a thief.” He licked his dry lips, thinking for the first time how much it must have pained Tex to hear those things. “My brother threatened to ride back to Ravena’s farm and tell her grandfather everything.”

  Essie’s warm fingers wrapped around his forearm and squeezed. Without real thought, Tate covered her hand with his, clinging to her touch as the only solid thing in this sea of pain.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking, exactly, with what happened next.”

  “Maybe you weren’t thinking,” she said softly.

  Tate dipped his head in acknowledgment. Neither he nor his brother had been thinking straight. Where Tate had seen only recklessness and deceit in his brother, Tex had likely seen only jealousy and blame in Tate. And Tate had been jealous—jealous that Tex could just up and leave whenever he felt like it, jealous that Ravena had ultimately chosen his twin, and jealous that he himself hadn’t found a love like that.

  “I knocked my brother out cold to stop him from ruining our plans.” He couldn’t describe the blow; otherwise Essie might remember the scar behind his ear. Tex’s parting gift, courtesy of a smashed lantern. When Tate had finally come to an hour or so later, bloodied and his head aching, Tex was gone.

  When Tate could stand without feeling like he might faint, he’d ridden over to Ravena’s. She was still there, but Tex hadn’t arrived, and even as the hour had grown later and later, he hadn’t come. Tate had never seen him again. After a few months, he’d sold the farm, tried in vain to find his brother and then decided to become a Pinkerton detective after reading about Tex’s robberies.

  “I’m guessing you didn’t meet Ravena?” Essie asked. He’d almost forgotten her presence, in spite of the feel of her comforting hand on his arm.

  “No.” Tate shook his head. What reason could he give? He wasn’t sure what had motivated Tex to leave behind the woman he’d loved. Had his brother actually listened to the things Tate had said in anger about him not deserving Ravena? “I left Idaho after that.”

  Essie placed her hand back in her lap. “Do you regret not eloping with her?”

  Did Tex regret his decision? Tate couldn’t say. As for himself, he’d come to terms long ago over things with Ravena. By the time he’d sold the farm, they’d forgiven each other for that night. She’d even hinted at trying to make something work between them, but Tate couldn’t. Whether it was because he’d realized they were too alike or out of loyalty for his brother, he couldn’t say.

  “I regret a lot of the things I said and did out of anger that night,” he replied as himself this time and not as Tex. “But I don’t regret not leaving with her.”

  Was it his imagination or did Essie sound as if she were letting out a held breath? “How sad and difficult that must have been for you. I can’t say I fully understand your particular situation, Tate, but I know all too well the cost of people’s judgment on your character.”

  Tate squirmed a little, guilt rising inside him over what he’d said about Tex’s character. Was it little wonder his brother had been angry enough to smash him over the head and never look back? Telling the story from his brother’s point of view had allowed him to put himself in Tex’s shoes. Something he was ashamed he’d never tried to do before. While he still didn’t condone Tex’s actions over the last eight years, Tate could see where he could’ve been less quick to judge, more willing to understand. Perhaps things would have gone differently if he had.

  “Thank you for telling me all of that.” The breeze had picked up again and it tossed blond wisps across her face. Essie brushed them aside, but they promptly blew back into her eyes. Reaching out before he knew what he was doing, Tate swept the soft strands behind her ear. “N-now I understand much better why you chose this life,” she added in a breathless voice.

  He liked to think his touch affected her, even as her words jerked him back to reality. Tate regretfully lowered his hand from the softness of her cheek.

  When she talked about “this life,” she meant the life of an outlaw. But Tate wasn’t an outlaw. He was a detective, a good one, trying his best to rid this corner of the earth of injustice and greed. The truth barreled up his throat. It would be so easy to confess who he really was.

  Tate opened his mouth to tell her, and then he closed it again. Maintaining his disguise for this job meant the difference between success and failure. His life depended on it—and so might Essie’s if Fletcher ever learned Tate had entrusted her with his secret.

  “I suppose we ought to get back,” he said, climbing to his feet. He didn’t know how long they’d been outside, but he didn’t need Fletcher getting suspicious. Offering Essie his hand, he pulled her to a standing position. “They may still be singing.”

  Essie glanced at the house. “I think I’ll forgo the singing. I want to write down your story in my notebook before bed.”

  Tate nodded. “I guess it’ll provide you with a lot of material, huh?” He forced a chuckle.

  She watched him a moment, her eyes almost black in the dying light. “I know that wasn’t easy to relay, Tate. And I want you to know...” She pursed her lips as she looked away. Then suddenly she was standing on tiptoe and pressing a kiss to his cheek.

  “I trust you again,” she said, easing to the ground.

  With the feel of her lips still tingling against his jaw, he fought the urge to tug her close and kiss her properly. “Why?”

  “Because while you were talking, I was praying.”

  He lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “For what?”

  Essie clasped her hands behind her back and offered him a smile, a real one this time. The sight of it filled his heart with as much joy as her simple kiss had. “For you and for me. And I feel like I should place my trust in you once more.” She gazed up at him then with the most solemn expression he’d ever seen on her face. “So please don’t break that trust again.”

  “I won’t, Essie.”

  She gave a satisfied nod and started toward the house. As Tate trailed her, he sent his own prayer Heavenward. Help me keep that promise, Lord.

  He couldn’t tell her the truth or offer her any kind of relationship beyond friendship—not when his life was tracking one outlaw after another without the freedom to truly settle down. But Essie trusted him again, and tonight, that was all that mattered.

 
Chapter Nine

  Essie waved a final goodbye to the three women standing on the porch. She’d stayed up later than she had planned last night, writing down every word of Tate’s story. But in spite of the limited sleep, she felt rejuvenated and optimistic this morning. Perhaps that was what came from sleeping in an actual bed after two nights on the ground and having a stomach full of something other than burned beans and biscuits.

  Or perhaps it’s because Tate doesn’t care for Isabelle like you thought.

  Pressing her lips over a smile, she nudged her horse after the others. Breakfast had been a quiet affair, unlike the merriment last night. Fletcher and Winnifred had exchanged lingering, sad glances, and Isabelle had pouted, her seat as far away from Tate’s as possible. Essie had chatted pleasantly with Mrs. Paige, while enjoying Tate’s silent company from where he sat beside her.

  As the group passed by the corral, she felt happiness bubbling inside her. That was where she’d kissed Tate on the jaw last night and where he’d gently brushed aside the hair from her face, stealing her breath and causing her heart to gallop. She hadn’t planned to kiss him, but she’d wanted him to understand she fully trusted him again. And after hearing his tragic tale and sensing his burden of guilt and sorrow, she’d acted on the impulse to let him know she cared.

  He hadn’t said much this morning, but he had smiled at her when she’d entered the dining room. A smile that made her want to rush to the piano and plunk out a joyful tune, even if she couldn’t play. Could that mean he might care for her, too?

  She turned to watch him, riding slightly ahead of her and to the right. His hat shadowed his face once more, but she’d memorized every feature last night as he’d talked. He was more somber than her, which only made her want to make him laugh or smile all the more. And even if she didn’t understand why he’d told her he’d never visited the ranch before when he clearly had, she did trust him. He was decent, kind, protective and didn’t make her feel as if she were weak or a burden. In contrast to most everyone else in her life, save her brother Nils, Tate seemed to respect her career and believe her equal to the challenge of being a female dime novelist.