Carol Arens - Wed To The Texas Outlaw

“Good day to you, ma’am.” Stanley plucked Miss Cherry’s sleeve and hustled her out the open doors of the courtroom.

My, but that was a relief. The very last thing she wanted to do was report that Boone had been forced to marry that brightly hued woman.

As far as Melinda could tell, Boone was a man who could capture the outlaw gang all on his own. He had a hard, worldly edge to him that his brother did not have.

Truly, all Boone had to do was cast the outlaws the scowl that he was currently giving the judge and they would put themselves in irons.

“It’s a wife or a jail cell, Walker. The choice is yours.”

“That is no choice at all!” Melinda leaped to her feet, feeling the injustice to her bones.

“It’s the one he’s got, young woman. Perhaps you would like to volunteer for the assignment...grant this outlaw his freedom.”

The challenge had been laid at her feet...and it was not as though the idea had not been making her stomach churn for the past fifteen minutes. Could she really make such a leap without running outside and losing her breakfast?

Marrying a stranger, no matter that he didn’t quite feel like one because of Lantree, was beyond bold. It was life-changing and perhaps the most foolish thing she would ever do.

But in the end, family stood up for family. It was the way love worked. Lantree loved his brother and Rebecca loved Lantree. Melinda loved Rebecca and they all loved baby Caroline, therefore—

“Perhaps I would!”

Her mind reeled; she could scarcely find her breath. With three words she had changed the course of her life. In all, though, she was not sorry she had risen to Mathers’s challenge even if she had to resist the urge to run outside and be sick.

Honestly, there was nothing else to be done.

Judging by the loud objections of Stanley and Boone, they were not well pleased with her decision. Indeed, her ears rang with Boone’s curses and Stanley’s bellows of outrage.

Mathers was grinning, though. It occurred to her that maybe he had brought the harlot here simply to goad her into volunteering. When one thought about it, Melinda would make a far more believable homesteader than Scarlet Cherry would have.

Yes, indeed. All she needed was a couple of sturdy brown dresses and she could play the part to perfection.

“I’d like to speak with you for a moment, Boone.” Her quiet statement silenced the profanity. “Over in the corner.”

She led the way toward a bench in the rear of the room.

Boone followed, then the guard and, after him, Stanley. Only Mathers remained near the podium, hands in his pockets. Rocking back on his heels, he looked like the cat who’d swallowed the canary.

“Gentlemen, I’d like a word with Mr. Walker in private,” she said with a nod at her escorts.

“I’ll allow it,” called the judge.

With a scowl at everyone, Stanley Smythe followed the guard to the far side of the room.

“Miss Winston, have you lost your mind?” Boone whispered before they had even taken a seat on the bench.

“You’ve been speaking to my mother?” She laughed as she fluffed her skirt on the bench. Couldn’t help it because she clearly heard her mother’s voice in her head. She had heard the disapproving tone too many times growing up to not hear the familiar voice in this moment of upheaval.

“This is hardly a laughing matter, ma’am. Mathers isn’t talking about acting married, he’ll have us hog-tied in a second.”

“Judge Mathers?” She stood and turned toward the podium. “What if we simply acted as though we were married? It would accomplish the same thing.”

“It would accomplish your reputation being ruined. I’ll not have that misfortune darkening my career. No, no, indeed. It’s marriage or prison.”

She sat back down.

“We’re strangers.” Boone rubbed a hand over his face. She heard his palm scrape the rough stubble of his beard, the chain of his handcuffs jingle. “Why do you want to help me?”

“Because we aren’t strangers at all. We may have only just met, but through Lantree, Rebecca and Caroline we are family...forever bound.”

He stared at her, his brows lowered while he shook his head in apparent denial of the facts.

Well, no wonder he was in a sullen state. He was being put in a completely unfair situation.

Yes, indeed, and hadn’t he spent the better part of his life the victim of an unfair situation?

“Your Honor?” Melinda stood again. “Once Mr. Walker fulfills his mission and you grant him his freedom, can our marriage be annulled?”

“Under a certain condition.”

She sat down, arching a brow at her reluctant relative. “There, you see? Once we meet the condition, everything will be as it was before, except that you will be a free man.”

“Not worth the risk.”

“But it is! Do you know how much your brother has worried about you over the years? How he’s watched the Wanted posters, praying that you hadn’t been captured or killed, hanged even?” She caught his hand and pressed it between her palms. “Boone, you owe it to Lantree to fight for your freedom.”

“With you as the ammunition?” He snatched his hand from hers. “Woman, are you insane?”

Chapter Three

“While it’s true that I’m overwhelmed by this hornet’s nest we’ve landed in, I’m quite lucid. I understand what I am doing.”

“I’m in a hornet’s nest. You are not.”

The woman smiled at him as though they were not about to jump hand in hand off a cliff. Hell’s curses, there was a twinkle in her eye.

“You’re making light of a serious situation. The danger is as real as razor’s edge. Think for a minute...your family will be devastated if something happens to you.” He’d shake some sense into her if his hands weren’t shackled.

“Our family, Boone. Believe me when I say that you are an important member—you can’t know how much you are loved.”

He might be able to dismiss what she was saying if her demeanor had not become suddenly serious. As intently as he looked into her eyes, there was no trace of the woman who could clearly get anything she wanted with a smile. “Your absence has been hard on your brother. You owe it to him to do whatever you need to do to come home.”

As true as that might be, he could hardly risk Miss Winston’s safety to accomplish it.

“Besides,” she said, “they will have every confidence, as I do, that you are fully able to protect me. And might I point out that I am far from a withering violet. I am well able to care for my own safety.”

That statement just went to show that the lovely Miss Winston didn’t know a hill of beans about what she was getting herself into.

The woman looked as delicate as a porcelain doll. If she’d ever even been in an outlaw’s presence, he’d eat his hat.

“My brother hasn’t seen me in half a lifetime. He can’t know what I will or won’t do.”

“Maybe not, but, Boone, I know.”

“No.” He stood. It wasn’t worth the risk. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”

The walk across the room to the judge felt like twenty miles uphill.

“I appreciate the offer, Your Honor, but you know as well as I do that the risk to Miss Winston is too great.”

“It’s a damned shame, son.”

“It’s a damned outrage!” Smythe actually shook his fist at Mathers.

While it might not be an outrage, it was a damned shame. He’d come so close to freedom, had nearly been able to taste it. Sleeping in the open and being able to go wherever the wind blew him had been within his grasp. He’d been only a decision away from being able to see his brother again.

That was the worst of it, he reckoned. Not seeing Lantree.

“You’re right, Smythe. It is an outrage.” Mathers turned from the lawyer to pin Boone with a hard gaze. “If you choose to spend your days behind bars, that’s no one’s tragedy but your own. But those folks living in Jasper Springs? Well, they live in fear every day. You’ll keep Miss Winston safe by your decision, but their daughters don’t dare to even go into town. The young men are at even more risk. Why, just last week—well, if you aren’t interested, there’s no point in reliving the tragedy.”