Pat Tracy - Beloved Outcast

He shook his head, then winced. “I don’t give a damn about your theatrics. I want to know why you’re alone.”

“Oh, that.” She glanced from his ruthless stare. She hated admitting to this disreputable stranger that she’d been banished from the wagon train. She attempted a reassuring smile. “I don’t have the plague, if that’s worrying you.”

A grave expression settled over his battered features. “Were you attacked?”

Victoria’s thoughts immediately went to her late-night mishap with Hyrum Dodson, the unfortunate discharge of her rifle, and his piercing howl as he’d hopped about on one foot while trying to ascertain the damage to his other one. “I wouldn’t call it an ‘attack’ so much as a misunderstanding.”

Mr. Youngblood’s good eye narrowed. “Misunderstanding?”

“You see, I thought a bear was invading my wagon.”

Confusion seemed to sweep his countenance. “A bear?”

The man really was limited in his reasoning abilities. She regretted her earlier cutting remark about anyone of reasonable intelligence being able to comprehend her explanations.

But she hadn’t known that Logan Youngblood was blighted by limited mental prowess. Her gaze made a quick foray across his virile physique. What a pity that his physical endowments were not matched by an equally keen intellect. Had his lack of mental fortitude led to an association with unsavory men who’d introduced him to a life of crime?

“Of course, as it turned out, there really wasn’t a bear.” She carefully enunciated each word so that he could grasp what had happened. “But I had no way of knowing that at the time, did I?”

His cracked lips parted, but he didn’t speak. Instead, he seemed to regard her with a kind of morbid fascination.

Since leaving Boston, Victoria had become familiar with that look. As usual in her encounters with Western men, she was mystified as to why he had difficulty understanding her.

“The point is, I didn’t mean to hurt Mr. Dodson. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“How did you. hurt him?”

She sighed. “I shot him.”

Mr. Youngblood retreated a step. “You what?”

“I heard something outside my wagon in the wee hours of the morning. The day before, one of the men mentioned seeing a black bear in the vicinity. He warned us to be on the lookout.”

“Couldn’t you tell the difference between a man and a bear?”

“It was dark.”

Mr. Youngblood’s good eye blinked spasmodically. “Lady, you’re the one who should be locked up.”

At the reminder of how she’d found the battered Logan Youngblood, Victoria’s gaze drifted to the stockade. “I didn’t mortally wound Mr. Dodson. I just winged him.”

“Where?”

“Does it really matter?”

“I’m sure it did to him,” Youngblood countered.

“His foot.”

“What were you aiming for?”

She licked her lips, not at all liking the feeling that she’d lost control of their conversation. If anyone ought to be answering questions, it was him. He was the one who’d been incarcerated.

Strictly speaking, even if he wasn’t behind bars, he was still a prisoner. To be more specific, he was her prisoner. And, as she saw it, she was duty-bound to escort him to Trinity Falls to answer for his ill deeds.

“Everything happened so quickly, I didn’t really have time to aim at anything in particular.” She straightened. “But we seem to have strayed from the central topic.”

“So they kicked you off the wagon train for shooting one of its members?” he asked grimly, ignoring her efforts to get their discussion on track.

“Oh, no, they just took away my rifle for that.”

The nervous tic quickened. “Then what happened? I mean, other than the wagon train being attacked and everyone but you being killed, I can’t think of a single reason for you to have been separated from the others.”

“Of course you can’t,” she conceded, striving for the patience one used when dealing with a child. The trouble was, she hadn’t been around that many children.

“Let me guess,” he interjected softly. “They tossed you off the train because you drove them crazy with your damned riddles.”

She’d heard head injuries caused confusion. Was that why he seemed incapable of understanding the simplest of concepts? “How many blows to the head did you receive?”

Logan bit back an oath. Swearing at the contrary female who’d released him from the stockade would do no earthly good. He raked a hand through his hair. The subsequent flash of pain made him suck in his breath.

He looked toward the morning sun. Time was running out for them. They needed to leave the fort. “Look, lady, I—”

“My name is Miss Amory,” she told him in that dainty, haughty voice of hers.

“Which will make no difference to an Indian with justice on his mind.”

Her greenish eyes widened. “Justice?”

“The red man’s kind of justice. It’s swift and hard.”

She looked over her shoulder, as if expecting an arrow to come flying at her. Framed by a splash of yellow sunlight, she appeared achingly vulnerable. A slim woman, with reddish hair that was in the process of escaping its anchoring pins.

There was little logic to it, but he felt compelled to protect the foolish creature.

“We need to be on our way,” he repeated.

“I wasn’t the one asking all the questions.”

He scowled. Irritating female.

He would find out later how she’d become separated from the wagon train. He was sure that when he did, he’d learn she was responsible for her predicament. As his gaze dropped to the pert curve of her breasts and the slight fullness of her hips, outlined by her dusty dark green dress, there was something else he was sure of. Mr. Dodson with the shot foot had been prowling around Miss Amory’s wagon with mischief on his mind.

The kind of mischief that had been going on since Eve had plucked that forbidden apple from its branch and offered it to Adam. The kind of mischief that would probably shock this red-haired Eastern woman to the soles of her sensible little black walking shoes.

Again he was struck by how vulnerable she appeared in her makeshift campsite in the middle of the abandoned fort. He turned again to the six placid oxen munching on the loose hay scattered around them. “I’ll hitch the wagon.”

“I’ve been responsible for my team since leaving Independence, and I’m fully capable of attending to them now.”

Miss Amory’s raised voice halted him in his tracks. He turned on his heel and glared at the contrary woman. “Are you turning down my help?”

“No, but I don’t need a felon ordering me about. While we’re on the subject, there’s something else we need to clear up.”

Her casual use of the word felon made Logan yearn to shake her. Instead, he swallowed his anger. He didn’t have time to trade insults with Miss Amory, not with warring tribes of Blackfeet and Shoshones on the verge of attacking.

Later, he promised himself, he would delight in making this overbearing woman take back every insult she’d heaped upon him.

“Do you want to live or die, Miss Amory?”

Her slender hand shot to the bodice of her simple dress. “Are—are you threatening me?”

“Hell no, but we’re in a tough spot and need to move.”

“So you keep telling me.”

He closed the eye that wasn’t swollen shut and prayed for patience. “They’re still out there.”

“I’m aware of that. But surely we have enough time to establish our…er…chain of command, as I believe it’s called.”

Feeling not one iota of increased patience, Logan opened his eye. He felt downright mean and put-upon. He’d ridden to the fort to deliver Night Wolf’s warning. His reward for leaving the safety of Trinity Falls had been a nasty showdown with Windham, a brutal beating, and being left to die.