THE OUTLAW BRIDE Read online

  "Yeah, yeah." He slapped Esmeralda's rump hard. "Don't worry, Jen. This won't take long."

  "See she don't give you the clap," Jenny called, and her patrons in the saloon roared with renewed laughter as Eldon slung Esmeralda over his saddle, mounted his horse and kicked it into a full gallop.

  He didn't take her far. Just beyond the edge of town, riding into a cluster of boulders and tumble-weed. He drew the mount to a halt, turned, and shoved her off. She landed on her back on the sun-baked ground. Hair in her eyes, she pushed herself up, hands behind her, and when he dismounted and came closer, she spat at him.

  He only smiled. "I like a little fight in my women," he said. "So you just give me a good struggle, Esmeralda. I'll enjoy it all the more."

  "Stay away from me, Eldon Brand!"

  He kept coming forward, unfastening his belt as he did. "I'll know it's all make-believe, though. You want me. You've always wanted me."

  "Keep your hands off me!"

  Esmeralda had taken all she was going to from this family. Her hand slid beneath her skirts to the blade she kept there. It was inside her garter, cool against her thigh.

  Eldon straddled her, dropped to his knees, and reached up to part her cropped jacket and grip the neck of her white, frilly blouse. He tore it open, popping its buttons. Her hand closed around the hilt of her blade. "Don't make me hurt you, Eldon. Stop this now."

  He grinned at her and gripped the front of the chemise she wore underneath. She pulled the blade, drove it upward and into his chest. For a moment he just froze there, staring down at her with wide, surprised eyes. Blood bubbled from his chest when she yanked the knife out. Then from his mouth when he tried to say something. He fell sideways even as his eyes glazed over.

  She jumped to her feet and stood there, staring down at him. Dead. He was dead. "Dios, what have I done!" She backed away, the knife gleaming scarlet in her hand. She stared down at it, at the blood on her hands, on her once white blouse and chemise, and she began to tremble.

  "Hold it right there!" a voice shouted. "Dammit, what the hell have you done to my brother!"

  She couldn't turn, couldn't move. Shock seemed to have paralyzed her. She was still standing there when Waylon Brand, the famous outlaw, slid off his horse and raced toward his fallen brother, while Blake, the quiet giant, walked up behind her and pressed his gun barrel to her spine.

  "Eldon?" Waylon rolled his brother over, shook him. "Eldon, come on!" But Esmeralda knew it was no use. She'd knifed the man right through his black heart.

  "He … he hurt me. He was going to … to rape me. I had no choice—"

  "Shut up, whore!" Blake's pistol barrel drove into the small of her back. "I oughtta shoot you right here." He looked past her. "Waylon?"

  "Dead," Waylon said softly, his head hanging low. "She killed him, Blake. She killed our baby brother."

  Blake swore loud and long. Waylon's eyes looked damp. He lifted his head, looked her right in the eye. "Get a rope," he told Blake.

  There was a long moment of strained silence then, as she stood there between them. Waylon, whipcord-lean, with a legendary temper and looks as dark as her own. And Blake, as big as Garrison, but blond rather than brown-haired. Quiet, for the most part, but a Brand through and through, and just mean enough to prove it.

  "No." It was Blake who spoke.

  Waylon's gaze snapped to his brother's then. "Why the hell not? She killed Eldon in cold blood. I say we string her up here and now."

  Blake shook his head. "The whole family deserves to see her hang. Hell, the whole town. Be good for 'em. A nice reminder of what happens when someone dares to mess with the Brands. Besides, it's the way Garrison would want it."

  Esmeralda's blood ran cold. She wasn't frozen anymore. In fact, she was suddenly struggling without even thinking about it. Fighting for her life while the hulking Blake held her firmly and almost effortlessly. They were going to hang her! Kill her! Take her life!

  Waylon got to his feet and backhanded her. She went still, first with shock and pain, and then, slowly, she slipped into darkness.

  The next time she opened her eyes, she was in a jail cell, facing a barred window, beyond which men scurried to construct what would obviously be a gallows. And it wasn't going to take long, either, at the rate they were going.

  "Don't you worry, Esmeralda." The sheriff's voice drifted lazily into her cell. "We're gonna hang you with a brand-new rope. And that's way better than you deserve."

  Lowering her head, Esmeralda automatically closed her hand around the cool, glass-like stone she wore around her neck. In his final moments, her father had asked her to get it from the small wooden box he kept under his bed, and he'd pushed it into her hands, saying it would protect her and set her on the right path.

  She closed her eyes and held it tight. "Father, if this crystal skull of yours truly has any magic in it, I need it now. I need it as I have never needed it before."

  * * *

  Chapter 2

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  Quinn, Texas, 1999

  You'd have thought all hell was breaking loose the way everyone was acting around here, Elliot thought. Wes had called him at the Texas Brand this morning, sounding all wrought up and asking for a hand. Naturally Elliot was happy to oblige his brother, and he picked his sister Jessi up on the way for good measure. But really, things weren't nearly as bad as Wes had made them sound on the phone. Then again, Wes did tend to overreact to things.

  Taylor, Wes's wife, looked like hell. And that was saying something, because Taylor was a knockout on her worst day. Still, she was sacked out on the sofa in the living room when Elliot and Jessi arrived at their brother's Sky Dancer Ranch. Taylor's face was sporting a greenish tinge, and her hair was a mess, and two minutes after Elliot and Jessi walked in, Taylor got up and ran for the nearest bathroom with a hand to her mouth.

  "Dang, Wes, what'd you do to her?" Jessi asked, only half kidding. She looked a little worried.

  Wes, as dark as Taylor was—they were both half Comanche—shook his head. "Damned if I know. She's been like this since sunup. And I've got two mares about to foal out in the stables, and a fence down in the north pasture, and—"

  "Take a breath, big brother," Elliot said. He sauntered easily into the kitchen, began making a pot of coffee, and kept on talking. "We're here, we'll handle it," he said, raising his voice so they could hear him in the next room. "You know you're gonna give yourself an ulcer with this attitude?" He flicked the button on the coffeemaker and went back to the living room just as Taylor came back. She walked like a zombie, head hanging down, feet dragging. Wes eased her back onto the sofa and tugged a blanket over her.

  "Stomach bug, Tay?" Elliot asked.

  "I don't know," she muttered. "But I do know I can't lie around here all day."

  "Sure you can. The world is gonna go on just fine if you take a day off." Elliot grinned. "Now, Jessi's gonna check on those mares, and I'm gonna fix the fence that's down, and Wes is gonna call in some reinforcements. Chelsea will come over to play nursemaid to our ailing sis." He shrugged, looking at Wes. "See? Simple. No need for panic."

  "Nothing ever rattles you, does it?" Wes asked.

  Elliot made his palm flat and moved it in front of him. "Steady as a rock. I don't believe in getting rattled."

  "I'll run out and check on those mares now," Jessi said. But she had a speculative look in her eyes when they lingered on Taylor. "Maybe you should see a doctor."

  "No time," Taylor said, lifting her head weakly. "I have to go to the university today."

  "The hell you do!" Wes tried to ease her back onto her pillow.

  "No, Wes, I have to. It's important I get this find under lock and key as soon as … oh, God…" Clutching her belly, she lay down again.

  "Hey, Taylor, will you relax?" Elliot got to his feet. "You need something taken to the university, just give it to me. I can run it over there for you."

  She opened one eye. "Really?"

  "Sure. I assume you don't need
to be an acclaimed archaeology professor to deliver relics, just to dig them up, right?"

  Taylor licked her lips. "It's a very, very rare find, Elliot. I think it might be Mayan. It's important it gets there safely. I need it under lock and key as soon as possible. All right?"

  "Hey, you know you can depend on me."

  She looked doubtful. "No side trips. None of this casual Tom Sawyer attitude, either, Elliot. You need to take this seriously. Straight to the university. I know you think nothing is all that important in life, but this is. Okay?"

  He held up his fingers in a Boy Scout salute. "Yes, ma'am. On one condition. You let Wes take you to see Doc while I'm gone. Just in case. All right?"

  She rolled her eyes. "Jessi's a vet. That's gonna have to be close enough for now."

  Elliot shook his head and sent his brother a look that said he ought to make his wife see reason. Wes gave him a bare nod of acknowledgment, then vanished for a second. He returned with a small cardboard box, taped shut and marked "Property of Texas State University, Archaeological Department." He handed it to Elliot.

  Elliot took it, and when he saw the serious looks on Wes and Taylor's faces, he pretended to trip, sending the box flying into the air as he stumbled. They both lunged for him, shouting, hands outstretched, as he snatched the box out of midair and sent them a wink. "Just kidding."

  Taylor collapsed back on her pillows with an indulgent half smile and a shake of her head. Wes swore at him. Jessi punched him in the shoulder. "Go on, and then get back here and help me with those foals."

  "I won't be an hour," he promised, and headed back into the kitchen. He stopped only long enough to fill a borrowed cup with the freshly brewed coffee, and then he went straight out to his pickup, set the box on the seat beside him and started off on his mission of dire importance.

  He grinned, shaking his head. To Wes, everything was of dire importance. To Elliot, nothing was. He just went with the flow, rolled with the current. Life was so easy if you just let it be. He never got emotional or upset or exchanged a loud word with anyone. Not ever.

  He had just driven through the town of Quinn and was on the barely blacktopped road leading out of it when his curiosity began niggling at him. Taylor had seemed as concerned with the safety of whatever trinket was in that box as Wes had. Must be something pretty special. Mayan, she'd said. That would make it old. Really old.

  He looked at the box. He probably shouldn't open it up to take a peek. But then again, if he put it right back in, no one would ever know the difference, right?

  He looked at the box again. Mayan. It must be something.

  What the hell, he thought. It certainly wouldn't hurt to take a peek. Aside from being calm and a bit of a practical joker, Elliot was also known for his curious nature. He kept one eye on the road, set his coffee cup on the floor, and reached over to pick at the tape on the box with his free hand.

  It took a moment to get it loose, but he did. And then he automatically glanced behind him, as if he feared being caught. Grinning at his own silliness, he saw nothing but the town of Quinn at his back as he drove slowly away from it. He dug into the box, feeling past all the paper packing … and finding at last what felt like a small stone.

  He pulled it out and looked at it. "Whoa, this is pretty neat." A small crystal skull, just the right size to fit in the palm of his hand, stared back at him from empty eye sockets. "Hey, fella. You look worse than Taylor does." Grinning at his own joke, a common occurrence with Elliot, he turned the thing over in his hand, checking out the back. There were words etched into the quartz there. Foreign. Not Spanish, but something else. He read them aloud, trying his best to pronounce them phonetically. And as he did, it seemed the skull-shaped hunk of quartz crystal in his hand started to get hot.

  He shouldn't have looked away from the road when he did, because a small deer leaped in front of him, and he saw it too late to brake in time. He jerked the wheel, skidded sideways and wound up on intimate terms with a big old oak tree. There was a hard impact, and his head snapped forward, cracking against the steering wheel. Damn.

  He drew a deep breath, lifted his head, and saw that his windshield was cracked, the nose of his truck crumpled, and the deer was bounding merrily away as if it hadn't just royally screwed up Elliot's day. Man, Wes was going to be upset with him. Messing up a simple errand so thoroughly.

  His head hurt, and his hand sort of burned. The stone he'd been holding must have flown out of his grasp, and he didn't see it on the floor anywhere. Damn. Taylor and Wes were going to shoot him if he lost that thing. The windows were down. Maybe it had flown out. It was probably lying on the grass somewhere in plain sight.

  No problem. Nothing to get upset over. Accidents happen. He would find the danged rock, and his insurance would pay for the damage to his truck. No big deal.

  He got out of the truck and turned back the way he'd come, figuring once he located that hunk of quartz, he would have to walk the short distance back to Quinn and use a phone. But the town he saw up ahead was not Quinn.

  It was duller and … and older … and…

  Holy cow, a horse and buggy were bouncing over the main road! And there was another one. Was something going on in town that he didn't know about? They were sure raising a helluva dust cloud behind them.

  But wait a minute. The streets were paved. So where was all that dust coming from? What the hell?

  He rubbed the sore spot on his head, gave it a shake, and turned back toward his pickup, almost as if to ground himself. Never mind horses and buggies and dirt where blacktop should be. He needed to find that rock.

  But his pickup wasn't there. The tree was. But it was unscarred. The ground, too, was unmarred by tire tracks or skid marks or even so much as a bent blade of grass. The pickup had vanished.

  Elliot searched for his legendary calm as he felt disorientation hit him between the eyes so fast it made him dizzy.

  "Okay, so maybe I banged my head just a little harder than I thought." He touched the spot, and his fingers came away with traces of blood. Closing his eyes, he gave his head another shake, opened them again. No truck. And that odd horse-and-buggy town was still in the distance…

  …looking like some cheap movie set.

  Hey, maybe that was it.

  Right, El. They're making a movie right in your own town and you never heard a thing about it. That's likely.

  He dismissed the voice of reason, gave his head another stern shake. "What else could it be? Doesn't matter. It's no big deal, and all this has some simple explanation."

  Even the vanishing pickup truck? I don't think so.

  "It does. I'm gonna walk back to town, even if it is looking mighty strange to me, and when I get there, this is all gonna make perfect sense. I'll probably have a good laugh over it." He smiled. "Yeah, it's gonna be a tale to tell all the baby Brands when they get a little bigger. Sure as shootin'. And once I hear it and finish laughing, I'll use a phone and get some help. Simple. No problem." He licked his lips.

  Right. So where did your pickup go?

  "I'll think about that later." He forced himself to walk toward town and refused to listen to the questions in his head, questions like, even if it was some kind of movie set or reenactment, how had they set it all up in the time it took him to drive the length of a football field and hit a tree? His head hurt more with every step, and his hand still burned a little. When he looked at his palm he saw the shape of that stupid rock of Taylor's, tattooed into his flesh like a brand.

  But things only got stranger. As he got closer to the town, it looked more and more like a movie set from an old western, only there were no cameras in sight. No director. Just plank-board sidewalks and buildings from a bygone century, with hitching rails in front, horses tied to many of them. And right in the center of all of it, there was a great big ol' gallows standing in the middle of the road. A whole crowd of people dressed in old-west getup were gathered around it. Women in bonnets and long skirts, and men in Levi's and scuffed boots an
d dirty hats. Come to think of it, the men's clothes looked typical of any period in Texas history, including today. Except for the gun belts. They all wore gun belts.

  And they were all looking up at the gallows. Standing near the back of the crowd, Elliot looked up, too. Then he blinked and looked again, because the most incredible woman he had ever seen stood proudly up there, chin high, long, jet-black curls blowing in the dusty wind. Her eyes met Elliot's and widened in blatant horror. Then Elliot's gentle, sweet-natured big brother Garrett lowered a rope around her neck and pulled it tight.

  Elliot nudged the nearest person, a man in dusty clothes with a long, drooping mustache. "What's going on here, anyway?"

  Without glancing his way, the man said, "A hangin', boy. What's it look like?"

  "Right. Come on, really. I'm serious."

  "So's that noose, son. Don't go frettin' none. She may be purty, but she's just a murderin' Mexican—" He'd turned toward Elliot as he spoke, and then just stopped talking. His mouth gaped, and he blinked. "You … you're alive!"

  Elliot didn't know what the hell to think. The guy was backing away from him, pointing at him and gaping like a fish starved for air. Elliot shrugged and started making his way through the crowd, toward the gallows. Garrett would explain all this. But with every step he took, more of the actors, or whoever they were, gasped and pointed at him. One woman screamed, and another one fainted. The crowd around him parted like the danged Red Sea, and he found himself with a clear view of Garrett up on those gallows.

  "Hey, big brother, what the heck are you doin' to that lady?"

  Garrett glanced down, then did a double take. "El? Jesus, El? What … how…?" Then he did two things that made Elliot realize this man was not his brother. He grinned broadly, showing off badly stained teeth with empty spaces in between, and he yanked the rope off the woman then shoved her toward the plank steps. Hard. Garrett wouldn't so much as frown at a woman, and this—this—imposter—was manhandling one. Shoot.