Outlaw’s Bride by Joan Johnston Page A

nightmare. He had been out of prison only one month—four short weeks—and judging from the hired guns he had faced today, Jefferson Trahern was planning to pick up his quest for vengeance where he had left off when Ethan went to prison. It was quickly becoming apparent that, although the townspeople might be willing to tolerate his presence in Oakville, Jefferson Trahern was not.
    In fact, the man seemed obsessed with seeing him dead. Ethan supposed if he had spent the past seventeen years watching a beautiful daughter become a woman, yet remain a child, he might be a little crazed and unforgiving, too.
    Ethan closed his eyes so Patch wouldn’t see the regret he felt when he thought of what she wanted from him. The events of the past prevented any thought of marriage to her. Even so, his feelings about finding her here were confused, to say the least. On the one hand, he found her incredibly desirable as a woman. On the other hand, he couldn’t separate the woman from the spirited, yet vulnerable tomboy in raggedy clothes for whomhe felt a big-brotherly affection. It was the younger Patch he felt he had to protect. For her own good, he had to make her go home.
    “You’re forgetting one other thing,” Ethan said in a grating voice.
    “What is that?”
    “I don’t love you.”
    Patch felt her stomach shift sideways. She lowered her lashes to hide the sharp pain she felt at Ethan’s admission. Patch had believed when she left Montana that she had enough love for both of them. She hadn’t realized how it would feel to hear Ethan say those crushing words denying any feelings for her.
    Patch didn’t know there were tears in her eyes until Ethan drew her into his arms and murmured, “Don’t cry, Patch. I can’t stand to see you cry.”
    She buried her face in his shirt, clinging to him, to the dream that had brought her all the way to Texas from Montana, the dream of being loved by Ethan, of loving him in return. But he didn’t love her. He didn’t want to marry her. He—
    Patch stiffened as a startling thought occurred to her. Ethan had said he didn’t love her in one breath, and in the next had pulled her into his arms and was, unless she was very much mistaken, kissing away her tears at this very moment.
    Patch jerked herself from Ethan’s embrace. “Liar!” she accused.
    “What?”
    “You’re lying, Ethan Hawk, about not loving me. You
do
love me. That’s why you don’t want tomarry me. You want to protect me from the scandal of marrying an ex-convict, an accused rapist.”
    “Patch, I—”
    “I appreciate those feelings,” Patch said. “Really, I do. Which is why I’m going to stay here and help you find the
real
culprit.”
    “Patch, I—”
    “When your name is cleared, we can be married and live happily ever after.”
    “Patch, I—”
    “Yes, Ethan?”
    Ethan took one look at her glowing eyes and forgot what he was going to say. She smiled at him and his body started thinking what it would be like nestled up close to hers. His hands had already reached for her when his brain started functioning again.
    “No.” Then, because her smile remained firmly in place, he repeated, “No, Patch. It’s been seventeen years since Merielle Trahern was violated. It could have been anyone, even some cowhand passing through town. It could have been—” Ethan cut himself off because he had his own ideas about who had done it. He’d had seventeen long years to think about it.
    Patch took advantage of Ethan’s hesitation. “You do have some idea who might have done it! I knew you would!”
    “It’s water under the dam. Knowing—suspecting—who did it won’t change what’s happened. Merielle will still be a child forever,” he said, his eyes bleak. His voice was bitter as headded, “And it won’t bring back all the years that were stolen from me.”
    Patch reached out a tentative hand and placed it on Ethan’s forearm. She felt his muscles bunch under her touch. “If we find the man