The Outlaw Bride by Sandra Chastain Page A

constantly. And Ginny had given as good as she got. They’d married and kept on flirting—through five children.
    Josie forced her attention back to Callahan’s body and noticed a scar on the calf of his right leg. “What the …?” she whispered aloud.
    “Earlier bullet wound,” Callahan said.
    “That doesn’t surprise me.”
    Callahan squirmed beneath her touch.
    “How’d you get shot that time? A fight over a woman?”
    “A fight over a woman? Not me. Never met a woman worth getting shot for.”
    “Not even your mother?”
    He paused for a moment before saying, “My mother was killed during the war, trying to protect my sister from being raped by Yankees. Both of them were killed in the end.”
    Josie was touched that Callahan would share something so personal. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “My real mother died in childbirth. The baby died too.” She didn’t know why she’d told him that. She’d never told a living soul about the pitiful little boy that had taken her mother’s life.
    He changed the subject by asking, “How soon am I going to be able to ride? I can’t he here while Ben’s out there, maybe wounded, maybe even dead.”
    “I’m sure your brother is all right. If he were dead, they’d have found him. Out here the scavengers direct your path, even when the searcher loses the trail.”
    He winced. “You mean the vultures, don’t you?”
    She nodded. “Look, if it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll ask Bear Claw to send out a full search party. The Sioux know this territory better than anyone. If Ben is out there, they’ll find him.”
    “How can you be sure?” he asked.
    “They found you, didn’t they? Now, be still.”
    He let her dry his feet, pulling the soft cloth between his toes and working it along the limp muscles of his calves. “You have a special touch,” he said.
    “Actually, I’m pretty clumsy. Dr. Annie is the angel with feather fingers.”
    “This Dr. Annie, I guess she adopted you.”
    “Yes,” she answered. “My real mother was a prostitute.” Out of respect for Dr. Annie, she wouldn’t normally have mentioned her real mother, but this conversation with Callahan seemed right.
    He didn’t appear shocked or try to ignore her confession, as most people would have. “She must have had a good reason for doing that kind of work. Can’t imagine a woman willingly choosing that life.”
    As a young child, Josie had wondered the same thing. And later, when she’d collected enough courage to ask, her mother had just said that a woman does what she has to.
    A silence fell between her and Callahan.
    He caught her arm, running his fingers up and down the odd curve between her elbow and her wrist. “What happened here?”
    “It … got broken. Didn’t heal right.”
    He nodded, waiting.
    “When my mama died, one of her ‘friends’ looked after me. He taught me how to pick pockets and open safes. I was better at opening safes.”
    “Is that how you got your arm broken?”
    She was startled at his perception. “Yes. When I was clumsy, I was punished.”
    “And Dr. Annie treated your injury?”
    “Oh, no. I met Dr. Annie later. We were working a scam on the platform outside the train depot. Dr. Annie was the target that day. Dan caught me in the middle of the con. But Annie wouldn’t let them arrest me. Instead, she took me in and treated me like I was somebody special.”
    Josie rinsed out her cloth, emptied her basin, and refilled it with the remaining hot water.
    “So what happened after she took you in?” Callahan asked.
    “We came here to Laramie and Dr. Annie opened her medical practice. Later, she and Dan got married and adopted me. I had no place else to go, and this was thebest home I’d ever had. I never had a last name so I took theirs. I’m not their blood, but they call me their daughter.”
    “I don’t think it was as easy as you make it sound.”
    “It wasn’t,” she said, and began absently washing his arm.
    After all