Wed To The Texas Outlaw. Carol Arens

that it was Lantree who was paying his fees. He did know that little bit.

      “He’s a hardscrabble cowboy, branding, roping, cussing.” She shook her head in what he saw as exaggerated sorrow but the judge seemed too smitten with her pretty pout to notice the insincerity.

      She was truthful about the cussing, though. His brother did cuss. “Hell and damn” as he remembered it. The phrase was his brother’s one claim to wildness.

      He doubted that Lantree had changed that much over the years. Must be that the woman was trying to show that because of Ma and Pa, neither of them had had a chance at growing up respectable.

      Hell, being a cowpoke wasn’t so unrespectable, not like being an outlaw was.

      “Lantree Walker was the only other reliable witness to the shooting,” Smythe declared. “His testimony at the time was that it was a fair fight, maybe even favored Mantry since he was a man coming against a boy, but the widow’s words held sway. Young Boone, fearful to his bones, had run away, as children will do.

      “I could not help but be appalled that, at my client’s trial, Lantree Walker’s original testimony was not presented. All we heard were the written lies of a convicted thief and child exploiter along with the deranged memory of an inebriate. Clearly, Lady Justice wept on the day that Boone Walker was convicted.”

      “Just so,” the woman added with a quick glance in his direction.

      Boone didn’t know who this “innocent child” was they kept talking about. It sure hadn’t been him. He’d been born wild and only become more unruly over the years. On that long-ago day that he’d taken his money to town, Lantree had taken his, too. But his brother had put his in the bank.

      While they’d been born twins, identical to look at, they had never been peas in a pod.

      “I’ll need some time to sleep on what’s fact and what’s not.” The judge stood, stretching his back. “We’ll meet tomorrow, ten o’clock sharp.”

      The woman took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She gazed at Boone as though his fate was of some importance to her.

      She nodded and then turned with a swish of that fancy womanly fabric. The scent of roses followed her. That was pleasant, given that he hadn’t smelled a rose in some time.

      He watched her bustle twitch to and fro while she walked toward the big set of doors that led to the street behind the saloon. When she pulled the door open, a flurry of leaves blew inside.

      Who in tarnation was she?

      * * *

      Stanley Smythe waived his fork as he spoke to Melinda Winston across the table in the dining room of the Inn of the Golden Buffalo. She could not truthfully say that she knew what the lawyer was going on about...in fact, she could not even say that she actually saw him.

      While she did a fair job at stabbing her lunch with her fork, even chewing a bite now and again, she was fairly consumed by her first impression of the black sheep of the family.

      No matter how she tried, she could not get Boone off her mind. How could she when she had spent the better part of the two-week journey to Buffalo Bend wondering what he would be like?

      Would a condemned man seem different than any other? Would evil intent glint from his eyes? Or would he have the same demeanor as an innocent man?

      And, having listened to Lantree’s recollections of what had happened that long-ago night, and having been spellbound by the lawyer’s presentation of an innocent boy wronged, she did believe that he ought not to have been convicted. While there was no denying that he had killed a man, it was clear as raindrops that it had not been in cold blood.

      Still, it wasn’t the first murder that had folks shivering in their beds at night. There were reports of many other heartless crimes, each one more wicked than the next.

      This morning in the courthouse, she had studied Boone long and hard. During that time, she did not feel evil lurking behind his eyes.

      Melinda, having a well-favored face and figure, had, of necessity, developed a keen sense of male integrity. She had come to read men as easily as she read books. She’d had to. If she succumbed to every sweet talker who presented his suit, she would be in sorry shape.

      Yes, within Boone she did see a troubled soul, one who carried a great deal of guilt. But she had to agree with Lantree, and with Stanley, when they insisted that Boone was not who the tabloids portrayed him to be.

      Seeing Boone earlier, cuffed at the wrists and chained at the ankle, had been disconcerting.

      Boone looked like her cousin by marriage...identical in every way. She’d had to blink several times to remind herself that it was not Lantree sitting on the defendant’s chair.

      After all the years the brothers had spent separated, one would expect some differences but as hard as she had stared, she hadn’t been able to spot them.

      One would think that the brother who spent his life as a healer and a protector would look vastly different from the one who spent his life, if the stories were to be believed, in crime and debauchery.

      They did not, and this confused her.

      Both men wore their blond hair long, just grazing the shoulder. Identically, they peered out at the world from under slightly lowered brows.

      Upon deeper inspection, though, she had been able to see the difference in the souls of the men looking out of those lake-blue eyes.

      Until recently Lantree’s expression had seemed slightly haunted by an unkind past. Not anymore, though, since he had married her cousin, Rebecca.

      Boone’s expression did not seem haunted so much as jaded, as would be expected having lived his life among the seedy and corrupt.

      “You are my responsibility, after all.”

      “I b-beg your pardon?” Melinda stuttered, ashamed that her attention had wandered so completely from what Stanley Smythe was saying.

      “I promised your cousin that I would take care of you. While you’ve done a fair job of pushing your food about your plate, you’ve eaten only four bites.”

      “Have I?” He’d counted them and knew there were four? She didn’t even know that. It was hard to decide whether that was a comfort or an intrusion of her privacy. Not that dining in a public restaurant was private, but still, what she did or did not eat was her own business.

      “You have. And before you decide that it is none of my concern, may I remind you that I argued against you coming to Buffalo Bend?”

      “You did, Mr. Smythe. Quite vehemently.” She took a bite to appease him and, because now that she was paying attention, the food was quite good. “I was nearly forbidden to come.”

      The wide, fancy doors of the dining room swung open and Judge Mathers charged through them. His expression looked stormy. Perhaps he was one of those men who turned grumpy if their meal was delayed. She and Smythe had left the courthouse after the judge and were now nearly halfway through their meal.

      “After acting as your guardian these past weeks,” Smythe declared, returning her attention to him once again. “I’ve got to say that forbidden is not a word that you hold in high esteem.”

      It was true. As a word forbidden was akin to a bull’s red flag. Once the bright temptation was waived, all one could do is charge after it.

      It had been this way ever since Mama had changed. A mischievous adventure now and then helped Melinda forget for a moment that it used to be Mama who laughed at unreasonable rules, Mama who led her girls in lifting their skirts and dancing a playful, half-scandalous jig.

      Sometimes, a half-scandalous jig made Melinda forget that it had been Papa who’d stolen Mama’s joy and left her bitter.

      He had always claimed that Mama was the prettiest wife of them all...that Melinda was the prettiest little girl. Clearly, that had