Outlaw's Bride Read Online Free Page A

neck tightened as a sharp ache started in her temples. His lean, almost gaunt features blurred, replaced by Jason’s too-handsome and too-confident countenance.
    Mattie swayed and she leaned against the doorframe, taking a deep breath. Clint Beaudry brought back too many memories.
    Get a hold of yourself, Matilda St. Clair. Clint Beaudry probably won’t last the night.
    She’d been strong for ten years—she wouldn’t let Beaudry turn her into a silly girl again. Steeling herself against the déjà vu that threatened to suffocate her, she crossed the room to sit in the chair beside the bed, then leaned forward to moisten a cloth in the pan of water sitting on the nightstand. Beaudry’s eyelids twitched and Mattie tensed as her breath faltered in her throat, but his eyes remained closed.
    She folded the moistened cloth lengthwise and laid it on his forehead. Heat radiated from him and his face was flushed with fever. Unwanted compassion made her throat tighten, and she rested the back of her hand against his whisker-roughened cheek. The heat of his skin created a sudden awareness of the man, and she jerked her hand back.
    Twining her fingers together tightly, Mattie rested her trembling hands in her lap and leaned back in the chair. She lifted her gaze to the white curtains that had tiny violets scattered across the material. How often had she sat in this room reading to Ruth, or sitting with her and talking? Ruth had given her two precious gifts—friendship and understanding. And when Ruth had died, she’d bequeathed her home to Mattie and Andy, giving them a security Mattie hadn’t even dared to imagine.
    Beaudry shifted and moaned, drawing Mattie’s attention once more. She removed the cloth from his forehead and rinsed it in the cool water, then returned it to his fevered brow. Her fingertips brushed his thick, sweat-dampened hair and she smoothed back a few strands from his face. The sun slanted in the window, gilding his blond hair and lending him the visage of an angel.
    A fallen angel.
    She remembered how Beaudry had wrapped his fingers around that leather belt, insolence in his sharply drawn features as his gaze had raked across her. Mattie’s stomach muscles clenched and her camisole suddenly seemed too snug across her breasts.
    â€œStop it,” she rebuked herself. It was his fault she was thinking about things she hadn’t dwelt upon in years. Things like the feel of a man’s whiskered cheek against her palm, the texture of a man’s hair between her fingers, and the touch of a man’s lips—
    Abruptly, Mattie stood and stepped over to the window. Her entire body throbbed with sensual remembrance and she damned the loss of control. Hadn’t she spent the last ten years ridding herself of such irrational yearnings? Even Kevin, who had been courting her for a year, hadn’t produced such wanton images in her mind. She had to distract her mutinous thoughts before she drove herself insane.
    Pushing aside one of the flowery curtains, she stared down into the yard. Jewel, the milk cow, grazed in front of the porch. Andy must have moved the animal’s picket line while she and Kevin had taken care of the gunman’s wounds. Several hens clucked and scratched in the dirt not far from Jewel.
    Living a quarter mile from town allowed Mattie to have a cow and some chickens so she didn’t have to buy milk or eggs. It also gave her fresh food for her boardinghouse guests. Not that she had any right now, but autumn would bring a few people looking for places to hole up for the winter. Until then, she sold the milk and eggs and took in laundry, to buy clothing for her fast-growing son and food staples like flour and sugar.
    Beaudry groaned again, and Mattie returned to her chair and rewetted the cloth on his forehead. His brow seemed even hotter than it had been earlier and worry gnawed at her. As much as she despised what he stood for, she