Free Outlaw Bride (Lawmen and Outlaws) by Tanya Hanson Page A

time. “I loved my mama. But life was ramshackle. Like this place. No offense, Sister.” She glanced from him to Adelaide, worry crinkling her forehead.
    “No offense taken, child. We have many needs.”
    “A hideous slum, backwater St. Louis. Pa coopered. Made barrels enough to keep starvation from the door.” She hung her head. “But he came to spend an unrighteous pocketful on beer and whiskey. Mama did her best. Even taught me to read the Scriptures. Ahab would have none of it. I was six....”
    Her voice turned so lost Redd ached to take her in his arms against his heart. Might have if he wasn’t sitting across from a nun, pretend or not. Her habit with the black bat wings never failed to discompose him.
    “Go on, if you can, child.”
    Jessy Belle’s fingers tore at the calico dress, and Redd gave in to taking her hand, holding the withering bird tight against his knee.
    “I’m a woman grown now, ma’am. But when I was six, Pa shot dead a little pup my mama had befriended for my birthday present. Laughed the whole while. I screamed so hard...Ahab held me back.” Jessy Belle’s breath heaved, and she sat a spell looking out the window like she didn’t see a thing. Redd’s thumb found its way rubbing the top of her hand. As if some miracle, ’Gade came through the door and laid his head on Jessy Belle’s lap. And she kissed it.
    Finally Jessy Belle looked at Sister Adelaide again, free hand rustling ’Gade’s fur. “Mama took Pa to task for it. He didn’t much like being back talked by a female, so he whacked her against the bricks on the hearth. Wasn’t the first time, truth to tell. Just the worst time. And the last.”
    Then Jessy Belle’s fingers wrung his like a swift current might sweep her away. And he held tight as he could without snapping her bones.
    “Mama was bleeding. Not moving.” Her whisper took on a new edge, clear and unmoving like glass. “Ahab was thirteen. Got her a blanket. I dabbled water on her face. Pa, he left for the doctor, but he never came back. Died that night in a beer brawl. In between, Mama slowly drew her last.” She looked at Redd then, beseeching. “Made Ahab promise to care for me. And she made me promise to safeguard her own mama’s pearls.”
    “Had you no friends? No sheriff?” Sister Adelaide asked this of her, her tone soft as a cloud, for Redd couldn’t think of a thing to say. Cold horror swamped him, same as finding his mama dead at The Devil’s hands.
    Jessy Belle didn’t reply directly. Didn’t look at him or Sister Adelaide. “Ahab had no learning, no money. Just a kid sister to drag along. He proved right good at robbing folks” She looked at him then.
    For one second, no more.
    “We started small,” she said. “Picked pockets. Drifted in some mercantile and out again with goods stuck in our boots. Under our hats. Tied in my hair.”
    “A preacher, a neighbor should have taken you in,” Sister Adelaide muttered, cheeks tight.
    Jessy Belle glanced first to her, then Redd. Eyes bleak as midwinter. “Sometimes there’s nobody else but yourself. And sometimes along the way, Ahab attracted other boys to move along with us. Some good. Some evil. Then he started in, nabbing horses. And me? Well, I never let him down. Nor him me...until last week. For all his sins, Ahab protected my virtue.”
    “Just not your life.” Redd still tugged at her hand but anger roiled, letting a female die in your stead. A sister yet. Find Ahab Perkins and he’d send him on to hell himself.
    “No, he didn’t. And for that he might be damned to hell. Mama told me once of Cain and Abel.” Her blue gaze bore into Redd’s, deep, into his soul. “And I ain’t cussing this time, Redd. I stopped doing that. I learned Hell is a true place. But so is Heaven.”
    “We have taught you well in just a short time, child.” Sister Adelaide nodded at Jessy Belle, who smiled.
    Right off Redd figured Adelaide was still wearing her nun disguise, and he himself must