Redemption

Excerpt:
Chapter One

“I’m home.”

The jar Katie had been wiping dry slipped out of her hand and bounced off the walnut counter before shattering on the floor. She took a quick step back. A startled scream that had stuck in her throat escaped when she came up against the body behind her.

Strong hands came around her and moved her out of the way of the glass shards. The hands stayed on her waist, and the man behind her bent his head to survey the damage.

“Best clean that up.” He scanned the kitchen, and Katie noted that he must be searching for the broom.

“How . . . What?” she stammered as she turned away from those cold grey eyes she’d known for one afternoon. She pulled the broom out from the tiny closet and held onto it while debating whether to swat at him and see if he’d vanish into vapor, because, for certain, he could not be real.

He’d been on his way to the gallows the last time she’d seen him.

That had been why she’d married him in the first place.

“Irony’s a son of a bitch, darlin’.” His small mouth quirked up into what Katie guessed would have been a smile, if she ever imagined this man smiling.

At close to six feet, he towered over her, and his brown hair, sticking out from under his hat, was dusty and uneven and was in dire need of a wash and cut. It looked like he’d tried to cut it himself once.

Her fingers twitched at her sides, and she had to fist her hands to resist the urge to touch his hair. She almost scolded him for swearing but realized how ridiculous that would sound, to scold him in his own house.

That had been why he had married her in the first place.

He sniffed the air around her then moved his gaze to the fireplace. “Somethin’ smells good. That dinner?” He turned toward the pot over the fire. Crouching, he took a long, deep breath and inhaled the aroma, and Katie could only guess how hungry he must be.

“Uh . . . Mister—”

He turned back to her, and again, there was that cold half smile. “I believe the last time we talked I asked you to call me Ben.”

Katie’s cheeks flushed at the reminder. The last time he’d made the request he’d been inside of her.

“Got a plate?” Ben asked, holding out his arm toward her.

Going into action, Katie got him a plate and a spoon and was glad for the momentary distraction. She passed him the plate, and, staring at her, he held his end of it while she held hers.

She’d been wrong. His eyes weren’t just cold. They looked sad as well, and tired, very tired. She gave him a weak smile of sympathy.

He broke their locked gaze first and filled his plate. “I suppose you got questions. Let me eat first. Then I’ll answer the ones I can.” He took a seat at the table and stopped for a moment to notice the clean white tablecloth and the vase of fresh daisies in the center of the table.

They certainly hadn’t been there when she’d first arrived, Katie remembered. She’d done her best to make his house a home. Her home. She nodded at him. They sat in silence for a few minutes, and he was more than half finished with the stew when it occurred to her she’d forgotten to give him some bread. It seemed foolish to mention it now so Katie just sat and watched him finish. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if he enjoyed it, but his eager devouring of the meal seemed to do that for him. She couldn’t say how long it’d been since he had a meal. His enjoyment probably had more to do with hunger than her culinary skill.

She’d forgotten to set a drink next to him. God, she felt stupid. Katie jumped out of her seat, and she saw his whole body tense and one hand dart under the table. She walked to his side of the table and tilted her head down so she could see what he’d reached for, though she’d had a pretty good guess.

Still, seeing the gun holstered around his thigh sent an icy ball of fear into her throat.

“Take it off.”

They both blinked at the same time. Katie hadn’t meant to voice her displeasure aloud. She met his gaze and grimaced. What right did she have, really? He was back now. Surely, he would be reclaiming his home, and she would be . . . out.

“No,” he said curtly. “Go do what you were gonna do.”

She bit her lip. His simple refusal chafed at her. It must have shown on her face, because when she poured the milk in a cup for him and had a brief mental image of dumping it on his head, he gave her that half smile again.

“You’d be shit at poker, honey.”

She set the cup down next to his plate. “My name is Katherine.”

He looked up at her. “I remember.”

She’d been trembling in front of the preacher, a tear slipping down her cheek, and he had squeezed her hand in his and asked her name. “Nice to meet you, Katie.”

“Out of coffee?” he asked, bringing her back to the present.

“I . . . don’t like coffee.”

“Mmm,” he remarked. “We’ll go into town tomorrow and get some. Get some more milk too. You’re a mighty fine cook, Katherine.”

She was ridiculously pleased over the compliment.

“All right then. Short version. Got me a deal and a pardon at the last minute, been hunting down the leader of the Longworth gang these past six months.”

Katie fell back into her seat. Six months. Six months she’d thought him dead. Six months he’d been trailing a killer. “But I saw the sheriff in town more times than I can count. He . . . he never said a word to me.” She wasn’t sure what she was feeling—fear, happiness, anger, nervousness. All of those things, all at once.

“No, he wouldn’t have. Had to keep quiet ’bout the whole thing.”

“Why?”

“Was his idea. He got a telegram saying Jerry Longworth killed his sister’s boy. Asked me if I could track the son of a bitch down. Give me a clean slate if I did the job.”

“So Longworth is in prison now?”

Ben leaned back against the chair and stared at her. “No.”

Dead. The man was dead. The question must have been there in her eyes. Had Ben killed him?

“Yes,” he replied.

She held her hands underneath the table so he wouldn’t see them shaking. “So you’re home now. I”—Katie got to her feet—“I suppose that means you’ll be wanting it—”

“What I want is a nice hot bath, maybe a shave. To sleep for a week would be good too.”

He stood up, and Katie jumped, startled. “I’ll heat the water for you,” she said quickly.

“Guess I’ll have to make due with a blanket. I don’t think I’d look near as pretty in them there dresses as you.”

Her burst of laughter shocked Katie as much as that this grim man had made a joke. His eyes flickered with something she’d only seen once before, and her insides went soft at the memory. Lust.

“Your clothes are still in the closet,” she said softly. She remembered the mix of joy and sadness she’d felt when she found the few remaining items. “I kept them.”

“Why?”

How could she explain it when it sounded silly in her own head? Having someone else’s clothes around made the house seem less empty. “They were yours. Not mine. All of this is yours. Not mine.”

“Them daisies ain’t mine,” he pointed out.

“Well, no. Except for the daisies,” she said with a small smile.

“Best get that water going.” Then, he walked out of the kitchen.

Katie sagged against the counter unaware until then that she’d been holding herself rigid.

* * * *

She was sitting at the table when he came back in from the barn, freshly bathed and clothed. He hadn’t shaved yet.

“Didn’t wanna risk fallin’ asleep and slitting my own throat. Damn stupid end for the notorious Ben Cready, don’t you think?”

She smiled weakly at the reminder of whom and what he was. A criminal. A murderer. An outlaw. Her husband. “I guess I should start packing up my things so I can get an early start to the train in the morning.”

He went still in the doorway. “You plannin’ on going somewhere?”

“Well . . . You’re back.” Katie lifted a trembling hand to push back a lock of her blonde hair behind her ear.

“That I am.”

“So you’ll want your house back.”

“House is in your name now, last I checked,” he reminded her and stepped toward her.

Katie jerked back. “But only because . . . Well, you thought you were . . . you know.”

“Gonna be dangling at the end of the noose?”

“Right.” She swallowed hard, clutching the counter behind her.

“Seems to me there was somethin’ in them vows about ‘ ’til death doing us part.’” He slid a finger past a lock of her hair and wound it around his finger.

Looking up at him, she couldn’t breathe. “You can’t mean . . .”

“I never say nothin’ I don’t mean, honey.”

“Mister—”

“Ben. You call me Ben.”

“Well, Ben.” The name sounded foreign on her tongue, but that look flickered in his eyes again, and a shiver of something other than fear went through her. “’Til death do us part’ was only supposed to last ’til morning, if I recall.”

“Seems to me you’d still be doing a sight better stayin’ right where you are.”

Katie bit her lip. He was right. She’d be safer here where no one knew who she really was.

“Your uncle’s still out there. ’Til we hear different, I say you’re safer here. But I ain’t in the business of forcin’ my attentions on any woman.”

“I know,” she said. It had been her decision to make their marriage a real one for that one night. She needed to have that certainty for herself. To be safe, claimed, to belong to someone in the most basic way possible, to truly call herself Ben Cready’s wife, and to know in her heart that it wasn’t a lie.

He had given her his house hidden just outside of Tyler to hide out in, and his name, tarnished though it was, to hide behind.

She’d had nothing to offer in return but herself.

“Right. Then I’m going to bed.” He stepped away from her.

Katie’s mouth dropped open. “Bed?”

His mouth quirked upward. “Honey, I’ve replayed that night in my head so many times. It’s what kept me from going fuckin’ mad, remembering. But even though I’m hard as a rock right now, I ain’t got the energy to fuck a goat.”

He turned away from her but stopped before he passed through the kitchen toward the pantry and turned back. “I suppose it’s best to get used to having each other around first.”

* * * *

He left her the bed. He’d set up a cot in the pantry for himself and was just setting a pillow down on it when she brought him a blanket.

“This feels wrong. It’s your bed,” Katie said.

Ben took the blanket and lifted it to his nose. “Smells like you.”

She supposed that was meant to be a compliment.

“This’ll do for a while.”

A while.

“Well, um . . . good night,” Katie said, feeling vulnerable now without the blanket in front of her.

“Night.”

She couldn’t sleep. Katie watched the flame dance in the lamp by her bed, and all she could think about was that her husband was home.

Remembering. He had held onto that night in his mind. Did that mean it had been special to him? She couldn’t see someone that hard giving in to sentimentality.

She wondered if she had pleased him that night and if that was why he had held onto the memory. Katie hadn’t known what to do, coming to her marriage bed a virgin that night over the saloon. Following his lead, she removed his clothing while he’d removed hers and kissed him the way he kissed her, though the feel of a man’s tongue in her mouth took some getting used to. The way his mouth had moved over her made her dizzy, and she had a hard time catching up. He had sucked her breasts, had shocked her with not only his actions but with her body’s reaction to him.

When she had looked in the mirror the next morning, her skin had been red, marked by the stubble of his beard, but that had been nothing to the mark he had left between her legs. He’d touched her there, had gentled her with soft words when she’d tensed up, terrified.

She’d known what was coming. Katie, at his urging, had taken him in her hand. His cock was long, intimidating in its full, thick arousal as it stood out amid the dark hair at its base. He’d made her laugh when he’d said it wouldn’t bite.

But it had hurt.

Ben had spread her out on the bed, stroking her between her legs, stoking a strange new fire higher and higher through her blood. He rubbed the sharply sensitive nub of nerves there in slow circles.

“Look at me, darlin’,” he’d whispered when he thrust a long thick finger there inside of her, where no man had been before.

Her hands had bunched the bedsheets, and with her free hand, Ben inched his cock into her. Just the head at first, but it was enough to make her tense against the bizarre invasion. He rubbed her clitoris with more pressure, and with warring emotions, pain, and pleasure confusing her, Katie whimpered. She looked up at him, afraid.

He looked down at her and kissed her. “Something to remember me by,” he whispered, rubbing her slick folds with more purpose.

Katie wasn’t sure what he meant until a rush of sensation that stole the breath from her body swamped her, even as a sharp piercing pain dulled the pleasure for a moment. Then he was closer to her, the convulsing, clutching of her intimate walls pulling him deeper and deeper until he was completely inside, her pussy fully stretched around him.

“Good God,” she remarked when she could speak again, stunned by this new foreign feeling.

He’d thrust slowly at first, and the pain returned until she grew accustomed to him inside of her.

She moaned when he pulled her legs up around his waist. He looked down at her as he showed her how to move with him.

“Say my name, honey. I wanna hear it on your sweet mouth,” Ben urged her, his voice hard.

She’d held onto him and whispered his name in his ear. Then, he seemed to lose control above her. His thrusts deepened, became uneven, and Katie didn’t think it would be possible, but he became thicker, almost surged inside her, which brought with it a fresh sting of pain. And then he was gone, having pulled out of her and spilled himself outside of her body.

He’d moved off her, and Katie was left with a mixed sense of accomplishment and feeling bereft all at the same time.

“I’m one selfish son of a bitch, but I ain’t that selfish,” he panted, staring at the ceiling as he lay next to her.

It wasn’t until later when her monthlies started again that she understood what he meant. He’d deliberately pulled out and not spilled himself inside of her, so as not to leave her with a child, alone.

Because he was supposed to have died the next morning.

But he was very much alive and in the next room, and by the laws of God and Texas, he was her husband.