The Outsider Read online

  Hamilton Dodge saw

  Starla standing by the

  stairs in a demure

  wedding gown of ivory silk.

  His emotions were staggering. It wouldn’t take much to convince himself that he was in love with this glorious creature who’d consented to become his wife.

  They said their vows in the sunny front parlor. Beside him, Starla spoke the necessary words without inflection, then lifted her hand so he could slide the ring his mother had given him to see him safely through four years of war. Let it see him through this marriage with equal indemnity.

  But the solemnity of the event didn’t strike home until the judge intoned the words pronouncing them man and wife.

  Man and wife.

  His to have and to hold.

  But this was no love match.

  THE MEN OF PRIDE COUNTY

  THE

  OUTSIDER

  ROSALYN

  WEST

  Dedication

  For Lucia—

  thanks for your confidence!

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  About the Author

  Other AVON ROMANCES

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  The chance for escape came only once.

  In a train station crowded with uniformed men going to war, no one noticed a furtive couple slipping through the early morning fog toward one of the passenger cars. If they had, they might have remarked upon the striking similarity of brother and sister, and upon the exotic beauty of their refined features: dusky skin, black hair, and startling green eyes. They might have wondered over the young man’s hurry or at his sister’s frightened demeanor. But wrapped up in their own worries and fears, no one gave them the slightest heed as a single bag was tossed up to one of the porters.

  The young gentleman spoke rapidly, with the mild slurring of too much drink mushing syllables already softened by a Creole drawl.

  “Are you sure ‘bout this? You don’t even know this man. How do you know goin’ with him will be any better ‘n staying here?”

  The young woman glanced anxiously toward the train, to where her rescuer waited. Uncertainty tugged at her for only the briefest instant. “Anything’s better than here,” came her tight-throated reply. “I have to go. You know that, don’t you?”

  Her eyes appeared huge and luminous behind the netting as she gazed up at her brother, begging him to understand. He didn’t need to lift the veil to be reminded of the fading bruises on his sister’s lovely face. Knowing they were there, and knowing the cause, made him swallow back his argument.

  “I know you do, darlin’.”

  Their embrace was quick and fierce with the desperation of their circumstance.

  “Darlin’, don’t cry. Listen to me. You listen to me, now. This might be your only chance. Guess you gotta take it. You gotta be brave and smart and not get caught should someone come looking for you. You can’t let him bring you back, not ever.” This last was said with enough vibrating fury to draw several curious looks. He ducked his head in closer to hers, lowering his tone to a hoarse whisper. “Are you sure?”

  A slight nod against his shoulder made him relax a notch.

  A sudden snort of soot and steam engulfed them as the train prepared for final boarding. They shared a silent moment, then the young man pushed away. His handsome face was no longer taut with urgency, but weary and drained of all emotion.

  “Say good-bye now.”

  The fact of their parting shocked through her, returning the blank of fearful doubt as her arms encircled him.

  “Come with me. Come with me.”

  “I can’t, darlin’. You know that.”

  “I can’t leave you here—with him. There’s no telling what he might do when he finds me gone.”

  He pressed a soothing kiss to her temple, glad she couldn’t see the starkness of his expression. “Nothing he hasn’t done before. It’ll be worth it, just knowin’ you’re safe outta his reach. Go on now, little sister. You get on that train, and don’t look back, you hear me? Don’t look back and don’t come back. Not ever.”

  She looked up at him then, her forlorn gaze dazzling like precious jewels as his palm cupped the side of her face beneath the veil, his thumb stroking away the trace of her tears.

  “Don’t you worry none. I’ll see to things here for both of us. I’ll see the bastard makes good on what he owes us and I’ll protect what’s ours.”

  “I don’t care about the money, Tyler—”

  “But he does. That’s all he’s ever cared about. And that’s why he’s not gonna steal our fortune away from us. Trust me, darlin’. Trust me to take care of things. In return, you keep yourself safe and be happy. That’s all I ask.”

  Her small hand fit over his, squeezing tight.

  “I’ll miss you.” Her words quavered.

  For a long moment, he couldn’t speak. After taking a fractured breath, he forced a smile and said, “I’ll miss you, too. You get on that train, now. And you promise you’ll look ahead, not back. Promise me.”

  Instead, she cried, “I love you, Tyler.”

  He steered her toward the steps, pushing her into the care of the steward waiting to hand her up into the car. She went inside to take a seat at the window, next to the stranger who offered her salvation. Only when her pale face pressed close to the fogged glass for one last parting look did he reply, his voice choked and raw with feeling.

  “I love you, too, Star. Enough to never want to see you again.”

  Chapter 1

  Four years later

  It took his best friend’s wedding to get Hamilton Dodge thinking about whores.

  Nothing like seeing someone else so happy to get a man reflecting upon his own sorry state. Not that Dodge begrudged a second of that happiness to Reeve Garrett and his beautiful bride-to-be. He’d never seen a couple so deserving of what lay ahead: pleasures beginning on their wedding night and stretching out for an eternity. Pleasures Dodge had been itching to find for himself for … how long?

  He looked back, past his brief and rocky residency in Pride County, Kentucky, beyond four years of battlefield hell, to an eager young man anxious to charm the petticoats off his blushing neighbor on the eve of his enlistment. And when Dodge couldn’t recall if he’d been successful or not, he knew he was in desperate need of a woman to remind him of what he’d been missing.

  It wasn’t as if just any woman would do. For all his blustery talk and less-than-proper innuendo, playing the petticoat line had no great appeal. He liked women, sure enough. He liked being with them, talking to them, looking at them, kissing them—hell, just about everything about them from their uniquely delicate scent to the sirenlike quality of their laughter. But a man wasn’t raised as the only male in the midst of six older female siblings without one mighty respect for womankind … and a healthy dose of awe. Man might strut and snort and brag, but civilization was founded and held by women, and Dodge admired them for that tenacity, for trying to tame the uncouth beast that
was man into becoming a useful member of society.

  He wished someone would try it with him. He was a man who craved civilizing.

  The problem wasn’t his willingness to give in after a rousing fight, it was the absence of anyone willing to take on the task. He’d been in Pride for exactly two and a half months and he’d yet to earn a genuine smile from any woman except Reeve Garrett’s fiancée. On this, her wedding day, he didn’t hold out much hope of Patrice Sinclair confessing to an undying love for him.

  The eligible coquettes of the county shied clear of him. It wasn’t because he was hard to look at or a bad risk as a husband. It wasn’t even the fact that he’d spent the past two months crippled by the bullet lodged in his back. His problem was one of geography; he’d been a lieutenant in the Union Army. Now, as banker in a Confederate supporting town, he held the notes on the properties and lives of a distrustful populace.

  To a man of lesser conviction, the obstacles would have overwhelmed any thoughts of winning the faith of the community and the heart of one of its fair number. But Dodge was nothing if not determined: determined to walk again, determined to have the folks in Pride call him neighbor, determined to claim a bride right here, where he’d sink his roots in fertile Southern soil. He had the patience of a man used to waiting his turn behind the primping of six sisters.

  Some things he could wait for, but others were making a more pressing demand. Saving his heart for love didn’t mean sacrificing other needs for that same cause. He’d seen little of Pride since coming to town—his name was not exactly on the list of the socially acceptable. He ate his meals at Sadie’s, he enjoyed an occasional drink at the Dixie Saloon; but as yet he hadn’t stopped in for a visit at Pauline’s, where the amount of his coin would offset his politics.

  Maybe tonight he’d go get acquainted. Right after he discharged his duties as best man. It was time to see if that paralyzing bullet had allowed feeling to creep back into more than just his legs.

  He watched Reeve Garrett pace, his own anxiousness chafing when he thought of what the evening held in store for his friend.

  “The way you’re fidgeting, you’d never think you’d been sleeping with the woman for better than two months.”

  Reeve didn’t respond to his crude baiting. Instead, he shared a maddeningly smug smile and a prophetic “Tonight will be different.”

  Dodge contained his groan, considering that difference. Man and wife. An enviable state. One a million miles from where he sat in his wheeled cane-backed chair, with no prospects for romance in sight.

  “It’ll be a lonely one if I don’t get you in front of that judge in about ten minutes.”

  Reeve fussed with his white bow-tied cravat for the umpteenth time, close to worrying the starch out of it. “I feel like I’m going to a funeral.”

  “A lot of men in your position would agree.”

  Reeve glowered at him. “The clothes, I mean.” He tugged at the sides of his cutaway jacket, feeling ridiculous as its swallowtails swung over gray striped trousers.

  “You could have worn your Yankee uniform and made Patrice a widow before making her a bride.”

  “Not funny under the circumstances. It’s bad enough worrying about Deacon changing his mind at the last minute and refusing to give her away.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think Patrice would let him get in the way. A dozen crazy militants with torches and guns couldn’t do it. What makes you think one stodgy brother would have any better luck?”

  Reeve sighed. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

  Reeve started around to the back of Dodge’s chair, prepared to push his friend from the small back room into the hotel parlor where the wedding would take place. That’s when Dodge presented him with the gift he’d been saving for this moment. He gripped the arms of the chair that had held him prisoner for the past two months and pushed upward, rising slowly, purposefully to stand on his own two feet.

  Reeve gaped at him for a long moment, speechless.

  “Well, don’t just stand there like a hooked bass,” Dodge chided. “Grab those crutches for me before I fall on my face.”

  Reeve snatched them up, still astounded as Dodge fit them under his arms and took a few precarious swings forward. Then he was grinning as well.

  “When did this happen?”

  “I’ve been working on it for a while. Wanted to surprise you. Promised I’d stand up for you, didn’t I? Couldn’t very well do that while sitting in that chair. Just don’t expect me to hold both of us up when it comes time to say your vows.”

  They were standing by the judge when Patrice Sinclair made her entrance on her brother’s arm. In a bell skirt of white silk and Brussels lace, she was a vision to reduce any man to trembling at his good fortune. Reeve was no exception as he watched her sweep down the narrow aisle made by the small gathering of their friends. His gaze fixed upon her in a daze of reverence, while hers settled wide and disbelieving … on the best man.

  “Dodge!”

  With that soft cry, Patrice released Deacon’s elbow to race ahead, throwing her arms not about her intended, but around the man beside him, rocking Dodge back with her enthusiastic hugging.

  Aware that they’d become the awkward center of attention, Dodge balanced on the crutches and levered a weeping Patrice away. “You’re not supposed to cry before the wedding,” he reminded her gently.

  Patrice stood back, her wondering gaze taking him in from top to toe with tears and unabashed pleasure. She hit his shoulder with her bouquet of roses and calla lilies.

  “How could you keep such a secret from us?”

  He grinned. “It wasn’t easy.”

  She smiled and wiped at the flood of fresh wetness glistening on her cheek. “Hamilton Dodge, you’ve given us the best gift possible.”

  By not greeting them in the imprisoning chair he’d accepted in order to save her life, he was freeing the two people he cared about more than any others to go on with their future without the burden of guilt over his sacrifice. He knew well the significance of the gift.

  “It was no trouble.”

  She studied him then, her gaze a little too shrewd, too observant, catching the pinch of discomfort mixed with the laughter around his eyes, seeing the faint sheen of effort forming on his brow hinting that the cost of this grand gesture was anything but trifling. And loving him for it. She leaned into him, pressing a light kiss to his cheek as she whispered, “Thank you, Dodge. I owe you the happiness of this day.”

  “Remember, I’m a banker. I’ll see you pay me back with interest.”

  The judge cleared his throat impatiently. “Miss Sinclair, which of these men are you marrying?”

  Patrice looked up with a blush. She reached for Reeve’s hand. “This one, your honor.”

  “Now that we have that decided, shall we get on with the ceremony?”

  They fell into their places before the judge, Dodge flanking his best friend, Deacon a stiff pillar of stoic duty as he passed his sister into another’s care before stepping back to support their joyfully weeping mother. Everything seemed to be proceeding smoothly until the judge reached the part where he called for anyone who might have objections to the match to speak them or hold them silent forever.

  None would have been surprised to hear Deacon Sinclair’s somber tones naming some damnable reason, but it was a feminine voice ringing up from the back of the room that declared, “I do.”

  The gathering turned as one to see a slight woman posed dramatically in the open doorway. Before any of them could react, the intruder claimed, “Patrice Sinclair, how dare you think you could get married without me standing beside you?”

  “Starla!”

  The bride-to-be raced the length of the room to fall into an embrace with her best friend since childhood.

  Dodge didn’t need an introduction to know exactly who the woman was. Her features were unmistakable, their delicate Creole beauty marking her as Tyler Fairfax’s sister. Fairfax and his group of night-riding bullies
were responsible for the bullet in his back, but he didn’t extend that grudge to the lovely creature coming toward him. He couldn’t. He was lost the moment her vivid green eyes met his in brief curiosity before she cast her arms about Reeve.

  All earlier thoughts about looking up a harlot for the night completely disappeared from Dodge’s mind.

  “Reeve Garrett, I just knew Patrice’d snare you someday,” came the husky purr of her voice. “She’s had eyes for nobody but you since we were babies.”

  And from over his shoulder she let her vivacious stare linger thoroughly along the best man.

  Here was the smoldering hint of promise he’d been missing, steeped in those bold, assessing eyes. Anticipation tightened in Dodge’s chest even as he loosened an appreciative grin.

  “And who might your friend be?”

  “Starla, this is Hamilton Dodge, our guardian angel. Dodge, Starla Fairfax. The one I was telling you about.” This last Patrice said as a significant aside.

  “And I can see she’s everything you said and more.”

  There was no missing the way the gorgeous flirt froze up at the sound of Dodge’s crisp Northern accent. Her smile didn’t fade, but all the warmth was extinguished from her eyes in a blink. Her honeyed tone took on a tang of vinegar.

  “If my friends speak so highly of you, we shall have to be friends as well.”

  Hearing the unspoken “when hell freezes over” in her invitation, Dodge grinned all the wider. “Yes, ma’am. You can count on it.”

  She snubbed him to look around the room impatiently. “Is Tyler here? I had to rush from the train to get here on time, no thanks to you, Patrice Sinclair.”

  Patrice’s smile thinned, but her words were gentle. “He’s not here, Starla. We’ll talk about it later.”

  “Can we get back to this wedding?” the judge requested.

  Vows, rings, and a too-long-to-be-proper kiss were exchanged, transforming Patrice into Mrs. Reeve Garrett before the intimate assembly. After private toasts and congratulations, the bridal party went from the small parlor room to a spacious hall where the affluent of the county would soon arrive to offer their best wishes—because of the social weight the Sinclair name carried, not out of any fondness for Reeve Garrett, whom most still considered a traitor for serving on the Union side in a war they wouldn’t allow to end.