The Outlaw's Wife Read online

  “Garrett.”

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Also by

  About the Author

  Letter to Reader

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Copyright

  “Garrett.”

  He turned his head, and looked from Emma’s face to the hand she offered. For the first time, Garrett saw something in her eyes that translated to hope.

  Enclosing her small hand in his, he brought it to his lips. “You’ll stay?”

  Slowly she searched his face. “I’ll stay.”

  For an instant, their eyes met and held, and then she moved into his arms.

  “We’re going to work this out,” Garrett said, fighting the welling of emotion so strong, it stung his eyes. “I want you back. You. The woman I married.”

  “What if that woman no longer knows what she wants? What if she’s gone?”

  Garrett looked into Emma’s soulful brown eyes, and then hugged her closer. “Then we’ll find her. Together.”

  Dear Reader,

  The perfect treat for cool autumn days are nights curled up with a warm, toasty Silhouette Desire novel!

  So, be prepared to get swept away by superstar

  Rebecca Brandewyne’s MAN OF THE MONTH,

  The Lioness Tamer, a story of a magnetic corporate giant who takes on a real challenge—taming a wild virginal beauty. THE RULEBREAKERS, talented author Leanne Banks’s miniseries about three undeniably sexy hunks—a millionaire, a bad boy, a protector—continues with The Lone Rider Takes a Bride, when an irresistible rebel introduces passion to a straight-and-narrow lady...and she unexpectedly introduces him to everlasting love. The Paternity Factor by Caroline Cross tells the poignant story of a woman who proves her secret love for a brooding man by caring for the baby she thinks is his.

  Also this month, Desire launches OUTLAW HEARTS, a brand-new miniseries by Cindy Gerard about strong-minded outlaw brothers who can’t stop love from stealing their own hearts, in The Outlaw’s Wife. Maureen Child’s gripping miniseries, THE BACHELOR BATTALION, brings readers another sensual, emotional read with The Non-Commissioned Baby. And Silhouette has discovered another fantastic talent in debut author Shirley Rogers, one of our WOMEN TO WATCH, with her adorable Cowboys, Babies and Shotgun Vows.

  Once again, Silhouette Desire offers unforgettable romance by some of the most beloved and gifted authors in the genre. Don’t forget to come back next month for more happily-ever-afters!

  Regards,

  Joan Marlow Golan

  Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

  Please address questions and book requests to:

  Silhouette Reader Service

  U.S. 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  CINDY GERARD

  THE OUTLAW’S WIFE

  This book is dedicated to Bobbie McLane and

  Donna Young, of Basically Books.

  Romance has never had better friends.

  Thanks for the confidence you instill, the enthusiasm you

  dish out, and for selling the heck out of my books!

  Books by Cindy Gerard

  Silhouette Desire

  The Cowboy Takes a Lady #957

  Lucas: The Loner #975

  *The Bride Wore Blue #1012

  *A Bride for Abel Greene #1052

  *A Bride for Crimson Falls #1076

  ‡The Outlaw’s Wife #1175

  *Northern Lights Brides

  ‡Outlaw Hearts

  CINDY GERARD

  If asked “What’s your idea of heaven?” Cindy Gerard would say a warm sun, a cool breeze, pan pizza and a good book. If she had to settle for one of the four, she’d opt for the book, with the pizza running a close second. Inspired by the pleasure she’s received from the books she’s read and her longtime affair with her husband, Tom, Cindy now creates her own warm, evocative stories about compelling characters and complex relationships.

  All that reading must have paid off, because since winning the Waldenbooks Award for Bestselling Series Romance for a First-Time Author, Cindy has gone on to win the prestigious Colorado Romance Writers’ Award of Excellence, Romantic Times W.I.S.H. awards, Career Achievement and Reviewer’s Choice nominations and the Romance Writers of America’s RITA nomination for Best Short Contemporary Romance.

  Dear Reader,

  One of the best things about writing for Silhouette Desire is the license I’m granted when creating my story lines. My new miniseries, OUTLAW HEARTS, is a perfect example of that freedom. Despite the potential for controversy, in this first book, The Outlaw’s Wife, I’ve been given the latitude to tell a story about a married couple struggling with some very real problems in some very extreme ways.

  While many will applaud, some may not sanction the events that transpire between Garrett and Emma James. It is my hope, however, that all will be moved by this exploration of the fallibility and the frailty of the human condition and the resultant misunderstandings the silence of assumption can breed.

  Hang on for a ride filled with tears, laughter and sensual exploration as Garrett and Emma make mistakes and discoveries in their search for the courage to hold on to a marriage that love alone can’t save.

  All my best to you,

  Prologue

  She’d become his wife ten years ago; she’d become his life even before that. On the first day that Mississippi’s own sloe-eyed Emma DuPree had sashayed her transplanted Southern self into Jackson High’s hallowed halls, Wyoming-born and Western-wild Garrett James had flat-out fallen in love.

  She’d been all of sixteen. He’d been almost a man. Heavy snows had been falling that January afternoon when they’d collided head-on at the seventh-hour study hall door. Embarrassed, she’d smiled shyly up at him over the bundle of text books tumbling from her arms—and opened a window of sultry Southern heat onto a cold Jackson Hole winter.

  From the beginning he’d been lost—in her slim curves, her shining chestnut hair and her unconsciously sexy drawl. She’d turned his eighteen-year-old legs to noodles and his awakening heart to mush. All these years later she still did.

  That’s why it hurt so much.

  He was losing her. After all those years of loving her, after counting on forever, he was losing her. And, God help him, he didn’t know how to set things right.

  As he walked his mother down the aisle of the church, he sought Emma out through the gathered congregation. Their eyes met. In that brief moment of contact before she looked away, he felt the cutting absence of both the softness in her cinnamon brown eyes and the warmth of her giving heart.

  With concentrated effort he stalled the gnawing ache of loss. This was not the day, now was not the time, to wallow in the mess of his marriage. This day belonged to another woman in his life. For her sake he’d make sure it was a celebration she’d always remember.

  With pride and admiration he walked his mother toward the man who would make her his wife.

  Fifteen years had passed since Garrett and his brothers had lost their father and Maya James had buried her husband. No one could replace Jonathan James in his sons’ eyes, but Logan Bradford offered their mother a chance at happiness again. For that, all three brothers were grateful.

  Not that Bradford would have been swayed if they hadn’t sanctioned the marriage. Either he hadn’t heard or didn’t care that, like their distant and notorious outlaw ancestors, they
were a formidable and imposing lot—and that nobody messed with the James boys.

  Garrett conceded that their reputations were well earned. As kids they’d been hell-raisers. As men they still were, to some folks’ way of thinking.

  Jonathan James’s death had left a young widow with a heartful of grief and three confused and angry young sons. The rebellions had been inevitable. Despite them Maya had managed to keep Jonathan’s construction business going and raise her boys right, in all ways that counted. To a man, they were ethically solid and morally strong—yet as different as earth and sky.

  As the eldest, Garrett was standing in as father of the bride. As requested by the groom, he was also doubling as best man. Best man. In more ways than one, he knew that was how his younger brothers regarded him. The irony was as twisted as it was excessive. He alone knew the reason why every day of his life he tried not to let them down. He alone lived with a guilt and a sense of responsibility that was his alone to bear—and made him far from the best of these men.

  Bradford’s presence in his mother’s life would ease the responsibilities he’d taken upon himself at sixteen. Nothing, however, would minimize the culpability he felt over his father’s death.

  While he was alone with his guilt, in all else the brothers were solidarity personified. Cross one, you crossed the whole clan—and they were not a forgiving lot.

  Not that they looked so tough today, Garrett thought as Clay and Jesse, standing by the front pew, watched their mother approach on Garrett’s arm. Their expressions were indulgent, their bold blue eyes soft in contrast to the crisp black tuxedos they wore.

  Though he was taller than the other two, who both pushed six feet, Garrett had often been told they all exemplified the best of their parent’s blood. Like his brothers, Garrett’s dark good looks reflected a rich, mixed lineage of melting pot and native American on his father’s side. The European ancestry brought to them by their mother was responsible for a subtly aristocratic bone structure and the unusual quicksilver blue of their eyes. Bred into them just as definitively was their rock-solid work ethics and family values.

  Family values. Of the three of them, Garrett held that concept at the highest premium. Involuntarily his gaze strayed back to Emma. Standing by the front pew, she held their eight-year-old daughter’s hand in hers. To look at them, no one would guess that the family he valued above all else was in danger of falling apart.

  The slight pressure of his mother’s fingers on his arm eased his attention back to her. She shot him a sassy wink. He squeezed the small but strong hand tucked in the crook of his elbow, gave up a small grin and placed his problems on hold. Then he let his gaze drift back to his brothers.

  What a crew. Clay, at thirty-one and two years younger than Garrett, stood second in line and in age. He was also Garrett’s business partner. Clay had joined him in their father’s construction company when their mother had gladly relinquished control several years ago.

  If Garrett didn’t miss his guess, Clay was nursing a notion to settle down. And good luck, ladies, he thought with mild amusement. Many a determined mover and shaker had set her mind to convincing Clay James she was the one he needed to settle down with. Clay didn’t want a mover and a shaker. He wanted a down-home girl. One who’d be satisfied with hearth and home, raising babies and taking care of him. He wanted a woman who would put him before her career—a rare if not extinct species, Garrett thought with a tilt of his lips, and wondered if either Clay or Maddie Brannigan, Emma’s unorthodox and fiery friend, would admit to the fire shooting like sparks from a welder between them.

  Garrett’s smile grew bigger when he looked at the fidgeting man next in line. He loved and respected both his brothers but he’d always had a soft spot for Jesse.

  At twenty-eight Jesse was the youngest of the three of them, and the closest to living up to his outlaw name. Since the day he’d been born, in the middle of a Wyoming blizzard, he’d cheerfully and with undisciplined enthusiasm, earned his “hell-raiser” reputation.

  More comfortable wearing denim and dust, Jesse tugged discreetly at the collar of his starched white shirt, then clasped his calloused hands loosely in front of him. Unlike Clay, who was selective, Jesse was generous with his affection for women. He loved them all. All kinds. All models. All ways.

  “Mind you, Emma’s one very special lady,” Jesse had conceded to Garrett several years ago over a back-yard barbecue and a bottle of beer, “but for the life of me, I can’t figure why any man with both feet in the stirrups would want to settle for one flower when there’re fields of wild blossoms out there just waiting to be picked.”

  Jesse’s broad shoulders, twin dimples and bad-boy swagger had landed him in the middle of those colorful flower beds on a regular basis. His life on the pro rodeo circuit offered too many opportunities to keep his ways and his women just the way they were—wild, reckless and as unpredictable as the bulls he rode—unlike Logan Bradford, Garrett reflected, and diverted his attention to the man who would now share his mother’s life.

  Bradford hadn’t gotten where he was today—the CEO of a high-profile, high-profit marketing firm here in Jackson Hole, Wyoming—by being careless. He had both the savvy and the intelligence to realize he would face a mob of James boys taking the law in their own hands if he didn’t treat their mother with all the respect and devotion she deserved. Garrett had every confidence that he would.

  Maya gave Garrett’s arm a reassuring squeeze as they reached the altar. After placing a soft kiss on her cheek, he relinquished her hand.

  Logan’s gaze encompassed Maya’s two youngest sons, then landed on Garrett. She’s not yours to take care of anymore, gentlemen. It was with both relief and satisfaction that Garrett acknowledged Logan’s unspoken message. The glow of happiness on his mother’s face gave him the final assurance he needed.

  He stepped back in line with his brothers and in a moment that was brutally stunning for its clarity, acknowledged the demise of his own happiness with Emma.

  He dealt with the unexpected punch of that sobering thought by trying to suppress it. It didn’t work. His attention strayed back to his wife. Grim-mouthed, he studied the face he loved, the unmistakable shades of unhappiness dulling her eyes. And he wondered, as he had for months, what he could do to make things right between them again.

  Tomorrow, he told himself resolutely as the day wore on and he accepted the congratulations of the wellwishers at the reception, tomorrow he’d take some time away from work that he’d been promising her he’d take. He’d set his priorities and his house back in order. He’d force himself to deal with the defeating knowledge that something was wrong with his marriage. Something he hadn’t wanted to identify or name. Something that kept him awake nights wondering where to begin the search for the love he and Emma seemed to have lost.

  One

  May, two months later.

  Despite Viola DuPree’s hypochondriac tendencies, Emma James loved and worried about her mother. Until today, however, Emma had never thought she’d be thanking the medical profession for catering to Viola’s “Valium deficiency” by keeping her well stocked with the tranquilizing medication.

  But then, she’d never thought she would catch Garrett with another woman, either.

  With a cautious glance over her shoulder to make sure her mother was still asleep, Emma opened the medicine cabinet in Viola’s bathroom. Despite her shaking hands, she found the bottle she wanted and managed to tip several tablets into her palm. Swallowing back a fresh wave of pain and staunchly shoving aside the guilt over what she was about to do, she replaced the bottle on the shelf. Then, tiptoeing past the bedroom where Viola indulged in her afternoon nap, Emma slipped silently out of her mother’s house and eased into her car.

  She tried not to think about it, but between stops at the butcher’s, then the farmer’s market, the picture of Garrett and that blonde kept flickering through her mind like a bad movie. Nausea accompanied every replay. Acute, absolute loss followed.


  Garrett hadn’t seen her. And Emma hadn’t had the courage to confront them. Not in front of all those people. Not in the midst of a brilliant May afternoon cluttered with birdsong and the sweet scent of flowers—and her husband and the father of her child in the arms of another woman.

  She bit back tears and turned left on Elm. It all made sense now. Why hadn’t she seen it coming? It wasn’t as though she hadn’t had plenty of warning. All those late-night “meetings.” The constant extra hours he’d been putting in lately. Those sudden, unplanned over-nighters. She should have realized. The way he’d closed himself off from her the past several months hadn’t translated to fatigue as she had thought. It translated to boredom—with her and with their marriage.

  What a fool. What a simpering, gullible fool she’d been. Tears stung then blurred her vision. She swiped them angrily away. Her mother had warned her. For once, Viola DuPree’s erratic ramblings had been sound. She’d told Emma from the beginning that tangling with Garrett James would end in a broken heart.

  Broken. Battered. Bleeding.

  Sheer will got her home and into the house. Blind courage got her through the hours until Garrett was due home.

  Garrett had always said he liked her in silk. When he walked through the front door several hours later, she was dripping in it—a soft, watery blue tank top, oversize and cut low to show a hint of cleavage, the hem long and flowing over matching pajama pants.