ANNIE AND THE OUTLAW Read online

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  ANNIE AND THE OUTLAW

  Sharon Sala

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  Contents:

  Prologue

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

  Epilogue

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  Prologue

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  Kansas Territory—Mid-1800s

  The noonday sun was at its zenith, beaming down with relentless persistence upon the crowd gathered around, the hanging tree at the edge of town. A gusty wind did its bit in making what was left of Gabe Donner's last minutes on earth miserable by blowing sand into his eyes and against his cheeks, stinging his already bruised and battered face with a rude reminder that sensations would soon be a thing of the past.

  "You cain't just hang him," a woman sobbed, and cradled her belly, swollen to near bursting with an overdue baby. She threw herself between the angry crowd and the man on the horse who was about to be lynched. "He saved my life. If it had'na been fer him, you people … you God-fearin', law-abidin' citizens woulda run me down."

  "Get back, Milly," a man shouted from the back of the crowd. "He was part of the gang who robbed our bank. Just because he couldn't bring himself to hurt you, don't change the fact that his buddies have done gone and made off with our life savings."

  Gabe cursed and squinted his eyes. It was a hell of a day to die. But he'd been heading toward this for most of his life, and he knew it. Somewhere around the age of twelve he'd taken a step in the wrong direction, and there'd been no one in his life who'd cared to call him back.

  The woman called Milly screamed as two men pulled her out of the way. Gabe's gut kicked as the horse beneath him danced sideways from the noise and shouts. The rough fiber of the rope around his neck and hands ate into his skin like a saw-toothed rasp. He winced, aware that losing a little skin was nothing to what was about to transpire.

  He stared down at the woman who'd uselessly pleaded his cause and still could not believe he'd done what he had. One minute he'd been riding out of town with the rest of the gang, just ahead of a hail of gunfire, and the next thing he knew, he found himself leaping from the horse and throwing himself onto the ground, using his body as a shield between the pregnant woman and the pounding hooves of the horses ridden by the posse giving chase; He sighed and swallowed another curse. Why the hell couldn't she have been home having that baby?

  "Gabe Donner … do you have anything to say for yourself?" a man asked.

  He grinned and shrugged as he looked down at the sobbing woman. "Whatever you do, lady…don't name him after me."

  In spite of his dusty, blood-stained clothing, a week's worth of whiskers and a badly needed haircut, the smile transformed his face. His handsome features and devastating grin made her sob even harder. It seemed such a tragic waste of manhood.

  Wrenching free of the man beside her, she dashed forward. Pressing a shaking hand on Gabe's leg, she felt the jerky tremble of long thigh muscles under stress. "May God have mercy on your soul," she whispered.

  And in that moment Gabe felt one small ounce of his guilt lifted and delivered. He winked.

  Then, before the stunned assembly, he took away their decision and some of their joy by doing the deed himself. He kicked the horse, sharply jabbing his spurs into the animal's sweaty flanks. The horse neighed wildly, rearing up on hind legs in sudden objection to the pain, and then burst forward, as if coming out of a starting gate.

  A couple of curses and then a hush came over the crowd as the man's long, lean body jerked in the dusty wind. One by one they turned and walked away, suddenly shamed by their kangaroo court and the ruthlessness of it all.

  The sobbing woman was escorted back to her house, where she fell into bed and promptly gave birth, as suddenly and painfully as Gabe Donner had died.

  And then there was nothing but the creak of the rope against the tree limb as the solid weight of his body swung back and forth … back and forth.

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  A loud roar filled Gabe's ears. Fire swept across his face, and the smell of sulfur scalded the insides of his nostrils and burned his eyelids. Confusion was uppermost within his heat-fogged brain as he tried to decipher the words being screamed at him in a virulent tone.

  "You were mine!"

  The air around Gabe reverberated from the sound of the voice. He inhaled, then wished that he hadn't, as the sulfuric steam once again scalded his throat and lungs. He stood his ground, unable to move from the spot on which he'd landed.

  "Right up until the last moment, your soul was mine! And then what did you do? You ruined it! It might have been excusable if it had only been the woman … but no! You had to go and save a baby! An unborn one, at that! They still belong to Him!"

  The hiss that accompanied the accusations sucked the air from Gabe's body. He began to get the message. The voice screamed and spat, shouting obscenities Gabe had never imagined as he absorbed the implications of his situation.

  I've done it now! I've gone and made the Devil mad! This is too damned scary, even for me. From the way he's spitting and cussing, it seems I don't even belong in Hell.

  The voice seemed to filter through the skin over his bones, insidious by its very nature, imbuing him with a sensation of scorched flesh and degradation. Yet he saw nothing but the constant swirling clouds of fire and steam. If he hadn't been so stunned, he might have laughed. It seemed he was doomed to mess up, even in death.

  "Get out! Get out!" the Devil screamed, and Gabe's body quivered from the onslaught of sound. "You don't belong here. There's nothing I hate worse than a sanctimonious sinner!"

  And before Gabe could blink, the fire, the smoke, even the voice, had disappeared, and he felt himself being tossed aside as if he were so much garbage. It was as if he were left hanging in a vacuum where no one and nothing existed—except himself.

  God! he thought, and with the thought came the being.

  "Gabriel."

  The voice was solace after sin. Grace after a lifetime of gratuitous living, and Gabe shivered.

  "I never thought we'd be having this conversation," God said softly.

  Gabe shivered. Neither had he.

  "You surprised me, my son," God said. "You were one that I thought I'd lost. But right at the last moment, when it actually counted, you did something right."

  If an immovable force hadn't been holding him up, Gabe would already have fallen. He'd endured more than a human could bear this day, and yet he was being forced to stand and listen again to his sins and the lack of compassion with which he'd lived his life.

  "However, that in itself is not enough for all your transgressions to be forgiven," He continued. "Remember, it wasn't you who begged for mercy on your soul … it was the woman."

  Gabe's head dropped, his chin nearly touching his chest. This is it, he thought I'm about to get the shaft here, too.

  "No, Gabriel. Heaven does not give shafts … only second chances."

  Gabe's head jerked up, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled and his mind absorbed the clear, pure sound of God's laughter. He almost smiled. If he'd known God had a sense of humor, he might have tried religion a long time ago.

  As badly as Gabe wanted to, he could not speak. All he could do was stand and listen to his fate being handed out.

  "This is my command!" God said, his voice deepening with a powerful force as the sentence He had decided to impose was made clear to Gabe. "You will go back. Soul intact, flesh and bones. To the human eye you will seem as all men. But heed me, Gabriel!"

  Gabe's body shook, and he blinked rapidly as a blinding light sent him to his knees.

  "If you can learn what it truly takes to get to Heaven, then you will be granted entrance and eternal life."

>   Dear God … it will take two lifetimes to undo the damage I've done, Gabe thought.

  "So be it!" God commanded. "Then you shall have two lifetimes. One hundred and fifty more years on earth to right your wrongs. But … heed my warning!"

  Gabe could not see, only hear and. feel, as the air around his body vibrated once again. Yet this time it was as if the motion came from a multitude of wings … as if all the angels in Heaven had suddenly surrounded him and struck him blind as God continued.

  "Stray from my path … ignore the way of the righteous … and you will be lost in Limbo, stranded between Heaven and Hell for all eternity with nothing but your conscience for company."

  Suddenly all was silent. Gabe tried to stand, and then he felt himself being hurtled backward.

  * * *

  The limb cracked, and Gabe's eyes opened just in time to see the dry, dusty earth of Kansas rushing up to meet his face.

  A horse's soft nicker of welcome was his only clue that he hadn't imagined what had just transpired. This was real Gabe Donnor had come back from the dead.

  With an aching groan, he rolled up and over, momentarily surprised that the ropes around his neck and wrists were in the dust at his feet. And then he shuddered, remembering where he'd been, and knew that those ropes were the least of the surprises yet to be had.

  He picked up his hat from the ground, dusting the worst of the grime from inside the brim, and called softly to his horse. In minutes there was nothing left to tell of what had transpired that day but a coil of rope lying in the dirt like a snake waiting to strike.

  Gabriel Donner was gone.

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  Chapter 1

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  Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

  Present Day

  It was hard to tell where the man began and the machine ended. Black leather and black metal, both well-worn and dusty, covered muscle and motion as the motorcycle and its rider wove their way through the heavy weekend traffic on I-240 on the south side of Oklahoma City.

  Just ahead, an eighteen-wheeler swerved to keep from running up the ass-end of a car that was barely doing forty in the fast lane of the freeway. The motorcycle moved smoothly past the near-miss as its rider guided it in and out of the swiftly moving vehicles like a bullet on its way to a target.

  The rider in black suddenly shot into the far right-hand lane and geared down to take the next exit, which would lead him toward Dallas, via southbound I-35. The biker leaned into the turn, and as he did, caught his first glimpse of the altercation taking place at the corner quick stop across the street.

  His frown was hidden behind the smoke-tinted visor of his helmet. But he didn't like what he was seeing. Without taking his focus from the road before him, he accelerated through a small gap in traffic and shot across all three lanes, coming to a sliding halt a few feet behind the gathering' crowd.

  The woman's hair was the first thing he noticed. It was a deep, rich brown. And the afternoon sun that shot through it highlighted the chestnut and amber strands until if looked like a coil of coffee-flavored taffy wound around her head.

  Because of the business at hand, he manfully ignored the faint but enticing outline of long. legs and a slender but shapely body beneath the white, gauzy-looking skirt and blouse she was wearing.

  He yanked off his helmet and hung it on the handlebar of his bike as he dismounted. His legs were long and heavily muscled. The lower half of his body was covered in supple black leather, ending with dusty black boots adorned with old-style silver spurs.

  He was rock-hard and a deep-to-the-muscle brown from countless years and endless miles on the road. As his fingers threaded through too-long hair, he lightly massaged his scalp along the places where the helmet had ridden, then let the shaggy black length of his hair fall where it would.

  Bare to the waist except for a black leather vest laced loosely across his taut belly, he pulled sunglasses from his bike pack and slid them on. It was intentional that their mirrored surface hid much of what he was, while allowing him to see more of what was before him. He'd heard it said that the eyes were the mirror of the soul, and Gabriel Donner was real careful of who he let look inside the man that he'd become.

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  Annie O'Brien was nervous. And because of that, she was also mad as hell. She, a grown woman of twenty-nine, had let these sixteen- and seventeen-year-old boys get her goat. Granted, there were more than a few. And also granted, in this day and time. few boys of that age were the innocents that their parents would like to believe. But the gang of boys preventing her from leaving the parking lot was daunting. And as the number in the gang had grown, so had their daring. They were out of control, and she knew it. And because of that, she was afraid.

  "Hey, hey, Annie-Annie," the tallest boy chanted. "You know what I'd like to do to you?"

  He tossed his head, and as he did, a dirty brown lock of hair fell from behind his ear and caught in one of his earrings. Annie inhaled sharply and tried not to let him know she was afraid. He was a woman's worst nightmare come to life.

  Several of the others laughed and hitched at their jeans, swaggering in thought, if not in deed, at the idea of taking this pretty lady down a notch or two, of showing her what real men were all about.

  "Just let me pass, Damon," Annie said, trying again, as she had for the past fifteen minutes, to get to her car on the other side of the lot.

  "Oh, now … I don't know if I can do that little thing," he said, then smoothed his hand across the fly of his baggy jeans, watching with increasing delight the way her eyes widened and the slight nervous lick she gave her bottom lip. "You're on our turf now, Annie-Annie. Here, you do what we say."

  "Like hell," she said softly, and started to push past, aware that she had little time left in which to deal with this situation before it got completely out of hand.

  Damon stepped forward; his pale hazel eyes seemed a reflection of his inner self, wild and put of control. And as he moved, the other seven teenage boys moved with him as if they were joined at the hip, their dilated pupils and jerky, foot-shuffling movements a sure bet that they were riding high on more than adrenaline.

  Annie's heart pounded, but she ignored her own panic as she tried to push past them. She took a deep bream, certain that she was about to become another crime statistic, then watched in amazement as the boys came to an abrupt halt. All their cocky assurance slipped away as they looked up and over her head.

  Someone was behind her!

  Terrified that it was simply more of the same, she froze in horror. She saw the man's shadow as it moved across the pavement, covering and then passing her own shadow, to come to a stop somewhere about the middle of Damon Tuttle's knees. It was big and wide, and she had a moment's impression of being swallowed whole. And then he spoke, and she would have sworn that the air vibrated, so close was his mouth to her ear.

  "Trouble?" he asked.

  His hand rested lightly at the edge of her shoulder. And though the small squeeze he gave her was as much a question as what he had asked, she knew the second he touched her that he was on her side.

  In answer to his one-word question, she nodded. She had trouble indeed.

  It was instinctive, an urge born of relief, she knew. But she felt a sudden need to turn and bury her face against what she sensed was a big, strong chest and forget everything but the safety she knew she would find there.

  Damon Tuttle was one tough dude. All you had to do was ask anybody on the south side of the city. They would tell you. And if they didn't. Damon would. He had his hand in a little bit of everything rotten that went on in the area and still managed to stay one step ahead of the law. It was testimony to his probation officer's persistence that he was even still in school.

  "Okay, boys … back off!" Gabriel said, and even Annie jumped at the tone of the voice behind her.

  He didn't say where, he didn't say when, but the look on his face made three of the boys at the edge of the gang take several steps backward in nervous reflex.<
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  "Move, damn it … and I mean now," Gabe said in a softer, more menacing tone of voice. When they held their ground, he swiftly put himself between the woman they called Annie-Annie and the gang.

  His fingers curled into fists and his stomach muscles tightened against the possibility of oncoming blows.

  Annie's heart tilted. As he slid past her, she caught a flash of a wild, handsome face half-hidden behind mirrored glasses, a dangerous smile, and then all she had left was a very solid view of his back.

  He was tall, so tall. And he was more tan flesh and black leather than she'd ever seen, even in a gym. She should have been scared out of her wits, yet she'd never felt so protected in her entire life.

  Damon's skin crawled as he looked into the big man's face. His thoughts went into free-fall, as if he'd just walked into a whirlwind and been caught up in the dead-calm of the eye, waiting for the rest of the storm force to catch up and eat him alive. Yet he felt honor-bound to hold his ground. He couldn't lose face in front of his boys, not for just one man.

  "Who do you think you are, man?" one of them sneered, secure from his vantage point in the middle of the gang.

  Damon shivered as the big man's focus shifted, turning that hidden gaze from himself to the boy who'd spoken. And when a slow smile slid across the biker's face, Damon's belly rolled.

  "I know who I am, boy. I'm someone you don't want to make mad." He took several steps forward and was suddenly nose-to-nose with Damon Tuttle.

  "I'm no boy," Damon muttered, trying to maintain eye contact with the man, when he felt an urgent need to cut and run instead. Damon was the type of tough who was at his best with a backup of muscle, and he had a sudden instinctive flash that his buddies were about to bolt.

  "Oh, but you're wrong," Gabe said softly.

  The biker's motion was so swift, that Damon never saw it coming. He shuddered as hands locked around his arms, the grip iron-hard and unyielding. Looking up and suddenly seeing the terror on his own acne-scarred face mocking him from the mirrored reflection of the biker's glasses was a humbling experience. Damon Tuttle did not like to be humbled. Yet there was no other way to describe the fact that his feet were now dangling inches off the pavement while the biker held him suspended as if he were a child.