Kissed by the Outlaw Read online

  "Hey! Mountain man—" It wasn't easy, but Kelly turned at the waist and shot daggers at him through her eyes. "Bite me!"

  McSwain glowered back at her but then chuckled in spite of himself. He knew she'd heard him because she growled back at him and kicked her legs even harder. It took a bit of maneuvering, but he swung a leg over both of her to stop that confounded kicking of hers. She was no wilting flower, he had to give her that. She was a spirited little filly, even at her age.

  Which meant—unfortunately for her—that he couldn't go too easy on her, either. That little lady was going to have to feel some heat in her behind if she was going to be subdued. Without further delay, he raised his hand high and brought it down in the first of several stinging smacks to her naughty rear end.

  Kelly arched her back and howled, both in pain and indignation.

  "Oh! You—are not—getting—" her words came out in a staccato beat, after each painful smack to her butt cheeks. "Away—with this—ouch! I'll—have—you—arrested!"

  He opened his mouth to tell her he feared getting arrested if something serious did occur to her while in his company… as in, Kelly breaking her neck after falling off his wagon. McSwain chose not to give her any ammunition and instead rewarded her threat by spanking her even harder.

  "Let me know when you think you can behave, Miss Long," he told her, not skipping a beat.

  The woman had plenty to say in response, none of it ladylike. McSwain was unfazed. He continued peppering one cheek with crisp, rhythmic smacks, then warmed up the other. Her shouts gave way to screams and then pitiful cries and yelps.

  "Stop, McSwain!" she pleaded. "Come on, please!"

  He'd just given her sit spot some much-needed and blazing attention. That area, even under the seat of her pants, was heated beneath the flat of his hand.

  "Only if you're ready to be a good passenger," he stressed the point. "And… a good girl."

  She hiccoughed. Had the spanking brought her to tears? He was fairly certain she'd remain seated the rest of the way to town. Not a pleasant ride for her on a sore bottom, but she'd earned that uncomfortable dilemma.

  Kelly looked back at him again. "Oh, all right. I'll behave."

  "Sir. 'I'll behave, sir.'"

  "Sir! You have some nerve, you arrogant, self-important—" A resounding spank rained down across her seat. She hollered out in pain, her eyes watering. "Ow! I'll behave, sir!"

  Satisfied, McSwain had a good mind to shove her off his lap and let her land on her blistered bottom on the ground. Instead he was a gentleman, even if he did make for an awkward gentleman, and helped her to her feet.

  He kept a straight face, watching her hop around, her hands behind her, trying to rub some of the soreness from her backside. The icing on the cake was the fact that she was pouting at him. This adorable but crazy woman could very easily be his undoing.

  "Now, you can talk on the way, but no more shouting or fussing at me," he ordered firmly. "And no more trying to get yourself killed by jumping off a moving wagon. You hear?"

  "Yes. I hear." She spoke through clenched teeth and avoided looking directly at him.

  "Fine. You try that again and I'll take you over my knee for another spanking. And next time, I'll use a switch on those tight britches of yours. You won't be able to sit for a week. Understand what I'm saying?"

  "Yeah. Whatever."

  "Kelly? Young lady," grasping her chin gently in his calloused hand, he forced her to look at him, "do you understand?"

  She blinked. Some of that bravado was gone, but he was surprisingly glad to see she still had that spunk of hers.

  "Yes… sir," she agreed with obvious reluctance.

  "Good. Get that little dog of yours and get back on that wagon. We're going to town. Maybe somebody will be able to help you there."

  Once in town, she would also be rid of him, since he imagined she couldn't wait to get away from him.

  Fine with him. He didn't need a woman in his life. He had enough trouble as it was, having come to Cheyenne to start anew a couple years ago.

  As if there was anywhere he could go where people hadn't heard of Jess McSwain.

  A troublesome woman like Kelly Long would only complicate matters even more. The sooner she was out of his hands, the better, and the sooner he could return to his own life, which held room for him and no one else. It wasn't perfect, but Lord knew it was all he could handle.

  * * * * *

  "Well, McSwain, you'll be happy to know I've examined this young lady, and she seems fine," Doc Fairlane announced. He was having her follow a letter opener with her eyes. "Her head injury doesn't appear to be serious. She has a hard head."

  "Hm." McSwain sniffed and looked away.

  Kelly would have had some choice words for him, had she not been concerned with that 1870s physician—who, she knew from watching old western movies, had some terrifying methods of dealing with illnesses and injuries. Nice man, other than that. Younger than what was typically depicted in films and television. Younger, too, than both she and McSwain. Doc Fairlane was a cherub-faced man in his late thirties with thinning, reddish-brown hair.

  "Anything else hurt, madam?" the doctor inquired.

  "No. I'm fine."

  Unless one counted her still-throbbing bottom that had been dealt a whopping spanking that afternoon. Luckily, they hadn't traveled too much farther on that road to get to the town. She had felt every single bump in the road, wishing she'd had a soft pillow beneath her to cushion her well spanked rump.

  "I just want to go home," she told the doctor. "Geez, I feel like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz."

  "Who? What wizard?"

  "Oh. Nothing." Discouraged, she looked down at the floor.

  That's right—you're no longer in 2014. You're in the 1870s. Where there is no Wizard of Oz, no movies, and every man here is John Wayne and every woman is Maureen O'Hara!

  Dr. Fairlane turned to McSwain, who stood with his feet apart and his hat in his hands.

  "Where's home for Miss Long?" he asked.

  "North Carolina. 2014," McSwain replied. "That's what the lady says."

  "What's 2014? An address?"

  "No, that's the year. 2014."

  Doc's eyes opened wider. "I don't understand."

  "Neither do I. But I found her up on Dayton Mountain. She says she was taking a walk in a North Carolina mountain when she ended up here. And the year when she started her walk was 2014."

  "Why… that's a hundred and forty years in the future. That's impossible!"

  "It's supposed to be impossible, that's right," Kelly agreed. "And yet… here I am."

  "Did I mention she's from the Carolinas?" McSwain reminded the doctor. "A hundred and forty years and over a thousand miles away."

  "I followed these lights on West Mountain," she repeated her story, condensing it for the doctor, who stared back curiously at her. "I was watching a waterfall and the ground gave in under me. My dog and I were swept into the water and into this cave. We fell and fell and… we ended up here. In Wyoming. A hundred and fifty years in the past. And in the Wild West."

  Pausing, she held her tears at bay. "I need to get home. I don't belong here. I have an apartment in Huntersville, North Carolina. And I'm a high school counselor. Please, I need to get home."

  "I see. Would you excuse us for a moment, Miss Long?"

  Excuse them? They would talk without her being present? She was almost too exhausted to care. "Whatever," she mumbled.

  She was tired and hungry, and she needed a bath. As she watched Doc Fairlane lead the way out the door with McSwain behind him, she also felt an awful moment of loneliness. Other than Mimi, she was in this predicament, with no one she knew, totally alone.

  To her surprise, McSwain glanced back at her. He said nothing but nodded, as if to assure her that he would be back. A smidgeon of her anger towards him dissipated.

  But it was difficult to harbor rancor right then, and that surprised her. The menfolk—wasn't that the word they us
ed back then? She wished she'd paid more attention to old westerns she'd watched—had taken off to talk about her condition, even though she was right there. She stepped to the window, a flight of stairs up from the street, and looked down at the late afternoon scene.

  Across the street was a livery, next to a saloon. Further down was a blacksmith's place of business. In place of cars were horses and assorted wagons. Cowboys and women dressed in 1870s garments moved along the boardwalk, some talking amongst themselves, some with small children at their sides.

  It looked like a scene from an old movie or something torn from a historical romance novel. The kind she used to consider a guilty pleasure, with cowboys who, back before someone decided it wasn't politically correct, had no qualms about taking a feisty woman over their knee for an old-fashioned spanking.

  Kelly reached back to rub her bottom gingerly, wincing. All right—so maybe she had always secretly shivered with excitement at those parts. The reality had hurt a whole lot more than she'd thought possible… and that cowboy, McSwain, had only used his hand!

  He won't be spanking me again, though, Kelly swore to herself. Because she was going home. There had to be a way back home. If she had gotten to 1871 Wyoming, she could find a way back to 2014 North Carolina. Somehow.

  * * * * *

  Downstairs, Doc Fairlane's wife, Thelma, had fixed the men some coffee. Albeit, McSwain had other things to do besides deal with Miss Long's supernatural dilemma, yet he patiently sipped coffee and listened as Doc spoke.

  "Strange as it may seem, I have heard of this happening before," the doctor said, stirring cream into his coffee, "of someone traveling through time. The way this woman's dressed. That—that thing she showed us, the 'cell.'"

  "And water in a bottle," McSwain scoffed. He drank his coffee black, with only a spoon of sugar to cut the bitterness. "Can you believe they put water in bottles and sell it? I can see whiskey or sasparilla. But water? Such thieves in the future."

  "Craziest thing!" Doc Fairlane laughed. "Listen, I'll talk to Thelma, but I'm sure she won't mind parting with a dress or two, and some shoes, other things for Miss Long. At least she won't be so out of place in those tight pants."

  "Thank you, Doc." McSwain sighed. "So how do we get her back to… the future?"

  The doctor looked pained to make the admission. "I don't know right now. Let me see what I can find out."

  "Who are you going to consult? A gypsy with a crystal ball?" Giving a mirthless laugh, McSwain finished his coffee.

  "Give me time. I'll try to give you an answer. For the time being, she can stay here with us."

  "Oh. Well…" He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "That's—that'd be very nice of you, Doc."

  "It'll be a little crowded with the children and all. Unless you wouldn't mind her staying with you. It wouldn't exactly be proper and all, but…"

  "No. It wouldn't be proper, no." He set down the dainty cup and saucer and stuck his hands in his pockets. "But I do have more room at my place. And she seems to think that if she can find that waterfall, she'll be able to find her way back."

  "Oh…" Doc Fairlane pursed his lips and shrugged. "Worth a try."

  "Yeah. I think she called it 'The Twilight Zone' or something like that." He was quiet for a moment. "That is, of course, if she'll come home with me."

  "She will. Remind her that you live out there, closer to the woods. She'll be that much closer to the Twilight Zone. Whatever that is."

  McSwain also shrugged. "That's if she doesn't give me too much trouble. I've already had to turn her over my knee for trying to hop off the wagon while it was in motion."

  "That said, you could use a woman up there. A wife," the doctor clarified with a grin.

  "That's kind of you, Doc. But I'm not looking for a wife. And I doubt she'd want me for a husband." Quickly, he changed the subject. "I do need to hurry if I'm going to get those supplies I need."

  "Oh, of course." Setting his own empty cup aside, Doc Fairlane said, "I'll get those clothes and shoes for Miss Long. Don't want to keep you any longer."

  "That's all right. Thanks, Doc."

  "You know, Jess," Doc leaned against the doorframe. "There may not be a way back. She… should consider the possibility that she might be stuck here with us in our time."

  "Maybe. You might be right."

  He dreaded being the one to have to tell Kelly Long that. McSwain couldn't begin to understand what it must have felt like, had he been the one to wake up in his own world, only to fall through a waterfall or in a cave, or whatever it had been, landing in a place and time where he didn't belong.

  And it had been her terrible luck not to end up with a man of some substance, but rather with a man with a tainted past, with very little now to call his own, other than that cabin and the patch of land around it.

  "McSwain? Are we leaving?"

  His head shot up. Kelly was at the top of the stairs, one hand on the banister, looking at him hopefully.

  "I—I was leaving, yes," he replied.

  "You're leaving… without me?"

  He took heart at the plaintive tone in her voice but tried not to let on that he cared too much. "No, no, Kelly. You and I are just waiting for Doc. He's got some clothes for you. Or rather, Mrs. Fairlane does."

  "Clothes?"

  "Yes. You can't go around dressed like that, woman."

  "Oh… all right."

  He turned, hiding his smile from her. Somehow, he kept his voice brusque. "Come on down here now. We haven't got all day."

  To his relief, she obeyed without an argument. She had combed her hair with her fingers, and it fell loosely around her face, to the nape of her neck, all in one length, though shorter than women typically wore their hair. She wasn't too thin, and if anything she filled out those clothes with feminine curves.

  It was probably a mistake, letting her come home with him. With his pants already tightening across the front, McSwain was reminded that he hadn't had his way with a woman in a long time. The last woman who'd taken him to her bed, in fact, had been a soiled dove. The only kind of woman he'd ever been able to attract.

  Kelly Long wasn't a soiled dove. She might have been headstrong and had a temper on her, but she was a good, decent woman.

  And one that he enjoyed gazing at, more than he cared to admit.

  "Where's Mimi?" she asked.

  "Oh, the children are playing with her. They adore her!" Doc had just come back to the room. "My wife is putting together a little package for you. Since… you're so far from home, Miss Long."

  "She shouldn't go through so much trouble." After a second, she added, "But I do appreciate it."

  "It's our pleasure. Let me get Mimi for you. I'll tear her away from the children." Doc laughed.

  "We'll stop and get the things we need." I need, not we. McSwain went on hastily, "And then we'll get home and have some supper. I'm sure you're hungry."

  "I am. It looks like I'm not going home tonight."

  "No. Not tonight. Tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow. I'll wait for you and Mimi outside."

  Maybe never. Maybe you won't ever want to leave.

  Don't make a fool of yourself over some woman, McSwain, he told himself.

  He resolved not to permit himself to get too attached. For now, he could enjoy Miss Long's company. Anyone's company, really, would be welcomed, but particularly that of an attractive and desirable woman.

  Company. Someone to break bread with, and maybe even help him around the place.

  The woman from the future wouldn't be staying. Especially not once she found out the truth about him, the ugly past that would never completely be gone from his life.

  Chapter Three

  Yes, folks, if there was any doubt whatsoever, now we know it is definitely 1871!

  Kelly regretted asking about a bath as soon as she saw Jess McSwain dragging in a washtub into the cabin. He'd had to heat water and pour it, bucket after bucket, filling the tub for her. Then he'd been a gentleman and stepped outside,
giving her privacy while she bathed.

  She felt guilty about having put him out of his own home, yet she had to luxuriate in the water for a few minutes. That day had seemed like it had lasted forever. She had given up hope of believing it had all been an illusion, some very realistic and elaborate dream that she would soon awaken from, returning to the world and the life she'd known for forty-two years.

  Finally reality had set in: that wasn't going to happen. She opened her eyes while in the tub, finding herself still here. Here, on a small farm in 1871 Wyoming.

  Holding the washrag to her mouth, she cried into it. She couldn't take too long, because there was still supper to be cooked and eaten. Yet all the emotions she'd kept pent up inside—the fear, the vulnerability, the realization that she might be stuck there in that time, all of it came flooding in at once, vehemently.

  Composing herself, she looked around at her surroundings. McSwain had built that house himself. It was a humble home, a far cry from her apartment in Huntersville, with all of its modern-day appliances and gadgets. Central heating and cooling… a huge screen TV… a coffeemaker that also had an attachment for grinding fresh coffee beans. Back there, she owned a washer, a dryer, and a dishwasher. She owned a blow dryer for her hair, and a laptop. In her kitchen were a microwave, an electric oven, a fridge stocked with whole foods and organic fruits and vegetables, and, oh, yes—a garden tub in the bathroom, with a shower, double sink and a commode.

  The "commode" here on McSwain's farm was an outhouse. She didn't want to complain, but she wasn't much of a roughing it kind of gal.

  Done with her bath, she stepped out of the tub and wrapped a towel around herself. If nothing else, she felt content to have washed off the lake water and the dust from the mountain road they'd traveled on earlier.

  "Okay, McSwain, I'm done!" she called out to him and climbed onto the simple bed.

  One bed. That would be interesting.