Page 23 of The Outlaw and the Heir

"Yeah," he said in a low voice. "Funny how that works, isn't it?"

"None of it is funny," I growled at him, reaching to yank him away, but Hipolita gestured at me to stop.

"What's funny?" she asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"Like most things in life that are funny, it's really not," he snorted. "But I just meant...never mind."

"No, you started this," I told him, giving him a nudge with my elbow. "You finish it. She asked you a question."

He raised a brow at me. “I just meant that there's always going to besomethingthat people will stick on you if they want to badly enough. And if they've got power over you, then it's usually a matter of time before they use it to get the better of you...sometimes for good."

"You broke the law," I hissed at him. "That is not the same?—"

"Were you a slave?" Samuel asked her, making my mouth fall open, not just at the way he ignored me but for his audacity.

"Which you aren't…" I began.

"I was," Hipolita answered, now watching Samuel with an intense curiosity I wasn't sure I liked.

"Which is legal where you're from."

"Yessir."

"Does that mean you being here is breaking the law?"

"Enough," I snapped, not needing an education to see what he was trying to say. "Don't you dare use her life to make your?—"

"Calm down now," Hipolita said, chuckling and patting me on the arm, a rare gesture for such a public place and enough to calm me down immediately. "He don't mean no harm...mischief maybe, but no harm."

For the first time, I saw Samuel's expression flash not only with surprise but immediately soften as he smiled at her. “I guess you've got a good feel for people at first glance."

"Don't hurt that I think I see where you're going with all that," she said, shifting her gaze to me. "Even if this one is too bullheaded to see it."

"I see just fine," I huffed, annoyed that Hipolita seemed to take a shine to him so quickly when she'd barely spoken to him, whereas for the past two weeks, I'd been forced to watch him and keep him out of trouble. Apparently, my father had chosen the wrong person to keep an eye on him because Hipolita seemed to have him figured out. Just as annoying was the fact that I could tell Samuel liked her, whereas the only thing he liked about me was that he could get on my nerves.

Even I knew when someone liked you, they were more inclined to be agreeable and try to work with you rather than against you. The problem was, there wasn't much about Samuel that made me want to get him to like me, and at the top of the list was his absolute disrespect for the law, followed by his admitted lack of any consideration towards honor. Yet, there was a softness about Samuel I’d never seen before. While I ignored the tug inside, trying to figure out how to summon it for myself, I could only despair that Hipolita was as good with people as she'd always been.

"Well then," she said. "Seems like that's settled, so why don't you two escort me back to the house so Mr. Isaiah can speak to you like he wants?"

I watched Samuel's face closely, and if he was surprised at being summoned to the house with me, he hid it perfectly. Thator he had been lurking within earshot to know what Hipolita had come out to say. I wasn't going to dismiss either option as a possibility.

"Come on now," she said and turned around a little slowly. I knew her leg, which had suffered an injury long before she'd come here, surely had to be acting up. She could call me bullheaded all she wanted, but she was as stubborn as they came, and I knew she wouldn't admit the walk out here had been slow and painful, and so would going back. She also wouldn't admit to needing help and would shrug me off if I tried to help her back to the house.

"Lord above," Samuel said with a sigh as he stepped forward. "More walking? As if this one doesn't try to run me into the ground enough as it is, now I've got to go for a stroll?"

"The Lord provides all sorts of things for us, challenges included," Hipolita told him with a small smile.

"Well, how about you provide your arm to me then?" Samuel asked, holding his arm out. "I haven't gotten much rest, and having someone to keep me going is better than slowly plodding my way to my doom while someone glares at me like I'm going to bolt for the horizon at any moment."

I was glad neither of them was paying attention when my brow shot up when Hipolita accepted his offer and took his arm in hers. I watched the way they both shifted, and she instinctively leaned onhiminstead. And all of it was done without any more words and without the slightest fight from her.

It reminded me how he’d known how to irritate his bad-tempered friend and yet never managed to go so far as to invite violence. Or the way he knew the sort of work they were good for and how to talk to the men about their cooking. It was also the way he knew not just how to get on my nerves but how to mentally and verbally maneuver and findjustthe right spot to hit with just the right words to drive me into a fuming silence.

That he was good at figuring out people and how to manipulate them wasn't a surprise, after all, I'd seen it in action. But outside selling out his fellow outlaws for their skills, essentially getting them less difficult work, I hadn't seen him use it to help someone. Yet he'd figured out how to work around Hipolita without needing to see that she was stubborn and proud. He just knew it...and then knew how to get around it.

It was easy to see how someone with his skills could land themselves in trouble, though itdidmake it harder to picture him as a member of the gangs raising hell all over the place. Yet, that little gesture made me wonder if there wasn't more to him than just a disregard for the law...and my patience. True, it could be a ploy to make some of us let down our guards, but everything in me, except my suspicion, told me this appeared and, indeed,wasgenuine.

"So," Hipolita spoke up after a few minutes, interrupting what Samuel had started calling my brooding. "Where are you from?"

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