Bride of Shadow Canyon. Stacey Kayne

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СКАЧАТЬ smile broadened, spreading charm across what moments ago had appeared to be a face carved from stone. White teeth flashed in the moonlight.

      He was clean. She recalled how his skin had smelled of soap, a rarity among men. Could this be the same man who had just hauled her from that filthy saloon?

      “Sugar, you plannin’ on giving me a thank-you kiss?”

      It’s him, she thought, releasing a huff as she diverted her gaze. A handsome devil with all the manners of a jackass.

      “So much for gratitude,” he retorted. “Maybe later.”

      “Certainly not.” Real fear raced through her. Saints alive! She was riding off into the dark wilderness with this gunslinger. What type of man had her sister sent after her?

      “I reckon you’re out of my price range anyhow.”

      “I am not a—”

      “Tighten your lip until we’re clear of this town.” He urged his horse into a faster pace.

      Startled, Rachell clutched at his chest.

      “Lady, there’s hair and skin under that shirt.”

      “Sorry,” she mumbled, releasing her hold.

      “I won’t drop you.” His arm wrapped around her waist as he took the reins into one hand. His large palm slid across her side and covered the flat of her stomach. “Is that better?”

      Lord above! No, it wasn’t better. Had she been able to find her voice, she would have told him so.

      “We can slow our pace just as soon as we get some ground between us and Weaver.”

      

      After a half hour of riding, Jed was growing increasingly annoyed. They were traveling at a nice easy pace, yet she continued to squirm and shift about, apparently searching for just the right spot to rest her tender backside.

      “Sit still, goddamn it!” he finally shouted.

      “I beg your pardon, but your lap is far from comfortable.”

      “Yeah?” he quipped. “Well, you keep wrigglin’ your backside, and my lap is only bound to get harder.”

      She stiffened like an iron rod, sitting perfectly still.

      That did the trick, he thought. It obviously hadn’t been her intention to aggravate him, but he hadn’t been exaggerating. Her squirming about had quickly become slow torture.

      Hell. He knew she was going to be a whole heap of trouble the moment he and Buck stepped onto that train and found her abandoned carpetbag. Elizabeth had become hysterical when they’d informed her that her sister had been escorted off the train by two men in Lake’s Crossing. Buck needed to stay with his wife, which was just as well. His best friend had helped him out plenty of times in the past, but stalking was not one of Buck’s finer skills.

      Walter Buck Coleburn couldn’t sneak up on a deaf blind man, and Jed had a hunch the men who’d escorted Mrs. Rachell Carlson off the train were neither deaf nor blind. As usual, he’d been right. He wasn’t about to lead Satan’s army back to his ranch. Rachell wouldn’t be stepping foot in California until he was sure she was free of trouble.

      A grumbling sound distracted Jed from his thoughts. When it sounded again, he grinned, realizing it was Rachell’s stomach.

      “You tryin’ to tell me you’re hungry?”

      “How kind of you to notice,” she said in a dull tone.

      “It’s either that or there’s a grizzly on our tail.”

      Rachell glanced up at the man above her, surprised by his unexpected show of humor. His eyes sparkled in the moonlight. Somehow, his soft expression increased her uneasiness. She wished those chiseled features would return to stone.

      “What?” he asked, holding her gaze.

      Rachell shook her head, annoyed that she’d been caught openly staring at him, again. She felt a jolt of alarm as he tugged on the reins. “Why are you stopping?”

      “Relax. You’re safe with me.” He lifted her from his lap and gently eased her down. She shivered as her bare feet touched the damp ground.

      “Sage could use a rest,” he said, dismounting. “I have some dried beef in my saddlebags, and I thought you might want your boots.”

      “You have my boots?”

      “Red leather’s hard to miss. I grabbed ‘em off the table while I was chattin’ with Juniper.”

      She’d been such a bundle of nerves, unable to bear the sight of more bloodshed, she probably wouldn’t have noticed if he’d taken the piano. She hadn’t even thought about young Juniper being left alone in that town. He’d been so brave to tag along with the others, doing his best to protect her. “Do you think Juniper will be all right?”

      Jed pulled her boots out from under a rope tied around the pack behind his saddle. “Don’t tell me you’re feeling sympathetic toward your captors?”

      “I would hardly refer to Juniper as one of my captors, Mr. Jed. He’s just a boy. June isn’t like the others. He’s not bad.”

      “If he doesn’t change his line of work, he soon will be,” Jed said with dark certainty as he held out her shoes.

      “Only my boots?” she asked with a ring of disappointment.

      The coldness came back into his eyes, firming his features. “I had you in one hand and my gun in the other.”

      She avoided his harsh glare as she accepted the boots. “Thank you. I didn’t intend to sound ungrateful.”

      “Just put your boots on. I want to get as far from Weaver as I can before sunup. We won’t be making camp tonight.”

      “The sooner we reach California, the better,” she said as she pulled on a boot. “I was eleven when I last saw my sister.” Sadness washed over Rachell like a winter chill as she recalled the day Elizabeth’s late husband had carted her off to California. Never knowing her mother, she’d been raised by Elizabeth and their housekeeper, Amity. Six months after her sister’s departure, their father had sent her away to boarding school.

      For six years she’d lived at Miss Abigail’s Academy for Young Ladies. Six years of being an outcast, a dandelion in a garden of roses. Not a day had gone by that she hadn’t dreamed of returning to the farm and people she loved. When that day finally came, she’d returned home to nothing but a brick chimney stack surrounded by rubble, ruined crops, and the state torn apart by war, along with the family who’d given her up.

      “I lost touch with Elizabeth during the war,” she said in a neutral tone, pushing the painful memories from her mind as she tugged on her second boot. “It was a miracle I managed to locate her. I had no idea her first husband had died or that she had remarried. A man came up to me after a show while I was working in Kansas and said he’d heard my last song once before, sung by a little redheaded woman in California СКАЧАТЬ