A Bride for Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

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СКАЧАТЬ didn’t carry her. Instead, he had his arms around her properly this time. There were no bad guys here. He could carry her like a gentleman. “Besides, you’d get frostbite.”

      Francis didn’t argue. She simply couldn’t think of anything to say. She had been swiveled, swept up in his arms and now rested on Flint’s shoulder with a view of his chin. This was not the way anything was supposed to go. She was supposed to be forgetting him. “You nicked your chin the night of the prom, too.”

      “Huh?”

      “When you shaved—the night of the prom, you nicked your chin. Almost in the same place.”

      “I was nervous.”

      “Me, too.”

      “You didn’t look nervous,” Flint said softly. He had tied Honey to a branch and was carrying Francis out of the pine grove. “You were cool as a cucumber.”

      “I hadn’t been able to eat all day.”

      “You were perfect,” Flint said simply. He was walking toward the small wood frame house. “Everybody is hungry at those things, anyway. You think there’ll be food and it turns out to be pickled mushrooms or something with toothpicks in it.”

      Flint stopped. He was halfway to the house, and he knew someone had been here recently besides himself and Honey. A faint smell was coming from the house—the smell of cigars. He’d only known one man to ever smoke that particular brand.

      “I’m going to set you down and check out the house,” Flint whispered. It could be a trap. The cigars weren’t a secret. “Be quiet.”

      Francis shivered, and not from the cold. Even in a whisper, Flint’s voice sounded deadly serious. For the first time, she was truly afraid. And, for the first time, it occurred to her that if it were known by now that she was kidnapped—and it surely would be known once Jess checked around the barn—then someone would be out to rescue her. And if they intended to rescue her, they would also be out to hurt—maybe even kill—Flint.

      The very thought of it turned her to ice. She could cheerfully strangle Flint herself. But seeing him hurt—really hurt—was something else again.

      Think, Francis, think, she told herself as Flint slid her out of his arms to a dry space near a pine tree. The shade of the tree made the night darker here than anywhere. Even the light of the moon did not reflect off her sequins when she was sitting here. She could no longer see his face. He was a black shadow who crouched beside her.

      “Be careful,” she whispered at his back as he turned to leave. The words sounded futile to her ears. And then she saw his black silhouette as he drew a gun from somewhere. He must have had a gun in the saddlebag. Or maybe he had a shoulder holster.

      Francis didn’t want to be responsible for Flint being hurt. But anyone who was here to rescue her would think nothing of shooting Flint. Think, Francis, think. There had to be a solution. She couldn’t just sit here and wait for the gunfire to begin.

      That’s it, she thought victoriously. She knew she could think of a solution. It just needed an orderly mind. If there were no kidnapping, there would be no need for any shooting.

      Francis forced herself to stand. Her one leg wobbled, but it would have to do. She took a step forward, praying whoever was inside that wooden house would have sense enough to recognize her voice.

      “Flint, darling,” she called in what she hoped was a gay and flirtatious voice. She was out of practice, but even if her voice wasn’t seductive she knew it was loud enough to be heard through the thickest walls. “I thought you said there was a bed inside this old house for us to use.”

      There, she thought in satisfaction, that should quell any questions about a kidnapping. It would, of course, raise all sorts of other questions, but she could deal with that later. She wondered who of the many Dry Creek men had come to her rescue.

      Flint froze. Only years of training stopped him from turning around to stare at Francis. The deep easy chuckle that rumbled through the walls of the house confirmed his suspicions about who had smoked the cigars. The cigars could be duplicated. The chuckle never. It was safe to turn around.

      Flint could only see the silhouette of Francis, but it was enough. He walked toward her and said the only thing he could think to say. “I told you to keep quiet. That could have been anyone inside.”

      “I didn’t want you to be shot on my account,” Francis whispered airily as she limped toward him. “If you just let me go now, there’ll be no kidnapping.”

      “There never was a kidnapping. This was a rescue.”

      “A rescue?” Francis turned the word over in her mouth and spoke low enough so that whoever was inside the house could not hear. “Don’t you think that’s going a bit far? I don’t think anyone would believe it’s a rescue— I think we better stick with the seduction story.”

      Flint shook his head. No wonder being a hero was so difficult these days.

      “Not that they’ll believe the seduction story, either.” Francis continued to whisper. Her leg was painful, but she found it easier to limp than to stand. “I must look a sight by now.”

      The deep darkness of the night that had gathered around the pine trees lifted as Francis moved toward him. “I wonder which of the men from Dry Creek knew enough to drive out here and wait for us. Pretty quick thinking.”

      Flint held his breath. In the night, he could look at Francis and not worry about the naked desire she would see in his eyes any other time. His jacket had fallen off her shoulders under the tree, and her arms and neck gleamed white even in the midnight darkness. The sequins of that red dress glittered as she moved, showing every curve in her slender body. She was beautiful.

      “It’s not one of the men from Dry Creek,” Flint said softly. “It’s my boss.”

      Francis stopped. She’d never thought—never even considered. And she should have—there’s an order to everything, she reminded herself blindly. One needed to know the place of everything. And a kidnapping, she noted dully, required a motive and, in this case, a boss.

      Francis stared unmoving at the weatherbeaten deserted house that used to belong to Flint’s grandmother. The white paint had peeled off the frame years ago, leaving a chipped grayness that blended into the darkness. Gaping black holes marked where the glass had broken out of the windows.

      “He must think I’m a fool,” Francis whispered stiffly.

      Francis looked so fragile, Flint moved slowly toward her. She looked like a bird, perched for flight even with her sprained leg muscle.

      “No, I’m sure he doesn’t think that at all,” he said softly.

      When he reached Francis, Flint picked her up again. This time he cradled her in his arms properly, as he had wanted to each time he’d picked her up tonight. For the first time, she didn’t resist him. That should thrill his heart, Flint thought. But it didn’t. He knew Francis wasn’t warming toward him. She’d just given up.

      “And that bit about the bed.” Francis continued to fret. “I’m a middle-aged woman. He must think I’m a featherbrain—especially because he knows why you have me out here.”

      “He СКАЧАТЬ