The Cowboy from Christmas Past. Tina Leonard

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СКАЧАТЬ with Dillinger from a boss named Harry. The kind of protection she needed didn’t seem to require further description. “I—No. I’m not for hire.”

      She stepped closer. He could smell her fresh-washed scent, look into her pleading eyes. Automatically, he shut off the part of him that wanted to ask what protection she could possibly need.

      “I need help,” she said, “and a hired gun is just what I need.”

      He narrowed his gaze. “You didn’t believe me earlier when I told you who I was.”

      She shook her head. “I don’t know what to believe about you.”

      “The sentiment is mutual.”

      “I think for Rose’s sake we should travel together.”

      He shook his head. “Lady, I know you want my baby, but you’ll never get her from me.”

      “I don’t want to steal Rose.”

      “You want something. I can feel it.”

      She slowly nodded. “Yes. I do. I want you to travel with me to the next place, and be my cover.”

      “I don’t even know how I got here. I don’t want to travel again, whatever that means.” Maybe she’d done it. Maybe it was her—the woman—who had pulled him forward through time, and not the baby. He desperately hoped it wasn’t Auburn who had somehow worked a magic spell to draw him to her. He could be stuck with her!

      “We’ll just head west,” she said soothingly.

      He’d heard that one before. Everyone always wanted to go west, for gold, for open land, for a new start.

      “What are you running from?”

      “An ex-fiancé. A wealthy ex-fiancé, whom I discovered has a shady past. I’m a little afraid that he’ll find me.” She took a breath. “And I’m not ready for that.”

      He held Rose’s carrier tightly in one hand, her sack of belongings in the other. Had Auburn brought him here because she wanted protection from a man? Needed a husband? All he knew was that he didn’t trust this woman and her big eyes at all. “Because?”

      “He’ll be embarrassed that I stood him up. And it’s worse because my family owes their livelihood to him. I’ve always enjoyed a privileged lifestyle, but I thought my parents earned their wealth on their own. The week before the wedding, I learned that they had done deals over time with my fiancé. I began to feel uncomfortably like the fatted calf. Which sounds horrible because my family loves me. But I wanted to make it on my own in the world, not belong to someone. Does that sound crazy?”

      He didn’t know. Women made agreements to marry for a dozen reasons, most of them complicated, some ridiculous, but they seemed to make sense to the female mind. It was a complex issue. Polly had married him, she always said, because she couldn’t love a man who couldn’t manage her high spirits and her energy. But he hadn’t managed Polly; she’d managed him. He’d enjoyed the light of her spirit, letting it flow over him. She could have married a lot better than a gunslinger, even though he’d changed everything about himself to win Polly. Her family had never forgiven him his past, though they loved her dearly. Shame had been written all over their faces anytime they saw him. They couldn’t believe he had won their daughter’s heart.

      He couldn’t believe he had, either.

      But right now, this woman was standing in his way. She claimed to need him, and truthfully, he could use her, too, but only if she wasn’t planning to make off with his baby. She struck him as the type who didn’t make easy attachments, though he wasn’t sure why he felt that way. It was just a feeling he had, and he always went with his hunches. “Listen, I like traveling alone.”

      She perked up. “So do I! It’s really more economical, isn’t it? You don’t have to share anything, you can go where you want to….” Her face fell. “On the other hand, it can be lonely.”

      “I’m never lonely,” he fibbed. He’d been lonely on the ranch after Polly died, desperately so.

      “Well, you’re brave.” She shrugged. “You and Rose can take the backseat, if you must feel alone. I’ll be in the front, and we can ignore each other.”

      He didn’t think he could totally ignore her, any more than he could ignore a wasp stinging his buttocks. “How far west are you going?”

      “I was thinking New Mexico,” she said, her tone breezy. “But you can choose, if you like.”

      “I don’t really care,” he said with a growl, stopping himself from saying, but if you try to take my baby, I’ll find you. “One condition,” he said.

      “What?”

      He took a long, hard look at her, trying to see inside her soul. He had pretty good success with reading people; if you didn’t have that sixth sense, you could wind up dead. “No more mothering this baby.”

      She drew herself up, clearly hurt. “Fine, cowboy. You can take care of that child all by your little old self.”

      “Good.”

      “Fine.” She swept past him on the stairwell. “Let me grab my things. I don’t have much, and I’m paid up through the month here.”

      Now was his moment to take off, get away from her and her spell. But she piqued his curiosity in the worst way. What if she was somehow instrumental to his existence in this century? He had to find the key to getting himself sent back. “How do you pay by the month at a place like this?”

      “By understanding the travel industry. Anyway, you let me handle the arrangements, cowboy. You mind the angel.”

      Fine. He didn’t really want to know any more about her than he had to, anyway.

      Only her traveling secret, and she’d just now given herself away. Auburn understood the travel industry, both in this dimension and some others.

      He felt pretty smart at figuring her out so easily.

      

      MEN COULD BE IDIOTS. Auburn tried not to swear under her breath as she tossed her Louis Vuitton luggage into the trunk of her car, annoyed that Dillinger had tried to leave her high and dry. Steal his baby? Hah! She wasn’t completely certain that was Dillinger’s child, but he’d turned bearlike, protective of his cub.

      She wouldn’t touch his silly old baby, if he was going to be such an ass about it. “Get in the back,” she told him crossly, “and strap that carrier in correctly, please.”

      She sounded bossy and she knew it, but he complied, fumbling a bit with the straps before correctly tightening the baby backward in the seat. Auburn smiled a little at Rose, stiffening when she caught Dillinger looking at her. “You’re getting better at that,” she said airily.

      “Like you’re an expert at it, yourself.”

      Turning on the car engine, she said, “I was trying to give you a compliment. Obviously, you’re the kind of man whose ego won’t let you accept one gracefully.”

      “Probably.” СКАЧАТЬ