The Ranger's Bride. Laurie Grant

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      It was the first thing she had said to him. A lady was not supposed to speak to a man to whom she had not been properly introduced, even if they were traveling many miles in the same uncomfortable small box.

      He sat back and let the flap fall back in place before he answered. “Nope, not that I can see.”

      She didn’t believe him, for he had shown no interest in their whereabouts heretofore.

      “Oh. Well, did you hear something, then?” she persisted.

      “Just wanted to have a look at the countryside, ma’am.”

      She studied him for a moment; then, giving up on getting the truth out of him, said, “Excuse me, sir,” to the florid-faced big man sitting next to her and leaned forward to lift her side of the flap.

      Rede Smith took advantage of her momentary distraction to appreciate the sweet line of her bosom as she bent from a trim waist to look out the stage window. He’d been covertly looking at her ever since she’d climbed into the stagecoach just ahead of him in Austin. He’d first been transfixed by the graceful sway of her silk bustle, but that was before he had been able to get a good view of her classic oval face with its soft, lush lips, pert little nose and round, green eyes.

      He was careful not to leave his gaze on her long enough that she noticed. He had no desire to make her uncomfortable. There was already a wariness about her that didn’t subside except for a brief period when she had fallen into a doze, just outside of Round Mountain. Then he had let his eyes drink her in and savor her rosebud lips, the slenderness of her neck, the rich chestnut hair that framed her forehead and was evidently caught up at her nape in some sort of a twist.

      He wished he had been sitting next to her, instead of across from her. Then he could have stolen closer while she slept. It would have been torture to feel the length of his thigh against hers, but still damn well worth it.

      Rede, there’s just no use putting yourself through that for a lady. Ladies had no time for a man like him, a man with no permanent home and with a job that could put him on the receiving end of a bullet at any time. A lady wanted a man who was settled, with a little bit of land and maybe a thriving business to boot. A man who didn’t feel he had something to prove. A man who had not been already disgraced by the last name he’d been born with—a name his mother had changed as soon as she’d finally left James Fogarty.

      He hadn’t answered the lady truthfully when she’d asked him what was wrong because he could not have said what had made him uneasy and given him that prickling along his spine. He’d been unable to identify its cause as he’d gazed out over the rocky landscape of the Texas hill country. He had seen nothing unusual—not even the telltale flash of metal that could indicate the presence of horsemen hiding in ambush.

      He preferred the flatter terrain of farther south—it was harder for Indians or white rascals to hide in that country, where the tallest things in it were scrubby mesquite and knee-high clumps of prickly pear. Anything or anyone could hide in this rolling country of wide, juniper- and mesquite-covered hills and limestone outcroppings.

      For the hundredth time he wished he wasn’t in this swaying, rattling box, and had his good roan gelding under him. But he’d known he had a better chance of sneaking into the area without the news reaching the Fogartys if he wasn’t seen riding into town on his roan. Word had a way of spreading fast, as if the wind whispered the news.

      “Three Mile Hill,” the woman murmured as she let go of the flap and sat back on her seat. “I’ll be home soon.”

      She had a pretty voice, Rede thought. Not high and shrill, or mannishly low, but pleasantly pitched. Not twangy-Texan, either, though it wasn’t nasal or clipped like a Yankee’s. She’d been raised somewhere else, somewhere in the Midwest, he guessed. He wished he could ask her, but knew he wouldn’t.

      “You live in Connor’s Crossing?” the big man between her and the window asked her, exhaling down on her so gustily that a loose tendril at her forehead fluttered for a moment.

      Rede saw her nostrils flare involuntarily, and guessed she had gotten a potent whiff of the man’s beer-and-onion scented breath. But her smile was polite as she nodded.

      “Well, ain’t that nice,” the big man said. “Happens that’s where I’m headed. Gonna set up a business there. Mebbe I could come callin’ sometime, mebbe take you drivin’, soon’s I get me a rig and a hoss.”

      “I’m sorry, but I’m a widow,” she said, with a meaningful glance at her clothing.

      Rede had been so intent on the sweet curves of her body, he hadn’t noticed she was dressed in half-mourning, a gray dress banded in black. Such shades indicated the death had been some time ago, didn’t it? Several months, or was it a year or more?

      He wondered how she had felt about her husband. Had she been devastated by his death? Did she still grieve? A man couldn’t judge by her answer to the big smelly man—most women would have used any excuse not to have that one come calling.

      Rede felt a flare of anger, not only that the man had been such an insensitive idiot, but also, he recognized, because the man had made overtures to the very woman Rede wanted himself. A part of him already thought of the woman as his.

      If only things had been different. Idiot.

      But not as bad an idiot as the big man. He couldn’t imagine the green-eyed woman would have consented to let the malodorous big man call on her even if he’d been the only gent left in Texas.

      “Sorry, ma’am,” said the other man. “I jes’ saw you were wearin’ half-mournin’, and I thought maybe it’d been long e…” His voice trailed off, as Rede purposefully intercepted his gaze and narrowed his eyes in warning. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

      “Ain’t this the road the Fogarty Gang used to rob the stage along, back before the war?” the drummer asked just then.

      The woman’s eyes widened with alarm, and her face paled. Rede longed to slam his elbow into the skinny drummer’s ribs hard enough to make him lose his dinner, just for frightening her.

      “But I heard they hadn’t been robbing stages around here for years,” she said. “Ever since—”

      “They haven’t,” Rede said flatly, wanting to banish the furrow of worry from her forehead. “Not since m—since Jim Fogarty was hanged.” My father. My father died at the end of a choking rope—years ago.

      James Fogarty’s execution for the killing of a stagecoach driver should have taught the rest of the gang a lesson, and it had—for a while. They had lit out to the wild Pecos country for several years. But recently they’d been inching back to their old locale, the limestone-studded hills of central Texas.

      “Harrumph. They better keep their eyes peeled and the shotgun ready,” the drummer said, jerking his head to indicate the driver and the stagecoach guard riding up on top.

      A lot of good that would do, if the Fogartys wanted to rob this stage, Rede thought, watching the color slowly ebb back into the woman’s face.

      He wondered what her name was. Something prim and fancy, he thought. Not harsh, like Harriet, or dowdy-sounding, like Ethel.

      Elizabeth, he decided. He wondered if she went by Beth or Liza.

      Then СКАЧАТЬ