Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance) Read Online Free PDF Page A

saddlebags, slung over the top of the wall.
    When he turned around, he held a pair of pants and a shirt in his hands. He tossed them to the ground beside her.
    “Put those on.”
    She picked up the shirt and clutched it against her too-exposed bosom. Under his watchful eyes, she stood and took a step toward the outer wall. “I—I’ll just step behind the wall and change.”
    “Take the pants, too,” he said.
    His edict stopped her dead. She felt as though he’d slammed a fist into her chest. Surely, only crushed ribs could prick her heart so painfully. The man had no idea what he asked her to do. If she put on those pants, the past two years would have been for nothing. She’d be right back where she was. Before New York. Before those torturous sessions at Miss Marvel’s Ladies Academy...before her father sent her away for being too unladylike.
    At last, she sucked in a deep breath and stiffened her spine. “I don’t want to wear the pants.”
    “There’s two hundred miles of rough country between here and Clayton Station. Put on the pants.”
    Her chin tipped upward a notch. “If I refuse?”
    “You’ll still wear them. One way or another.”
    An image popped into her head of him stripping her down to her drawers and forcing the trousers up her legs. She had no doubt he’d do it.
    A very unladylike grunt escaped her lips. Treating him to her most quelling glare—to which he seemed immune—she bent and snatched up the pants.
    Angel stepped outside the enclosure, behind the concealment of the shoulder-high wall. Frustration ate at her. Separated from the fire, cold air washed over her, raising goosebumps. She chafed her arms and shivered. At this time of year, the temperature dipped drastically after sundown. Something to remember when she enacted her escape. Which, she vowed, would be soon .
    After thinking about it, it only made sense. When she did escape, she would have to move quickly. It would be much easier in men’s clothing.
    A faint ghost of a smug smile briefly touched her lips. Oh, yes. She would put on the pants—for now.
    Sparing them one final look of disgust for good measure, she draped the wrinkled garments—brown trousers and a colorless muslin shirt—over the wall in front of her and started stripping.
    The pants fit over her hips like a glove. She knew they would leave little to the imagination, but at least now she could ride astride.
    On the other side of the wall, her captor had taken the pan of beans and moved away from the fire. Leisurely, he spooned them into his mouth. Though he didn’t look at her directly, she knew he watched her from the corner of his eye.
    After a moment, he sat the pan on the ground and added more fuel to the fire. Sticks he’d gathered from the brush just before dark. A hiss and pop accompanied a shower of sparks shooting skyward.
    She took a breath and asked the question that had been eating at her all evening. “How did you know I’d be on that stage?”
    “You sent your father a message, telling him to expect your arrival.”
    Evangeline clenched her jaw. If it was the last thing she did, she’d see to it that some loose-lipped telegrapher lost his job.
    “How did this feud between my father and Horace get started?”
    He tossed the last twig, the one he’d been using as a poker, into the flames and sat there a long moment, as if debating his answer.
    “Lundy’s cattle were diseased. He ignored it. He just stood by and watched while they dropped. Your father put up the fence to keep Lundy’s cattle away from his herd.”
    “How could Horace find fault with that?”
    “He claims the fence kept his cattle from pasturing, that they starved. He wants payment for the entire herd.”
    “That’s ridiculous.” She slipped the shirt on. “And this plan to hold me for ransom, or whatever he has in mind. How does he think he’ll be able to show his face after this? He’ll be done for in this country.”
    “He’s done for anyway.” Rane sat