Beloved Outcast Read Online Free PDF

state, managed to adhere to his muscular shoulders. She had never seen an uncovered male chest before, and thus was unprepared for the shocking sight of the lush pelt of black hair that grazed his bared flesh. Goodness, surely no American Indian roaming the western plains could appear more awesomely proportioned than Logan Youngblood.
    Or more distressingly primitive.
    “Where’s the kid?”
    The gruff question jerked her gaze from his almost naked torso to a dark pair of glittering eyes. She swallowed. The man looked as if he’d been pummeled by an angry mob. His blackened right eye was almost swollen shut. He also sported a bruised, whiskered jaw and a split bottom lip.
    The single thought that danced in her head was that, if she hadn’t released the devil himself from the stockade, she’d surely freed one of his henchmen to murder, plunder and pillage.
    “The—the kid?” she repeated stupidly.
    He took another step forward. She tipped her head back to keep his daunting visage in view.
    “The one I’ve been talking to since last night.”
    “I told you I wasn’t a child,” she answered, hearing the wobble in her voice and regretting it.
    His savage gaze shriveled to a blistering slit. “You mean all this time I’ve been talking to you? A female?”
    The derisive way he pronounced “female” caused a hot flush to singe her cheeks. She stood taller, digging for a measure of her normal pluck. “I should think that would be obvious to anyone of reasonable intelligence.”
    Usually she didn’t approve of cutting remarks designed to wound another’s sensibilities. But in Mr. Youngblood’s case, she felt justified in making an exception. Clearly the criminal possessed no sensibilities with which to concern herself.
    His glare was of sufficient scorching intensity to fry a buckwheat biscuit without benefit of fire.
    “I don’t believe it.”
    “It’s true.” Had his confinement addled his senses, making him incapable of grasping that she had only pretended to be of the male gender? “I can assure you I am traveling alone. There is no one with me, least of all a child.”
    She couldn’t make her explanation any simpler.
    His good eye, the one that wasn’t fiercely swollen, studied her balefully. “Why?”
    “Why what?” She assessed the challenge of getting the confused man to Trinity Falls. Of course, there was a positive side to his apparent simplemindedness. It was possible that he was mistaken about the Indians being on the warpath. “Are you wondering why I wanted you to think you were talking to a man?”
    He shook his head, then winced. “I don’t give a damn about your theatrics. I want to know why you’re alone.”
    “Oh, that.” She glanced from his ruthless stare. She hated admitting to this disreputable stranger that she’d been banishedfrom the wagon train. She attempted a reassuring smile. “I don’t have the plague, if that’s worrying you.”
    A grave expression settled over his battered features. “Were you attacked?”
    Victoria’s thoughts immediately went to her late-night mishap with Hyrum Dodson, the unfortunate discharge of her rifle, and his piercing howl as he’d hopped about on one foot while trying to ascertain the damage to his other one. “I wouldn’t call it an ‘attack’ so much as a misunderstanding.”
    Mr. Youngblood’s good eye narrowed. “Misunderstanding?”
    “You see, I thought a bear was invading my wagon.”
    Confusion seemed to sweep his countenance. “A bear?”
    The man really was limited in his reasoning abilities. She regretted her earlier cutting remark about anyone of reasonable intelligence being able to comprehend her explanations.
    But she hadn’t known that Logan Youngblood was blighted by limited mental prowess. Her gaze made a quick foray across his virile physique. What a pity that his physical endowments were not matched by an equally keen intellect. Had his lack of mental fortitude led to an association with unsavory men