Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WayWard Wind Read Online Free PDF

shrugged. "I'm sure he's made arrangements, but hasn't seen fit to share them with me."
    "Will you be able to run the ranch once he kicks the bucket?"
    "I've been trained to do just that," she replied crisply.
    One dark brown arched upward. "Aye, how is that?"
    "I do the bookkeeping for the spread already and I know the workings of the ranch inside and out. I can tell you down to the last calf how many we have on the range, what the market value is and how to dicker with a potential buyer or breeder," she answered. "If need be, I can help with the branding and inoculations as well as the dipping." She glanced down at his gun. "I also learned to shoot when I was little girl."
    "You learned to shoot," he echoed in a disbelieving tone.
    She nodded. "My father desperately wanted a boy but had to settle for me. I went everywhere with him until I was fourteen and my mother decided I needed to go to boarding school." She smiled. "Mama didn't think being able to fire a rifle and hit a moving target was a very ladylike thing to do."
    "Yet you don't ride," he said. "Why is that?"
    "I've never felt comfortable around horses," she admitted. "I got thrown when I was about five or so and broke my arm in several places." She rubbed her arm. "It hurt like the dickens so after that I was terrified of the beasts and Mama refused to allow Daddy to make me take lessons because of my fear." She sighed. "One day, though, I'm going to have to get over that fear and learn to ride. I can't have my foreman driving me all over the ranch in a buckboard."
    "With fancy lace parasol extended above your perfectly coiffed hair," he said with a smirk.
    She smiled at his remark. "Don't forget the picnic basket with wine and cheese and a good loaf of crusty bread alongside a plump apple or two."
    Harper turned his head toward the cave entrance. "It's stopped raining."
    She glanced that way. "So it has," she agreed and got to her feet, shaking out her wet skirt. "Are we to leave now?"
    "I don't know about you but I'd like some clean, dry clothes and a decent meal. I've provisions at the cabin," he said as he stood. "We'll have a good supper."
    "Provided banditos haven't made off with your supplies."
    "I have someone watching the place," he told her. "Not many people around here will mess with Snake."
    She shook her head. "I imagine not with a name like that."
    He went to his horse and led it back toward the entrance as she kicked sand into the campfire and folded his blanket, then handed to him. As he rolled the blanket and secured it to his saddle and strapped on his saddlebags, she retrieved the two plates from outside, dumped the water from them, and then used her damp skirt to dry them off as best she could.
    "You're taking this pretty well all of a sudden, wench," he commented.
    "What?" she asked.
    "Your abduction."
    "You've already done your worst, haven't you, Sloan?" she asked, her head cocked to one side. "I mean you—you ...." Her face turned red.
    "I fucked you," he said as he led his horse outside.
    "Yes, you did," she muttered, but didn't seem particularly upset about it to his way of thinking. If anything, she was looking at him as though she expected it to happen again--which he had no doubt it would if he kept to his plan.
    "There are worse things than fucking a woman, Peyton," he said as he climbed into the saddle then held out a hand to her to help her up.
    "Such as?" she asked, putting her foot in the stirrup to lever herself behind him this time.
    "I really could sell you to a brothel or loan you out," he said as she put her arms around his waist. "Share you with my friends."
    "You could but you won't," she said as she settled against his back.
    He twisted his head to the side to look at her. "What makes you think that?"
    "You're doing this to get back at my father so the chances are good you intend to send me back to him eventually," she said as he kicked the horse into motion.
    "Aye," he said, "with a little Harper growing in your belly.