Colorado Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page A

field glasses better. The offset lenses might have been bulkier, but the image was brighter. This roof-prism design darkened everything too much.
    He twisted the adjustment again. The figure beside the creek blurred, then came into focus. A woman. Auburn hair. Undressing.
Undressing?
    He pulled the glasses down, then quickly raised them again and scanned until he found her. Definitely undressing. In the open. Like a wee highland fairy. This couldna be the woman he’d been tracking across two continents for over a year and a half. The woman he sought was a gently bred Englishwoman. Much too proper to do such a thing.
    But just to be sure, he continued to watch.
    Nice form. Long legs. Skin as pale as pink marble even with these darker lenses. And that hair had the look of the Highlands in it, catching the sun like burnished copper as she lifted her arms—
Bluidy hell.
    Leaning forward as if that might bring the image closer, he peered in disbelief at the silver dollar–sized birthmark below her right breast.
    God bless Scotland.
He’d found her.
Damn her hide
.
    Lowering the glasses, he pushed away from the boulder, then flinched when something jabbed into the middle of his back. Something hard and round and cold. Like a gun barrel.
    “Hands in the air,” a gravelly male voice ordered. “And don’t move, you damn lecher.”
    Unclear how he was expected to do both, Ash hesitated, then raised his hands. “I’m not a lecher.”
    Another jab in his back almost knocked him off balance. “You were spying on a lady.”
    “I wasna spying. And any woman who parades herself about half naked like a Newmarket tart on race day is no—”
    “Show some respect!” A sharp crack on the side of his head sent him staggering.
    Pressing a palm to his temple as if that might slow the familiar dizziness, he let loose several Gaelic curses, adding more from India, and a few from Ireland.
    “What’s that? Foreign talk?”
    “Bugger off, ye manky bastard.”
    “Damn foreigners. You’re everywhere. Keep your hands up and turn around.”
    Hands raised, he turned slowly to keep his balance, and found a rifle—a Winchester Model 1866, by the look of it—an inch from his nose. Behind it, a grizzled old man peered up at him out of a face full of whiskers. At least, one eye peered up at him. The other was pointed off to the right somewhere, which told Ash this was probably the walleyed man Sheriff Brodie had mentioned. Concentrating on the one aimed in his direction, Ash debated putting down the old man now, or waiting to see what he wanted. He’d truly like to have that Winchester. His breech-loading Snider-Enfield cavalry carbine was no match for these newer American lever-action repeating rifles.
    The gun barrel banged against his nose to get his attention.“Manky. That’s good, right?” When Ash gave no answer, the barrel banged again.
    “Dinna do that,” he ground out, his temper fraying.
    The eye glanced up at his raised hand. “What’s that you’re holding?”
    “Field glasses.”
    “Hand them over.”
    “No.”
    “No?” The old fellow was clearly taken aback by the refusal. Then he grinned, showing more gum than teeth. “You’re a big one, ain’t you? But I doubt you’re big enough to win out over a bullet. Care to try?”
    Ash glanced around, wondering if the old man had come alone. “What are you doing out here?”
    “Huntin’. And looky what I found.” He poked at Ash with the rifle.
    “Do that again, old man, and I’ll hurt you, so I will.”
    A gummy grin. “Which of my eyes looks most concerned?” But wisely, the fellow took a step back. “I’d like to plug you here and now, foreigner, but she’d hear and get upset, and then I’d have to sit through another lecture. No thank you. So we’ll let her decide what to do with you. Open your coat.” When Ash did, the old man frowned at his sword belt. “No gun?”
    Ash shook his head, glad that he’d left his pistol in his saddlebag.
    “You