Deep as the Rivers (Santa Fe Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF Page B

clothing.
        “You...you had better see about that wound, else more than your uniform will be ruined,” she said, moistening her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue.
        “Not out here,” he replied distractedly as he pulled up the bucket and unfastened it from its rope. “It’s a bit cool now that the sun’s setting...and it’s too exposed.”
        After a quick glance back down the road, she watched him stride toward the front door of the log cabin. “What if no one is at home?”
        He turned at the uncertainty in her voice and raised one eyebrow. “Then we just go in. I don’t plan to rob them, just use the shelter long enough to change this dressing...that is if the offer of your petticoat still stands good?” He waited, watching her to see what she would do.
        She walked up to him as if taking the dare, but then as he turned to open the door she said, “It really isn’t proper for us to be alone...indoors, that is.”
        Samuel threw back his head and laughed heartily. “You are a caution, ma petite . It is a bit late for the proprieties now. First you come thundering wildly to my rescue out of nowhere, alone and unchaperoned. Then you drive like a London hackney and nearly kill us both on the road. Now you suddenly turn vaporing belle.”
        Olivia felt like stomping her foot at his mocking laughter. “For a man who owes me his life, you are very rude, Monsieur Colonel.” Anger thickened her accent.
        Samuel noticed the shift in cadence as well as the blaze of emerald fire in her eyes. “My apologies, mademoiselle...but you still have not explained why you were driving alone in the middle of nowhere,” he could not resist adding as he turned and entered the obviously deserted house. The hound on the porch raised its head once, then thought better of the exertion of further protest and instead slunk inside the shelter of the cabin behind Shelby.
        Olivia stood alone in the yard for a moment. The impulse to dash to the phaeton and take off leaving the arrogant colonel stranded was tempting. But he was injured, and she was more attracted to him than she had ever been to a man before in her life. Fool, she berated herself.

 
     
    Chapter Three
     
     
        Olivia reluctantly followed him into the dark interior of the cabin and watched as he unwrapped the soaked scarf from his upper arm. In spite of a slight wince of pain, his hands remained steady. Then he began to unbutton the heavy uniform jacket. As he slipped it easily off his good arm and began to work it carefully free of the injured one, Olivia stood rooted to the floor of the deserted cabin. The sheer, white lawn shirt beneath his jacket stretched across his broad shoulders and clung lovingly to every inch of his lean, muscular torso. Then he started to remove the shirt, too!
        “What are you doing?” Her voice cracked on the last word.
        “If I’m going to wrap this wound to stop the bleeding, I first have to bare the skin,” he replied reasonably, continuing to pull the ruined shirt off.
        She had thought his chest and shoulders were revealed through the sheer lawn covering. Now she could see how mistaken that assumption had been! Darkly bronzed skin rippled with sleek muscles as he tossed his shirt onto the crude wooden bench beside the table. Black hair sprinkled generously across his chest, then tapered into an enticing vee that arrowed down to disappear beneath the belt buckle at his narrow waist. Her eyes would have strayed scandalously lower but a bitten back groan distracted her.
        Samuel cursed as he tried to flex his injured arm. “The bleeding’s grown worse. If I don’t get it stopped, I might pass out and bleed to death before you can summon help. I’m afraid I’m going to need those petticoats.”
        ‘‘M-my p-petticoats,” she stammered, then instantly felt like a fool.
        “You’re not going to faint now that the shooting’s done, are