Desperate Hearts Read Online Free PDF Page A

the
scar-faced miner. So coldly confident was the expression in his
eyes, so menacing was his deadly quiet voice that it wasn’t until
later that she remembered the miner had been much heavier and at
least a head taller than him. Rankin seemed enormous, as though he
towered over all of them. Kyla had lurched to wakefulness, the
bedsprings screeching and her heart thundering in her chest with
fear. It had been only a dream, but not far from the truth.
    Kyla envied that, the ability to kindle fear
in an enemy. She could have used it over the years . . . especially
that night—
    Just then the doors behind
her opened, and she swung around to find Jace Rankin standing
there. Jumping to her feet, she paused on the bottom step, her
breakfast clamped in her hand. Their eyes met and he stared down at
her as if trying to place her. He gripped his rifle, but let his
hat hang by its bonnet strings and rest against his shoulder
blades. Without that wide-brimmed hat hiding half of his face, he
seemed a bit less fearsome. Only a bit.
    It was an interesting face, she conceded. It
held a strange mix of youth and hardened age beyond measure.
Actually, if she were forced to describe him honestly, she would
have to admit that he was sort of, well, attractive. That vexed
her, too. She put the biscuit back in her pocket.
    It struck her again that he was not a big
man, certainly not as big as his reputation made her expect. But
his size didn’t matter. He was very intimidating—and very
dangerous. Even given his present state.
    In her opinion, he looked like he had spent
the night working his way to the bottom of a whiskey bottle,
probably with the help of a saloon girl. Kyla knew his type—he only
wanted one thing from a woman, making her doubly grateful for her
disguise. His eyes reminded her of the American flag she’d seen
fluttering over the Silver City courthouse: red, white, and blue.
But mostly red.
    He gazed at her until her identity obviously
registered. “Oh, shit . . . yeah,” he muttered, half turning away
from her. “Kelly Springer—” He rubbed his face with his gloved
hand. A day’s growth of beard shadowed his jaw.
    “ Kyle,” she corrected,
keeping her voice low. He wasn’t going to back out now, was he?
He’d already agreed to help her. Briefly she clenched her back
teeth. It was a nervous habit she had developed in the last year or
so. Sometimes she woke up with a headache from grinding her teeth
in her sleep. "We made a deal, Mr. Rankin," she reminded him, using
Kyle’s tough persona to hide her fear of him. "Two hundred and
fifty dollars. I’m ridin’ with you to Misfortune, then we’re goin’
together to Blakely."
    The sun inched its way up over the rim of
the Owyhees, and Rankin squinted against the knife-sharp brightness
spearing his aching head. Damn, he’d almost forgotten about this
kid with his blood grudge.
    After he and the boy parted, he had bought a
room and a bath upstairs. He sat in the tub, drinking and thinking.
It was a bad mix. A man ought to do one or the other, not both. And
the more he drank, the more his thoughts drifted to the blank
emptiness that seemed to form his future. It was as if finding
Sawyer Clark and killing him had closed not just a chapter in his
life, but the whole goddamned book. And this hangover didn’t make
things any clearer. From one of the mines in the west, the deep
rumble of a powder explosion shook the planking under his boots. It
reverberated through his legs and up his spine, further torturing
his skull.
    He glanced at the kid again, who watched him
silently with eyes that seemed to miss nothing. At least he’d
washed the dirt off his face. Now he looked like any other farm boy
his age. Skinny, a few freckles. A little on the delicate side,
especially in the face. But something else about him seemed off
kilter and Rankin could not put his finger on just what that was.
Maybe it was the sensitive curve of his mouth, or the way he tended
to bite his bottom