Heaven with a Gun

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Book: Heaven with a Gun Read Online Free PDF
Author: Connie Brockway
Tags: Romance
“You may prefer to drink your dinners. I eat.”
    “Lady, leave my bottle alone,” he said with a touch of asperity, though what he had to be irritable about was beyond her. She’d given him a good start for his series on her—several good starts even if you discounted the Atlantis one—and managed to remain even-tempered.
    Thank heaven for the school’s summer thespian program. If she hadn’t had to read through several hundred plays last year looking for one appropriate for sixteen-year-old girls to enact, she would never have had the grist this mill was demanding. In her five years as a thief, no one had ever actually “talked” to Lightning Lil.
    While she was aware of how very dangerous this was, she was also very tired and very near to the end of it all, and so she did not deny herself the small crumbs of enjoyment teasing this big, tough-looking gentleman afforded. He stuck the bottle behind the fainting couch, glowering.
    “Besides, you’re not exactly in any position to be moralizing to me,” he said.
    Gilly felt a wall come slamming down between them like the iron gates of a medieval castle. “You’re right.’’
    She’d been having such a fine time spinning him tales that she’d almost forgotten who and what she was. An outlaw. A woman without morals.
    Funny, she was usually much better at separating Gillian from Lil, knowing exactly what people thought of her outlaw side. The country’s poor opinion of Lightning Lil had never before seemed too high a price to pay for the success of her masquerade. “I’m just hungry,” she said. “I haven’t had anything to eat since last evening.”
    He was immediately repentant. “Chrissake, why didn’t you say something? I’m sorry. Listen, my rent doesn’t include meals, but there’s a couple bars that serve food in the evening. Let me help you up.” He pulled her from the chair and balanced her against the wall as he retrieved her crutch and bonnet. Clumsily, beguilingly, he perched the chip-straw construction on her head and tied a bow beneath her chin.
    She couldn’t remember ever being the recipient of a man’s tender touch. It was intoxicating. His strong, callused fingers brushed her throat, leaving her lightheaded. He wet his lips. She stared. He dragged a deep breath through his nostrils, as though preparing for some physical endurance trial and, before she knew what he was about, picked her up, crutch and all.
    “I can walk.”
    “Not down those stairs, you can’t.”
    “I could try.”
    “You’d just break your other leg.”
    Lord, he felt so massive and safe and strong, and it had been so very long since she’d felt protected, let alone valued. She didn’t argue further, so he started out the door and headed down the stairs. She turned her head and closed her eyes so he couldn’t see her giving herself over to the guilty pleasure of being held. Beneath her ear, his heart beat strongly and his day-old beard rasped agreeably on her temple. He paused, bouncing her in his arms to readjust her weight, an inadvertent demonstration of his strength that sent her pulse racing.
    “Mr. Coyne, who is that woman?” a strident voice from below demanded. “I’ll have no sinful goings-on in my house, sir!”
    Gilly’s eyes snapped open and she found herself staring down into the upturned visage of a red-faced termagant of indeterminate age. It took Gilly a second to realize that they’d reached the bottom of the stairs and weren’t still several steps above the woman—she was that tiny. And angry. Her little face was puckered in on itself like a half-gnawed week-old apple. Little graying curls framed her face like mold on cheese.
    “Ah, Mrs. Osby. This is . . . my wife.”
    Jim made no attempt to set her down.
    “Wife?” the little woman exclaimed, all color leaching out of her face except for a thin crimson testimony to her use of lip salve. Obviously, Mrs. Osby didn’t want Jim Coyne to have a wife. She stomped her foot. “You
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