Lake of Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Those were your clothes at the coach, girl.”
    She pressed her lips together.
    Sliding to the ground, he dragged her down after him. To her chagrin, her hat fell off and revealed tousled hair her mother once said matched the color of brown sugar taffy.
    Cord grabbed her hand and turned it over, looking at the rough spots on her palm. “This morning, when I helped a young boy onto Dante, I thought at least he didn’t have a woman’s hands.”
    Incensed that her penchant for riding and tendingher Chicago rose garden without gloves had left obvious signs, she flashed, “A gentleman would never admit he noticed.”
    The lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled, and his laugh came out hearty. “Got a name?” His gaze raked her body in a too-familiar way.
    “My name is Laura,” she said through gritted teeth. “And if you touch me, I will take your Colt, shove it down your throat, and pull the trigger.”
    He blinked. “You expect me to believe you can shoot?”
    “I can shoot.”
    Cord reached for the bone-handled gun at his hip and held it out. He pointed at a piece of driftwood on the lakeshore about fifty yards away. “Hit that, if you can.”
    Laura hefted the pistol’s gleaming weight. She checked that it was loaded and raised it, clasped in two hands. From the corner of her eye, she saw him watch her pull back the hammer.
    It took four clicks, that some said spelled, “C-O-L-T.”
    She sighted along the barrel, drew in her breath, let out half …
    Held it … and squeezed the trigger.
    The gun kicked and stung her palms. A chunk of her driftwood target went flying, and the sound of the shot came back twice, echoing in a canyon on the far side of the lake.
    “You can shoot … Laura.” His look was speculative.
    She lifted her chin and smiled. Cord set his jaw. “It doesn’t mean you have the guts to kill anything.”

    The cold came down fast after sunset. Clouds scudded past the high crest where snow blew in arching veils. Laura helped Cord gather firewood, piling the twisted lodgepole logs. The way he’d spoken of killing made her uneasy; it reminded her of the bottomless cold in his eyes when he sighted at the outlaw and pulled the Colt’s trigger.
    The next time they arrived back at the woodpile together, she ventured, “That man this morning, had he gotten to a surgeon he might have lived.”
    In the lowering darkness, Cord turned on her. “You know anything about how a gut-shot man dies?”
    She swallowed and shook her head.
    “First, infection sets in from the shit inside him,” he said with a harshness that sounded deliberate. “Then fever, shakes, unimaginable agony from the putrefying wound … it takes days.”
    Laura shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
    Cord went on, “We were a half-day’s ride north of Jackson and the sawbones there doesn’t have a modern operating room. He’d have given him whiskey and morphine, but the outcome would have been the same.” The anger went out of his voice. “What I didthis morning was the humane thing.”
    She sighed. True or not, hadn’t she planned on shooting the man herself when she tried to go for Angus’s gun? When the outlaw had fingered her mother’s cameo, hadn’t she wished she held the Colt? The memory of the kindly driver’s blood on the snow made her believe she could have pulled the trigger.
    She gave a tight nod and went for more wood, taking the private opportunity to relieve herself in the forest. Upon planning this trip, she had never expected to end up a “sage brusher,” what folks called people who camped wild.
    When she came back, Cord had lit the fire. Pine logs snapped and crackled. While he cooked beans in a pot and added jerky, she was glad he hadn’t expected her to cook. No working girl would be unable to boil water, as she was, though she could plan a menu for a hundred.
    After they ate, Laura perched on a boulder. The fresh aroma of evergreen and an undercurrent of spice hung on the air the way