Marshal of Hel Dorado Read Online Free PDF Page A

distinctly feminine, without the overwhelming lemon verbena favored
by the town girls or the eucalyptus and horse lineament that ranch women often
reminded him of. The feminine scent was sweet cakes and fresh baked bread
rolled into one.
           “This isn’t the most comfortable way to
sleep.” The low hushed response prickled with irritation and just the barest
hint of entitlement.
           “It’s the best we can do for now, unless
you think sleeping at the end of a noose is more to your liking.”
           “Could you at least move your gun?” The
complaint was more plaintive than vitriolic. “It keeps jabbing me in the back.”
           He was glad for the darkness, for it shielded
the heat that ruddied his face. That wasn’t his gun. He shifted in the saddle,
easing her forward and then back so her bottom nestled on his opposite thigh.
She let out a sigh of relief, her body softening and settling against him. The
new position teased him with even more of her scent, but kept that sweet bottom
from rubbing on his arousal.
           He was male and she was definitely
attractive, but she was a thief. He tried to tell his body that, but it didn’t
care. It was more interested in the soft curves, sweet fresh scent and the
little soft sighs she kept making.
           “Better?” It went against his nature to
ask, but he liked the sound of her voice.
           “Yes. Thank you.”
           “If you don’t want to sleep. You could
answer some questions.” Where the hell had that come from? He’d just wanted her
to go to sleep so he could stop tormenting himself and now he wanted to add to
his own tension.
           Corona nickered and he forced his legs to
relax. He didn’t need to accidentally urge the mare into a faster speed. The
loping walk kept rubbing his prisoner against him as it was.
           She was silent for so long, he wondered if
she had fallen asleep. They were leaving the main trailhead, Corona picking her
way across the rocks to the downward track that wound through the hills. He
knew the moment they crossed onto Kane land.
           He always did.
           The pressure on his chest lightened, his
lungs expanded and even the air tasted sweeter.
           He took a deep lungful, but it wasn’t just
Kane cedar and sage that teased him, but the rich scent of summer raspberries.
           “It would depend on the question.” She
wasn’t going to make this easy for him. Oddly, that pleased him more than
cooperation. He liked the independent fire that blazed in her eyes, the warning
snap in her gaze and the temper that sparked when Ryker and his boys burst into
the Marshal’s office. He’d watched her watching them.
           It hadn’t been fear clenching her fists.
           His little redhead was a fighter.
           “Let’s start with something simple. What’s
your name?” He knew, of course, Cob mentioned it. But he still wanted her to
tell him.
           It might have been his imagination, but a
measure of the stiffness in her body relaxed.
           “Scarlett.”
           “Appropriate.”
           “It’s a name.” A little shrug.
           “You don’t like it?”
           “A name is a gift, a promise of what you
must live up to or live down. It can be a test or a curse, a challenge or a
blessing.”
           “So is yours a blessing or a curse?”
           “I don’t know.” A quiet note, barely heard,
but filled with inordinate sadness teased at the lonely syllables.
           “What is your family name, Scarlett?”
           “I don’t have one.”
           “Everyone has one.”
           “Maybe most of the people you know have
one, but that doesn’t mean everyone does.
           There are more people in the world than
there are in Dorado.”
           He laughed at the contrary note.
           “Do I get to ask questions?”
           Sam