Marshal of Hel Dorado Read Online Free PDF Page B

out his name.
           Scream his name.
           He cleared his throat. “Please call me
Sam.”
           “Okay.” Apparently she was just as
bewildered by his sudden deviation as he was. Good.
           “Sam?”
           Yes, it sounded every bit as sweet as he’d
thought it would.
           “Sam?” She repeated when he still said
nothing, twisting in the saddle to look back at him in the dark. Her body whipped
his into a frenzy with one slow grind.
           “Sit still.” He growled, clamping a hand on
her thigh and giving it a squeeze.
           She froze against him. That wasn’t what he
intended either. His body was nearly weeping with the ridiculous need to pull
her down off the horse and plunder her. Sam barely recognized the desire for
what it was, he’d long since sown his wild oats, pillaring every woman in Miss
Pontfour’s establishment and traveling as far as San Antonio for other
possibilities.
           He was an upstanding man of the community
and he treated women with respect. Even thieving hellions with mouths made for
kissing and flame red hair he longed to see spread against a pillow. Or the
ground. Or his chest.
             Dammit .
           He growled. “What?”
           “You didn’t answer my question.” The small
voice admonished him, stripped of the gentle teasing and good humor. Sam
dropped his head, his nose just brushing her shoulder, a torment of her sweet
scent filling his lungs.
           “My apologies.” He brought his raging need
back into line, forcing his mind to consider the rapping his father would
deliver if he brought the girl in, despoiled and used. His father’s fierce
features were the antidote he needed. Thief or not, prisoner or not, one just
didn’t take advantage of a lady.
           No matter how badly his body wanted too.
           “It’s a fair job,” he answered slowly,
pulling his head up and peeling his hand off her thigh. He lifted it to his
Stetson, adjusting it to let the breeze wash against his face. The cooler air
couldn’t alleviate the fire raging in his belly, but it brought some clarity.
           “Most of the time it means I just have to
listen to the townsfolk, sort out the arguments and occasionally give some hand
on a mean drunk a thumping.”
           “It doesn’t sound very exciting.”
           He bristled at the disappointment in her
words.
           “A Marshal’s job is to keep the excitement
to a minimum. If it’s tame then I’m doing my job, keeping the peace. Trouble
stirs people up and gets them killed. Like beautiful little bank thieves riling
the town up.”
           “Oh.” The swift intake of breath pushed her
back against him again and he leaned forward, shifting her once more to a safer
position. Not that her wanton little bottom didn’t provide as much allure
rubbing on his thighs as it had his groin, but he was trying.
           “What?”
           “You think I’m beautiful?”
           This was a bad topic. He cleared his
throat. “It wasn’t your turn to ask a question.”
           “Yes it was.”
           “No.” Patiently. “It wasn’t.”
           “You asked me what. That was your question.
So that made it my turn.”
           Sam smiled, in spite of himself. It was
going to be a long ride.

Chapter
Four
           T he
rising sun was a thin ribbon of light across the horizon as Sam turned them
down a fork in the trail she would never have noticed. She’d dozed periodically
during their conversation, lulled by the gentle thud of his heart. Leaning
against him was unseemly, but five hours of riding, hands bound, pressed up
against him had erased any concern she might have for how it looked.
           The first half-hour on the trail, Scarlett
kept looking for her brothers. By the third hour, she’d given up. By the fifth,
she was convinced they weren’t coming at all. They might