Rexanne Becnel Read Online Free PDF Page A

if an ox would come to her aid.
    To Abby’s surprise, however, a large animal did move right up beside her. Before she quite realized what was happening, a pair of hands reached down and plucked her effortlessly from the thick mud. To her complete amazement, instead of finding herself facedown in the slime, she was sitting crosswise on a tall gray horse, in the lap of a dusty man she’d never seen before.
    “If you’d sunk any farther, ma’am, you’d have soon been in China.”
    And so she would have, Abby realized gratefully. But though the man had saved her from one predicament, finding herself now in such an intimate embrace, and with someone she did not know, presented her with another, even worse dilemma.
    Self-consciously she stared up at him, preparing to thank him while wondering at the same time how she was to make a graceful retreat. But her frantic thoughts stilled when she met his amused gaze.
    He had the face of an angel, was her very first thought. A dark, thoroughly male angel. Though grimy with trail dust and sporting a shadow of a beard, the strong lines of his face were unmistakable. Then he smiled at her, and she amended her original opinion. His was the smile of a fallen angel. Sure. Easy. Seductive.
    Her stomach gave an odd sort of lurch. If only the good Reverend Harrison had such a smile—
    Abby abruptly drew herself up, aghast at such an unseemly thought. “If you would put me down,” she muttered, a bit too ungraciously considering the aid he’d extended her. She leaned away from him, readying herself to leap down from her high perch. But the horse swung around, its ears cocked forward in the direction of the water. Picking its way cautiously, it moved nearer the river, then lowered its head to drink.
    “Be careful, miss. You might fall.” So saying, the man pulled her nearer, holding her altogether too boldly, with one large hand around her waist.
    For a moment speech fled her. A pair of hard-muscled thighs pressed against her legs and buttocks, and the wide wall of his chest seemed to hug her back. With his arms circling her, she might as well have been in an intimate embrace with this stranger. Her face burned scarlet at the very idea.
    “If you could just … just put me down,” she choked the words out.
    “Surely not here.” He pushed his hat back on his head and peered at her more closely. “Anyway, what’s a woman doing driving oxen? Where’s your husband?”
    “I don’t—” She broke off as common sense finally set it. “My father had to go up to the fort. But he’ll be back any moment. And he would be most outdone should he find me in this position,” she finished a little breathlessly.
    To her vast confusion he only laughed. “Well, we surely can’t have him outdone, can we?” With a slight movement of his knee he turned the horse from its thirsty drink. Once they were on firm footing, she scrambled down from her seat and turned to face him.
    “Thank you,” she mumbled, though a part of her knew he’d taken advantage of her momentary distress. She backed away another pace, but her eyes never left him. Up close she’d been conscious of his hard body, pressed so familiarly against her own. Now, however, with a little distance between them, she saw so much more. He was a big man, on a big horse, dressed as any other rider on the trail might be. But there were subtle differences.
    The slight tilt of his wide-brimmed slouch hat. The width of his shoulders beneath his shirt. The way the damp cotton outlined his chest and arms. Some instinctive warning signal started her heart to racing as her eyes swept over him. He wore a gun on his hip and two rifle scabbards on his saddle, and he sat his horse like one born to it.
    He was no farmer, she decided on the instant.
    Then his eyes slid slowly over her, the same sort of inspection she’d given him, and her breath caught in her chest.
    She’d been looked at by men before. The trail was filled with men traveling alone.