another
quiver down her spine. He was so close she could smell the warm leather he
wore. And his buckskin britches were so snug over his thighs that she found she
couldn’t tear her gaze away from the muscular delineations.
Merciful heaven, in that hypnotic moment she
thought she might do or say anything he asked. She nodded, not even realizing
that she had.
“What did you have on Brady to send him scrambling
for cover like an old henpecked rooster?”
Elizabeth’s mouth curved unconsciously, trembling
with the need to smile. And then, as she recalled Brady’s alarmed expression,
she couldn’t control her sudden burst of nervous hysterics. It was as though
her emotions had gone haywire. She giggled until on the verge of tears, then
looked up at him abashedly, knowing he probably thought her demented after
witnessing such an abrupt change in mood.
“I suppose you’d like to know what it is that’s so
blessed funny?”
Her throaty laughter shook through Cutter. It was
genuine and uninhibited, but sounded much too earthy to be innocent, and it
gave him an immediate physical reaction. “Reckon I might,” he allowed.
Elizabeth shook her head and again lifted her
glass, sipping from it almost absently, and clearing her throat when it
threatened to send her into another coughing fit.
“Well,” she said, “Brady’s one of those who likes
to drink a bit too much.”
Cutter shifted uncomfortably. For her sake, he
hoped she wouldn’t get a yen to ogle his leg again. He didn’t think he’d be
able to hide the effect she had on him. Just remembering the way her eyes had
flared slightly in innocent surprise and her pupils had dilated as she’d gawked
at him was enough to make him permanently rooty, and the evidence was
conspicuous.
She took another sip, clearing her throat
daintily, and this time it was Cutter who felt discomfited.
Her lips were her best feature, he decided. Full
and pouty, just beggin’ to be kissed. “... always having accidents,” he heard
her say. He shook his head to clear it of his lusty thoughts.
“One night,” she continued, “he came in after
catching his thumb in his gun hammer—don’t ask me how he managed that!
Anyhow, he and his buddies had been shooting at tins, and he came sauntering
in, chock-full of brag and fight, and told my father to ‘just stitch it up.’
But Papa didn’t want to do it without giving him whiskey first—Mr. Brady
doesn’t seem to like pain very much,” she explained quickly. “So when my father
left the room to look for a jug, Mr. Brady took an immediate liking to one of
his shiny new surgical knives.” She glanced up to see whether he was paying
attention.
Her expression softening suddenly, she gave a
little half-hearted chuckle. “Papa and I watched from the doorway as Mr. Brady
wrestled with his imaginary bear. You should have seen him, Mr. McKenzie!”
“Wish I had,” he said evenly, trying to ignore his
growing discomfort as well as he could.
“Believe it or not, I thought he might manage to
lose that scuffle, too,” she said softly, distantly.
Despite the fact that she was still looking at
him, Cutter had the notion she was somewhere else entirely.
He couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering down and
assessing her figure through the bulk of her clothes. She was probably much too
skinny, he told himself... not even a handful.
He raised his brows, his nostrils flaring as he
cleared away the sudden tightness from his throat. “So how’d you happen to know
it was a bear he was wrestling?”
The way Cutter saw it, his best bet was to keep
Elizabeth talking... keep them both preoccupied. Jo would likely take a shotgun
to his ass if she found him rutting after her one and only friend—when
the girl was chin-deep in her misery, at that.
Come to think of it, he doubted if either of them
would appreciate it all that much.
She shook her head faintly, as though to escape
the memory. “Well, because he was talking to the silly