Sweetwater Seduction Read Online Free PDF

raised a brow but didn't answer.
    “We don't need anyone bringing trouble here,” Miss Devlin said, unaware of the pleading tone in her voice or the two flags of color burning in her cheeks.
    “Trouble is where you find it,” he replied curtly. The stranger abruptly shifted his body away from Miss Devlin toward the bookcase along one wall.
    Miss Devlin had no explanation for his sudden defection from the argument at hand, but she was grateful for the respite that allowed her to compose herself—which was when she realized that the way she was clutching her gown had outlined her breasts, right down to the nipples, for the gunman's perusal. She did her best to rearrange the nightshift into its former shapelessness, but nothing she did could conceal the fact she had a respectable bosom.
    Feel at a distinct disadvantage, she decided discretion was the better part of valor. She would save her arguments for another time and place. It was past time to get this stranger out of her house. When she cleared her throat, the gunman turned his dark eyes back on her.
    “As I was saying,” Miss Devlin began. “We don't want any trouble here in Sweetwater. So I think it's best—”
    “After what happened to this girl tonight I'd judge there's already trouble in this valley. I'm here to take care of it.”
    “We don't need you here,” Miss Devlin snapped, her gray eyes flashing. She stepped around behind the sofa—which seemed a safer distance from the stranger—and slipped a protective arm around Bliss's shoulder. “So you can turn right around tonight and go back where you came from before some other young woman is subjected to the same disgraceful treatment as this poor girl.”
    “I won't take blame for what happened to the girl.”
    “I'm sure you don't like taking blame for the kind of rowdy behavior cowboys like yourself impose on others, drinking—”
    “Oh, no, Miss Devlin,” Bliss interrupted. “This man
saved
me from the drunken cowboys. In fact, he shot one of them.”
    Miss Devlin mashed her lips together and glared at the stranger. There was an intense struggle going on between her good sense and her redheaded temper, and she thought it best to keep her mouth shut until she could say something nice, since she was in the presence of one of her pupils. The returning glint of humor in the gunslinger's eyes proved to be more than she could bear.
    “Bliss, go in my bedroom and shut the door,” she ordered.
    “But Miss Devlin—”
    “Go!”
    The unaccustomed stridency in Miss Devlin's voice sent Bliss scampering to the bedroom. The instant the door shut behind her pupil, Miss Devlin confronted the gunslinger. “However nobly you may have acted tonight I know your kind too well to believe—”
    Her eyes widened as he vaulted over the sofa as though it wasn't there. Suddenly they were face-to-face.
    “And I know your kind, Miss Devlin,” the gunslinger said in a silky voice.
    He stepped forward.
    She stepped back.
    Miss Devlin opened her mouth to tell him to stay away from her, but nothing came out. She fought the urge to cross her arms over her bosom. He was standing so close now she could feel his breath on her face.
    “Like I said, Miss Devlin. I know your kind.”
    His voice was low, and so seductive she was prepared for anything but what he said next.
    “You're a straitlaced, stiff-necked, stuffy old spinster who lives her life through the experiences of others and—”
    “How dare you!”
    “Too close to the mark for comfort,
Miss
Devlin?” the gunslinger goaded.
    Miss Devlin's open palm hit the gunslinger's face with a resounding
thwack
. Eden recoiled in surprise at what she'd done. She had never struck another human being in her life, and the fact she should resort to violence, when her supposed objection to the man was that he solved people's problems in a violent way, caused her face to