The Lady Takes A Gunslinger (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

stared at the young man and asked the only question that came to mind. "Can you prove it wasn't?"
    * * *
    The cramped little room at the inn was dark when Grace pushed her way through the door and slid it shut behind her with a trembling hand. For the first time, she wished there had been two rooms to let instead of just this one she shared with Brewster, because the last thing she wanted right now was to tell him what a mess she'd made of things tonight. She wished she were home, where she could crawl into her own feather tick and pull the covers over her head.
    She brushed at her damp cheek and inhaled the unpleasant scent of the coal-oil smoke from the lamp that had recently sputtered out. Darkness shared the small room with her like an entity, stealing the air her lungs sought, pressing in on her throat like a fist.
    The reed shutters, tightly closed to hold the nightly invasion of mosquitoes at bay, blocked not only the moonlight but any hint of a breeze as well, and she began to perspire almost before she'd fully entered the room. From somewhere down the street came the distant roar of voices and bawdy laughter, and closer, the mumbling Spanish song of a drunken pedestrian halfway between cantinas. Here, in darkness of the room, came the rasping snore of Brewster, who lay sleeping in the room's only bed.
    She listened for a moment to the sound, hoping she hadn't wakened him. He needed his rest after all they'd been through to get here. And he wasn't well. She knew that only too well by the increasing coughing fits he was given to and the feverish look in his eyes when she'd put him to bed tonight.
    With a shaking hand, she dropped the wooden door latch into place . Leaning back against the portal with a shaky sigh, Grace stared into the darkness, trying to calm her thudding heart.
    Reese will hang for the killing... he has you to thank for it.
    Grace swallowed down the bile that rose in her throat. Was it true? Was she to blame? Was Donovan to die because of her? God help her, she hadn't meant for any of this to happen. And she could hardly take all the blame for it. After all, it wasn't she who'd been pickled to the gills with whiskey, nor had she chosen such a foolhardy challenge with a gun.
    Yet she was the one who'd entered into that snake pit of her own free will, seeking help from Reese Donovan. And the blame was hers for being fool enough to believe that she could walk in and out of a place like that, unmolested.
    Nothing in Jack Leland's western adventure novels had prepared her for what happened tonight. Nothing in them told her what she should do now. Certainly, she had no idea what to do with the memory of Donovan's bleak expression as he stared at her, or the unexpected feelings that tingled through her at the remembrance of his rough hands against her flesh.
    She dropped her face into her hands. She'd done many things she'd been sorry for in her life, but never had she managed to make such a complete mess of things as she had tonight.
    "Grace? That you?"
    Brewster's voice came out of the darkness like a beacon of light. She wanted to run to him, fling her arms around him like she'd done as a child and let him make everything all right again. But she couldn't do that, any more than he could fix what she'd done.
    "Yes, it's me." She pulled a sulfur-tipped match out of the tin holder and struck it against the roughened bottom. The match flared blue, then orange as she lit the coal-oil lamp in the wall sconce. The flame sputtered and caught as she replaced the hurricane glass around it. Behind her, Brewster coughed, a damp, chest-racking sound that shook the brass bed.When he stopped, he lay spent, watching her with worried eyes.
    When had he gotten so thin? she wondered, noting the hollows in his cheeks. The sight of it shocked her, and tears welled in her eyes.
    "I woke up a ways back and you were gone," Brew admonished. "Didn't I tell you to stick close to the inn?"
    "You warned me. But I didn't listen." She