The Temptress Read Online Free PDF Page B

against the chair, trying not to show how intently she was watching the street. Across the road were two men, both holding rifles, both wearing guns, their right hands resting on the handles as if they meant to draw at any moment. Chris saw that her hand was shaking as she withdrew from her pocket a sealed letter addressed to her father. She didn’t have to do any pretending to the freightman as she was sure she looked as scared as she felt. And she realized that at least half of her fear was for Tynan. He wasn’t involved in this, had no reason to risk his life on her behalf, but he was.
    The minutes passed and Chris began to grow anxious. What was taking him so long? Maybe John’s sister wasn’t there. Maybe—
    Her thoughts stopped as she heard gunshots from the end of town where Tynan had gone. She stood.
    â€œThere’s no need for you to get upset,” said the freightman from behind his big desk. “Somebody’s always shootin’ at somebody in this town. You just sit there and rest.”
    But Chris couldn’t rest as she leaned toward the window to see farther out.
    Her breath stopped as she saw what she feared: Tynan was riding hell bent for leather down the street, two men on horseback chasing him, their guns blazing. With wide eyes, she watched him approach, then turned to the freightman. “May I borrow this?” she asked, taking a rifle from a cabinet on the wall.
    Before the man could grasp what she was doing, Chris walked out the door, fell to one knee on the porch, propped her left arm on her raised knee and took aim. She dropped the first man behind Tynan with a shot in his shoulder, and was aiming for the second when Ty turned his horse and rode straight for her. There was a ramp in front of the freight office for rolling barrels and now Ty rode his horse straight up it.
    Chris stood, stepped back a bit and when Ty bent and stretched his arm out to her, she caught it, put her foot on his in the stirrup and hauled herself up into the saddle behind him. Ty didn’t slow his pace as he went thundering through the freight office, past open mouthed workers, and out the back, down the ramp.
    It took longer for the men following to go around the freight office, and Chris heard the scream of the horse as the one man who tried to follow them misjudged the distance and went flying off the side of the freight dock.
    Chris hung onto Tynan with all her might, her hair coming unpinned and flying out behind her, her body plastered to his. He leaned forward on his horse and she went with him. There were bullets coming at them but they were traveling too fast to be in range—and the men were shooting from the back of horses so their aim wasn’t that good—or at least Chris hoped it wasn’t.
    When they reached the edge of the rain forest, Tynan didn’t slow down, but kept on at a breakneck speed for a few hundred yards. Suddenly, he halted the horse, turned, grabbed Chris and lowered her to the ground. He dismounted behind her.
    â€œNow we disappear,” he said, taking the horse’s reins and Chris’s hand. He motioned for her to climb down into a tangle of vines. She clambered down so fast, she skidded half the way. “Persuading” the horse was another matter and Ty did it with a series of quiet-voiced threats that made Chris’s eyes widen. No sooner had he gotten the animal into the ravine and pulled vines over their heads to cover them than three men came down the trail after them.
    Ty held his hand on the horse’s nose to keep it from making a sound while Chris stood close to him, both of them looking up through the vines at the men.
    â€œWe’ve lost them,” one of the men said.
    â€œYeah and we lost four of our men on the way in. Lanier’s not gonna like this.”
    â€œLet’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps. If they went in here, they won’t come out alive. Ain’t nothin’ but