LITMIR.BIZ

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or not, I don’t plan to stay out here and get washed away.”

      Clearly, the man did not understand her predicament. Mother would perish, Edwin would have heart failure if they got word that Missy had come parading down a public thoroughfare in her soaking underwear … sharing a saddle with a man!

      “You are free as a feather to go, Mr …?”

      “Zane Coldridge.”

      What a bold and wonderful name. Her own sounded weak by comparison.

      “My name is Missy Devlin.” She spoke the name with force but Missy still sounded like a pampered, eastern name. “It was kind of you to stop, Mr. Coldridge, but I’m obliged to stay here until well after dark.”

      He whistled to his horse. It trotted up behind him and nudged his arm. He reached his hand out to her. “Let’s go.”

      She backed up a pace, just out of reach.

      “Go along, please, Mr. Coldridge. I’d take it as a kindness if you’d leave me now.”

      “Leaving a woman to drown in the rain doesn’t sound like any sort of kindness I ever heard of.”

      “Oh, it would be! Being a man, you wouldn’t know what becomes of a ladies’ undergarments when they get wet. I can assure you, I can’t be seen in town that way.”

      “Ha!” His bark of a laugh nearly unbalanced her. He bent over, bracing his wide hands on his knees.

      Muff wiggled to be free. She twisted her fingers in his fur to keep him still. The last thing she needed was to have to defend Mr. Coldridge’s boots against attack.

      “Hush, Muff, be still!”

      At long last her hero straightened up. He shrugged out of his coat and handed it to her.

      She put it on, shifting Muff from one arm to the other. The lingering warmth of Zane Coldridge’s body wrapped around her.

      “Let’s go,” he repeated and held out his hand once again.

      The sleeve of his coat flopped over her fingertips by several inches. She lifted her arm and let the fabric slide over her bare skin. It left a tingle, just as though the cloth might have been the man stroking her flesh.

      “Thank you,” she murmured and placed her pale hand in his rough palm.

      How on earth would she find enough delicious words to describe Zane Coldridge to Suzie?

       Chapter Two

      The stream had already washed over its boundaries when the first splat of rain hit Zane square in the back.

      The icy slap promised to be only the beginning of a miserable night. Somewhere, not too far off, the squall had to be pumping misery from the sky like no storm he’d ever run afoul of before.

      He’d been caught out in the elements many times, even seen the Missouri overflow its banks, but he’d never known gullies swell to the size of rivers before the first drop hit the earth.

      He’d sure never had to take on the care of a delicate eastern woman and her … whatever that thing squirming in her lap was.

      “What is that critter?” he asked, seeking a distraction from the icy trickle racing down his back.

      “Surely you’ve seen a dog before, Mr. Coldridge.” She turned about and glanced up at him. Even in the gathering dusk, with the storm clouds pressing out the last bit of light from the day, he caught the teasing blue sparkle in her eyes.

      “I’ve seen dogs.” A full dozen raindrops driven by a frigid wind bit through his shirt. He tried not to shiver since there wasn’t enough space for two people and a questionable animal to ride in the saddle with any extra movement. “I’ve also seen rats. That’s a rat.”

      “Did you hear that, Muff?” She tucked the animal inside his borrowed coat and held the front closed with fingers that looked like blue porcelain in the cold. “If you’d behaved like a proper Maltese and not gotten all muddy and prickly, our hero would have recognized you as a dog right off.”

      Hero? He’d grunt out a laugh at that title if there had been room in the cramped saddle. Zane had been called dirty. He’d heard low down a few times. He’d felt the curses of mothers and sweethearts follow him for days, even weeks, after he’d collected a fee for a loved one.

      “I’m a bounty hunter, ma’am.” He’d better set the record straight before the woman got any fancy ideas about him. “Money-hungry cuss is what I’ve been called more often than not.”

      He waited to feel her posture stiffen against his belly. Maybe the gentle lady would even slip off Ace’s back and choose to walk rather than share the space with him.

      She turned as best she could to peer at his face. Raindrops hit her skin and dotted it with liquid freckles. Her mouth formed the same perfectly amazed circle that he had seen when he had galloped on by her earlier.

      He leaned backward in the saddle, ready to dismount and walk the rest of the way to Green Island.

      “Truly? A genuine bounty hunter?” Unbelievably, she broke into a grin that might have shot the clouds out of the sky. “You must have been chasing that awful man, earlier … Oh, mercy, was he an in-the-flesh outlaw?”

      “Yes, ma’am, he was.”

      “A treacherous outlaw has stolen our belongings,” she murmured down the neckline of the coat to the dog resting, warm and cozy, inside.

      She wiped at the water gathering on her face and slicked back her hair. The silky-looking tresses had turned from sunshine to dark gold with the dampness.

      “What was his crime? Murder? Kidnapping? Forgery?” Her eyes snapped. They sparkled in apparent delight. “He was a horse thief, I’ll bet!”

      “He’s a horse thief now, but he’s wanted for bank robbery.”

      “I was in mortal battle with a genuine bank robber? Did you hear that, Muff? Isn’t it marvelous?”

      A shot rang out from a buried corner of Zane’s memory. He heard the blast of shattering glass and the ting of it falling on a hard pine floor. He felt Missy Devlin’s gasp when his arm clamped about her ribs.

      Thunder, he realized with sudden relief. The boom and crash had only been thunder.

      “There’s not a thing marvelous about that bank robber, Miss Devlin. He’d have hurt you in a second and felt no remorse for it.”

      “Surely not!” She frowned, putting a pretty crease between her eyes. “He looked like a gentleman. Why, I’d nearly recovered my horse when Muff interfered.”

      “Maybe where you come from, he’d have hopped right down and handed you the reins, but this is the West. Gentlemen and ladies last about ten minutes out here.” It was the truth. This hothouse flower sitting so sweetly in front of him would wither in no time. “If we don’t drown before we reach Green Island, I’d suggest you take the first train back to where you came from.”

      As if to confirm his prediction of drowning, the sky opened up like a horse trough being dumped from the sky. Rain so cold that it stopped just short of being snow made puddles the size of ponds all over the low-lying area.

      There was nothing for it but to get to higher ground and hope to make it to Green Island before the storm cut the town off.

      Even though the great American West was a good bit wetter than Missy had expected, she had no intention of catching a train home. Just because monstrous torrents of water poured down upon her head and washed over her body in an icy bath was no cause for retreat.

      She did feel a bit guilty that the horse had some difficulty plucking its hooves from the muck with each step. The weight of two humans must have made each cold squish in the mud a trial for the beast. Still, she had

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