Chapter 2

“We’re headin’ out now, Miz McClure. See you in a couple of weeks.”

“Okay. You be careful, hear?”

“Yes ma’am.”

She piddled around in the kitchen for a while, carrying water, banging skillets, and then went outside to clean up the larder after Carl had hung the meat. She just got back into the house when suddenly she heard a sound and stopped. She ran to the front, pulled the handmade curtain back, and saw a man dressed in black fall off his horse and lay bloody and dying not five feet from her front porch. A spear of fear shot through her. Her first inclination was to run and hide, but she quickly got hold of herself. She couldn’t fall apart now. She’d just bragged to Carl about how brave she was. Remembering what she’d said, she quickly grabbed the shot gun her father left her and ran outside. She lifted the gun and pointed it while swinging it from side to side, sure there must be a gang of murdering cowboys hiding in the bushes, but everything was quiet. Finally, she threw the gun aside and sank down beside him.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I got a bullet in the shoulder,” he said softly, his white, even teeth clenched with pain that was etched in deep lines around his mouth.

“I’ll have to get you in the house, then go for a doctor.”

“No…no doctor.”

“But you’ve lost a lot of blood. You could die.”

“No doctor!” he insisted.

A chill raced up her spine. She knew there was only one reason why a dying man wouldn’t want a doctor. He had to be wanted. An outlaw! Her gaze strayed toward the bunkhouse, wishin’ her cowhands were here, but they’d already left, so she was here alone.

“My name’s Easy.”

“Easy?”

“No time to explain. Look, I’m gonna have to try and get you inside. I’d never be able to lift you by myself, so do you think you can help me a little? Can you walk at all?”

“I might…be…”

As he tried to get up, his teeth clenched in pain, and Easy could almost feel it all the way down to her toes. “Here, lean on me,” she said, and did everything she could to hold up this giant of a man with blood all over him. Slowly they both made it into the house with him stumbling over everything. When shefinally got him in bed, she rushed over to a cabinet, pulled out some of her father’s brandy, poured him a couple of inches in a small glass.

“Here,” she said as she tried to hold him up so he could drink it. This will help.”

He grabbed it quickly, drank it, and then passed out with the pain, leaving her to loosen his clothes and try to get him comfortable. When she moved toward his boots, she suddenly stopped dead still.

Sometimes when you think he’s nowhere around, you’ll hear the clink of his silver spurs. The star points on them are sharp enough to do someone some real damage. It’s like a death rattle. Next thing you know, you’re dead.

Those words—where had she—

Oh, my God. They’re from the story in the Ten Penny Novel I’ve been reading.

Slowly her curious gaze raked along his muscular body until she came to his dark stubble and savage features that screamed danger.

One look at him will take your breath away. He’s big, and rugged, and his eyes shine like two black pearls—or an angry rattler. He’s killed thousands! Some people think he’s a half-breed because he refuses to cut his hair. He wears it long and pulled back with buckskin. They say when you face Reno Hudson, you come away with one of two things—a grave, or a reputation.

With these words whirling through her mind, she wanted so much to collapse and let someone else take care of her notorious visitor, but she couldn’t. She simply didn’t have time to be afraid. Not now. Hemay be a professional gunslinger, but he’s also a man who needs help, a man bleeding all over my bed, for God’s sake! She would just have to somehow shake this fear off until she could decide what to do.

Leaning down, her hands trembled when she tried to avoid the dangerous spurs, so she could pull off his boots. Finally her eyes shifted to the ripped up shirt where the bullet entered and began to tear at it until she saw his bloody flesh. She moved quickly in spite of the waves of heat and danger that seemed toradiate from him.

Was she afraid because he carried death in his gun hand, or was it because even passed out and harmless he made other men she knew look like young pups in heat? She realized for the first time that she’d beenwith nothing but boys. Now she was wondering what it would be like to ride a man’s cock—a real man’s cock—this man’s cock?

She couldn’t deny the hot flashes of demon lust she felt rear up in her like a wild stallion as she watched him lying there all dark and handsome—and big. She stood paralyzed for a moment, but finally forced herself out of her paralysis, and rushed over to the side table where she poured some water from the porcelain pitcher into a matching bowl. She put the bowl on the table, wet an old rag, and tried to clean his wound, but his shirt kept getting in the way. Putting the rag down, her trembling, unsure fingers began to undo the rest of his buttons.