Harper St. George - The Innocent And The Outlaw

Dammit! She wasn’t any good at this. She’d walked right into that. This was the worst night of her life and she was being a complete idiot. First the powders and now this. She was always the one in the family with a level head. The one making sure they had canned enough food to last through winter, making sure the eggs they sold in town went for the best price, but now she was being an idiot. The fear she had been holding back so well was finally starting to wear on her.

He grinned and gently tucked the trinket back between her breasts, the backs of his fingers stroking against her skin as he did. Biting down on the inside of her lip to stop the shiver that threatened to move through her, she watched his face for any indication of what he planned to do next. Taking a step back, he crossed his arms over his chest. “All right, you can keep it, but only if you tell me what you know about Campbell.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to go to hell again, but that would simply be letting her anger talk and do her no favors. He might even take her locket, leaving her situation even more dire. Anger wasn’t the way to handle him or her predicament. It was time to start using her head and stop simply reacting to what was happening. She was smarter than this, smarter than him. She just needed to get herself out of her bonds and the only way to do that was to appear to cooperate and earn his trust.

Swallowing back the words she longed to hurl at him, she managed a grave expression and gave him a contrite nod. “Ship Campbell is my stepfather.”

“How long have you known him?”

“About thirteen years.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Five weeks ago. He was supposed to be home last week, but he hasn’t come back yet.”

“What do you know about his plans when he left?” he asked, continuing his rapid-fire assault.

Torn between playing along and risking revealing something that he shouldn’t know and possibly compromising Ship’s safety, she bit down on her bottom lip to contemplate her answer. His gaze immediately darted to the movement and she froze as an intangible and warm current moved between them. Lord, this man was dangerous in more ways than one. In completely inappropriate ways that didn’t bear thinking about now trussed up like she was.

With an infinitely gentle touch, his thumb pressed against the flesh just below her lip and pulled it free. “No lying. Tell the truth and I promise you’ll be safe.”

Just the touch of his thumb felt a thousand times better than it should. She took in a shuddering breath as a ripple of pleasure moved through her from that touch before answering him. It wasn’t as if she knew that much anyway. “He was going to rob a bank in Crystal City, I think. It was supposed to be a quick job and then back.”

“It takes about a week and a half to ride to Crystal City from here. A week and a half back. What did he plan to do with that extra week?”

He’d mentioned a detour to meet an old friend, to hide out so no one followed him from the bank, but the presence of the Reyes Brothers made her wonder if that hadn’t worked out. “I don’t know,” she answered. “He doesn’t share the details with me and I don’t ask.”

“Why doesn’t he share the details? Aren’t you involved with his gang?” That same thumb traced a lazy path across her chin before he grimaced and drew his hand back, as if just catching himself in the act of touching her.

“No,” she snapped at him, unreasonably angry at herself for missing his touch.

He was quiet for a while, his gaze piercing, making her want to fidget beneath his scrutiny. He didn’t believe her. The skepticism was plainly written on his face. She couldn’t blame him, though, because she knew herself to be a horrible liar. She wasn’t involved with his plans, but she knew where his friend lived. Ship had always told her to look for him there if he ever went missing. If Ship was actually visiting that friend, she had no idea, but it was something she needed to keep to herself, which was why she needed a distraction. She’d feed him faulty information about the farm, make them go somewhere else so they would leave her alone.

“Go to the farm if you don’t believe me. He’s not there. But he keeps a chest at the foot of his bed and it’s full of notes. You might find something there that will tell you where he’s gone.”

His expression didn’t change as he brought his thumb up and slowly ran the side along the crease below his well-formed bottom lip. Perversely, the movement held her mesmerized until she forced herself to look away. “You still don’t believe me?”

“Your sudden cooperation seems a little too convenient.”

It was too convenient. She was planning to lie. “My hands are numb and my arms hurt. That changes things.”

“Where’s the farm?” he asked, without addressing her complaints.

“Oh, no, you don’t get that information so easily.”

Raising a brow and crossing his arms over his chest again, he was apparently willing to stare her down as he awaited her capitulation. When she didn’t speak, his gaze went to the dangerously gapped-open bodice and the locket gleaming in the firelight. Unwelcome butterflies fluttered along with the nerves in her belly. “You wanted to keep your trinket,” he reminded her.

“Please.” She tugged on the bonds at her wrists, wincing at the pain. “This is horribly uncomfortable. Cut me down and I’ll tell you where the farm is.”

Chapter Five

Hunter allowed his gaze to linger on the swell of her breasts before bringing it upward to settle on her eyes. They held his attention just long enough to make her squirm as he pretended to weigh her request. He’d cut her down because what had begun as a game to expediently get information from her had turned into something more dangerous. There was something provocative about having her bound before him, but he’d never taken a woman by force and he wouldn’t start now. The same instinct that made him want to protect her made him want to make her his.

Despite her attractive face, he’d expected her to be different than she was. These past years, they’d traveled through many backwater hells avoiding the law, avoiding outlaw hunters, avoiding all the sons of bitches looking to make a name for themselves by taking one of them out, but all the women he’d ever come across in those dark places were just like their men. Uneducated, coarse and almost willfully ignorant in their spurning of the outside world.

She was different.

The way she spoke made him think that she’d had some education, but he didn’t know how that could be, considering what he’d seen of Whiskey Hollow and what he knew of her stepfather. Her deep blue eyes sparkled with an intelligence that was intriguing with the challenging way she looked at him, as if taunting him to figure out her secrets. Those eyes coupled with the unexpectedly soft curves that he’d felt as he’d searched her for weapons had been damned pleasing. The mere memory made blood rush to his groin. The firelight flickered, gave her skin a golden hue as she hung there, tied like an offering to him. Her unbound breasts begged for his palms, as they were all but revealed to him, the black lace at the edge of her bodice only just managing to keep the pink of her nipples hidden. The locket taunted him from its prized position nestled between them. It didn’t help that the looks she gave him said she was as attracted to him as he was to her. She tried to hide it, but she wasn’t as afraid of him as she should be, at least not afraid for her safety like a normal captive would be. Her fear stemmed from what crackled between them.

Pushing a hand through his hair, he forced a breath out and decided he’d been too long without a woman, a situation he’d have to wait until he got back home to Helena to rectify. Damn Campbell to hell! He’d happily kill the man with his bare hands once they recovered Miguel. She startled when he made a quick grab to pull his knife from its sheath strapped to his boot. He approached her more slowly so she knew his intention, the knife raised to the rope securing her to the wood beam above her head.