Jenna Kernan - The Texas Ranger's Daughter

This is what she had feared, every waking minute since that terrible day. Laurie fought her own shame as much as the hold of the outlaw.

She had tried to act as a proper woman, but it was just that—an act. Boon’s kiss had revealed the truth. She was wanton and wicked and low, just as she feared. Had her father seen it despite her attempt to hide the truth? Had he known she was unworthy of his love? Was it her fault all along that he left them?

Laurie staggered as her knees gave way, but Boon prevented her from falling, tugging her back against him. His brow now lifted in speculation. Clearly he had not anticipated an eager partner. Laurie struggled vainly in the iron grip of the outlaw and finally let her head sink to her chest as she went still and silent. She continued to tremble as if she stood in the snow, instead of beside a fire under a warm September sky.

“Anyone pokes his nose in before I’m finished with her and I’ll shoot it off.”

The men glared but remained by the fire as he dragged her away. She stumbled along beside him. Behind them she heard George Hammer.

“Boon’s young, boys. But young men are quick. He’ll only be a minute. Where’s that bottle? Cal, pass it around. Freet, Furlong, drag off the body. Throw him in the canyon for the buzzards.”

Boon tugged her along, but was clearly not happy with her pace because he paused long enough to lift her into his arms before breaking into a dead run.

Laurie screamed and heard the men laughing and jeering. The night was moonless and dark as black velvet. She could see nothing as she bounced in his arms, now fearing they might fall and break their necks.

His voice rumbled through her body as he spoke. “Stop or I’ll leave you behind.”

What did he mean by that?

Laurie’s mind dwelled again on how Boon had pulled her from the blow that George Hammer had aimed at her cheek with such finesse that the man had not even recognized what Boon had done. Her gut told her to do as he said. Still, she’d been wrong before, so wrong. Wrong about Anton, wrong about the outlaw at the station who pretended to be one of her father’s men.

Laurie considered her options and decided one outlaw was better than many. One outlaw could not watch her day and night, and she might still escape.

She went limp, lying trustingly as a newborn lamb in his arms. She did not think they would get far afoot and already feared what would happen when they were caught. George Hammer had a well-earned reputation for mercilessness. One would have to be a fool not to fear him and completely insane to cross him. She looked up at the man who carried her. Which was he?

“Where are we going?”

“Quiet,” he huffed and spun her up and over his shoulder as if he had some special gift for tossing young ladies about as if they were sacks of feed.

Her new position caused his shoulder to buffet her abdomen with each running stride, sending her corset stays digging into her flesh. She could scarcely draw a breath and the blood drained to her head, making it pound until she felt dizzy enough to faint.

Just as suddenly as they had begun, he stopped, grabbing her unceremoniously by the waistband of her new lavender overskirt and tugging her to her feet.

The soft nicker told her that there was a horse nearby.

“You planned this?” she asked.

He did not answer, but left her to move in the direction of the horses. She saw them now, two large dark outlines against the canyon wall. He checked the saddle girth and the leather buckle holding the saddlebags tied across the horse’s rump.

She stepped closer and saw a leather rifle scabbard tied beneath the saddle flap. The butt end of the rifle gleamed in the starlight.

There, looped over the saddle horn, was a leather cartridge belt, loaded with bullets. The twin holsters held two pistols.

Boon donned the cartridge belt, strapping it low on his hips and tying the holsters to each thigh. He stowed Larson’s pistol in the boot not holding his knife. Then he turned to her and she took a step away, but not quickly enough, for he captured her about the waist.

“Up!” he said and hoisted her, then plunked her down upon the saddle, heedless of the tangle of her skirts or the complete impropriety of a woman sitting a saddle in such a fashion. An instant later, he was mounted behind her, spurring their horse. The hoofbeats told her that the second horse was strung to the saddle behind the first.

“Is this a rescue?”

“Sentry hears you, we’re done.”

Laurie closed her mouth as she looked around in the dark. She didn’t speak again.

He made a growling sound in his throat and then wrapped his arms about her. “Hold on.”

He gripped the reins, as Laurie held the saddle horn with both hands.

He had killed a man to free her. Did he want her singularly or was there a slim chance that this madness was a rescue?

They did not take off at a gallop as she would have liked, but at a steady walk along the road Laurie had traveled in the buckboard when she arrived. The night was so black that she could not see two feet before them and wondered how the horses made their way.

The journey was slow, torturously slow. Laurie strained her ears for the sound of pursuit. Boon’s big body encircled hers. He wrapped one arm about her waist and dragged her into the pocket made by his chest and thighs and hunched so her corset stays impaled the soft flesh beneath her breasts.

He was warm and smelled of sweat and leather. Her chin fit under his jaw and occasionally his stubbly face scratched against her hair, further tangling the bird’s nest it had become. She sat stiff with tension, trembling and breathing as quickly as she could, given the constraints of his grip and her corset.

“Shouldn’t we go faster?”

“Horse breaks a leg and we’re caught. Plus a walking horse is quiet. You can’t hear the hoofbeats from up there.” He motioned to the cliffs above them.

“I can’t see,” she whispered.

“Neither can the sentry, but the horses can.

Now be still.”

She clamped her lips down on the dozens of questions she wished to ask. Who was he? Had her father sent him? What were his intentions? Would they make it?

When they reached the canyon floor the sky opened up above them and the starlight glowed weakly. Rocks now loomed like outlaws hunched to spring out. They passed a scrubby piñon pine on an outcropping that so resembled a man she nearly screamed a warning.

They turned left, heading south.

“We came from that direction,” she whispered.

“And that’s the way they’ll expect us to go. Box canyons and narrow draws this way. But I got little choice.”

Behind them came the sound of gunfire.

Bullets pinged off the sheer rock face of the canyon behind them.

“Firing blind in the draw, hoping to hit us,” whispered Boon.

The horses set off at a trot that flowed into a lope. She craned her neck, seeing the flash of pistol fire as the sound of the riders grew louder.

Boon left the road. The horse carrying them stumbled, but recovered its footing. They slowed to a walk again and then stopped. Boon slid off the dark horse, dragging her along.

“Damned dress shines like a bedsheet.”

Laurie glanced down to see it was so. The white pleated lace at her cuffs and the pale fitted lavender bodice with matching overskirt seemed to glow from within. Only the dark blue-violet fabric of her underskirt, visible below the hem of her lavender draping, vanished in the near darkness. He pushed her back between two rocks, holding the reins of both horses in one hand and her waist with the other, using his body to block hers.

She cowered behind him, clutching his vest and burying her face in the warm leather. Laurie remained motionless as the rocks, listening as the sound of hoofbeats grew closer. Gradually, the shout of riders grew more distant and the gunfire ceased.