Read Online Audrey and the Maverick by Elaine Levine - Free Book Online Page A

air in his lungs. She’d come alive in his arms in a way that left him stunned and hungering for more. Shit . He had practically mauled her, with her still bearing the bruises of another man’s rough handling. He started toward the river. The ice-cold water would be his body’s only relief tonight.
    Ignoring the pain of the rocks and stickers underneath his bare feet, he felt again the heat in Audrey’s eyes when she’d looked him over so boldly a moment ago. He lifted his hands to his nose, breathing deeply of the faint rose scent that lingered on his skin. He could still feel her hard nipples pressed against his chest, her strong, slim arms wrapped around his neck in what he knew she meant as a chaste and fervent thank-you. And yet he’d taken her gratitude and filled it with his own dark longing and need.
    He was glad she hadn’t asked him to turn around; he wouldn’t have liked seeing her reaction to his scars. He was as lost in his own way as she was. He wished she was still here, with him. He wished he could make her trust him, tell him what the hell was really going on. He wished he could have brushed away her tears. She was twenty. A baby. A baby with a baby. Jesus, he was a bastard. Tomorrow he would do what he could to make it right. He’d meant what he said about having one less criminal in Defiance.

Chapter 8
    The noise in Sam’s Saloon slowly settled down as Sheriff Kemp stood up by the bar and waved the men to silence. Sam’s had been closed for this meeting. The women who usually worked the room were absent. In fact, so were most of the patrons. The men gathered were hand-selected by the sheriff. Their land bordered Hell’s Gulch or they had formerly used Hell’s Gulch for summer grazing. Some of them owned land that was downstream from Hell’s Gulch. Some, perhaps most, were just plain sheep-hating cattlemen.
    The sheriff wasn’t a man who trusted in Fate. He wanted McCaid out of the area, come hell or high water. McCaid was either stupid or stubborn—if he and his men couldn’t bully him out, the sheriff had begun a backup plan. He’d get the area ranchers to run him out. Hence the purpose of this evening’s meeting.
    “Gentlemen.” The sheriff held up his hands, bringing the assembly to order. “I called this meeting to give you a forum to discuss your concerns regarding the invasion of sheep ranching in our area. We don’t have a mayor in this town, so this task falls to me. I’ve been hearing grumbling, and I don’t want any of you takin’ the law into your own hands. I think it’s time we confront this issue and decide as a group how we’re gonna deal with it.”
    “It’s illegal, is what it is, him buying public grazing land. Weren’t no hearing, no announcement—he just up and buys thousands of prime acres from the government.”
    “It’s legal all right. I looked his deed over a year ago,” the sheriff countered.
    “That don’t make it right, Sheriff,” another rancher spoke up. “We’re dependent on the water that comes down to us through McCaid’s property, which he’s fouling up with sheep waste. I had to dig wells to water my herd ’cause I didn’t want to lose ’em to poisoned water.”
    “And he’s got too many sheep grazing that land. There won’t be nothing left for us once he folds up and runs back East.”
    “He’s paying unfair wages. I can’t get any of the help I need—I can’t compete with him.”
    “I heard he’s planning on bringing a railroad spur here so he can get his sheep and wool to Cheyenne and Denver.”
    “Well, hell, that’s something that could help us all.”
    “You think he’s gonna let us use it to run our cattle down to Cheyenne? Hell no. Leastwise, not without gouging us for the service.” The speaker spit a stream of tobacco juice in the general direction of a nearby spittoon. “Any way you look at it, McCaid’s trouble.”
    “There’s the other matter too, Sheriff,” Deputy Fred added to the conversation,