Read Online Beautiful Bandit (Lone Star Legends) by Loree Lough - Free Book Online Page B

that if a storm weren’t raging out there, she’d run south just as far and as fast as those tiny feet would carry her?
    During the next hour, she made coffee and threw together a crude meal made up of beef jerky, canned beans, and biscuits made from the lard and flour she found in the cabin. She served the meal on mismatched plates and bowls from the cupboard, and, amazingly, managed to keep her back to them while she cleaned up afterward, too. If the Rangers had noticed, they didn’t show it or say so, but her secretive behavior sure had Josh’s mind spinning.
    While the Rangers swapped good-natured barbs, Josh made a decision. When the weather quieted and the Rangers headed out, he’d have a heart-to-heart with Dinah. Until then, he thought, tilting his chair back on two legs and propping both boot heels on the table, he was more than happy to sit and surreptitiously watch as she did everything humanly possible not to attract attention to herself.
    The ruse seemed to be working, if the Rangers’ bored yawns and frequent head bobs were any indication. Interlacing his fingers behind his head, Josh leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, content to imagine Dinah in his kitchen at home, humming as she performed wifely chores—and not just as his pretend wife, either.

    9
    Kate’s hope had been that the riders wouldn’t recognize her. If she needed proof that God had heard her, there it was, in the form of three soundly sleeping Texas Rangers and one rancher who had decided to play possum. For a while, anyway. The fact that he felt it necessary to keep an eye on her at all times hurt her feelings, and Kate didn’t mind admitting it. If the Rangers weren’t suspicious of her, why was he?
    But that was being unfair, and she knew it. Josh had put his life on the line by agreeing to deliver her to the Mexican border. She’d heard it said that the Texas Rangers always get their man—or woman. If these men figured out who she was, they’d haul her in, and they’d have no choice but to arrest him, too, for aiding and abetting. Only God knew how long it might take to conduct the investigation that would prove Josh hadn’t participated in the robbery, or in the murders of three innocent men and a faultless woman.
    Kate shivered at the memory but quickly shook it off. She had to stay alert and aware, and how could she do that if her thoughts kept turning to that awful day? Especially considering what her mama used to say: “You’re a terrible, awful liar! Why, every thought in your head is written on your face, plain as day!” Etta Mae had also noticed her transparent nature and had commented on it almost as often as her mama had, making her more determined than ever to avoid looking the Rangers in the eyes. For that very well could be all it would take to seal her fate.
    As they’d gobbled up the pathetic meal she’d scraped together, the men swapped stories about how each of them had survived conditions far worse than this—tornadoes, blizzards, even a hurricane or two.
    As Josh had stoked the fire, he shared his own account of being stranded for nearly a week in a shelter just like this one. It had poured steadily for days, he said, filling the Rio Grande to overflowing. Fascinated by the tale—and the man who told it—Kate slumped onto the seat of a rickety, wooden chair, propped both elbows on the table, and rested her chin in her upturned palms. Josh told them how the waters had come closer and closer, hour by hour, to the door, and how, by the time they had reached the porch, he’d run out of food and had taken to eating bugs and sodden weeds. Kate sat there and listened, spellbound.
    And that’s when he put the poker down and caught her staring.
    All three Rangers turned in their seats to see why he’d stopped talking so suddenly, and why his expression had changed from intense concentration to fond warmth. They chuckled when he winked at her, and when he sent her a flirty grin, their bawdy