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her
tight black corset. The young woman’s hair was the color of a flaming
southwestern sunset—a red mass of long unruly curls highlighted with shades of
blonde. Underneath the thick coat of paint was a young face. Delaney figured
she couldn’t be over seventeen, if that.
    “Now, that’s what I call good advertising,” she whispered to
Gabriel.
    The girl called out to the doctor. He waved and called back,
“Hello, ladies. It’s a lovely afternoon, isn’t it?” They all giggled.
    “It’d be even lovelier if you came up for a visit, Doc,” the
red-haired girl purred, as she batted her long eyelashes.
    A grin split Gabriel’s mouth and the girls all giggled again.
    “Friends of yours, Doctor?” Delaney asked with a sly smile as they
walked on.
    “No. I wouldn’t say that. I don’t know much about any of them,
except they’re career ladies,” he countered with a hint of the devil. “Much
like yourself.”
    Before she could fire back a response, she spied a short, stocky
man at the hitching post outside the gambling parlor next door. In plain view,
he flogged his horse, and no one was coming to the animal’s rescue. He smacked
the stallion with a bullwhip as the horse bucked and reared and tried to escape
its ties.
    Delaney dropped her bags, hiked up her skirt, and shot off like a
rocket. She flung herself onto his back, and the force of impact against his
hard body was like a car colliding with a brick wall. “Stop beating that
horse!” she screamed as she pummeled the man’s shoulders.
    He spun and flung her away with his beefy arm, then raised the
whip in the air and scowled at her. “What the hell do you think you’re doin’,
woman?” He spat tobacco juice onto the ground.
    She glared into his steel-gray eyes and ran at him again,
attempting to pry the braided leather instrument from his hand. “I’m stopping
you from abusing that innocent animal, you jackass!”
    There wasn’t much of a struggle. The man took hold of her
shoulders with his two powerful hands, gave her a shove, and slung her like a
rag doll into the dirt. Moaning, she frowned up at him and rubbed her hip.
    “That’s enough, Hooper!” Gabriel raced to Delaney’s side. He
helped her up from the ground for the second time that day and then gruffly
ordered, “Don’t move.” The firm grip he placed on her arm and the fierce look
in his eye let her know he was not talking just to hear his own teeth rattle.
He meant for her to stay put.
    After taking huge strides toward the man, Gabriel retracted his
fist and punched the horse beater in his already bent nose. Blood spurted.
    Rooted right where Gabriel had left her, Delaney stared in
wide-eyed shock. A smile parted her lips as she watched him take a defensive
stance and raise his balled fists, prepared to do further battle.
    “Get him, Doc!” some boys on the street yelled. Other people began
to gather and cheer him on.
    Momentarily stunned by the blood gushing from his nose, Hooper
reacted slowly at first. Then his eyes boiled with fiery rage.
    Gabriel stalked his opponent like a cougar, bouncing on the balls
of his feet. His voice was calm when he said, “I don’t want to fight you,
Warren, but you had no right to hurt the lady, or that horse. I want you to apologize
to Miss Marshall.”
    The man bled profusely. He raked a rough hand across his lips,
staining his knuckles with blood. He sneered and murmured, “I’ll beat the
woman, too, if she don’t get outta my sight and mind her own damn business.” As
he raised the whip in the air again, he spit a thick stream of yellow tobacco
juice onto the street, missing Delaney’s boots by mere inches.
    “You’ll find yourself on the reckoning end of that bullwhip if you
dare to lay a hand on her, now or ever,” Gabriel warned. Quicker than a cat on
a parakeet, Gabriel lunged and wrenched the whip out of Warren’s fist. With a
flick of his wrist, the whip unrolled and splintered the ground like a lightning
strike. The