Read Online Lawless Love (Lawmen and Outlaws) by Andrea Downing - Free Book Online Page A

fast, mister, otherwise I’m drowning myself.”
    Dylan snorted with a grunt-like laugh. He watched some leaves fly off in the wind. Believing she must be getting cold, he wouldn’t continue his joke too long. “Tell you what. You promise to have dinner with me and I—”
    “I wouldn’t have dinner with you if you were the last man on earth. You gonna get outta here, or do I die? My honor is more important to me than some dinner!”
    “How do you know you wouldn’t like din—” but he never finished the invitation. The girl ducked down and disappeared from sight.
    Dylan waited for her to reappear. Then he waited some more. And a little bit more. “Oh, shit,” he mumbled to himself as he yanked off his boots, pulled off his shirt, and dropped his gun belt. “Oh, hell and damnation!” And then he was in the water, thrashing about, looking for the beautiful body he wanted so badly to hold.
    ****
    Lacey Everhart could swim like a fish, or so she’d been told back in Tennessee from where she and her brother, Luke, had come. She tried to keep it out of her mind that the badge she’d spied meant the good-looking man on the riverbank was a lawman, no less. First and foremost, she needed to get the hell outta here and not have him follow her. She ducked down and swam for the reeds on the edge of the river and stayed there until she heard the splash. It was sooner than she would have thought.
    Pulling herself out and shaking her head to stop the drips, she grabbed her knickers and camisole before pulling up the denims and tugging on her shirt. He popped up every so often and looked back but couldn’t see her here behind the brush. She buckled on the gun belt before slamming her feet into her boots, snatching her saddlebags, and throwing them on her horse. Then she marched down to the river’s edge. She held out her gun.
    “Mister?” Her voice was too low to gain his attention, so she shouted the next time. “Hey! Mister!” A slow smile spread across her face as she watched his head turn and the realization dawn on him. “You can come on out now. Real slow. Slow and easy.”
    Dylan grabbed some branches and pulled himself up before standing a few yards from her, water trailing down the contours of his irate face. The hairs on his chest dripped like melting icicles. “That’s some dang trick, lady. I went in to save you, and this is the thanks…”
    “Just stay where you are and take your pants off. Now!”
    His mouth formed into a pucker with its attempt not to smile. He couldn’t be that dumb, surely . His long fingers skittered down his buttons and undid them one by one before he dropped his trousers and stepped out of them. Long wet drawers didn’t do much hiding, but his modesty was preserved.
    “Sit on that rock there and clasp your hands behind your back. And don’t try any funny business neither.” Holding the gun on him, Lacey bent and picked up the pants before tossing them into the river. Luckily for Dylan, they caught on a branch hanging over the water and dangled like a fish on the end of a pole. She walked backwards to her horse, the gun steady on the man, and reached up for her rope.
    “Guess you came sneakin’ up on the wrong woman, Mister.”
    “You see the badge?”
    “I seen a bit of tin pinned on your good-fer-nothin’ chest. Doesn’t mean a dang thing to me. You think you can take advantage of that?” She stared at his chest, now shirtless, its rippling muscles bulging as he clasped his hands behind him.
    “I wasn’t takin’ advantage—I was warnin’ you ’bout the snakes…” He took a breath in thought. “I cared for your safety.”
    “Cared nothing. The only thing you cared about was getting an eyeful and mebbe a bit more later. Keep those hands clasped behind you and don’t move. I get nervous, this gun is liable to go off.”
    “You going to tie me up? I may starve to death. Or freeze.”
    “I doubt it.” She moved behind him, getting one end of the rope in her