Read Online My Desperado by Lois Greiman - Free Book Online Page B

else we can do."
    "There's space for the both of you in his room."
    "His room!" Katherine gasped.
    "It's all that's available."
    "But then I'll have to take him—"
    "He wouldn't last a day with one leg," Lacy said solemnly. "I've seen his kind before. He'd sooner die."
    Katherine knocked once on the portal, hugging the bandages to her chest and holding the pitcher with one hand as she pushed the latch and stepped inside.
    Travis was lying on his side, facing her, his expression grave. "How long have I been here?"
    Katherine lifted her chin, feeling her heart thump repeatedly against the wall of her ribs.
    "It's Friday. We arrived Wednesday morning."
    He narrowed his eyes, his left arm curled beneath his head. It looked powerful and broad and naked. "Three days, two nights. More than enough time for the hungry wolves of Silver Ridge to find us."
    Katherine bit her lip. "No one knows we're here."
    "No one?" He raised his brows at her, his expression more than dubious.
    "Just Lacy's girls."
    "Just her girls."
    "And Bernard."
    "Bernard," he repeated flatly.
    "And..." She winced, realizing, perhaps for the first time, how precarious their safety. "And Daisy—of course."
    "Of course."
    His gaze bore into hers, which she dropped rapidly.
    "I'm sorry." The words slipped out.
    He said nothing, letting the music from below punctuate the quiet, then, "For saving my life?"
    She raised her eyes with a snap. Although his shoulders were broad and powerful, he looked helpless and needy. "No." She shook her head, knowing her denial as truth. "For bringing you here."
    Her words were little more than a whisper, a whisper he felt down to the very core of his soul. He knew he should draw back behind the curtain of arrogant sarcasm, but she looked so sweet and earnest. There were a thousand things he thought to say—not one of which he spoke. "You need to leave, lady. Head east. Before they find you."
    She stood still, staring at him, holding that damned pitcher of water and neatly rolled bandages. "But I'm innocent. There's no need to run," she whispered.
    Innocence. It was painted across her smooth features like the loving stroke of a gentle artist. Innocent she was, he thought, and not the one responsible for Patterson's death. He was certain of it and longed to hear it from her own lips. To hear she’d never touched the fat mayor, had not wasted her precious youth beneath the panting bodies of lecherous men. But he had no right to ask, and she seemed unwilling to explain.
    "I fear I have bad news." She changed the subject and approached him slowly, feeling tense and uncertain.
    "Bad?" he echoed. "And things been going so well."
    Katherine set the pitcher and bandages on the commode beside the bed and noticed that he was smiling slightly, like a small boy who couldn't resist a practical joke. And yet it was difficult to compare him to a child, for when she put her hand to his arm, she felt his strength and power.
    Katherine seated herself in the chair she'd occupied during those long hours before he had found consciousness. "Lacy said Dory will be needing her..." She stopped again, biting her lip and unwrapping the bandage from his arm. "You see..." She cleared her throat and gently tugged the last bit of cloth from his wound. It was oozy and red and ugly, but the embarrassing topic distracted her, and she dipped a towel in clean water before dabbing gently at his arm. "Well, it is Friday night," she said with finality.
    His eyes never left hers, though his brows had lifted in question. "Friday?"
    She gave a curt nod, but it had been a hell of a week for Travis, and the significance of the day was beyond his present understanding.
    "Friday," he mused aloud, gritting his teeth as she carefully rebandaged his wound. "Friday..."
    "She'll have company," Katherine explained stiltedly, then flamed a deep scarlet hue.
    "Ohhh." Travis nodded sagely. "As in a gentleman caller."
    She refused to look him in the face. Was he smiling that boyishly