Read Online Only 05 - Autumn Lover by authors_sort - Free Book Online Page A

Elyssa’s skin. Even as she told herself that she shouldn’t begrudge Penny whatever happiness she could find, the nasty taste of envy soured Elyssa’s tongue.
    In that instant she understood just how deeply she was attracted to Hunter. Thinking of him with another woman was like having the ground cut out from beneath her feet, leaving her with no support.
    My God .
    Is this what it was like for my mother, this sudden, overwhelming desire for just one other person on earth ?
    Is this why an English aristocrat left her solid gold luxury and disgraced her family and abandoned her country…all for a man who was only slightly less wild than the land he loved ?
    In the end, though, Mother got the man she loved .
    Am I going to be like Penny, an old maid who wants only the man who didn’t want her ?
    “What do you think?” Penny asked.
    With an effort, Elyssa focused on the other woman.
    “About what?” Elyssa asked.
    Penny smiled. “Wool-gathering about ballrooms and carriages again?”
    The faintly scornful look Hunter gave Elyssa put the world right back under her feet. She straightened her spine and returned the cool look.
    “You think more about England than I do,” Elyssasaid crisply to Penny. “My thoughts are about problems closer to home.”
    “Hunter suggested that we bake enough bread for several weeks,” Penny said.
    “It will go moldy.”
    “Better moldy bread than none,” Hunter said succinctly. “I’ll hunt antelope and deer every chance I get. Can you jerk meat?”
    “Of course,” Elyssa said. “I can hunt, too.”
    Hunter’s black eyebrows rose, but he said nothing.
    “But the men prefer to eat beef,” Elyssa said.
    “We can’t spare any more steers until we know how many you have,” Hunter said bluntly. “In any case, you should have enough rations on hand to withstand a siege.”
    “We aren’t going to war.”
    “Yet,” Hunter said in a clipped voice. “But we will, Sassy. Bet on it. I put Mickey to work making some water barrels. Seems he was apprenticed to a cooper before he ran away from Boston.”
    Elyssa barely heard. She was still hearing Hunter’s certainty that it would come down to a range war in order to hang on to the Ladder S.
    Ever since Mac had been murdered by the Culpepper gang, she had been afraid of just that.
    “You should have given that spotted stud to the army,” Hunter added, seeing Elyssa’s dismay. “Then they might have worried about protecting the Ladder S as well as the immigrant trains.”
    “The stud wasn’t all the captain wanted,” Elyssa said.
    Hunter’s eyes narrowed. “You?”
    “Yes.”
    Hunter shrugged. “So you should have given him a little of what you were giving Mickey. There’s plenty to go around. Ask any ‘working’ girl.”
    Elyssa’s temper flared.
    “All I ever gave Mickey was orders,” she said hotly.
    “Uh-huh,” Hunter said.
    His expression said he didn’t believe her.
    “Miss Penny,” Hunter said, his voice polite once again, “would you show me to an empty bedroom? Sassy said I was supposed to sleep in the big house.”
    Taken aback by Hunter’s attitude toward Elyssa, Penny just looked at the younger woman questioningly.
    “I told him to sleep inside because I didn’t want him shot to death like the last foreman,” Elyssa explained without looking away from Hunter. “Now, however, the idea has a positively wondrous allure.”
    Penny looked startled and amused at the same instant.
    “Put him in one of the empty rooms upstairs,” Elyssa said ungraciously. “The stairway creaks so much that no one can sneak up on him no matter how loud he snores.”
    “I don’t snore,” Hunter said.
    “Father used to say the same thing. But you know how it is when a man gets older, don’t you, Hunter?”
    Hunter’s eyes narrowed.
    Penny was horrified.
    “Sassy,” Penny said, using Elyssa’s childhood nickname, “shame on you. You know how touchy men are about their age. Besides, Hunter is younger than