Read Online The Loner by Genell Dellin - Free Book Online Page B

quiet now, her breath coming lightly as if she’d fallen asleep. She probably had. She was bound to be exhausted after losing so much blood.
    He was exhausted and there wasn’t a nick on him. He was certainly too tired to suffer any interference or to think what to do about it if it occurred.
    It was a rotten piece of luck that Willie and his friends had picked this night to come to his house to sleep off a drunk. And even more rotten that they’d seen The Cat’s horse.
    Maybe they’d not make the connection that she could be The Cat. Maybe they’d forget, not think of it again, and not mention it to anyone. Maybe he’d be able to get her to Fort Smith without anyone’s noticing them on the trail. That should be his focus now, not whether she could possibly be innocent in spite of her mark on the tree.
    In spite of her hatred for lawmen.
    It would be a miracle, though, if no one paid them heed. People—people who were sober—were bound to see them and notice the little dun horse.
    A girl showing a mass of red, curly hair would never make anyone think of The Cat, but the horse would. Its size and speed were invariably mentioned in every tale of The Cat’s bravery.
    He needed to take Cathleen to Fort Smith on a different mount.
    He would like to haul her in a closed-up buggy, but there was no chance of that. To stay off the beaten trails, they’d have to go horseback.
    And he’d have to watch her every second. No matter how much she objected, he’d have to tie her to him when they slept.
    Don’t you dare tie me to you again. I won’t stand for it.
    That thread of panic in her voice, just under the surface of the bravado, had been truly pitiful. It had torn at him to hear it, for she was a helpless creature, caught in his trap, and she knew it.
    He whirled on his heel and left the room. Sometimes, because they were stretched so thin over so many large, turbulent districts, a Lighthorseman had to serve as arresting officer, judge, and jury. But this time, even if the case hadn’t been the murder of a white man, and a federal deputy marshal at that, he would do no more than arrest her and take her in.
    How could he judge her? His mind knew she was guilty and his heart would not stop hoping for proof she was innocent.
    He’d never been like this before. He felt as ifhe’d turned into two people living in the same skin.
    Â 
    The sunshine pouring in through the open window woke Black Fox with its heat. He opened his eyes to its light, dancing brightly in the auburn curls of Cathleen’s hair.
    As always, he was instantly awake and alert, so without thinking he knew who she was and why she was there. Yet he didn’t move. She was lying very near him, with her head turned so that all that cloud of red/gold hair glittered only inches from his face.
    He took a deep breath of its scent. It smelled of sunshine and cedar trees after a rain. And a little of dust and gunpowder.
    Sometime during sleep he had unknowingly slung his arm across her pillow above her head. Some of her hair spilled onto his blue sleeve, some appeared to be under it.
    Still, he didn’t move.
    It was a strange thing to wake with a woman in his bed. There was an unfamiliar companionship in it. Even though she was under the covers and he was on top of them, they lay on their sides, spoon-fashion, as if ready for their bodies to come closer and fit together. His free arm lifted and reached to brush back her hair so he could see her face.
    So he could touch her. The urge was so powerful it was hard to ignore.
    He jerked his hand back and rolled away from her, swinging his feet to the floor all in one motion. He was Black Fox Vann, Lighthorseman. He didn’t caress a woman prisoner, he did not .
    Even though before this was all over, half the Nation would be thinking that he had done so. Willie and Swimmer were bound to tell Tall John and Bras they’d seen a woman in his bed, and