Read Online The Long Way Home by Lauraine Snelling - Free Book Online

hillcrests and paint the clouds in shades of joy. They kept the horses at a steady jog, stopping to rest midmorning, then pushing on. When they reached a wide creek, they dismounted and let the horses have a couple of gulps of water before pulling them back to graze. Jesselynn removed her boots and rolled up her pant legs before striding out in the creek. She dipped water and splashed it up her arms and over her face.
    Ahab threw up his head, his nicker catching Benjamin unaware.
    ‘‘Now, ain’t this a purty sight.’’ Tommy Joe Jones stepped from behind a tree, his rifle at the ready. A slouch hat shaded a face that might have been handsome had it not been mashed so many times by fists and even cut by a knife. To Jesselynn he was ugly as sin and ten times meaner, inside and out.
    His laugh sent fear stampeding up Jesselynn’s back. ‘‘What are you doing here?’’

CHAPTER S IX
    ‘‘Why, we was just stoppin’ fer a drink, same as you.’’
    ‘‘We?’’ Anything to buy time.
    ‘‘Oh, me’n my purty little wife.’’
    The slitting of Tommy Joe’s eyes told her much about his feelings for his ‘‘purty little wife.’’ The way he knocked her around, she’d long before lost her ‘‘purtiness’’ to his heavy fists.
    ‘‘No hope, I suppose, that your brother’s dead?’’
    ‘‘Nope, none.’’
    The leer he gave her sent more chills racing up Jesselynn’s spine. While she had a pistol stuck in the waistband of her pants, reaching for it would be sure death. Without moving her head, she glanced sideways to see what Benjamin was doing. He had a rifle on the other side of his horse if he could get to it.
    ‘‘Well, Mr. Jones, if you’re lookin’ for a drink, I’ll move out of your way. Plenty of water here for everyone.’’ She took a step toward the bank, but the end of the rifle now pointed directly at her.
    ‘‘No, you don’t.’’ He stepped out farther and leveled the rifle, the grin on his lips nowhere near matching the flames in his eyes. ‘‘Take yer hat off.’’
    ‘‘My hat?’’
    ‘‘You heerd me. Don’t ya understand English? Take yer hat off—now!’’
    Jesselynn did as he asked, clutching the worn brim at her side.
    ‘‘Ah, your hair, it’s done growd some. Bet you was real purty afore you cut it all off.’’
    Jesselynn narrowed her eyes, staring directly into his. Even across the distance she could see the spittle gathering at the corner of his mouth. Oh, dear God, I’m in real trouble now. He knows I’m a woman, and he has just one use for women, other than knocking them around. Any time you want to send some angels in would be fine with me . ‘‘How’s that leg doing that I bound up for you?’’ The two Jones brothers had gotten into a shooting argument, and much to her disgust, she’d been on hand to patch them up.
    ‘‘Good as new. Got a little somethin’ else you can do fer me now, though. Take yer shirt off.’’
    ‘‘Sorry, can’t do that. Wouldn’t be at all proper.’’ Keeping her lips or any other part of herself from quivering took intense concentration. If those angels didn’t show up, she’d need every bit of backbone she’d ever had.
    He stepped forward. ‘‘I said, take yer shirt off—now!’’
    ‘‘Now, Tommy Joe, you know what your mama would say about such goings on.’’
    ‘‘My mama is long gone, and even if she was right here, I knowed how to handle Mama.’’ He waved the rifle. ‘‘Yer shirt.’’
    In looking down to the buttons, Jesselynn glanced at Benjamin from under her lashes. He needed more time too. With shaking fingers she pulled her shirt out of her pants and freed the lowest button. Raising her head to stare at Jones with all the venom she could muster, she let her shirttails flap.
    He licked his lips.
    She slowly pushed the next button back through the fabric and, with fingers curled under the edges, held the shirtfronts apart so he could see her waistband. As she revealed the front,