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she invited me there. Didn’t know she wanted to repay me in her usual fashion. Now that I think back on it, it was kinda funny how fast I got out of there.”
    â€œSo she doesn’t know you’re a girl?”
    â€œOh, she does now and keeps my secret, but that night she didn’t know. I felt bad though, for leaving her without an explanation, so I went back for a visit later that week after I found this shack. Told her who I really was. It was her night off and we talked all night. Never made a friend that fast before. Heck, she’s the only friend I’ve made since I left home. And once a week, when she has a night off, she lets me sleep in her bed. I surely do miss a soft bed.” Max ended with a grin.
    He came to stand directly in front of her. Looming over her is what it felt like. She was tall for a woman at five feet eight, which supported her guise as a boy, but he still had a good half foot in height on her. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of looking up at him and backed up into the shack instead.
    He followed her in and picked up her bandanna, which had fallen from her lap when she got up. She turned around so he could cut the ropes on her wrists. He didn’t. He put the bandanna around her neck and tied it himself, which had her gritting her teeth again. Was he just going to leave her vest and coat behind? She couldn’t put them back on with her hands and arms tied like this.
    â€œWhy doesn’t your wanted poster identify you as a woman?”
    She shrugged, but he might not have noticed, standing so close to her, so she said, “That poster comes from Bingham Hills, Texas. It’s people there who want me back. Maybe they figured out that offering that much money for a woman would set more’n just bounty hunters and lawmen after me, if you know what I mean. Just a guess, mind you. But I’m glad they left out that little detail for whatever reason—or I might’ve had to kill someone for real.”
    â€œIs that your way of trying to convince me you haven’t killed anyone—yet?” he asked, still standing behind her.
    â€œDid it work?”
    The man was mighty curious about her this morning, but he didn’t bother to answer that. Instead, he asked, “What sort of food do you have on hand?”
    She moved farther away from him. “Nothing. I’ve been hunting for food as I need it.”
    â€œYou’ve been subsisting only on meat up here?”
    He sounded hungry. Her desperate, impulsive attempt to seduce him with her body last night hadn’t worked, which wasn’t surprising considering how dirty and angry she was. And thank goodness, because she hadn’t given any thought to what would have happened if she’d succeeded. But food! Her gran was fond of saying that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. She even had some spices left in her saddlebags that she could use to make him something special.
    She turned around and gave him a tentative smile. “It’s not exactly safe for me to go shopping in town for anything else. But I can hunt up something for us if you’re hungry. I sure am.”
    â€œYou and your rifle have parted ways for good” was all he said.
    She was back to gnashing her teeth. She was not going to try to get on his good side again, not when he obviously didn’t have one. She’d have to find some other way to escape while they were carting her to Texas for the trial. If there would even be a trial. Accused of killing the beloved founder of Bingham Hills, who was also the mayor of the town, who supported half the town and owned most of it—no, she probably wouldn’t even be given a trial. They’d send her straight to the gallows. And she didn’t even shoot that bastard.

Chapter Nine

    U NBELIEVABLE! MAX WAS FUMING. The man was actually pulling her along behind him with that damn rope of his, as if she were an