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Maybe instead of shooting the Groves outright, I should’ve thrown them over the backs of their horses and led them to be patched up by the doc. They could be tossed in jail later since the circuit judge wouldn’t show up for a few days yet. They’d be found guilty, no question. But they could just bleed all over the ground and fucking wait. I had a more important thing to do: find the kid and discover why he made my dick hard. That shit wasn’t normal for me.
The groans and swearing fell away as we made our way north along the creek bank until the bluff lowered and met the flat land. Cutting across the water, we turned in the direction the gunman must have taken. There were no trees here, nothing to obstruct our view. There was nothing in front of us but miles of open prairie. He might be nimble and quick, but he wouldn’t have made it out of sight without a horse. Charlie turned and cut up along the bluff’s edge to where he’d have perched and fired. Even though it was a hot day, it had been a wet summer and the grass was tall and green still. We couldn’t miss the trampled path the kid had taken and we turned to follow.
“She’s fast, I’ll give her that,” he said, riding at a quick pace alongside me, but not too hard as to tire our horses.
I tipped back my hat. “Her?” I said.
He looked to me, raised a brow. Grinned. “The woman who saved us back there.”
Woman?
I sighed, more relieved than when I thought I’d been shot. “Oh, thank fuck.”
He barked out a laugh. “Bloody hell, man. You thought she was a he, didn’t you?”
“My cock had it right,” I said, shifting in the saddle as I remembered her standing above us, the gun in her hand. “Have you ever met a woman who wore pants? That’s not normal for a woman, even around here. Besides, we almost died. I’m allowed a little leniency.”
I felt the heat of embarrassment in my cheeks. I was the sheriff. I chased bad men. Saved people, not the other way around. If I couldn’t tell a man from a woman, it was possible I’d lost my balls.
“We were lucky she was there.” He laughed, then scratched his chin. “I’ll admit, the pants had me fooled for a moment, but it was her shape—”
“What shape?” I countered. I didn’t remember the curve of womanly hips, the lush swell of a pair of breasts beneath the baggy men’s clothing. And yet, I’d still gotten hard. Still was.
“Her long neck, the tip of her chin. Her lithe figure.” He looked ahead, but I could tell he was envisioning her in his mind. “My little warrior.”
I didn’t miss his use of the word my.
“A woman who has the balls to shoot two men in cold blood, dresses like a man and has no discernible curves,” I said. It was very uncomfortable riding a horse with a hard-on. “Why do I want to fuck the breath right out of her?”
He looked to me. “Because the second she fired that gun and saved our sorry asses, she became mine.”
I took off my hat, set it in my lap, wiped my forehead with my sleeve. I offered him a dark look.
“Ours,” he corrected, realizing his error.
I paused. “You don’t think she’s one of them, got angry at the others and decided to shoot them?”
Charlie looked off in the distance. Considered. “Not a chance. Eyewitnesses describe the third man as stocky. Tall.”
I nodded. “That’s what I thought as well. She’s not one of them, but she definitely hates them for some reason. We already have something in common.”
“She’s not a meek miss, simpering over ribbons and bows,” he added. “Neither of us want that in our woman. Hell, if I’d wanted that, I’d have stayed in England. This one’s fierce, brave and because… fuck, I don’t know, but I feel the same way. I can’t wait to strip her bare and learn every inch of her.”
“I’ve never stripped the pants off of someone before,” I countered, setting my hat back on my head, nudging my horse a little faster.
She was a mystery. An enigma. I was eager to learn everything about her. Who she was. Why she was there on the bluff. Why she shot the Grove men. Why the fuck she was hiding the fact that she was a woman. Any female dressed like that was clearly keeping her gender a secret. She didn’t want to be discovered, or she didn’t want it to be known that she was a she.
“Those men’s clothes were overlarge. I’d bet that bag of money she’s got all kinds of curves hidden. Remember, if we can’t see them, no one else can.”
So true. We’d be the only men who saw what was beneath. And that made my cock even harder, knowing she’d sealed her fate. She was ours.
Whoever she was.
A tiny, one room cabin, if it could be called that, came into view in the distance. Dilapidated and leaning precipitously, a strong wind would finish it off. Set on the bank of a small creek—a different one from where we’d been ambushed—I was surprised it hadn’t been washed away during a heavy spring run-off. There was nothing out here for miles but open prairie, Simms several miles away. I saw no fencing for a horse pen or even an outhouse. A beautiful but lonely spot. Surely, no one had lived there for years. Small animals, perhaps, or someone seeking shelter from a storm… or hiding.
I slowed, then we halted our horses a good distance away. We saw no woman, only a horse grazing. All was quiet except the wind.
“The path leads right to it,” Charlie said, pointing from where we were and the broken grass that went directly toward the rundown structure. He dismounted, patted his horse’s flank and dropped the reins to let him graze. “If we’re approaching, we need to take her by surprise. No way in hell am I letting her shoot me.”
