Comanche Cowboy (The Durango Family) Read Online Free

know how to treat a lady? Then I’ll show you!”
    Cayenne put her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming. No man attempted to interfere or even moved except for the sobbing, struggling drunk and the half-breed tightening the rawhide around his neck.
    “My stars!” she screamed. “You’ll choke him to death! Don’t kill him! Don’t kill him!”
    But she could see the bottled rage behind the gray eyes as he tightened the loop until it cut into the drunk’s flesh. “Apologize to the lady,” Maverick snarled between clenched teeth. “Apologize, or I’ll kill you!”
    Cayenne looked around in desperation. “Won’t anyone help?”
    The bartender shrugged helplessly. “Lady, you started all this!”
    A gambler leaned over to the short piano player. “I’ll give you odds he’ll twist his head completely off!”
    “What kind of animals are you all?” Cayenne scolded, and she ran over, pounding Maverick on the chest. “Don’t kill him! You hear, don’t kill him! He’s just a drunk!”
    Maverick’s eyes widened at her spirited onslaught but he didn’t turn loose, fending her off with one arm. The drunk gasped, trying vainly to get his fingers under the thong. “Lady,” Maverick said, “it’s you I was protecting! He’ll apologize or I’ll kill him!”
    The drunk rolled his eyes at Cayenne as he struggled for breath.
    “Dearie,” the woman on the stairs laughed as Cayenne flew into the half-breed again, “if you was a man, Maverick’d kill you for that!”
    But Cayenne was mad now, fighting mad. “Let him go! You hear me? Let him go!”
    Maverick held her off with one big hand. “By damn! I was tryin’ to help you, ma’am!”
    He loosened the noose a little and the drunk gasped for air. “Sorry,” he croaked, “didn’t know she belonged to you. . . . ”
    Maverick jerked the thong off suddenly, putting it back on his belt. The drunk fell sobbing on his face.
    Cayenne pulled free of Maverick’s hand and readjusted her dress. “My stars! You were going to kill him. . . .”
    “You started this, miss,” Maverick growled, pushing his hat back as he looked down at her. “A girl like you has no business coming into a saloon! Now get out of here before some other stud decides to paw you!”
    Cayenne put her hands on her hips and looked up at him. “Now just who do you think you are, bossing me around like that? I came in here to hire a man. . . .”
    Maverick took her arm and propelled her toward the swinging doors in spite of her resistance. “By damn, you are a peppery little thing, aren’t you?”
    She stopped struggling as he dragged her outside into the sunlight because it suddenly occurred to her that she’d found just the kind of man she needed for this job.
    “You’ll do.” She sized him up and down as he let go her arm. “But I’ve only got eighteen dollars and twenty-five cents.”
    He scowled at her and she realized suddenly why men seemed afraid of him. The scar down his left cheek gave him a menacing appearance and the way he wore his gun told her he knew how to use it.
    “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about, miss,” He patted the big stallion’s nose affectionately and it whinnied softly.
    She stared at the horse, the hairy object swinging from the bridle. “Is that . . . what I think it is?”
    He looked at her with such a cold expression that she shivered despite the June heat. “What do you think it is?” he challenged.
    Somehow she knew. Oh, God, what kind of a man was this who’d kill a man to protect the honor of a woman he didn’t even know? What kind of an uncivilized savage had a scalp tied to his bridle? The kind of man she needed for this dangerous task, she thought desperately. “Never mind. What I’m trying to tell you is I came looking for a man to hire, a man like you.”
    He shrugged, patting the horse. “Whoa, Dust Devil. Take it easy, boy.” To her he said, “Sorry, miss, old Don Durango needs me and I’m beholden to