Daisies In The Wind Read Online Free Page A

for her.
Instead he advanced closer. Rebeccah was intensely aware of his
size, his strength. She breathed in the scent of him, a clean scent
... like cake soap and good leather and pine needles. With
misgiving she saw the determination in his eyes as they pinned her
coldly, ruthlessly.
    Suspiciously.
    “You didn’t answer my question, ma’am,” he
said in a quiet drawl that was nevertheless purposeful.
“Have
you ever been to Tucson?”
    “Never.”
    Lies ought to come easily to her, but they
didn’t. She met his gaze with tremendous effort, keeping her stare
unflinching. Someone coughed behind her. The stagecoach driver
threw down another trunk. Rebeccah’s feet itched to fidget. She
knew she’d burst if she had to stare into those piercing eyes
another moment.
    In desperation she stooped to retrieve her
own bag. As luck would have it, Waylon Pritchard bent to retrieve
it at precisely the same moment.
    Their heads banged together.
    There was a resounding thump.
    “Ouch!” she gasped, wincing and seeing stars
as the pain rocked straight through to her skull.
    “Dang it,” Waylon moaned, sinking onto the
boardwalk.
    Myrtle Lee Anderson guffawed. Mayor Duke
tsked sympathetically, and the stagecoach passengers murmured
concern as Waylon went on to curse out a string of colorful oaths.
The rest of the onlookers laughed and began drifting away. They had
chores to finish, work to do, and plenty of time to hear the gossip
about the lady who shot Scoop Parmalee later.
    Rebeccah’s head smarted from the force of the
collision. She straightened with an effort, then a moment later
staggered back, dizzy. Instantly Wolf Bodine’s hands shot out to
steady her, preventing her from falling.
    “Easy, there. You all right? Waylon, you
clumsy oaf. Are you trying to help this lady or kill her?”
    Pritchard, a bristly-bearded young man with
the wit of a longhorn, hunkered down on the boardwalk and cradled
his head in his hands.
    “Aw, come on, Wolf. I was just
tryin’
to be a gentleman, but this here lady has the
hardest head I ever did come up against—”
    “How dare you!” Stung out of her own pain,
Rebeccah jerked free of Bodine’s grasp. The damnable temper she’d
inherited from Bear flared up and galvanized her instinct to
protect herself—for over the years she’d learned that if she didn’t
do it, nobody would. “You’re the most clumsy, dim-witted fool ever
to cross my path, you ... you obstreperous calamity. And give me
back my bag!”
    Bodine watched as the girl snatched her
reticule from Waylon and smacked him in the shoulder with it.
“Sheriff, are you going to give me that reward money or not?”
    Bodine had to admire her for sheer
orneriness. How could anyone who looked like such an elegant little
angel be so full of spice and chili pepper? And this petite,
violet-eyed angel was oddly familiar. But he couldn’t place her to
save his life. Maybe it wasn’t Tucson ... but something nagged at
him.
    Regardless, she was trouble.
    He knew it just by looking at her, by the
lush cloud of velvet-black hair framing her dainty cheeks, by the
imperious glimmer in those soot-lashed eyes, by the intelligent
tilt of her majestic little chin. Trouble. He smelled it as surely
as he smelled her fancy French perfume.
    He fervently hoped she was just passing
through Powder Creek and not coming to visit for any length of
time.
    With an effort Wolf dragged his eyes from
her. He turned his attention to Slim and the shotgun rider, Raidy.
“Is this lady right about what happened today?”
    Slim left the horses to lumber up beside him.
The top of the driver’s shaggy head nearly reached the lawman’s
shoulder. “Sure as you’re standin’ there, Sheriff,” he declared.
“Four of ‘em tried to hold us up—this young lady shot two. Winged
one of ‘em, but Scoop is shore dead. Nice shootin’, eh? Mebbe you
should take her on as a deputy.”
    The remaining crowd guffawed with laughter.
Bodine grinned, his eyes