Improper Gentlemen Read Online Free Page A

fading from sight behind a burst of falling snow. Far too many businessmen had profitably learned that anyone killed in the Hair Trigger Palace—or by Justin—received a proper burial at his expense.
    Moreland’s gaze searched his features and recognition burned bright as a Colt’s muzzle blast. She sucked in a short, harsh breath. “Talbot.”
    His name on her lips sounded like a church bell in a cemetery. He hurried to lay down words to erase those echoes before she could spook and start running again.
    “Justin Talbot, ma’am, very much at your service.” He bowed formally to her, as his mother had taught him.
    “Like hell you are.” Bitter knowledge, mixed with dread, filled her words. But she curtsied and acknowledged him with a quick brush of her fingertips across his hand.
    Praise the Lord, she’d accepted him this much.
    A door opened and slammed shut behind them with a dull thud, not the solid thwack! of good wood greeting honest brick.
    “Thank God, Talbot, I knew you’d catch the bitch for me.” Johnson’s nasal drawl ripped through the gathering crowd.
    Moreland’s mouth tightened to a thin, terrified line in a white face.
    What the hell is going on?
    Justin pulled her close against his hip, wrapped his arm around her, and turned to face his long-time saddle-partner.
    She twitched against him and dropped an inch, clearly ready to duck underneath his grasp. He promptly sharpened his elbow around her like a vise and tugged her even tighter against him. A snowflake couldn’t have passed between them.
    She harrumphed under her breath.
    “Afternoon, Johnson.” He kept his voice civil and his grip snug on Moreland. “What brings you out in this weather?”
    What the devil was that Georgia native doing outside in shirtsleeves? He loathed foul weather. For him to greet a snowstorm in anything other than a buffalo coat and beaver hat meant there was serious trouble afoot.
    “Hand her over and I’ll head back inside.” The shorter but equally strong man crossed his arms over his fancy vest and stomped his feet in their thin dress boots. “She can apologize to Simmons up in his room.”
    Simmons? That slimy weasel, who’s throttled more women than he has fingers to count them?
    Ten years of riding with Johnson side by side, fighting for their lives back to back, insisted that his pal had to have a good reason for forcing a good woman into that brute’s clutches. But he couldn’t discuss it here and risk exposing his friend’s devious tactics when half the town stood within earshot. Those gossipmongers had elected Johnson mayor with far less fuss than expected. Sure as two cups of cavalry punch could knock out a civilian, fewer bribes had changed hands than was customary during an election.
    Nine-Fingers Isham, Johnson’s favorite bouncer, appeared out of the shadows behind the mayor. He rocked back and forth slightly, his fingers ostentatiously shoving his coat away from his guns.
    Damn. Johnson would be twice as ornery with that jailbait to back him up.
    Justin needed time to create a private chat between them and stop his old friend from ruining himself in front of his constituents.
    “Don’t think so, Johnson.” Justin slowly, deliberately smoothed her beruffled mantle with his free hand and watched his old friend’s eyes widen at the unusually possessive gesture.
    She uttered a tiny squeak, which a chipmunk couldn’t have heard from a foot away. Then she patted his fingers and leaned confidingly against him, as if he was the most welcome man in the world.
    Good girl, she’d taken the hint, even though she was shaking like a leaf.
    “She insulted my most important guest.” The Confederate veteran’s expression darkened with rage and he leaped off the boardwalk into the street. “Nothing’s bigger than that.”
    A rude comment linking Simmons’s reputation to Johnson floated past from somebody hidden deep in the crowd. The mayor’s hands twitched closer toward his guns. He glared at