Jillian Hart Read Online Free Page B

vibrated through every inch of her body.
    Polly shivered. She'd never felt so manhandled. His grip on her arm was like steel. He lifted her off the floor with the strength in one arm. He felt as undefeatable as a mountain. She could not escape him and she didn't want to. Ben MacLain was larger than life, all flesh and blood man, and he made her intensely aware of being female. Her body sizzled wherever he touched and in some places he didn't. Goodness, no man had ever affected her this way. Ever.
    She would not lose her common sense over a man, especially one about to arrest her. And never a lawman who represented everything she wasn't, could never be.
    "But she cheated me," Tommy complained, and two other men at the poker table nodded in agreement.
    "I cheated?" Temper sparked to life in her chest, hot and hard. "Why, you lying snake! You were the one cheating. No low-life is gonna accuse me–"
    "Miss Curtis?" The sheriff interrupted.
    Polly fell silent. In fact, the whole saloon was silent The cowpokes at the bar, the men around the tables, the serving girls and the bartender all looked at her as if she'd sprouted five heads.
    "I've never heard words like that come out of a proper woman's mouth." The sheriff quirked one brow.
    "Neither have I." One-Eyed Tommy kicked back his chair. "But there was a fella in here a few hours ago lookin' for a woman who could cuss and gamble."
    "Let it be, Tommy." The sheriff stood strong, his words silencing the saloon like a thunderclap. "Put away your gun."
    Trouble. Polly sensed it coming like the quiet before a storm, like the click of a trigger before a bullet fired.
    "And you," he warned low in her ear, so only she could hear. "You have a lot of explaining to do."
    "I know." Her stomach sank. How was she going to make him understand? But more importantly, how could she make up for what she'd done, for how she'd misled Emily?
    Troubled, Polly sighed. She had never felt so low. She was going to jail. She would probably be forced to pay for a crime she hadn't committed. Whatever that crime was. She couldn't read her own wanted poster. She didn't have anyone to help her.
    Polly Brown was tired of being alone, of fighting her way in an unfair and unforgiving world.
    * * *
        Ben tried to fight down his anger, but it grew with every step. He hauled her out of the saloon, knowing damn well that by nightfall everyone in town would know his bride was a whiskey-drinking card sharp. A respectable woman, indeed!
    "How did you manage all this?" Sunlight burned low over the tops of the buildings and straight into his eyes. But he had never seen more clearly in his life.
    "Manage what? Beating that cheating, poker-playing Tommy?"
    "No. Faking all those letters. You even had me believing you were a desperate daughter of a bankrupted St. Louis merchant."
    "I didn't fake anything." She tilted back her head, scattering rich, sable curls over her shoulders. "You really did correspond with Pauline Curtis."
    He pulled open the jailhouse door. "What did you do with her?"
    "I didn't do anything. She ran off with Roland, the banker's son." Fear framed her face and shivered in her voice. In a voice not practiced at deceit.
    "Damn." He'd written six times for a woman. Even proposed to one. And not one of them made it all the way to Indian Trails without finding true love. Not one.
    What was he going to do about Emily? She was counting on a new mother. He needed someone to take care of the house and his daughter. He needed someone to do the damn cooking. And all he had was this, this–
    "Explain this." He slapped the wanted poster on the desk in front of her.
    She tumbled out of his grip, rubbing her arm. She looked up at him with true terror in her eyes, in eyes as gentle as morning.
    The jail was empty. Every move she made echoed. Her skirts whispered. Her shoes tapped. Her sleeves