Little Red: An Everland Ever After Tale Read Online Free

he felt himself hardening under her touch, and wondered why she wasn’t pulling away.
    She blinked sleepily, and then smiled a bit, and it felt… right . Like coming home might feel. Like waking up to a welcoming woman should feel. Damned disconcerting, actually.
    “Good morning.” She even sounded sleepy.
    “Good morning, Red.”
    Another long moment, and Hank realized he was smiling stupidly back at her. Had he ever spent this much time looking into a woman’s eyes? Especially a woman he hadn’t made love to the night before? Hank didn’t think so, but then, he couldn’t remember ever spending a full night with a woman, either.
    He didn’t even know her name.
    “You hungry?”
    She jerked suddenly, as if remembering where she was and who she was with. Her cheeks pinked and she looked away, trying to push herself out of the tangle of blankets and her cloak. Clearing her throat, and not looking at him, she said, “I could go for some more of that coffee, if you’ve got any.”
    They sat up, and the moment—if there’d been one—was lost. He built up the fire and set some water to boiling, while she did whatever women did with themselves in the morning. His shoulder ached from the cold night spent outdoors, but somehow it didn’t seem as bad as usual this morning. She helped him roll up the bedrolls, and settled herself across the fire. Taking the offered plate of leftovers, she grimaced slightly. “Oh, good, more beans.”
    “You don’t like ‘em?” She wasn’t alone.
    But she just shrugged, and said around a bite, “They’re warm, Mr. Cutter, and better than nothing.”
    It was a surprisingly pragmatic thing for a woman dressed as fine as she was to say. Hank stared at her while he nursed his coffee. Just who was she?
    “You can call me Hank.” She just nodded, intent on her spoon. “So, Red. You mind telling me your real name?”
    She very clearly did not look at him as she chased the last of the beans around the plate. Why was she hesitating? Did it have anything to do with why she was out here on the open range, alone? Last night, Hank had taken a guess at her being chased—why else would she climb on a horse she knew nothing about and try to ride across Wyoming?—and her reaction had confirmed it.
    But then she put down the plate, clasped her hands in front of her, looked him dead in the eye, and said, “Rojita Zapato”.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “My name is Rojita Zapato.”
    “The hell it is.” The woman didn’t look a thing like a “Zapato”. With all that thick red hair, she must’ve been… Scottish or something. Definitely not Mexican.
    But she just raised a brow at his rudeness, and launched into a tirade of Spanish. He understood only about half of it, but her offended tone was hard to miss. He held up his hand to cut her off. “Honey, I’m from Texas, and I know a Mexican when I see one. And I ain’t looking at one now. How about you tell me the truth?”
    “I am , Mr. Cutter—”
    “Hank.”
    “Hank, my name is Rojita. When I came to the orphanage, I was named Mary, but there were already three other ‘Marys’ there, so Abuelo called me Rojita, which means—”
    “’Little Red’.”
    She shrugged. “It fit.”
    Yeah, it did fit, with her tiny frame and all that thick red hair. “How old were you?”
    “Five or six, probably.”
    “And you were in Mexico?” The whole thing sounded pretty far-fetched to him.
    “Concordia, Kansas. The orphan train from New York had dropped me off there. Abuelo was running from Mexico, so he came north. And when they came for him, he kept moving. Abuela was collecting orphans as she went, and he couldn’t say no to her. They gave us all their last name.”
    It was her complete nonchalance while she told the outrageous tale that made Hank want to believe her. “Who came after him?
    She shrugged. “He never mentioned it to any of us, as far as I know.”
    “Should you be telling me all of this?”
    She held his gaze.