Margaret Brownley Read Online Free Page B

reasons for kissing her. What he couldn’t do was figure out why she had let him. Him of all people. A half-breed . Unless, of course, she was too frazzled to know what he was doing. It was the only thing that made sense.
    “Go!” he muttered impatiently toward the crowd. There was no way he could leave his hiding place without being seen, but it wasn’t only his own predicament that worried him. The stage sitting in the middle of the road was at risk. Should the bandits return, the coach wouldn’t have a hare’s chance in a foxhole of escaping.
    And still the woman talked. He couldn’t hear her from this distance but he could see her hands moving, could tell from the way the others leaned toward her that she had mesmerized them with her tale every bit as much as she had captivated him.
    At long last, the driver ushered everyone inside the stage and took his place on the driver’s seat. He drove the stage in the direction of town, presumably to report the attempted holdup to the marshal.
    Wolf watched until it was out of sight. What he would give to see the look on the marshal’s face when Miss Fairbanks explained her ordeal. The lawman better have a couple of hours to spare.
    The thought made him chuckle. Of course, riding into Rocky Creek was a luxury he could ill afford. He’d learned long ago that the best way for him to ride into town, any town, was with a fast horse and a ready gun.
    The last time he left Rocky Creek was not of his own accord and almost cost him his life. He wasn’t so foolish as to think things had changed. It was imperative that he keep his whereabouts secret until he had accomplished what he had set out to do. The town had taken something from him—and he intended to get it back.

Four
    When photographing stampeding cattle, charging bulls, or blazing
gunfights, use the fastest shutter speed possible.
    – M ISS G ERTRUDE H ASSLEBRINK, 1878
    L ater that day Lucy sat dead center on the divan, feet together, eyes lowered, and tried for all the world to look appropriately remorseful if not altogether repentant.
    Her father, Whitney Fairbanks, stood before her, hands clasped behind his back. A thin man who appeared taller than he actually was, he looked and acted older than his thirty-nine years. His hair was still black except for the white at his temples, and his craggy face reflected years spent as a peddler, traveling from town to town to sell his wares.
    His traveling days had ended when Lucy’s mother died, leaving him alone to raise her and her brother. He took what little money he had managed to save and opened up Fairbanks General Merchandise—a store he dreamed of one day turning over to Caleb.
    Now he stood in front of Lucy with that all-too-familiar look of disappointment she’d come to dread. News traveled fast in Rocky Creek, especially if her name was attached. So it was no surprise that news of her latest escapade had quickly reached her father.
    Any concern he might have had for her safety seemed to evaporate as soon as he walked through the door of their small cabin and took in her disheveled appearance.
    One look at his stern face told her she was in big trouble this time. Lord help her. She wished she’d had time to change before he saw her.
    “Do you realize you could have been killed?”
    She flinched at the tone of his voice. “Yes, Papa,” she said, holding her bodice together with one hand.
    “Or seriously injured?”
    “But I wasn’t,” she said in a rush of words. “I saved the stage from being robbed. You should be happy—”
    “Happy? That my only daughter goes from one dangerous situation to the next? Every time I turn around you’re in trouble. Last week, you almost got yourself mauled photo-graphin’ a bobcat—”
    She tightened her hold on the front of her waistcoat. “I know but—”
    “And two weeks before that, you plumb near got trampled to death tryin’ to photograph a stampede—”
    “Yes but—”
    “Then you almost got yourself