Renegade Riders Read Online Free

Now, what’ll it be?”
    “Thanks to you, I’m hardly in fit condition for either of your choices at the moment,” she said. “I need time…to think. It’s only fair.”
    He shook his head. “You know, it amazes me that you keep forgetting that you’re to blame for all of this. You make me out the villain, when it was you who were looking to make off with my horse. You just don’t go around stealing a man’s horse! It’d be kinder just to put a gun to his head and kill him on the spot, for that’s what it amounts to, and you damn well know it!”
    Her eyes were big and brown, a frightened doe’s eyes staring down the barrel of a hunter’s rifle. They had the power to melt Trace. Something twisted inside—a part of him he’d thought long dead, belonging to a time when chivalry still lived—which made him want to put his fist through the nearby cactus. Maybe pain would bring him back to his senses.
    He growled, “You don’t have much time, lady. Unless I miss my guess, and I rarely do, somebody’s hot on your trail. It’s been a full day since I shot you. A full day’s riding for them to catch up. I have an itch crawling up my neck, like when a bunch of Comanches are out for a scalp, telling me we’re about to have company. I’d say your time for reflection has just about run out.”
    Trace jerked up his Winchester. He paused, waiting for a reply. When not one word came, he turned his back on her and stomped off to have a look around. Blasted female was going to be nothing but trouble.

Chapter Two
    M ae wasn’t all that steady on her feet, though she’d practiced that afternoon while her captor was up on the ridge. She didn’t want the man to know her exact condition. Clearly, she couldn’t have left—not then, in broad daylight—even had she found the strength, so she’d bided her time and waited for the right moment.
    He was asleep now, his snores a comfort. They’d cover any sounds of her withdrawal from camp. As she tiptoed past, she couldn’t help but notice the long, lean length of him, rolled up in that blanket too short for his frame. He’d given her all his other covers, keeping only this for himself, and his horse’s worn saddle blanket, which he’d used over his saddle for a pillow. Poor man, he’d likely awaken with a stiff neck.
    Divested of his Stetson, his chestnut hair lay in waves and fell carelessly over his brow and around his earlobes. The front locks were streaked by the sun, glinting coppery in the firelight, which also showed faint traces of silver at his temples. His was a strong profile, with rugged, angular features and a handsome cleft chin that three days’ growth of beard couldn’t hide. Shadows obscuredhis deep-set eyes. She had noticed them in earlier furtive glances, those steely blue eyes, piercing beneath a ledge of sun-bleached brows. She had avoided looking directly into them as much as possible. No one could hide from such eagle eyes. They had the power to hypnotize. They also made her uncomfortable in ways she didn’t want to think about.
    More than once on her way to where he’d hobbled Diablo, she glanced over her shoulder to be certain he hadn’t heard her. Thankfully, he slept like the dead. Mae breathed a ragged sigh. He seemed a nice man, genuinely sorry he’d shot her. But then, her poor judgment had played her false too many times. Oh, how she longed to trust him—to trust someone . She was so desperately alone. He’d shot her, yes, but the man was within his rights. Even so, he’d doctored her. She shuddered to think of her fate if she’d encountered one of the more unsavory sorts that infested the West like fleas.
    Her skin still tingled from the gentle touch of Trace’s hands feeling her brow for fever and fastening the sling about her neck when he thought her asleep. That’s what she’d wanted him to think. She could still feel his body heat and smell his scent: provocative raw maleness, laced with leather and tobacco. Different