Storm Read Online Free

misery. Hope you learned a lesson here, ma'am. Now see, I'll have to get you out of this and catch my death o' cold in the process."
    Clearly under duress, her lips popped open again, like a seam breaking. "Please don't trouble yourself."
    "But I must. It's my lot in life, as a male, to get reckless, giddy females out of the puddles in which they find themselves. Since the beginning of time man has rescued woman from many a plight. You're lucky to have us." He saw the need for humor to put her at ease and hopefully relax those slender fingers, where they were wrapped so tightly around that whip. Usually a little playful teasing worked well for him.
    Today, however, it would not.
    Her eyes were full of hot sparks, spitting and simmering as her temper boiled over. "Thank goodness we have men to tell us the error of our ways and save us from ourselves. I'm surprised we women can breathe and function without you telling us what to do and how to do it."
    Apparently he'd said the wrong thing.
    Trouble. Just as he thought when she went racing by. He ought to leave the hot-head there and let some other fool help her. Someone would be along eventually. But Storm knew he'd never be able to enjoy his breakfast if he thought of her still sitting in the rain, trapped. It was a bane of his— this tender side. His father had warned him no good could come of it.
    Expelling little puffs of steam, like a train engine ill-equipped to haul its load uphill, she rattled on, "I suppose we must be grateful that you have time to spare to set us right, whenever you're not out causing all the world's wars. How would we manage without you?"
    Somewhere in the last few minutes he'd gone from a mere "unkempt ruffian" to the symbol of all male failings across the great empire. She had some nerve and a bad temper, to be sure, but wild creatures that suddenly found themselves trapped usually did.
    "Well now, I don't know what you'd do without us," he replied wryly, surveying her grounded cart. "But it looks as if you wouldn't get very far while you were doing it."
    * * * *
    He smiled again. This strange, filthy fellow had the gall to smile at her while she sat there suffering in deepest humiliation. She shouted at him and he didn't even raise his voice. It was infuriating.
    "Snakes preserve us," she heard Flynn whisper from the seat behind her. "Don't smile, mister. Don't smile, if you know what's good for you."
    Apparently the fool didn't hear this warning. He was focused intently on Kate.
    "Seems to me, Ma'am," he said slowly, in that deep, country drawl, "you managed to get yourself into this sorry predicament without a man anywhere near. All your own handiwork."
    It was, much to her chagrin, quite true. Not that she was in the mood to admit it. "I could hardly care less what it seems to you, sir. That's beside the point. Debating the matter of how I ended up here isn't going to get me out again, is it?"
    He eyed her through the rain in a slow, deliberate manner, until she felt the heat melting the embroidery on her lovely riding habit, and consorting with the rain to destroy the curl in her hair.
    "We'll need to shift some of this burden off the wheels," was his final assessment. After a brief but pregnant pause, during which she sat rigidly, he rested both forearms on the cart, scratched his unshaven cheek with long, grimy fingers, and said, "Ma'am, there is no other way around the problem. You're going to have to trust me to carry you to dry land. The water rises by the minute."
    Trust him ? How could she?
    "I'm sure I can manage alone, sir." She had, after all, travelled a great many miles already without assistance and a little bit of rain was not going to stop Kate Kelly for long. With one hand she checked the dependability of her jacket buttons. "Thank you for your concern, but it's not necessary. I see I've interrupted your day. Please go about your business and leave me to mine. I'd like to get on."
    He sniffed, pushed back from the cart and