WANTED (A Transported Through Time book) Read Online Free

for that and nothing scrawny, either.
    Oh, well. At least she wouldn’t have to explain to him what in God’s name she was doing lying in the dirt out in Timbuktu. He’d be weird not to ask. She would ask. So what did she tell him? Claim amnesia? That she was camping up here and got lost in the dark?
    That blanket idea kept her going this long. But minute by minute, she started feeling like no one would come at all. Her spirits sank like a stone in an icy lake. A very icy lake.
    Figured. Leave it to a man to forget about Samantha Hendricks, even when she clearly needed a rescue, or at the very minimum, some decent and charitable assistance from a handsome stranger. Hollywood handsome. Dark stubble, light eyes, a nice, full mouth ... kissable.
    Kissable? Where had that come from? Yes, the man’s devilish features were nice, a little familiar, even, but kissable? The first symptoms of hypothermia must be setting in to have her thinking along such lines. She needed kissing like a hole in the head. Men, sex, love were nothing but trouble. The kind of trouble she’d been in too many times to count, and vowed not to be in again.
    If only it were a dream, and she were actually lying in her father’s bed in his bedroom. Yes. The creaky trailer letting in some cold air, and because it was such a lucid dream, she was somehow unable to wake up, to roll over and pull a blanket over her freezing cold—
    “You all right?” His breathy whisper startled her, and yet she didn’t jump. Though he’d come up from behind, she knew it was him.
    All she could think about was the blanket. Samantha stood, spun, and faced kissable Handsome—only to find him completely, utterly, empty-handed.
    Samantha gasped. No blanket? Her hands rose and fell to her sides. No blanket. No jacket. Not even a towel. Not even a friggin’ paper towel.
    He hadn’t even brought an article of clothing for her. What kind of friggin’ rescuer didn’t notice a girl shivering, particularly one whose nonexistent virtue he was supposedly keeping safe?
    “No,” she hissed, her teeth clenched to stop their chatter. “I’m not okay. I’m fucking cold.”
    He flinched, scowling, and shook his head, too. He turned away, and for a moment, she thought she’d pissed him off. Was he going to leave her freezing ass here where he’d found it? She regretted her tone and colorful vocabulary. Her mother’s frown of disapproval flashed in her mind. If she talked that way, no one would ever take her seriously, and a woman needed to use every tool she had available in order to be taken seriously. The credo had been drilled into her from girlhood.
    Samantha swallowed against the urge to spit out another expletive. If a man spoke that way, the words would enforce what he wanted. But out of the mouth of a pretty, young, blonde woman, the words screamed ignorant and trashy. Who wanted to rescue trash?
    “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
    He turned back around. “No, I’m sorry. Here.” He unbuttoned his shirt, yanking the edges out from his tight, dusty-looking jeans. Dustier cowboy boots peeked out beneath the jeans’ hem.
    The cowboy was peeling the shirt off his back to keep her warm?
    Samantha balked, feeling like a brat. “No, no. I can’t.” She pushed out her hands. “You’ll freeze.”
    “Bullshit,” he said in a terse voice.
    Did she also detect some amusement? Or was that bemusement? As he moved to her, shirt in hand, ready to wrap it around her shoulders, his features were strained. Even his movements seemed stiff, and if Samantha didn’t know better, she’d say this cowboy was uncomfortable. She had no doubt she was what made him so.
    Warmth rushed through her. She blamed it on the thin flannel fabric, still warm from his body, he draped over her. As she tugged the flannel tighter over her arms and looked up, his spicy, earthy scent enveloped her. The lingering, smoky, smell of campfire somehow comforted her. In the moonlight, she couldn’t miss his