Beautiful Bandit (Lone Star Legends) by Loree Lough Read Free Book Online

second, louder explosion roared down from the clouds, interrupting his attempt at humor. He pointed. “That shack I was telling you about is just over the next rise.” Oh, how he wanted to erase that look of fright from her face! “How fast can you ride?”
    Until then, her eyes had been as wide and round as pie plates, but they narrowed when she replied, “Depends.” Before he had a chance to ask what she meant, Dinah giggled. “How fast do you suppose this horse can run?”
    Josh was about to find out if Dinah Theodore really was too good to be true, or more work than she was worth. He dug his heels into Callie’s sides and lurched forward as the skies opened up. Between Callie’s hoofbeats hammering the earth and the big-as-nickels raindrops pounding the brim of his Stetson, he couldn’t hear Dinah’s horse. Josh shot a glance over his shoulder, and there she was, about a furlong behind him, pressed flat against her mare’s neck, soaking wet and smiling into the wind.
    Oh, she was some woman, to be sure. He faced forward again and, despite the rain pelting his cheeks and the lightning flashing around them, smiled, too. An unexpected notion entered his head—a crazy, foolish idea that puzzled him no end.
    He didn’t want to take Dinah to Mexico. He wanted to take her home.

    7
    After releasing the bit from Callie’s mouth and securing her to the hitching post, Josh threw back the oilcloth that was protecting a chest-high stack of firewood. “Thank God,” he said, “for the man who took the time to chop this wood and was kind enough to leave it for us.”
    Kate nodded in agreement, and, by the time she had removed the bit from her own horse’s mouth and tethered the animal beside Josh’s dapple gray, he’d piled half a dozen small logs in the crook of his arm. “I feel horribly guilty,” she admitted.
    “Guilty?” he said, frowning as he reached for another spindly log. “Why?”
    His stern expression unsettled her. If only she’d learned how to read more in a man’s countenance than whether he was the type to tip her for a song well sung. For a reason she couldn’t define, the prospect of holing up with Josh in this tiny cabin frightened her more than riding on the open prairie, where Frank could easily put a bullet right between her eyes without being witnessed. She hid her fear behind the practiced smile reserved for Etta Mae’s customers. “Because we’ll be inside, warm and dry, and these poor horses will be out here in this storm.”
    His left eyebrow quirked as a corner of his mouth lifted in a wry grin. “Aw, now, you oughtn’t fret over it. They’re just horses, and they’re used to being outside in foul weather. Besides, we’ve got ’em tethered on the side of the shack where they’ll be blocked from the worst of the wind.”
    “If they’re so accustomed to being outside in foul weather, why do they flinch with every thunderbolt?”
    His smile vanished like smoke, and he grumbled something unintelligible under his breath. His mouth formed a small O, as if he’d planned to say something, then stretched into a thin line. “You’d best get on inside.”
    One foot on the porch, the other in the muddy puddle below the bottom step, she harrumphed. “And you’d best do the same.” Pointing, she indicated the stream of water pouring from the brim of his hat onto the logs in his arms. “The poor nomad who was the last to stay here wouldn’t be very happy to know you wasted all his efforts to leave us with dry wood. I’m sure he could’ve taken the tarp to keep himself warm and dry, instead.”
    It was Josh’s turn to harrumph. “Unwritten rule,” he said, walking past her, “to look out for the man who comes behind you.” The door opened with a loud squeal, and he disappeared inside.
    Callie huffed, and Kate’s horse echoed the sound. If only there was a way to get you both inside, out of the storm, Kate silently lamented.
    Josh’s voice cut through the dark interior