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

of the shack. “You gonna stand there all afternoon, letting the wind and rain in here?”
    Kate took a small step forward. “I just can’t do it,” she said, darting back to the horses.
    “Do what?” she heard him yell. Then, “Where in the world are you going?”
    “The least we can do is get their saddles off,” she shouted into the wind. “How would you like it, standing in this awful storm with all this weight on your back?”
    “Wouldn’t like it one bit, which is why I aimed to do just that once I got a fire started.”
    How he moved from the woodstove to her side in an eyeblink and never made a sound, Kate didn’t know. But there he was, his big hands gently plucking hers from Callie’s cinch. “You know how to build a fire?”
    Was it her cold, wet clothes or his nearness that sent a chill up her spine? Nodding like a simpleton, Kate blinked. My, but he was a good-looking fellow, with those piercing blue eyes and long, black lashes.
    “Takin’ care of horses is men’s work,” he said.
    “But the job will go twice as fast if we work togeth—”
    He wrapped his gloved fingers around her wrists. “Go on inside, out of this mess,” he insisted, “and get a fire going. We’re going to need it to dry our clothes and cook up something for supper.”
    Half a step closer would bring her near enough to embrace him—and, oh, how she wanted to! She was shivering from her hat to her stockings as raindrops ran down her face and beaded on her lashes, and it would have made perfect sense to do as he’d suggested. But not even nature’s wrath seemed too high a price to pay for the warm comfort of an embrace.
    “Go on, now,” he said, using his chin as a pointer. “The sooner you start a fire, the sooner we can warm up.”
    Get moving! said her brain. But her feet refused to obey. Her earlier fears gone now, Kate wondered how much safer she’d feel, wrapped in those powerful yet gentle arms.
    “Are your ears filled with water?”
    “Are my—what?”
    “Either you didn’t hear me just now, or you’re doing the most convincing impression of a stubborn mule I’ve ever seen.” Smiling, Josh set both hands on her shoulders, and her heart fluttered at his proximity. Ever so gently, he turned her until she faced the shack and gave her a gentle shove. “Inside, before I throw you over my shoulder and carry you in there.”
    Finally, her traitorous feet obeyed, and she plodded forward. She’d just put one soggy boot on the bottom porch step when she heard him say, “You’ll find matches in my saddlebags.” How could she have mistrusted a man who had no problem with her rifling through his gear? Nodding, Kate hurried into the dank, little hovel and walked face-first into a sticky cobweb.
    “And close the confounded door,” he said as she spat and sputtered and plucked at the web. What sort of silly twit did he think she was? She grumbled inwardly at how calmly he’d announced that he’d take care of the “man’s work” while she busied herself inside, doing “woman’s work.” And yet she couldn’t help smiling, despite the stink of wet mud coming up through the cracks in the floor and the steady plop, plop, plop of rain seeping through the thatched roof. The sudden urge to tidy up the place and make it cozy seemed more important than the fact that her soggy skirt and petticoats were leaving a trail of dime-sized drips all over the floor.
    “You do know how to make a fire, right?” came Josh’s voice from outside.
    “Hmpf,” she said as she rummaged through his saddlebags to find the matches.
    Minutes later, thanks to some old twine and twigs she’d found in the cupboard drawer, she had a good base fire going. By the time Josh dug through that teetering heap for more dry logs, the bottom of the stove would be aglow with hot coals.
    Leaving the stove door ajar to increase the flow of air over the kindling, Kate slung a blanket over the rope that stretched from one side of the room to