Beauty and the Bounty Hunter by Lori Austin Read Free Book Online Page A

means of transportation before removing what remained of Clyde’s bounty from her pocket and handing it to Mikhail. “Can you fetch me a wagon of my own and some horses?”
    Mikhail shook his big head and frowned. “He won’t like it none.”
    “There isn’t room for all of us in there, Mikhail.”
    There was. The three of them had ridden in it before and managed. Back then Mikhail had slept under the stars while she and Alexi had…
    Well, she and Alexi weren’t going to anymore, so Cat required her own conveyance.
    “It’s good cover,” she said. “No one will be looking for two wagons.”
    Mikhail gave her a glance that very clearly said:
No one had better be looking for us at all.
But he went.
    Mikhail still saw Cat as Alexi’s woman. He probably always would. Which meant he’d do what she asked. As long as Alexi didn’t tell him not to.
    By the time Mikhail returned with the wagon—which she had no doubt he could find despite the hour; Mikhail could find anything—it would be far too late for Alexi to tell him not to.
    She was somewhat surprised that Alexi didn’t arrive before Mikhail. How long did it take to extricate oneself from a woman? Apparently a lot longer than Cat thought because she was making her bed inside the new wagon when he murmured, “What is this?”
    He was furious.
    Cat wasn’t scared of Alexi—he’d never given her any reason to be—but she didn’t like it when he was angry. He was unpredictable enough when he wasn’t.
    There was always something in Alexi’s voice that made folks wonder: Would he kiss you or kill you? Would you see it coming or would it be a complete surprise? Would it hurt or would you like it? Would it happen at midnight or perhaps with the dawn?
    The scent of danger rose from him like smoke from a fire. With a word or a glance or a lift of one brow, he could compel anyone to believe anything, even that he might shoot you. Quite a feat for a man she’d never once seen draw his gun on another.
    “Why did you waste your money?” he asked. “You could have ridden with me.”
    “I’ve ridden you enough,” Cat muttered.
    Silence descended, followed by a short bark of laughter, and the tension that had crept over her disappeared. There was nothing she couldn’t say to him. Which was not only liberating but a little disturbing.
    “We’ll roll out at noon,” he said.
    “Why not daybreak?”
    Alexi swept his arm toward the east. “It’s nearly daybreak now,
mi dulce
. I need sleep.”
    Easy for him to say. Whenever Alexi closed his eyes, he saw dancing girls, money, brandy, the next city, the next dodge, the next woman.
    When Cat closed her eyes…
    Well, she certainly didn’t see dancing girls.
    “Fine,” Cat said. “Noon. Go away.”
    He went. Alexi had no need to remain where he wasn’t wanted. There were plenty of places where he was.
    Cat fell asleep quickly; as expected, the dancing girls did not await. Instead, there was Billy.
    They met at a church picnic back home in Georgia.Cathleen was sixteen, Billy eighteen. Just one look and they knew there would never be anyone else in the world for them but each other.
    Her parents—Henry and Fiona Cartwright—had had
their doubts. The Chase family was English, the Cartwrights, Irish. Though the New World was supposed to soothe past hatreds, it hadn’t. Still, Cathleen was adamant. She would have Billy or she would have no one.
    Her parents, indulgent of their only, late-in-life child, worried about the war clouds roiling on the horizon. Who would take care of their daughter if they could not? So they had relented.
    Billy and Cathleen married in the spring. Billy marched off in his uniform long before the honeymoon ended. Her parents had been right to worry. Neither one survived the conflict.
    Fiona died first of the bloody flux. Henry followed three weeks later of the same. Not long afterward, Sherman and his men stopped by. When they left, Cathleen wasn’t any worse off than a thousand other