Bleeding Texas by William W. Johnstone Read Free Book Online

toppled over. Luckily, it didn’t go off. She lifted her arms and twined them around Lee’s neck. Their bodies strained to draw even closer together.
    Lee’s heart was pounding fit to bust by the time he finally lifted his lips from Samantha’s. His voice was a little breathless as he said, “When you stepped out from the brush with that carbine, I thought for a second I was done for. Figured you’d changed your mind about bein’ in love with a no-count Creel.”
    â€œYou thought I was going to shoot you?”
    â€œWell, not really. But the idea crossed my mind for half a second.”
    â€œI could never do that,” she said. “I was just being careful. I didn’t show myself until I made sure it was you. I didn’t want somebody else to come along and catch me out here waiting for you.”
    â€œSo you planned on murderin’ ’em if they did?”
    She balled a fist and struck it lightly against his chest.
    â€œYou just stop your foolishness, Lee Creel. You know good and well there are outlaws and rustlers around these parts.”
    Yeah, and some of them were named Fontaine, he thought, but he kept that to himself. It wouldn’t do any good to point out to her that he considered some of her relatives no-good.
    All of her relatives, as a matter of fact. He believed there was only one good Fontaine around here—and she was in his arms at the moment.
    Six months ago, the idea that he’d be hugging and kissing any Fontaine would have struck him as plumb loco . If anybody had made such a claim, he would have considered those fightin’ words.
    But that was before a rattlesnake had spooked Samantha’s horse and sent it stampeding across Bear Creek onto the Creel range one day, with her in the saddle hanging on for dear life and trying unsuccessfully to bring the animal back under control.
    Lee, who had been riding near the creek himself, had seen the runaway horse and gone after it without even stopping to think about who the rider might be. Samantha had been riding with her hair tucked under her hat that day, as was her habit, so Lee had figured the rider was some hapless cowpoke . . . until he’d gotten close enough to see that the figure on horseback wasn’t shaped like any cowpoke he’d ever run across.
    He’d grabbed the reins, of course, and brought the runaway to a halt. He could tell how nervous the young woman was by the way she kept casting glances back across the creek, as if she knew she was somewhere she shouldn’t be. Lee had recognized her from seeing her with her father and brothers in town, so he’d said, “It’s all right, Miss Fontaine. I won’t tell anybody you’re over here on this side of the creek if you don’t.”
    â€œYou’re not going to shoot me for trespassing?”
    â€œNo . . . but I might do this.”
    Acting on impulse while they were both still in their saddles, he had leaned over and stolen a kiss. Samantha had gasped, slapped his face, and then laughed.
    He had kissed her again before that day was over.
    That was how it started, and they had been meeting out here along the creek several times a week ever since. They were careful because they both knew that her father and his grandfather would be furious if they found out. Lee’s pa and his uncles wouldn’t be too happy about it, either . . . except maybe for Bo. He struck Lee as pretty easygoing, and he hadn’t been around when the Fontaines came to this part of the country and started causing trouble with their pushy ways, either.
    Now Samantha said, “There was another fight in town today.”
    â€œI heard about it,” Lee said. “That gunnie Trace Holland got shot.”
    â€œHe’s not—” Samantha stopped short. Lee supposed that out of family loyalty, she’d been about to claim Holland wasn’t a gunman. But she knew as well as anybody else that was the