Breed True by Gem Sivad Read Free Book Online Page B

although quiet, spoke volumes about her willingness to forget the matter if he did admit killing Frank Rossiter. But he had strong doubt that she'd agree to marry her husband's murderer.
    "Did you, or your hireling, kill Frank Rossiter?" She locked eyes with Grady Hawks as though she could read his soul. She was a slender woman who reached his shoulder.
    She was bruised from another man's fists, but she questioned him with authority, asserting her right to know.
    "No," he told her. "I can't claim that pleasure." From the sound of the mob, someone had been busy spreading the rumor that one or the other of them had killed Frank Rossiter.
    "As you have heard, I have twin baby girls." Her bravado wavered at the sound of the mob's approach, and she waited tensely for his response.
    "My wife will be protected, as will her family, because they will belong to me." No sense in lying to her. She's as safe as she wants to be. I sure as hell don't plan to hurt her or a couple of kids.
    He shrugged and waited, admiring the way she hid her thoughts from those in the room.
    "All right," she agreed, accepting his proposal. It was no decision at all when faced with the sound of her other choices coming up the street.
    As they turned expectantly toward the judge, she asked. "How long will we need to playact?"
    The others in the room strained to hear the negotiations quietly taking place, but her words were too softly spoken. He liked her voice and that she appeared to own some sense and had no need to rely on the others in the room to make her decisions.
    "This is no playact. I intend a legal wedding witnessed by the leaders of Eclipse society. We will remain married, and you will give me a son." Grady felt her flinch and shudder.
    She stepped back and away, shaking her head. "Don't be foolish. Playacting at being your wife is one thing," she told him. "But I won't give you a child like I'm promising you the first pup from the litter. I'll not leave a baby—boy or girl child—to be raised by you."
    She was fierce with that disclaimer. He didn't factor in her experience with Frank Rossiter before his own temper flared. "You have a problem with my Indian blood?"
    Anger simmered as he prepared to say to hell with the whole proposition and take his chances with the crowd gathering outside.
    But he explained himself, for her ears only. "I need to deed my spread to a son. My bloodlines range a little too close to my Kiowa mother for present ease."
    Her expression was unreadable, but her hands still clutched the edge of the table. She asked, "Why would that fix anything?"
    "We'll breed back to the red hair and white skin of my father. If I'm fortunate, my son will inherit those features." He frowned, irritated to admit his plan to deliberately dilute his Indian blood.
    His voice dropped into a threatening growl. "After you give me a son, pale-skin or Kiowa, do what you will, but the boy remains with me." The crowd outside was louder, and Grady Hawks thought it was time for plain speaking.
    "Ma'am, you need a husband, and I need a wife. What say you?"
    The heavy tread of footsteps and flickering light of a torch had more of her attention than he did. She walked to the window and peered outside, ignoring the room's occupants. Grady had time to admire the proud line of her back and shoulders as she telegraphed her right to be left alone.
    He mentally shrugged and admitted defeat. The gambler's widow had made her decision. He pulled on the brim of his hat and nodded at the others.
    And then, because in a curious way he still needed to close out his memory of her at the Eclipse social, he joined her at the window, shielding her from the room's view.
    She didn't flinch or respond, but their gaze crossed in the window's reflection. A shout outside and a lifted torch showed the crowd. But her gaze was tilted upward, fixed on a second-story window in the Golden Eagle Saloon. A man outlined there stood smoking a cigar and watching the mob. Her gaze refocused