Indigo Blue by Catherine Anderson Read Free Book Online

waist, his shirt hugged his broad chest and shoulders. His stance one of energy and purpose, he stood with his long legs braced apart, arms akimbo, his slicker hooked over one wrist.
    A sudden feeling of dread swept through Indigo. She couldn’t say why, but somehow she knew nothing would ever be quite the same again now that he had come.
    When he continued to remain silent, she decided to speak first, even if it wasn’t proper. “Hello.”
    She would have said more, but he inclined his head in her direction—sort of in her direction, anyway—and started whistling again. Ending the tune with a sour note, he sighed with resignation. Then he raked a hand through his hair and draped his canvas slicker over the porch rail to fuss with the sleeves of his shirt, straightening the folded cuffs so each rode his corded forearms at just the right spot. When he started to whistle again without speaking, she began to grow angry.
    Out of the blue, he said, “Nasty out there, isn’t it?”
    His deep voice, coming so suddenly when she wasn’t expecting it, made her jump.
    “That’s February for you,” he added. “You’re soaking up sun one minute and diving for cover the next. Looks like the cloudburst caught you off guard.”
    Before she could think of a response, he shifted his attention to the broken pick handle leaning against the porch rail. After studying the cracked oak a moment, he heaved his weight onto one foot to test the weak plank under his boot. Next he grabbed a rafter of the porch overhang and gave it a shake. She surmised he was checking it for sturdiness. He clearly thought the place needed work. Indigo hadn’t been raised proud, so his appraisal didn’t bother her. A little dry rot was nothing to be ashamed of, after all. But she didn’t think it was very nice of him to find fault with her home right in front of her.
    He slid a hand into his pants pocket and quickly checked his timepiece. “How long have you been sitting out here?” he asked.
    “Not that long.”
    She wondered if he meant to put her to work. Her ma said some men were born to be chiefs and others Indians. Jake Rand was definitely the authoritative type. An aura of power surrounded him, evident in the decisive way he paced, in the way his dark eyes skimmed over the inconsequential and settled with burning intensity on what drew his interest. She had the feeling he was accustomed to running things and that few people dared to buck him.
    His gaze touched briefly on her muddy pants, then flicked to her moccasins. “I don’t suppose you were already here when Miss Wolf left, were you, son?”
    He thought she was a boy? Momentarily taken aback, Indigo stared up at him.
    Clearly taking her silence as a negative response, he scanned the street again. “Damn, I wonder where she went.” As he contemplated the rain, his mouth, bracketed by deep crevices, drew down at the corners. “It’s pouring buckets out there.”
    She pushed up from the step and joined him on the porch, confident he’d realize his mistake once he saw her standing. “You’re Jake Rand, I assume?”
    Jake glanced down. The boy wore a wet leather hat pulled down low around his ears. All he could clearly see of his face was a small but stubborn chin. With surprising maturity, the slightly built youth extended a hand.
    Still worried about the missing Indigo catching her death, Jake reached to shake and lowered his gaze. A soaked doeskin shirt clung to the boy like a second skin, delineating scrawny shoulders and what were unmistakably two of the most exquisitely formed breasts he had ever seen. Nipples, erect from the chill, thrust proudly against the pliant leather. For several endless seconds, he stared like a mindless idiot.
    “Mr. Rand?”
    Jake gave himself a hard mental shake and forced his gaze upward to peer at the shadowed little face beneath the hat brim. He knew he should speak, but nothing came to mind except that this particular he had turned out to be a she, a