Just Once by Jill Marie Landis Read Free Book Online Page A

paused for breath. Hunter had forgotten he was holding her, until he realized she was actually leaning against him. He abruptly let her go. Although he was fairly certain she was a crazy lunatic and just as unpredictable, she was too small to do him any physical harm. The poor wit-scrambled girl was running from something all right, but he was willing to bet everything he owned that it was from an insane asylum.
    “Will you help me?”
    Somebody always wanted something.
    Hunter took a step back, intent on going his own way. Amelia White had already made a bigger fool of him than any woman had a right to. Not only that, but she had run off and left behind her daughter Lucy, who was no kin to him at all. Even though Amelia had done him a big favor by leaving, he wasn’t about to let any woman talk her way into his life again, especially this addlepated blue-eyed blond with the face of an angel and twin dimples.
    “I’m afraid I’m getting out of the savior business. You’ll have to find somebody else.” He tipped the brim of his hat and succeeded in sending a stream of water down over his hand. Without a backward glance, Hunter started down the street, fighting to ignore the girl’s startled expression of disbelief.
    “Are you just going to walk off and leave me standing out here alone like this?” Her voice came to him through the rain, reed-thin and shaky.
    “Yep.” He told himself to keep walking. He didn’t want to dwell on her standing there soaked through, shivering with fright. With those eyes and that figure, she was most likely a whore trying to escape her pimp, not some convent escapee on the run from Berber tribesmen.
    For half a block she followed him. He could hear her light, rapid footsteps dogging his on the boardwalk; then there was silence. Hunter warned himself not to turn around, not to get involved. She had come from someplace and she would end up somewhere else. She could damn well get there on her own. He didn’t need to worry about what happened to her.
    He put a few blocks between them and was about to step off the end of the walk and negotiate the muddy street when he heard the scream. The sound tore through the night air. He spun around.
    In the distance, two shadowy figures struggled beneath a lamppost. The yellow glow from the lantern radiated around the silhouettes locked in a frenetic tussle. Raindrops glistened in a shimmering halo around a head of wild, curly blond hair. Hunter picked up his pace, his moccasins slapping hard thumps against the wooden walk.
    A gent dressed like a card shark in a tall hat, cutaway coat, and natty stirrup pants was accosting St. Theresa of Algiers.
    The gambler was so intent on attacking his helpless victim that he didn’t see or hear Hunter until it was too late. Six paces from the gambler, Hunter got a strong whiff of whiskey. In two paces he reached out and whipped the man away from the frantic blond, drew back his arm, and sent his fist crashing into his victim’s chin before the gambler knew what hit him. The man’s waistcoat was spattered with blood. The sateen shone in the glow of the lamp as the man lay face up in the pelting rain.
    The girl threw herself against Hunter, nearly toppling them both. He drew her under cover of an overhanging balcony once more.
    “Good God! I could have been killed … or worse! You just can’t leave me alone like this,” she said, clutching him tight. A sob caught in her throat and she shuddered. Genuine fear was reflected in the tears shimmering in her eyes.
    He thought of Lucy, Amelia’s girl, who wasn’t much younger than this one. What if Lucy were out alone on the streets and no one helped her? Not that shy little Lucy would ever find herself in such a fix, but still, he couldn’t help but compare the two. Years of being responsible won out.
    “I’m headed for Tchoupitoulas Street. I’ll put you up in a hotel, but you’re on your own from there.”
    “Tchoupitoulas?” She worked the word around