Katy Run Away by Maren Smith Read Free Book Online

gradually released her skirt, careful to keep himself well out of striking range. He rubbed his mouth and chin with one hand, coming back up off his knee as he positioned himself off to the side of the snake.
    “Kill it,” she said again, stifling a full-body shudder as it raised its head off her leg and spat, its warning hiss escalating into a rigid and very real threat. “Shoot it, Cal!”
    “The bullet would go right through the snake and into you. Just hold still.”
    “I’m not,” Katy bit through tightly clenched teeth, “moving!”
    The snake rose another inch off her thigh, coiling backwards into an ‘s’ shaped bunch of readiness, weaving slightly as it followed the exaggerated motion of Cal’s left hand as he waved it well out of striking range. Preoccupied, the snake never noticed Cal’s other hand, circling in from behind. “Hold very still.”
    “Oh my God,” Katy snapped. “If you tell me not to move one more time, I swear I’m going to scr—”
    Cal grabbed the snake, latching onto the animal behind its gaping head and whipping the reptile off Katy’s legs. In one motion, he both stood and tossed, sending the animal flying out across the sagebrush and into the shadowed bushes at the base of a mound of loose rocks.
    Katy was moving before the snake had even landed. She came to her feet hopping and squealing, slapping at her legs first and then at her dress until her disheveled skirts were once more hanging down where they belonged. Her skin was crawling everywhere and there was no stifling the wracking shudder that moved through her from head to foot and back again.
    Hands on his hips, Cal watched the brush and rocks until he was sure the snake wasn’t going to come charging back into the argument, and then he turned to Katy. He grinned. Katy shuddered all over again.
    “Well?” he said, thoroughly pleased with himself. He waited for her to acknowledge his actions with a tender word of thanks.
    The words stuck in Katy’s throat. A sincerely spoken thank you was the very least of what she owed him—for keeping her warm all night despite her rotten behavior, not to mention saving her from what would surely have been a very nasty snake bite—but she just could not make herself say it. She tried to, twice. Each attempt ended verbally premature, culminating in a breathy hiccup, and then she just gave up altogether.
    “So much for breakfast,” she snapped. She walked away glaring at the ground.
    “Cantankerous mule,” he snapped after her.
    “Smart ass!”
    There! Now he’d correct her language and then they’d both settle into the long walk back to town, once more comfortably irritated with one another. Except that Cal didn’t. He laughed instead, low chuckles that promptly gave way to a backwards toss of his head and a hooting guffaw.
    “What?” she snarled when he quickly caught up to her in only a handful of long-legged strides.
    “You just called me smart.” He grinned, ignoring her narrow-eyed frown. “Considering where we’ve been, I see that as an improvement.” Clapping her none-too-gently on the shoulder, he strode out into the scrub and sage ahead of her, whistling.
     
    * * * * *
     
    It was halfway to noon and the day was already growing unbearable hot when they staggered back into town. Right about this time, the Union Pacific was pulling into Wyoming…with their luggage, but without them. Cal knew there were going to be questions, but as they trudged into town—Katy without her bonnet, well on her way to sunburned, dusty from head to toe and wearing at least two cacti’ worth of spines in the hem of her skirts—Cal knew there wasn’t any kind of answer he could give that wouldn’t lead to a lot of nudging and winking and knowing smirks. If he hadn’t found Katy dancing in the Abilene, it might even have ended in a shotgun wedding. Fortunately for him, her family was still two full states away and no one up there was likely to ever hear about any of