Love Forevermore by Madeline Baker Read Free Book Online Page B

three striped babies. Loralee held her breath as the family passed by, hoping the animal would not become alarmed. She breathed a sigh of relief when the furry little creatures made their way around a log and out of sight.
    Loralee was halfway up the hillside when she heard the sound of an axe striking wood. Pausing, she cocked her head to one side, listening to the rhythmic sound. It was coming from her right and was quite near. Was it possible that someone besides Shad Zuniga and his grandfather lived in the hills? Mike had not mentioned it, but it might have slipped his mind, or perhaps he had not wanted her to know.
    Curious, she reined Lady toward the sound, marveling at the dainty way the mare picked her way through the brush, stepping over fallen logs as though she were a fine lady who didn’t want to soil her shoes.
    Some moments later, Loralee rounded a huge gray boulder and reined Lady to an abrupt halt. There, only a few feet away, stood Shad Zuniga. He was clad in a brief buckskin clout, thick-soled moccasins, a faded red headband, and nothing more. His coppery skin was sheened with a fine layer of sweat. The muscles in his arms and back rippled like water as he swung the axe through the air, slicing cleanly through the log at his feet.
    Loralee had seldom seen a man without a shirt, never one without trousers, and she gazed in rapt fascination at the sight of so much exposed male flesh. The muscles in Zuniga’s arms and legs were clearly defined as he hefted the heavy axe, and she noted with pleasure that he was strong, and beautiful to watch.
    Zuniga felt a sudden heat suffuse him, a heat that was caused, not by the sun, but by Loralee’s gaze wandering over his flesh. He had been instantly aware of her presence. The mere sight of her, the fact that she was so obviously admiring what she saw, filled him with elation, and desire.
    Loralee’s cheeks burned with embarrassment when she realized she was staring at Zuniga in a very unladylike way, and that Zuniga was no longer chopping wood but watching her as well, a bemused expression on his swarthy face. He did not seem the least bit ashamed by the fact that he was very nearly naked.
    “Good…good afternoon,” Loralee stammered. Zuniga nodded in reply, and then he grinned faintly. She would be shocked indeed if she happened to glance in the direction of his loincloth again and see the very real evidence of his desire for her stirring to life. “I…I was just out…out riding.”
    Zuniga nodded again, his dark eyes alight with amusement at her obvious discomfort. She made a lovely picture, sitting primly astride the dainty black mare. Her riding habit was of dark blue velvet and showed off her full breasts and trim waist to full advantage. Her cheeks were flushed with color, her brown eyes luminous. She wore her hair coiled in a neat knot at the nape of her neck. There were black leather riding gloves on her hands, smart black kid boots on her feet. She looked every inch a lady, cool and collected, save for the high color in her cheeks, and the single drop of perspiration that trickled down her neck and disappeared inside the collar of her blouse.
    Zuniga followed the tiny drop of sweat with his eyes, swallowing hard as it vanished from sight into the cleft between her breasts.
    Tearing his eyes away, he drew a ragged breath. It was disconcerting, the effect she had on him. A look, a smile, her very presence filled him with such longing it was almost painful. Why, of all the women he had known, did it have to be a white woman who fired his blood? A woman who was forbidden. Untouchable. But so desirable.
    The silence stretched between them, loud and awkward. Zuniga mopped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. Bending, he picked up the wood he had cut and tossed it on the pile stacked a few feet away.
    Loralee watched his every move, awed by the play of muscles beneath his taut skin, by the easy strength in his arms and shoulders and back. She