Rocky Mountain Man (Historical) by Jillian Hart Read Free Book Online Page B

soup. My ma says there’s nothing a good bowl of soup can’t cure.”
    Great. Just his luck to be trapped with a talker. He liked his women silent—in fact, he liked his women to be absent. Was there any way to be rid of her?
    A horse’s whinny pierced the darkness and even though the thick walls muffled the sound, he knew it was not one of his. He withered at the faint clomp of steeled shoes on the hard packed earth outside his front door. A light flared in the window, bobbing up and then away.
    â€œWhat the—” The laundry lady set aside her needle and thread and the bed rope groaned as she stood. Her slender shadow fell over him.
    With an ear-splitting crack, the door broke open, wood splinters flying into the air as wraiths and ghosts emerged from the night. Eerie dark shapes that became men as the light touched them. Wide-shouldered angry men, with rifles in hand and a lantern shining suddenly into his eyes. Onto the bed. Where Betsy Hunter stood, her hair tangled, her undershirt and skirt covered with spots of blood.
    He knew what was going to happen next. He’d been surly and rude and horrible to this prim and sheltered woman, and now he was going to pay for it. He knew how this was going to go.
    His mind leaped forward and he saw what was to come in a flash, but it was really the past. The murderous rage, the shouted accusations, the noose closing off his air. He would lose everything. His life, his home, his work, his freedom.
    He remembered Ginetta Green’s tears as she’d spoken to the sheriff and how Duncan had had hope then, hope that reason would rule and it was all a big mistake. What else could it have been? He’d never hurt Ginetta. He’d never hurt anyone. Ginetta had used him, she’d lied about him, and she’d betrayed him for reasons he would never know.
    Betsy Hunter stood in the shadows, radiant as a midnight star in a moonless sky, but he was not fooled. Not by a woman’s beauty. Not by her seeming goodness. Not by her kindness. She wanted something. What? How was she going to use this to her advantage?
    Duncan saw the barred door close on his future once more. Her rescuer with his search party stormed through the dark main room. Beefy hands closed around his throat and Duncan knew the sting of a woman’s betrayal twice in his life.
    At the edges of his vision he saw her. Perky Betsy Hunter, ready to condemn him. No one was going to believe him, a man convicted of rape. Defeat curled around his soul and from a distance he heard the men shouting, the flare of lantern light on a rifle barrel as it aimed directly between his eyes. He felt stitches at his neck tear, felt the hot rush of blood.
    â€œNo!” Suddenly she was there, her calm touch against his face, she was splaying the flat of her free hand against his wound. “What is wrong with you, Joshua? Put him down before you kill him.”
    â€œThat’s the idea.”
    â€œStop it. Didn’t you see the bears dead in the road?” Men. She would never understand them. She’d grown up in a houseful of brothers, she’d been married, and all the time in the presence of the species she could never figure out why they were so downright bullheaded and pushy and all male temper. “What’s wrong with you? I said, put him down.”
    Her oldest brother kept right on choking the dying man. Duncan might be the bigger of the two, but he’d lost more blood than Charlie had, at least it seemed thatway, and she couldn’t bear it, she simply couldn’t. “James! You get over here and help me. His stitches are torn. Isn’t that just like a man to rip out half an evening’s work.”
    Joshua gaped down at her, some of the wild male protective rage leaving him. A small glint of intelligence came back into his eyes. “But he hurt you. Don’t try and defend him.”
    â€œHe saved me. Think, would you? Look at the wounds. Doesn’t