Runaway by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page B

behind him. “Think about it. Quickly,” he suggested. There was an edge to his tone. A warning. What he wanted, he would take.
    And if she failed to talk to him …
    Jesu! What was it? Jarrett wondered. She was a fighter, that much was certain. She was stubborn and determined. Beautiful and delicate … but hard as a rock in her way! She was still staring at him. It seemed—to her, at least—that hounds from hell were after her. But she wasn’t going to give in to him under any circumstances.
    “Talk to me!” he commanded.
    “Go to hell!” she whispered. There was such a desperate note to the words!
    To his amazement she shoved him aside, and started to rush past him. She was going to make a dive into the water!
    “Hold it!”
    He caught her arm, jerking her back and against him. The hood slipped from her head, and once again he found himself staring at her wealth of gold and wheat and flame hair. The hair that had so entangled him from the very beginning.
    Then there were her eyes, huge and near violet, staring into his now with a liquid gleam to them.
    “What are you, an idiot? Are you trying to drown yourself?”
    “I can swim.”
    “The river here is dark and all but pure mud. Your skirts would drag you down. You’ve the sense to know that.”
    “I have nothing to say.”
    “All right, fine. You’ve nothing to say. Half of the time I don’t have a hell of a lot to say either. So let’s leave it at that. You’re running. Hard. I don’t know from whom or from what, and I’m not even sure I give a damn. I’ll still help you.”
    One of her delicate wheat brows arched upward with wary suspicion. “The only way you can help me is to get me out of here quickly,” she told him quietly.
    “I can get you out of the city. Tonight, if you wish.”
    “With no explanations?”
    “Yes.”
    “But there will be a price,” she said matter-of-factly. “And I’ve nothing. Not a stitch of jewelry, not even my wages from the inn. I’ve nothing but the clothes I’m wearing.”
    “My dear girl!” he murmured dryly. “Trust me. It wouldn’t matter if you came stark naked. I don’t need your jewelry or your money.” Where did he go from here? She didn’t want to tell him anything—he was damned tired of making it so easy for her. “You’re the payment. You,” he said flatly. There. Let her think on that.
    Her color faded from her face, and he was growing ever more curious. She had told him that she waited tables at the inn, nothing more. So what was she running from? An affair turned bad? A cruel father?
    A cruel husband?
    She swallowed hard. She was still as white as a sheet.“I keep telling you I’m not a—” she began. Then she looked down. Whore. It was the unsaid word.
    “I’m already supposedly yours for the night,” she whispered miserably. “But I can’t stay here!” she said flatly. She stared up at him, chin steady, and turned into a businesswoman, pushing aside what emotions had caused her to pale so. “I need to get away, really away. Far from New Orleans, from everything—”
    “I can get you away,” he said dryly. “Very far away.”
    “To where?” she demanded desperately.
    “Florida.”
    “Jacksonville?”
    “Deeper. I’ve a plantation down in the middle of the territory.”
    “The territory has a middle?” she murmured. She was hardly complimentary with her complete lack of enthusiasm! It was painfully evident that she wasn’t thrilled about being rescued away to his beloved homeland.
    “Top, middle, and a bottom,” he informed her wryly. “And I own land down at the bottom of the territory too. I know you’ll love it.”
    “The Indians own your land,” she told him.
    “They own some, I own some. But what is mine is mine, and it’s where I’m going.”
    She shuddered, then clenched down hard on her jaw, like a woman determined that she might show dislike, but never fear. “But it’s all swamps down there! Swamps and Indians and