The Outlaw and the Lady by Lorraine Heath Read Free Book Online

When she was finished, she briefly considered heading away from the camp but she was too tired to exert the effort that would be needed to make good an escape. With a sigh, she walked back in the direction from which she’d come. Three steps later, she bumped into Raven. Obviously, he didn’t trust her any farther than he could hear her.
    “You will sleep here,” he ordered and guided her onto a mound of blankets.
    Gratefully, she dropped down and tucked her legs beneath her. The familiar pop of his knees signaled that he’d crouched beside her. A twig snapped as someone came near.
    “Lee, I have a magnificent plan—”
    “The woman stays with us, Jorge,” Raven cut in.
    “But you can trust me—”
    “It is not a matter of trust, but a matter of what is best for all of us. We stay together. Now sleep.”
    She listened to the departing footsteps. “They love you,” she said in awe, surprised she’d spoken aloud.
    “What is there not to love?” he asked.
    “Offhand, I could think of a thousand things.”
    “Name one,” he dared her.
    “You murdered a man.”
    “That, señorita , is the reason they love me most of all,” he said in a chilling voice that sent icy shivers cascading down her spine. “Now, lie down.”
    Cautiously, she stretched out on her side, listening intently, prepared to bolt if a need arose. She heard the unmistakable sounds of a gun belt being removed and the blankets rustling. He wrapped his arm around her. She tried to get up, but he pressed her firmly against his hard body.
    “Relax, señorita . Since we cannot have a fire, you will have to settle for my warmth.”
    Terror gripped her. “What are you going to do?”
    “Hold you until you stop shivering.”
    She didn’t think having him this close was going to make her stop quivering. She’d never in her life known such exhaustion. Nor had she ever been so incredibly aware of a man, the way her backside fit snugly within his lap, the breadth of his chest as his shoulders curled around her. The hard edge of his chin as it rested against the top of her head. The arm he’d somehow managed to work beneath her so she now had a pillow. His rugged scent mixed with the smell of horses and leather.
    A few men had courted her, a couple had even dared to kiss her, but they seemed astonishingly tame when compared to this unsettling outlaw. He emanated incredible confidence, seemed sure of his course, but she couldn’t label him as haughty or arrogant. He was simply a man with a purpose, an errant purpose to be sure, but one he was determined to pursue.
    She eased out of her reverie as she became increasingly cognizant of something moist and warm dampening her side. “What in the world is that?”
    Raven grunted as she shoved him away and sat up. She touched her fingers to the stickiness that now coated a small section of her bodice. She sniffed her fingertips and a rustic odor assailed her nostrils. “It’s blood.”
    “I started bleeding again,” he said calmly, as though he was commenting on the sun coming up.
    Stunned, she twisted around. “You’re wounded?”
    He chuckled low. “You shot me in the arm.”
    Her stomach roiling, she pressed her unbloodied fingers against her mouth. She hadn’t noticed the wound as they’d ridden because he’d used his other arm to hold her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “What did you want me to say? That I learned you do not make idle threats?”
    He thought she’d shot him on purpose, when in fact it had happened by chance. But his misconception might at some point put her at an advantage if she did not challenge his perception of the event. “You have to tend the wound. Is the bullet still lodged in there?”
    “It went clean through. I will stop bleeding in a little while.”
    “In a little while? I can’t have you bleeding on me all night,” she snapped, hoping he wouldn’t detect any measure of concern in her sharp words. She’d never actually shot anyone, and the mere idea