The Renegades: Nick by Genell Dellin Read Free Book Online

such level ground.”
    Some of the sadness had crept into her voice. He felt an urgent need to cheer her, to hold onto the warmth of their jesting.
    “Anyhow, I’m the one who ought to be worried about turning my back,” he said. “You’rethe one who’s already taken a shot at me.”
    She narrowed her eyes and threw his own words back at him in a fair imitation of his own voice.
    “Damn straight I’m mean, and don’t you forget it.”
    That made him laugh, too. She was a good mimic.
    When she was being playful, she was beautiful. Not beautiful in that tall, sleek, dark-haired, majestic way that Matilda had been beautiful, but beautiful in her spirit. She was as different from Matilda as a honeysuckle blossom from a rose. A blood-red rose, as it happened.
    They stopped laughing at the same moment because he tensed and turned to look to the south. He’d heard hoofbeats.
    “What? What is it?”
    He shook his head and held up his hand for quiet.
    “Riders coming,” he said, when he was sure. “Two horses.”
    Amazement in her eyes, she stared at him.
    “I don’t hear anything but the wind.”
    “You’ll have to learn to hear if you stay.”
    A flash of hurt and then anger crossed her face.
    “I’m staying. You can count on that, Nick Smith. Before I’m done with the Cherokee Strip, every pig you see will be wearing a hat.”
    That made him laugh again. He might as well laugh as cry or throw rocks, because this woman plainly intended to stick here. At least for now. She and the two riding toward them, and hundreds of others besides.
    He spoke to her straight.
    “If these riders stop here,” he said, “don’t breathe a word about water.”
    He went to his horse, drew the long gun from its saddle scabbard, and stood in the shade of the wagon to wait. Callie walked to her stack of belongings and pulled out a cast-iron skillet. He tried, but he couldn’t keep from smiling a little.
    “Your new weapon?”
    “Don’t laugh,” she said. “Unlike the gun, I know this will work.”
    “You’d have to get mighty close to a man to hit him with it.”
    “That’s your job,” she said. “You distract him. Or them, if this is Baxter and his brother.”
    He shook his head at the determined look on her face. God help her, out here by herself.
    “I can see right now I’ll have to get you a gun.”
    He held up his hand for silence when she opened her mouth.
    “No obligation. A loan, only a loan. You can cook my supper tonight for payment.”
    The visitors proved to be a man and a woman on separate horses, with a child up infront of the woman. They rode in a straight line toward Callie’s wagon, so they obviously did intend to stop.
    “A woman!” Callie said. “Oh, I hope they’re our neighbors.”
    Nick’s gut tightened. She’d better not be telling the other woman everything she knew.
    “Remember not to mention my spring.”
    She cut her eyes at him as her only answer before she laid her skillet down and walked out to meet the new people. Damn his flapping tongue! It had been totally unlike him to let slip his source of water to her in the first place.
    “Hello, there, Sir, Missus,” the man called. “We’re your neighbors to the south. Our name is Peck.”
    He had a mellow voice with an educated tone to it. In that way, at least, he was not another lout like Baxter. And as any man with any manners would do, he was looking at Nick, politely speaking to the man of the place instead of to a woman he’d never met. Miss Callie, however, took it upon herself to reply.
    “Welcome, neighbors, come on in and get down.”
    Damn! She didn’t have to say that!
    The Pecks immediately accepted both invitations.
    “Cool a bit and rest awhile,” she babbled on, as if this were her place instead of his. “I’mCallie Sloane, and this is Nick Smith.”
    If only she’d keep quiet about the water, all this hospitality would be fine.
    “I’m Jacob Peck,” the man said, going to the other horse and lifting the