She flushed and looked away. “I’ve heard rumors.” She shrugged, her gaze clashing with his. “I know what kind of man you are.”
“Do you?” he drawled. The deep crease between his golden brows announced that he was not amused. “Do you really?”
“Yes,” she answered, her voice as hard and flat as her expression. “It doesn’t take a genius to know what kind of man agrees to the kind of deal I offered you, at the price you set. That tells me more about you than any of the sordid rumors floating around Thirsty Gulch.” She smiled, but the expression lacked sincerity. “You know, a southern gentleman would have agreed to the deal and declined payment. A northern gentleman would have agreed to the deal and taken the cash.”
Drake chuckled when Hope paused for effect. “Which leaves me—?”
“No gentleman,” she finished before he had the chance. His chuckle was snatched from the air as though it had never been.
The smile was back on his lips: cold, calculating, contemptuous. Hope suppressed a shiver, as well as the feeling that she might have pushed her luck too far this time. She’d made a mistake in speaking her mind without a weapon to back up her words. The error belatedly clicked in her mind with all the force of a hammer being cocked. She might have just made the biggest mistake of her life, and made it with the most ruthlessly dangerous man she’d ever met.
“Well, now, sunshine,” he said on a sigh, the smile still in place, “you may be right. But a deal is a deal. And gentleman or not, I intend to see that this one’s honored.” He fingered the bruise on his cheek as his eyes narrowed on Hope. “I think I deserve it,” he paused, “don’t you?”
Yes, she thought, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, he does. Drake Frazier deserved to be paid for his services. It was a pity she couldn’t pay him quite the way she had promised.
Chapter 6
Dread quickly gave way to fear, and fear to panic, as she watched Drake slip each sinewy leg over the bench. His piercing eyes never leaving her, he reminded Hope of a bloodthirsty predator cornering its weaker prey. Would he toy with her, like a cat would a mouse? she wondered. Or would he skip the preliminaries and go straight for the jugular?
Drake rounded the table, his strides long and purposeful. It was the sound of his boot heels, a sharp thud on the scuffed plank floorboards, that finally prompted Hope into motion.
With a strangled cry, she hoisted her skirt and bolted around the opposite side of the table. She was farther from the gun, but closer to the knife. Her backup option just might pay off. The grin that tugged at Frazier’s lips told her that he thought her move a foolish one. And why shouldn’t he? With the exit at his back, and the only obvious weapon yet to be reached, he had every reason to be confident.
That confidence seeped into his voice, lacing his words with husky arrogance. “Where are you going to go, Hope? Even if you made it outside, I’d catch you before you cleared the woods.”
“Maybe,” Hope shrugged, nibbling at her lower lip as she fought the temptation to measure the distance between herself and the knife. The gunslinger was watching her too closely. If she risked so much as a glance in that direction he would glean her intent and stop her before she reached the counter.
“Definitely,” he corrected with a cocky grin. “You can bet on it.”
Instinct, goaded by the man’s infernal arrogance, made her reach out and seize the top plate of the stack. It was heavy, that plate, molded out of good solid tin. She hurled it at Frazier’s golden head without a second thought. Her eyes widened in disbelief as he sidestepped the flying projectile and snatched it from the air before it could hurt him. Hope waited, breathless, wondering if he was going to throw it back, knowing her reflexes were not that good.
Drake gauged the weight of the plate in his hand, his gaze flickering between an object that had the potential to be a deadly weapon, and the woman who had hurled it at him. “That wasn’t very smart, sunshine,” he admonished, setting the plate aside.
If Hope had planned for him to chase her around the other side of the table, she was sadly mistaken. First, Drake did not look like he was going to chase her anywhere, so much as he was going to stalk her like a dog sniffing out a wounded fox. Second, he was rounding the table on the side nearest the counter—and the knife!
He closed in another step. Two more and he would be around the table entirely. Already he had the advantage of distance, whereas Hope’s only advantage was that of surprise. He would expect her to run away from him, not toward him. With any luck, the suddenness of her action would throw him off guard just long enough for her to reach the counter. A split-second pause, that was all she would need.
Taking in a deep gulp of air, she dug her fingers into the coarse fabric of her skirt, and ran for all she was worth. The floor slapped at the booted soles of her feet and her braid bobbed against the small of her back. Her heart drummed so loudly in her ears that she could barely hear the muttered curse as it passed Drake’s Frazier’s lips when he guessed her intent.
Swearing at his own stupidity for not having seen the knife before, Drake flew aft
er her. As Hope had intended, she had taken him completely off guard. Unfortunately, his reaction time was not as slow as she would have liked.
Hope was quick, but Drake was quicker. She had no more felt the smooth wood of the counter top beneath her fingertips, before it was cruelly snatched away. An arm shot out from nowhere and wrapped itself tightly around her waist, pulling her back until she collided with the brick wall of his chest.
The air rushed from her lungs, and the tightness around her middle wouldn’t let her draw more. She pulled at the arm, trying to loosen its hold. When that didn’t work, she stretched out her arm and reached for the knife, at the same time pulling up her foot and sinking her heel deep into the shin behind her.
Drake grunted, a warm rush of air in her ear. His hold loosened but did not fall away. Hope stretched as far as she could and felt the knife’s handle graze her fingertips. She was dragged back before her fingers could wrap around the handle.
“Let me go, you jackass!” she screamed, throwing a wild punch over her shoulder. The fist hit nothing but air. She threw another, this one over the other shoulder. She was rewarded with the feel of her knuckles smashing into Frazier’s ear before her wrist was captured in his free hand. He forced her arm down so it crossed over the other, making them both useless.
Tears of frustration blurred her gaze, but Hope refused to give in to them. Nor would she give in to the infuriating power of the man behind her. With her hands pinned, she used the only thing left: her feet. Time and again her heel sank into a shin, a muscular calf, or when she was very lucky, a rock hard thigh.
Her struggles seemed to have little effect. In fact, the more she fought, the tighter the arm around her waist became. Drawing in breath became increasingly hard and it wasn’t long before the room began to spin in sickening circles before her eyes. Blackness reared up from the floor, threatening to envelop her in its velvety folds. She resisted it, but only barely.
Reluctantly, she ceased her struggles and melted back against the gunslinger’s chest. His hard shoulder pillowed her head and she could feel his heart drumming beneath the thick, rippled flesh of his shoulder blade. The sweet rush of his breath tickled her ear, fanned her cheek and neck. His grip had loosened enough to allow her deep, healing gulps of air.
“Are you done fighting?” he asked, his voice oddly gentle as his breath stirred the wisps of hair clinging to her jaw.