“You know,” Drake said as he stared thoughtfully into the dwindling fire, “you’re going to have a tough time explaining my dead body to the rest of your little gang when they return.” His gaze swept the room, then settled on Hope accusingly. “What are you going to tell them? That when I came to collect payment, you, having changed your mind, shot me instead? Don’t think the miner’s court’ll go easy on you with that one.”
Now that he was sitting, and no longer an immediate threat, Hope felt secure enough in shifting her weight until she was sitting on the hard, cold floor. Her aching calves sighed in relief. “They won’t convict me,” she replied with a shrug, surprised at the confidence that rang clear in her voice. “Not when I tell them I shot you in self-defense. After all, a girl does have to defend her honor. Especially in a place like this.”
A throaty chuckle rumbled in Drake’s chest, a humor that was not reflected in the eyes that never left her. “Is that what you’re going to tell them? That I tried to steal your virtue? Not very original, sunshine. I’d have thought you’d come up with something a little more dramatic.”
Again, she shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be original, or dramatic, just good enough so it sounds like the truth.” Her thumb rubbed the cold band of metal that separated the sides of the pistol’s carved ivory handle. “They’ll believe it. I’d bet my life on it.”
“You will be, if shooting me’s what you decide to do.” His gaze shifted to her mouth and Hope felt a sudden warmth there. It was as if he’d run his index finger over the smooth flesh, not just his gaze. “Are you willing to take that chance?” Drake asked, his voice softly probing. “Are the consequences really that bad?”
“If you’d just leave peacefully there wouldn’t be any consequences,” she spat, resting her forearms on drawn-up knees. She was careful to never let the barrel of the gun waver, a sign of weakness that this man would be quick to take full advantage of.
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?” she fairly screamed. “Don’t force me to shoot you, Frazier. I will if I have to, we both know it, but I don’t think it’s what either of us wants.”
Drake fingered the jagged cut on his cheek, then let his thumb trail over the blush swelling on his stubbly jaw. The look he sent her was one of unconcealed desire and determination. “I know what I want,” he replied slowly, poignantly. “And I think I know what you want, too.”
“How convenient. Is there anything you don’t know?” she quipped sarcastically, rearranging her position so the open buttons of her dress didn’t cut into her back quite so sharply.
“As a matter of fact...” Drake’s voice trailed away and he sent her that arrogantly confident smile again, the one Hope would gladly have shot right off his face. “I haven’t quite figured out why you’re fighting me so hard. Why would you offer me compensation you had no intention of giving? And why won’t you give it?” He shrugged. “Can’t figure that one out. I don’t suppose you’d care to enlighten me?”
“Hardly.”
“Of course, there’s always the chance—” his brow furrowed into a scowl. “You’re not married, are you?”
He would have heard if she was, Drake told himself. In Thirsty Gulch, there wasn’t too much about a person that one didn’t hear about. The husband of a girl in her marital prime, especially a girl who was as attractive as this one, couldn’t be kept a secret, now could it? Hope Bennett had a sour disposition. So long as she kept the bed warm and the meals on the table, mended the shirts and took care of the menial tasks, she could have any disposition she wanted to.
With such thoughts answering his own questions, Drake wasn’t surprised to see Hope shake her head with almost laughable disbelief. Her thoughts must have traveled the same path.
“Hmmm,” Drake sighed thoughtfully. His frown deepened as he rubbed a palm down his jaw. “Guess that brings us to question number two, sunshine. Why aren’t you married?”
Drake thought he must have hit a sore spot, for Hope flinched as though she had been slapped across the face, before carefully schooling her features back to rigid self-composure. When did she pull away from me? He found himself wondering. Not when I kissed her. No, she returned that affection quite nicely, thank you very much. But the buttons on her dress—
“That’s none of your business,” she hissed, her brown eyes narrow and glistening bright with indignation. He was hitting too close to home, she thought with a sense of panic. Much too close to home. “And stop calling me that. Why do you keep calling me that?”
Drake smiled, but his gaze remained thoughtful. “Oh, I don’t know. Your winning disposition, I suppose,” he replied flippantly, adding a sarcastic chuckle.
“Don’t toy with me, Frazier,” Hope warned, her voice low and angry as she gestured toward his chest with the gun. “I don’t enjoy being played with any more than I like being made to look a fool.”
“And I don’t like being held at the receiving end of a pistol,” he countered, just as hotly. His eyes narrowed to angry, sea-green slits. “Guess that makes us just about even, sunshine.”
Holding her anger in check was not something Hope had much practice at, or much use for. And now, she didn’t even try. Sneering, she jutted her chin at the door. “If you don’t like the company, feel free to leave. Nobody’s stopping you. God knows, I’m not using this thing to keep you here.”
Drake shook his head as though she had just offered him a cup of coffee, and he’d politely declined it. “Nah,” he said, sliding a little lower in the bench. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’d rather wait around until you’re ready to pay me.” A derisive smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Or shoot me. Whichever comes first.”
“Then make yourself comfortable, gunslinger, because I’m not going to shoot you unless you ask for it.” There was no need to elaborate. The look on Frazier’s face said he’d drawn the right conclusion.
Drake sent Hope a quick look from the corner of his eyes as he pretended to turn his attention back to the fire. His calculating gaze assessed the dark shadows etched beneath the lower lashes and the drooping of her eyelids. He watched as she stifled a yawn with the back of her hand, thinking he hadn’t seen. The barrel of the gun dipped until it was pointed at a place somewhere between his ankle and his calf. Her guard had lowered, if only momentarily.
The time to move was here, and Drake seized it with every ounce of energy he possessed. It took barely a second for his muscles to tighten from lazy relaxation to rigid awareness.
Hope was alert at once, the yawn caught in her throat as she trained the gun on his sculpted profile. Except for a slight change in position he seemed to have totally dismissed her. His gaze was still trained on the dying flames in the hearth. Odd, but his eyes seemed more alert now, more purposeful. His arms were no longer crossed atop his chest. Instead, his hands were cushioned there, the fingers apparently relaxed and linked atop the tight stomach. His ankles were no longer crossed either. Now his feet were spread apart, both boots firmly planted on the floor.
Recognition dawned a split second too late. By the time Hope realized what Frazier was about to do, he had lithely uncoiled from his lazy pose and hurled himself at her, full force.
Hope had barely enough time to swallow a gasp before the weight of his body came smashing down on top of her. Air rushed from her lungs at the same time the bullet left the gun with an earsplitting explosion. The bone-jarring impact of his body prevented any aim she might have taken, and the shot went harmlessly high and wide. The bullet lodged in one of the beams that crisscrossed the ceiling, splintering the wood with a crackling sound that might have been made by a log on the fire, or by the snapping of her ribs.
A hand snaked out of nowhere, closing around her wrist in a viselike grip that made the blood, trapped in the fingers coiled around the gun throb with each frantic beat of her heart. Hope tried to move her thumb, tried to make it reach the cold metal hammer that would buy her another shot. Her hand wouldn’t respond. It took all of her strength, and most of her self-control, just to keep hold of the carved ivory handle.