“It would be good for me to know, girl. Can’t keep you safe from varmints with rifles if we don’t know who they are.”
“Not your job to keep me safe,” she says, turning her face away from me. She’s cute. She’s got dark locks that I reckon would go into curls judging by the way it is escaping her braid in a riot, and deep brown eyes. Her skin is tanned by the sun, marked with freckles dusting her nose and cheeks.
“How old are you?”
“Old ‘nuff.”
“Old ‘nuff for what?”
She gives me a cutting look, thinking I’m suggesting something lewd. Matter of fact, I’m not. Aside from natural male curiosity, I ain’t interested in bedding her. She’s too scrawny, too scrappy, too busy lying and giving me sass, and frankly, I’m not sure she’s of age, though she could be. I won’t be laying a finger on her, and neither will anyone else.
“I know where I’m taking you, in that case.”
“Where’s that?”
“I know a lady who runs an orphanage. She’s about three days ride from here, outskirts of Buttercup. You can stay with her.”
“I’m too old for an orphanage, mister,” she laughs. “Too old by a long way.”
“Is that right.” I’m skeptical.
“I’ve seen more than twenty new years,” she says.
“Tell me you’ve seen forty, and I’d have the same chance of believing you.”
“I have!” She becomes strident, stamping her boot. “I might not be as buxom as… as… as…” It’s fun watching her trying to grasp for something buxom. “As…” She fails in the attempt. “It doesn’t mean I’m not a grown woman. It’s not my fault a man doesn’t know a woman unless her bosom is falling out of her dress.”
“Easy,” I say. “Lecturing me like that makes me half-believe you’re one of those suffragette vote-demanding spinsters.”
Her gaze becomes utterly furious. “And iffin I was?”
“You’d be in the wrong part of the country, but being tied to the tracks would make more sense,” I wink, letting her know I’m teasing her.
She doesn’t crack a smile, but I see her bristle a little less.
“I’ll stay with you until you reach a town,” she says. “Then I’ll go my own way.”
“Well, Miss Josie, we don’t often go to towns, and the ones we go to aren’t likely to be the ones a a young woman alone is going to want to stop at. But you’re welcome to travel with us, long as you pull your weight around camp.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Means we got things that’s dirty that needs to be clean.”
Josie
He means he wants me to do their laundry, dishes, and cooking. Same things every man wants from a woman, bar one. I guess I should be grateful these outlaws didn’t rip my dress off me and have their way with me. There’s plenty of men out here who would consider that rightful payment for rescue.
“Fine.”
“You can take the cot in here to sleep,” he says. “I don’t sleep much.”
He’s offering me his bed? I’m starting to get suspicious all over again. I know what happens when a man gets a woman in his bed. Unseemly things. Things that tear her innocence to shreds.
“Orion! We got riders!”
The cry goes up from the watchman outside, saving us both another argument. I knew it wasn’t going to be this easy. They were never going to let me live. They’ll kill their way across the entire planet if it means putting lead in my brain.
“You stay back…” Orion orders as he heads out.
To hell with staying back. Orion has already headed out to face them, assuming I’m going to cower behind him and let the big bad outlaw protect me. I don’t think so. After the morning I’ve had, the need for vengeance runs thick in my veins.
There’s a rifle propped up inside Orion’s tent. I grab it and I run out toward the cover they’re taking. The riders coming across the plain are taking pot shots at everything that moves, firing without care. Doesn’t matter who they slaughter as long as they get me. I plan to get them first.
Chapter Two
Orion
The sight that confronts me when I step outside the tent is nothing short of jaw dropping. I expected a handful of bounty hunters to be taking cover just out of range, trying to finagle a way closer. But that’s not what’s happening. This gang is acting more like desperate criminals. They’re not even trying to find shelter, just charging at us like a pack of morons, wide open, practically asking for a bullet…
THWIP!
That bullet must have heard their request. It’s going the wrong way over my head, not from the guys shooting at us, but from someone behind me who is going to get his ass beaten for damn near shooting me in the skull. Having missed me, it catches the leader of the posse right in the center of his forehead and sends him falling backwards, the back of his head missing, his brains cascading out into the desert dust.