Wild Abandon

Oh, what a life they could have together.

And Brian Brave Walker.

She wanted to mother him into loving her!

“I can’t get over how much you look like a woman I came across during the war,” Clint said, jerking the rope away from her wrists. He held her down by the force of his body as he continued straddling her. “I raped more than one Rebel woman. But there was this one woman in particular I will never forget.”

He grabbed Lauralee by her hair, causing her to wince. “The hair was the color of yours. Her eyes were the same,” he snarled. He jerked her face close to his, so close she could feel the heat of his foul breath.

He released his hold on her hair and traced her facial contours with a finger. “And by damn,” he said huskily. “She looked just like you in the face.”

Breathing hard, waiting for the right moment to make her move, and seeing him as quite foolish for releasing her bonds, Lauralee glared up at him. She tried not to hear him paint the same description of her mother in the same breath that he had spoken of raping her. Her anger was fueled enough already to kill him. If he didn’t stop his bragging she knew that she could not stop at just killing him. She would humiliate him first in the worst way a man could be humiliated.

If... only . . . she got the chance.

If only she could grab his pistol and disarm him. She knew where she would like to shoot him, right where his thoughts seemed always centered, as well as his ego!

For her mother, for all of those other women he had raped and murdered, for herself and the life she had been forced to lead because of him, she would make him pay.

And for his son, Brian Brave Walker, whose life had probably been filled with abuse and pain, she would make him pay.

Even for this Indian woman who had surely been forced to be his love slave, Lauralee would take care of this man and make sure he never fulfilled his lusts with another woman’s body.

Once his body was mutilated worse than having been maimed in the leg, he could lust, but would never again be able to act upon those loathsome feelings.

Clint jerked his shirt open, causing buttons to pop off. His eyes narrowed into Lauralee’s. “See these scars on my chest?” he said between clenched teeth. “This woman, the one you resemble, gave them to me. She was a hellcat, that one.” He laughed boisterously. “These scars? I wear them proudly. They are a reminder of my victories in the South. And I ain’t speakin’ about the sort gained by shootin’ off firearms. My favored victories were those I found while with the beautiful southern ladies.”

Not able to take any more of his bragging, and seeing that he was somewhat off guard as he glanced down long enough to admire the long, lean scratches that ran like paths through his thick, dark, and kinky chest hairs, Lauralee reached for his face and went for his eyes with her sharp fingernails.

Before he could stop her she had drawn blood around his eyes.

Grabbing for his face, he let out a loud cry of pain.

Seizing the opportunity, Lauralee gave him a shove, causing him to lose his balance.

She then raised a knee and planted it squarely in his groin.

This sent him from the bed yowling and clutching himself.

Lauralee rolled from the bed. Her eyes were on a holstered pistol that hung from a peg on the wall.

Her heart pounding so much that she felt as though her body was one large throbbing, she made a lunge for the pistol.

Just as she had it in her hand she screamed with pain when Clint grabbed her by the hair again and gave it a hard yank. The pain was so severe it felt as if her entire scalp had been pulled from her head.

He dragged her to the floor.

He released her hair and placed a foot on her stomach as he bent over to reach for his pistol.

“Ain’t you a hellcat?” He chuckled. “Just like that lady I was tellin’ you about.”

In Lauralee’s mind’s eye she recalled her mother fighting off the Yankee, only to be knocked to the floor over and over again.

Lauralee had been too afraid to move as she had gazed at the man’s holstered pistol. She had wanted to run from beneath the staircase to the man and grab the pistol. But her father had always taught her the dangers of firearms. He had told her never to touch his pistol. He had warned her that curious children accidentally shot themselves every day.

He had put the fear of God in her about firearms; so much that she had not been able to take the man’s firearm away from him when she had the opportunity while . . . he . . . was raping her mother.

The guilt tore at her heart even now for having not saved her mother. She remembered closing her eyes and saying the prayer that she had said with her mother every night before she went to sleep....