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Lori silently cursed Gideon for the next two hours. From time to time, she glared at the scraggly-haired, bewhiskered outlaw with a beak of a nose and close-set hazel eyes. The man leered at her every chance he got. She’d dealt with his kind on numerous occasions when travelers and stagecoach passengers passed by the trading post and ferry. She had been propositioned so many times in the past six years that she swore she had heard every line a man could dream up.
If Pecos Clem thought he could shock or impress her with his comments, he was sadly mistaken. Besides, he couldn’t leave much of an impression on her because the brawny marshal rode between them, partially blocking her view of Clem.
Of course, Lori didn’t have time to pay any mind to Clem because she’d focused all her anger and frustration on Gideon.
Restlessly she twisted her hands. The cuffs were rubbing her wrists raw. If she’d known then what she knew now, she would have accepted Tony’s surprising proposal and ridden off with him before the bushwhacker aimed and fired.
Instead, she’d tried to be fair and honest with Tony. And what good did that do? He’d been killed and a hard-nosed marshal who saw her as a dollar sign had captured her. He refused to listen to her side of the story, damn him.
When they reached the rise of ground above the marshals’ encampment, which sat halfway up a hill, Lori realized that she would soon be housed in a jail wagon with six male prisoners. Frustration and disgust seized her, making her shiver apprehensively.
“I want to see to my needs before I find myself without the slightest privacy,” she blurted out.
She met Gideon’s speculative stare without batting an eye. No doubt, he was trying to figure out if this was an escape attempt, before he caged her like a wild animal.
After a long-suffering sigh, he nodded his raven head. “Okay, we’ll stop for a moment.” He glanced sternly at Clem. “What about you? You need to relieve yourself?”
“I’d like to relieve myself of my half-breed captor, if that’s what you’re asking,” Clem retorted.
Lori gauged Gideon’s reaction to the racist comment. He didn’t change expression, just tethered Clem and his mount to a nearby tree. Then he turned those intense blue eyes on her.
“Come on, hellion. Make it fast,” he murmured as he led her away from Clem.
To her outrage, he used a coil of rope like a leash so she couldn’t get more than ten feet away from him. “At least grant me minimal modesty and turn your head,” she grumbled as she circled behind the nearest bush.
He didn’t honor her request, just looked over her head while she struggled to tug down her breeches with her hands bound together.
“When you wind up in hell, Fox, I hope you’re forced to listen to stories from all the tormented souls you sent there by mistake.”
His gaze dropped to hers. “A lot of men have wished me in hell,” he replied nonchalantly.
“Be sure to add my name to that list,” she retaliated, and watched the makings of a smile twitch the sensuous curve of his lips.
Gideon Fox might enjoy watching her face turn candy-apple red from embarrassment because he wouldn’t grant her privacy, but somehow, someday, she vowed to have the last laugh. He could apologize until he lost his voice for refusing to believe she was innocent but she wouldn’t forgive him for putting her through this humiliation. That is, if Judge Parker didn’t sentence her to hang from the gallows before she located the man who really committed this awful crime against Tony.
With what little dignity Gideon allowed, Lori fastened herself up. She nearly tripped when he tugged on her leash unexpectedly. She glowered at him and said, “Shall I come to heel or sit up like a trick dog? Or is this humiliation enough to satisfy you for the time being?”
“It’s not my job to pamper you,” he assured her tartly.
“Gee, and I thought you were such a nice, accommodating fellow when I first met you,” she sassed him.
She wished she’d kept the comment to herself when he stepped toward her, eclipsing the sun that had finally fought its way through the fog. The same unwanted sensations of awareness and attraction that had been hounding her all day assailed her again.
She’d been unnerved when he sprawled on top of her and then encircled her in his sinewy arms while they rocked together suggestively on Drifter’s back. Even now, when she was as irritated with him as she could get, those shocking feelings of sexual excitement bombarded her.
She tilted her head to compensate for the difference between her and his six-foot-four-inch, rock-hard masculine body. A jolt of awareness zapped her again—much to her baffled amazement.
The man was practically standing on top of her, his powerful male body inches away from hers. He reminded her of the predatory panthers that roamed the Osage Hills. A lithe, powerful creature that called no one master. The ridiculous impulse to reach out to measure the breadth of his chest assailed her. How was it possible to dislike a man so much and still be physically attracted to him?
Clearly, witnessing Tony’s senseless death and running for her life had destroyed her sanity.
“Hellion,” he said as he leaned down to stick his ruggedly handsome face in hers, “I’ve tolerated your snippy comments long enough. I’ve reached my limit so hush up.”
“If you’ve reached your supposed limit, why didn’t you backhand Clem and send him cartwheeling off his horse after he made those disgusting, racist comments about your mixed heritage? I wanted to slap him for you and I don’t even like you very much myself.”
He arched a thick black brow and studied her intently with those piercing blue eyes of his. “You don’t share Clem’s low opinion of my people?”
“My father taught me to live and let live,” she insisted. “I have nothing against the people we serve at the trading post. Indian or white, doesn’t matter. There’s an overabundance of cads and scoundrels from every race, creed and color, as far as I can tell.”
“Live and let live?” he repeated caustically while he stared at her lips, making her wonder what it would be like to kiss him. “Except for former lovers who test your temper, you mean?”
The taunt ignited her fury in one second flat and made her wonder why she speculated about his kisses. Before she realized what she’d done, she plowed her manacled fists into his belly, forcing him to double over and gasp for breath. When he reflexively lowered his head to protect himself, she upraised her bound hands and smacked his chin. His head snapped back as he stumbled and fell into a graceless sprawl.
Chapter Three
Lori wheeled around to escape from the infuriating marshal who tormented and humiliated her to no end. She yanked on the leash, hoping he’d lose his grasp, but he held on tightly. She yelped when he jerked hard, pulling her off balance. Before she hit the ground, he was looming over her, looking as fierce and deadly as any four-legged predator she’d ever encountered.
“Don’t try to escape because you’ll never win,” he growled harshly.
“If I hadn’t been half-starved these past few days, I’d have had the strength to put up a better fight,” she blurted before she could bite back the remark.
“It was fight enough, hellion. But it damn well better be the last because I won’t go this easy on you next time.”
“You call this going easy?” She gave an unladylike sniff and glared in defiance.
“If you get on my bad side, honey, I guarantee that I will make your life miserable,” he said menacingly.
“I suspect that all your sides are bad sides,” she countered before good sense warned her to shut her mouth.
Curse it, her knee-jerk reaction was to sass him. It was like asking to die. She couldn’t understand why she couldn’t restrain her rebelliousness when he looked so ominous.
“I just gave you a test and you failed it.”
She grumbled under her breath. She should’ve known he’d purposely provoked her. And she was too sensitive to everything he said and did. Consequently, her temper got the better of her and she’d reacted the same way she did to men’s unwanted advances. She fought back. It was a natural reflex.
“Not only are you willing but also quite capable of violence,” he told her as he eased down on her hips to restrict her movement. “You provoked me to retaliate,” she muttered begrudgingly. “You bring out the worst in me.”
“I’m left to wonder if your former lover refused to marry you and that’s why you shot him.”
“That is not what happened and I don’t like you at all, Gideon Fox,” she said with a spiteful hiss.
“I can live with that.” He stared intently at her. “Are you carrying his child and he rejected you?”
His suspicion outraged her. “No, I’m not!”
To her further frustration, having Gideon sitting on her in such a suggestive manner left her thoughts galloping off in the most improper direction. She could not possibly be attracted to this maddening marshal…could she? He taunted her, provoked her, tested her…and still she lay here wondering how she would respond if he leaned down and kissed her, despite the stubble of his five o’clock shadow that had progressed past the shadow stage days earlier.
She’d gone insane. That was the only logical explanation.
Her emotions were in the worst possible turmoil. An unknown assailant had shot at her accidentally. Tony had died tragically. Two hired hands from the stage station—and maybe the killer himself—were chasing after her. She’d gone to Gideon Fox for protection and he had arrested her.
Fool that she was, she’d looked to him for comfort and support and he believed her to be guilty—without bothering to open an investigation.
Her thoughts scattered when his raven head moved deliberately toward hers. The air practically popped and crackled between them as he settled his sensuous lips over hers. The scrape of his whiskers was in direct contrast to the surprisingly gentle manner that he stole the breath right out of her lungs. His tongue glided into her mouth and he breathed new life into her.
Lori closed her eyes involuntarily. When he settled suggestively on top of her, the tension melted from her body and she instinctively shifted beneath him, unsure what she wanted or needed, but she definitely needed something his mind-boggling kisses only hinted at.
This man—her sworn enemy who believed the worst about her—was not supposed to taste like heaven or make her feel these warm, throbbing sensations that left no part of her body untouched. But he did.
Before she realized what she’d done, she looped her bound hands over his head and emulated his arousing technique. Suddenly she was ravishing his mouth as he’d ravaged hers. She matched him, kiss for impatient kiss, using everything he had unknowingly taught her. She hoped he felt half as devastated as she did while they were chest-to-chest, hip-to-hip and kiss-to-breathless-kiss.
She shifted restlessly as he nudged his knee between her legs. The erotic sensations he incited took on a life of their own as she breathed him in, tasted him, teased him as he teased her with tantalizing kisses that seemed to go on forever.
His hands moved over the fabric covering her breasts and she arched helplessly into him when the fire of desire burned brighter, more intense. She forgot to breathe when his hand settled between her legs, touching her in that secret place where she burned for him the most.
Then, while she lay breathless, yielding and starving for something she couldn’t name, he reared back, nearly jerking her arms from her shoulder sockets. Scowling, he grabbed her wrists and pulled her bound arms over his head. He stared at her with the strangest expression, as if she had somehow betrayed him. Though why he would think any such thing made no sense to her. Honestly, nothing about the last few minutes made any sense to her.
“I suppose I just failed another of your mysterious tests, Marshal Fox,” she said, her voice nowhere near as steady as she’d hoped. “I consider it very unfair that you don’t give me time to study for these spur-of-the-moment tests.”
His expression transformed into a scowl as he hauled her to her feet and set her away from him. He said not one word as he shepherded her back to where Clem was tethered to his horse and the tree, then tossed her unceremoniously on Drifter’s back. Then he tied her hands and feet in place.
While they rode toward camp, with Clem in tow, Lori forcefully discarded the memory of kissing Gideon Hard-Hearted Fox for all she was worth and of him kissing her back with the same wild, reckless desperation. She fixed her attention on the three marshals guarding the wagon where five outlaws sat cross-legged in a six-by-eight-foot jail cage.
“This is what the first level of my private hell looks like,” she murmured to herself as they approached camp.
It’s what she deserved for kissing Gideon Fox…and liking it so much.
Gideon cursed himself up one side and down the other for his unprofessional mishandling of Lori’s escape attempt and the subsequent embrace. Damn the woman! She’d stunned him by knocking the air out of him. If she’d hit him harder with her doubled fists she could’ve broken his jaw, but she knew how much pressure to apply without maiming. Her double-fisted uppercut had jarred him. And embarrassed the hell out of him.
So naturally, he’d punished her by kissing her—and inadvertently punished himself to the extreme.
Hell and damn! Was he out of his mind? Must be. There was no other reasonable explanation for his inexcusable behavior. Unless you counted being bewitched by a wicked siren that lured him into the depths of forbidden desire and left him drowning in erotic pleasure.
Gideon was thoroughly ashamed of kissing her—and yearning for another taste of her. He’d tested her temper on purpose and he’d provoked her to retaliate. Unfortunately, he’d also discovered that no matter how mad she made him, he couldn’t resist kissing her lush pink lips, sinking into her soft body and skimming his hands over her tantalizing curves and swells.
Gideon decided he was more than ready for a mental and physical break from the grueling demands of chasing fugitives, sleeping with one eye open and standing at the ready to fight for his life. Dealing with criminals who’d just as soon kill him as look at him was wearing him down. Hence, his absurd reaction to the lady renegade he toted to camp.
When he reached camp, every pair of male eyes zeroed in on Lori. Her trim-fitting clothing called entirely too much attention to her tempting body. Fellow marshals and outlaws alike drooled and fantasized about doing the same thing he’d done several minutes earlier.
He had no reason whatsoever to feel protective or possessive, just because he’d impulsively kissed this seductive woman who was wanted for murder.
You’d think the charges against her would be deterrent enough. But no, he’d ignored common sense in his reckless desire to taste her and touch her.
Gideon shifted his attention to Pecos Clem, who was glaring hot pokers at his two cohorts—the men Gideon had forcefully persuaded to give up their leader’s hiding place.
“Nice work, Fox,” Deputy U.S. Marshal Stephen Wilson remarked while he made a close inspection of Lori’s feminine assets—and she had plenty of them, damn it. Then Phen dragged his eyes off her long enough to glance questioningly at Gideon. “Who is she, and does she have a few sisters who look just like her?”
The other men snickered at Phen’s question…until Gideon said, “This is Lorelei Russell. Remember the name?”
The three marshals studied her speculatively then frowned. A moment later Deputy U.S. Marshal Noel Perkins strode over to untie Pecos Clem’s feet from the stirrups then hauled him to the ground. “Your friends have been missing you, Clem. Glad you can join them.”
Dismounting, Gideon walked over to untie Lori’s feet. Instead of pulling her none too gently from the saddle, as Perkins had done to Clem, he clamped his hands on her narrow waist…and wished the hell he hadn’t. Touching her again, no matter how inadvertently or innocently, sparked fiery sensations and memories of their scorching-hot kisses. The minute her feet touched the ground he set her away from him, as if he’d been burned—because that’s exactly how he felt.
While she stared up at him, her golden eyes smoldering with anger and resentment, he turned away. He gestured to the three marshals who waited introduction.
“Lorelei Russell, these are my compatriots. Phen Wilson, Noel Perkins and Mitch Hines. They ride for Parker, same as I do.” He gestured toward the jail wagon. “Two of the men in the cage are with Pecos Clem. The other three are Chester Felding, Leland Bates and Ambrose Thomas. They are wanted in Missouri for bank robbery and assault.”
Lori surveyed the scruffy men in the metal cage, then inwardly cringed at the prospect of being stuffed in the mobile jail with them. Felding, who had a square face, bulky shoulders and a missing front tooth, leered at her as if she were standing naked. Thomas, a frizzy red-haired, overweight prisoner with arms and legs like tree stumps, licked his lips as if she were his next meal.
Bates reminded her of a rat with his pointy nose, dark, beady eyes and scarecrow-thin features. His leer made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
Clem’s two cohorts were no better. The scraggly scoundrels ogled her unblinkingly, making her squirm uncomfortably.
Repulsed, she shifted her attention to the three deputy marshals who scrutinized her closely. Better the devil I know, she thought, glancing sideways at Gideon. Then again, she might find compassion in one of the other lawmen.
She hadn’t found it in Gideon Tough-As-Nails-Fox.
Lori tossed around a polite smile to Phen Wilson, the lanky, blond-haired marshal with pale blue eyes, high cheekbones and a cleft in his chin. He looked to be thirty-five or thereabouts.
Noel Perkins was about the same age as Phen Wilson. He had straight brown hair and hazel eyes. He was thick-chested, stocky and not as tall as Gideon, who towered over everyone.
Mitch Hines had a friendly smile and Lori hoped she could count on him for the simplest of necessities during her captivity. She nodded a greeting to Mitch, whose gray eyes swept over her in careful assessment a second time. His sandy blond head was a little too big for his narrow shoulders, but she predicted he was quick of foot and as agile as a cat.
She wouldn’t want to get into a footrace with him during an escape attempt—if and when she could manage one.
The impulse to flee suddenly assailed her and she shifted restlessly from one scuffed boot to the other.
“Don’t even think about it,” Gideon murmured, as if he’d read her mind, damn him. “The odds are not in your favor. There isn’t an incompetent lawman in the bunch.”
“The odds are against me no matter where I go,” she grumbled. “You refuse to listen to my side of the story and you won’t accompany me home to investigate.”
When he infuriated her by tugging on the rope leash still attached to her metal bracelets, she glared holes in his broad back. Lori had never felt so outraged and powerless and she never wanted to feel this way again. It was humiliating and exasperating and she blamed all her woes on Gideon Fox.
He was so blasted mistrusting and cynical…and it incensed her to no end this bullheaded marshal physically appealed to her. She thought she had better taste in men!
“What are you going to do with her?” Phen Wilson asked. “We can’t cage her with those men and you damn well know it.”
Gideon glanced this way and that. “We’ll stake her out under a shade tree,” he suggested.
Perkins glanced over at Lori and frowned. “That sounds a little harsh. She’s a woman.”
“A woman wanted for murder,” Gideon reminded him. “She didn’t show her last lover much sympathy.”
Lori stamped her foot in frustration. “He was not my lover,” she protested. “He was my friend and I didn’t kill him. For all I know my friend was hiding out in the territory, like your prisoners, and a bounty hunter identified him, shot him and claimed the reward for Tony after I left. I might have been cleared of this disastrous mistake—” she doubted it, but there was an outside chance “—but Marshal Fox refuses to take me back to find out for certain!”
As the other three marshals stared pensively at her she kept talking, hoping to sway them into being lenient and volunteering to check out her story. “Please consider that I’m upset about Tony’s death. It’s bad enough that he proposed and I turned him down right before someone ambushed him and very nearly shot me in the process. There are questions that need to be answered!”
“Why’d you turn him down?” Mitch Hines asked curiously.
