A Horse Called Mogollon (Floating Outfit Book 3) Read Free Page B

improve his technique. Tall, dark-haired,
handsome, he had a fine, virile body under his uniform. Certainly
he was the best prospect of all the men who would be accompanying
herself and her husband.
    Watching Lebel cross the street,
Beatrice chuckled even more. He had drawn up and knotted his yellow
bandana to conceal the marks left on his neck by her teeth. Then
the chuckle died away as she noticed something which jolted her
attention from the young officer.
    ‘ Mon
Dieu!’ breathed the Vicomtesse, but the tone and the glow that sprang into her
eyes was neither pious nor reverent. ‘Now there is a real man.’
    Probably the same sentiments
would have occurred to the majority of women: even if they did
not utter
them with such heartfelt vehemence and immediately start to plan
how to lure the man who had attracted the comment into
bed.
    Striding by Lebel, the object of
the Vicomtesse’s attention exceeded the lieutenant’s six foot by a good
three inches. Under a white Stetson, its band decorated by silver
conchas, curly golden-blond hair topped a tanned, classically
handsome face. A tight-rolled blue silk bandana dangled its long
ends down a tan shirt that, like his brown Levi’s trousers, had
been made to his measure. That tremendously wide-shouldered,
lean-waisted giant frame could not have been clothed so perfectly
from the shelves of a general store. His trousers’ legs hung
outside fancy-stitched high-heeled boots produced by the same
masterly hands which had made his gun belt. Of brown leather, the
latter carried a brace of ivory-handled Army Colts, in the
fast-draw holsters tied low on his thighs.
    Gripped in his left hand by its
horn, a heavy range saddle bearing his bedroll, a coiled rope and a booted
rifle, rested upon his right shoulder as if it weighed five rather
than over fifty pounds. Eagerly Beatrice’s eyes roamed over him,
stripping away his clothing in her imagination and feasting her
gaze on the immensely powerful body that must surely lie beneath
them.
    With a sense of ecstatic elation
she observed that the blond giant was turning and walking towards
the building in which she stood. For the first time since her
arrival, she found herself regarding Fort Sawyer’s finest hotel with
something like favor. A dandy-dresser like that handsome blond
would certainly make use of the place if he planned to stay in the
town. Which meant that she would be saved the trouble of going to
find him and could all the quicker come down to serious
matters.
    In a fever of eagerness,
anticipation and excitement, Beatrice ran to the bed and started to
dress. A glance in the dressing table’s mirror told her that she needed
to give her face some attention. With the adjustments made, she
slipped into a white silk blouse, feeling its cool embrace against
her naked torso and leaving its flounced front open just a shade
lower than could be termed decorous. A divided skirt of soft
doeskin came next, ending just below the tops of her calf-high
black riding boots. To emphasize the slender contours of her waist
and set off her hips and bust to their best advantage, she drew
tight the decorative silver buckle of a wide black leather belt.
Deftly she adjusted a scarlet silk band about the rear of her head
to hold her glossy hair tight behind her ears then allow it to
dangle loose on her shoulders. Finally she donned a pair of black
leather riding-gloves to hide her wedding ring from the blond’s
view.
    Satisfied that she presented a
picture no red-blooded man could ignore, Beatrice left her room.
When the big blond failed to appear in the passage, she went down
the stairs. Preparing to give a cough, or some equally
attention-drawing sound, she came into sight of the entrance hall
and its reception desk. What she saw brought her to a halt and
tightened her full lips into angry lines. While she had been
dressing, it appeared that another woman had beaten her to her
quarry. Not, the Vicomtesse told herself, that the other would be a