A Love to Cherish Read Free Page A

Walker. That’s two bits for the beans and coffee.”
    “Sorry,” Casey mumbled as he dug in his pocket for change. She’s as skittish as a colt, he thought as he watched her limp away into the kitchen. Not that he could blame her. If Isabelle Henderson wasindeed Belle Parker, she had good reason to be wary. She had to know that T.J. McAllister was breathing down her neck.
    Gulping down the last of his coffee, Casey decided to get a hotel room and plan how to proceed with the young widow. Besides himself, the only customer left in the eatery was the man who had been sucking on a cup of coffee when he’d entered the establishment. From the corner of his eye Casey saw the man stumble to his feet and lurch toward the kitchen. Casey thought it rather odd but, then nothing about this assignment seemed normal.
    Casey paused as he ambled toward the front door, wondering if Belle, or Isabelle, as she called herself, was plying her trade in the kitchen. It certainly seemed to prove that McAllister had been right about her being a whore. He was actually relieved. Knowing that McAllister was right made his job easier to swallow. He continued on his way. His hand was on the doorknob when a strangled cry stopped him in his tracks.
    He whirled on his heel, listening, trying to decide if what he’d heard were cries of passion and he should mind his own business. Then it came again, only this time the cries sounded desperate and frightened and were followed by a crash of dishes. Raw instinct set his long legs into motion as he hurried toward the kitchen. He stopped abruptly in the open doorway and stared in consternation at the couple grappling on the kitchen table.
    The woman had been shoved onto the table, which had been hastily cleared of dishes. Her skirts had been shoved up to her waist as the huge miner tried to mount her. The woman’s small fists flailed at the miner but were as ineffectual as gnat stings against the burly man nearly three times her size.
    “Aw, come on, Belle, be nice to me,” the miner cajoled. “I got plenty of gold dust in my poke to pay ya for a little tumble. It ain’t like ya ain’t done it before. Ya got a son to prove it. I’ll bet ya weren’t even married, let alone a widow. Come on, Belle, open yer legs.”
    “Get off of me, Pike Dinks, you drunken oaf, unless you want Wan Yo to come after you!”
    Dinks laughed gleefully. “That old Chinaman couldn’t hurt a flea.”
    “You’ll find willing women in any one of the numerous saloons in town.”
    Dinks gave Belle a sloppy kiss, shoved his knee between her legs and his hands inside her bodice. “Ain’t enough whores to go around. I want you.”
    When Casey saw where the miner’s hands were he flew into a rage. He couldn’t recall when he felt so protective toward a woman, especially one who had been a whore before her marriage and was probably used to being mauled. Hell, maybe she liked it. But he didn’t. It stuck in his craw to see her abused by a drunken, foul-mouthed miner. Upon further consideration, Casey decided she didn’t look at all like she enjoyed being roughed up.
    Belle shoved against Dinks with all her might, feeling like a bird trapped beneath his considerable bulk. She should have known better than to turn her back on Dinks. This wasn’t the first time the miner had tried to assault her. She could smell booze on his breath and hadn’t realized when he’d come in for lunch that he was drunk. When she felt his knee between her legs and his hands fumbling inside her bodice, she clamped her teeth down hard on his shoulder.
    Dinks cried out, shaking himself free. “Ya littlebitch! You’ll pay for that.” His fist flew backward, but before he could bring it forward he went sailing through the air. He landed on the floor at Casey’s feet.
    “Pick on someone your own size,” Casey said, baring his teeth in a feral smile. His eyes were luminous with anger and his face was the twisted visage from hell.
    Dinks blinked up