Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance) Read Free

lifeless eyes that weren’t set above the deadly fangs of a rattler.
    Her dread mounted.
    He seemed completely unaffected by the scene he’d stumbled across. Only a knot riding the ridge of his jawline betrayed any emotion.
    Slowly, he shook his head. “This is a sorry sight.”
    His voice—low, dulcet, and somehow too calm—sent a tingle slithering down Evangeline’s spine. Who was this man?
    Still favoring the hand she’d bitten, Jed’s fleshy lips curved in an insolent sneer. “What the hell do you want, Rainman?”
    Rainman? It sounded like the moniker of some traveling preacher claiming mystical power over the weather.
    “I’ve come for the woman,” the stranger replied with the same unnerving calm. “She’s mine now, so walk away from her.”
    “Like hell!” Jed spat. “We found her first. What makes you think you can just waltz in—”
    She never saw him move, yet the sun flashed from the nickel-plated barrel of the Colt as it materialized in the stranger’s hand.
    Jed’s mouth clapped shut around the words he’d intended to speak.
    The stranger thumbed back the hammer; the ominous clicks of a well-oiled cylinder cut through the silence. He arched one dark, insolent brow. “Now that I have your attention, I advise you to walk away—while you still can.”
    Jed huffed a noisy breath, then dropped his chin to his chest, as if conceding defeat. Evangeline saw that he still held the wicked Arkansas toothpick in his hand.
    The thought had barely registered when the flashing blade rose in a blur of speed. In the same instant, the stranger’s gun exploded.
    It happened so fast, she barely had time to flinch.
    Jed looked down at the crimson ribbon threading the front of his shirt. His eyes rolled upward in their sockets, and he gave one convulsive twitch. Like a tower of cards, his body buckled and he dropped face-first on the ground.
    Still with the smoking gun in his hand, the stranger pinned Jed’s gaunt companion with a lethal glare. “What about you?”
    His Adam’s apple lurching, the weasel lifted his hands from his sides in a gesture of surrender and turned toward his horse. As he vaulted into the saddle and kicked the animal into action, he grabbed the reins of Jed’s riderless mount. The horses raced over the vacant landscape with a small sandstorm rolling behind them.
    The stranger no longer even watched.
    The hammer clicked as he released it and slipped his gun back into the holster. Fresh panic jolted through her when she realized his attention now centered on her.
    His dead eyes appeared to snap, like a flash of heat lightning, until they fairly blazed. Her faint hope of salvation withered completely under that searing gaze.
    Moving the reins over the horse’s head, he dismounted with fluid grace and started toward her with the slow, lithe gait of a stalking predator.
    Evangeline’s erratic pulse leaped. The man exuded danger on every level.
    She sprang to her feet. With each step he took, she retreated, keeping a safe distance between them.
    She’s mine, he’d said... but not if she could help it.
    Slowly, Rane approached the woman. After the ordeal she’d just endured, he feared she’d collapse. The last thing he needed was a hysterical female on his hands.
    Earlier, at the relay station, he’d thought her a striking beauty. He hadn’t expected a vision to step from the stage. If that old driver hadn’t called to her, he might have let her get right by him, uncertain of her identity.
    Now, as the wind wildly stirred her pale hair about her face, the wary lowering of her lashes too closely resembled seduction. The mounds of ample, creamy breasts swelled at the top of her corset with each heaving breath.
    Maldito! She was the devil’s own temptation.
    When she backed away, her eyes held the frantic look of a cornered animal. He wasn’t surprised when she whirled and bolted.
    In five running steps, he reached out and snagged the flapping tail of her jacket. Without slowing,