Anna Finch and the Hired Gun Read Free

Ludicrous as that seemed, she had shot a man, then fled the scene.
    Perhaps she’d done the noble thing by preventing him from committing whatever crime he had planned for that day. Though he seemed to be a nice man and not in need of shooting in any way, he
had
admitted to some discourse with train robbers. She tried to rein Maisie in so she could better logic this out.
    If a potential crime was not committed due to her panicked mistake, then shooting him wasn’t the awful act it felt like. And it did feel awful to actually put a bullet in someone. Or rather “wing him,” as the stranger had said.
    Her conscience stinging, Anna knew she should go straight to the police and give them a description of the criminal. He was tall, a full head above her in height, and broad of shoulder. Much more so than Papa or any of the men her sisters had wed.
    What else? Her writer’s eye sought out the details.
    Dark hair. Longish and a bit mussed, though likely from his nap behind the log. His skin was burnished brown by the sun. He had a scar just to the left of the dimple in his chin.
    Despite good breeding and better sense, she thought of what he’d revealed with a lift of his shirt. His skin was darker than hers even in places that should have rarely seen the sun. And a scar lay just to the right of …
    She blinked to remove the image, then felt like a fool. What modern woman was shocked by the dark and muscled midsection of a healthy specimen of the opposite sex? Hadn’t artists made great sculptures and paintings from the same subject matter? Between her time at Wellesley and her many trips to the Continent, she’d seen her share. And the man had worn trousers. It wasn’t as if she were staring at Michelangelo’s
David
. Though what little she saw of his torso bested the Italian statue by a Colorado mile.
    Anna blushed at her own brazen thought.
    Bypassing the secluded spot where she usually slipped out of her trousers and into her more feminine riding attire, Anna took a deepbreath and let it out slowly as she lowered her head, allowing Maisie to find her way home. While she never completely lost the fear of being recognized, Anna had learned that a slight youth astride a mare attracted little attention on any street in Denver. Even hers. Today she had neither the strength nor the steadiness of hand to negotiate the ordeal of buttons and ribbons involved in her other set of clothing. Better she slip home unnoticed and race to her chambers.
    Anna kept her hat low and her head down as she rode the last quarter mile past familiar gates and beautiful lawns. As was her custom, she jumped off the horse behind the Finch stables and allowed the groom to take the reins. Only then did the reality of what happened—of what could have happened—hit her with full force.
    She could have killed a man.
    Or, given that he was obviously sleeping in a log because he didn’t want to be found, he could have killed her.
    A welling up of emotion stalled her and rendered her legs useless. The familiar world blurred, leaving only smudges of color. Green, blue, and gold swirled around her.
    Her legs began to shake, and her feet inched forward. The stable boy asked a question and she managed a nod, though she had no idea what he’d said. Another inch forward, another victory for knees that knocked and hands that shook as they felt for the rough boards of the stable.
    She could have killed a man.
    This was not fiction. Not some Mae Winslow adventure with guns blazing and outlaws fleeing to Boot Hill in a bloodless battle that killed them nonetheless. This was real.
    He was real. A real, live, breathing man, with eyes the color of a gray winter day and hair that matched the cherry wood of Mama’s grand piano. A man who would forever be scarred by the bullet that, had it hit him a hair’s breadth to the left, could have ripped through his gut and caused a slow and painful death.
    While Maisie was led away, Anna slipped into the thick shrubs that