Dance With A Gunfighter Read Free Page A

if it were a straw. A hot, ragged, burning sensation filled
her mouth and lungs.
    Shaking out the match was all she could do before she
dropped the cigarette and doubled over in a spasm of coughing. Her eyes, nose
and throat burned so badly she was sure she was dying.
    A man’s laughter broke through her coughing and gasping,
and at the same time someone took hold of her arm and whacked her hard on the
back.
    "Damn it!" she yelled. She tried to pull free,
groping blindly, her eyes tearing too heavily to open them.
    "Smoke’s got to get out so you can breathe." The
man had a pleasant Southern accent and voice she couldn’t place. He slapped her
back a few more times. Finally, her eyes began to clear.
    "Enough!" she cried.
    "Are you all right?" he asked, still holding her
arm.
    His words were kind, but Gabe heard the laughter in his
inflection. Now, even strangers mocked her! She was sick of being laughed at.
"Get your filthy hands off me or you’ll be sorry!"
    Raising his hands in mock horror, the man backed away from
her. He shimmered in a teary-eyed haze. She coughed, blinking hard, until she
could make him out in the moonlight. He was tall, with a rangy slimness and
broad shoulders. A black, flat-crowned Stetson worn low on his brow shadowed
eyes that were no more than a hard gleam. His hair was long in back, fair in
color, and wavy as a whittler’s chips. A gold-colored mustache spanned the
width of his upper lip and curved down along-side deeply tanned cheeks.
Noticing it, she noticed, too, that he was still grinning at her discomfort.
    She frowned at the cigarette, then stepped on it to put it
out. "I must have smoked it wrong."
    "I would say so." He stood loose and easy
watching her, shoulders sloped, one thumb hooked on his pocket.
    Her gaze followed his long, slender hand to his gun-belt
and tied-down holster. Holsters were tied down for one reason--so the guns in
them could be drawn fast.
    Quickly, she raised her eyes, meeting his. "Who are
you?"
    "Just someone passing though." His mouth curved
into a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. A shiver touched her spine.
Instinctively, she knew he wouldn’t tell more. He was secretive, this stranger,
and had a comfort with the night that gave her pause. She studied him with
frank interest.
    "Haven’t you been taught that young ladies don’t
smoke?" His accent, with the softness of the South, was mellow and
educated sounding, not the quick, nasal slur she was used to hearing around
Jackson City.
    "Hell," she muttered. "I don’t give a
cayoot’s damn what young ladies do."
    His grin widened. "Young ladies don’t swear
either."
    She casually shrugged. "I’ve never been mistaken for
one yet."
    He cocked his head. "Your mother’ll take a switch to
you if she hears you say things like that, miss, especially to a man. In a few
years, he just might mistake your meaning."
    He jus’ maht mistake yoah meanin’. She didn’t think
sassafras molasses could be any smoother. She folded her arms. "My ma’s dead,
so I don’t have to worry. And as for men, I don’t give a fig what they
think."
    He laughed, but cut it short and caught her eye instead.
He seemed to study her, as she did him, but she couldn’t imagine why he
bothered. He placed a foot on the water trough and leaned forward, resting his
elbow on his thigh. With his thumb, he tilted back his hat.
    For the first time she could see that his eyes were light
blue and that his face was rather pleasing...which surprised her since he
didn’t at all resemble Johnny Anderson.
    "I guess," he said softly, his drawl coating his
words, "that’s why you’re out here swiping cigarettes instead of at the
dance."
    A pang hit her stomach and twisted. She spun away from
him, her arms crossed, and her back stiff. "I do as I please. Not that
it’s any business of yours, stranger ."
    "Are you waiting for someone?" he asked.
"Maybe expecting a beau to come along and give you a kiss?"
    Her cheeks flamed. Peering at him over her