Dance With A Gunfighter Read Free Page B

shoulder, she
frowned at him for all she was worth, hoping he would have the decency to go
away and leave her alone here at the stables with her father’s buckboard and
the ranch horses. "Like hell!" she said. "I don’t have anything
to do with the boys around here."
    He lowered his foot to the ground and straightened. She
thought she saw his mouth twitch, as if he were thinking about laughing at her
again. She turned to face him square on and frowned harder. Just let him try
it.
    "You fancy yourself a tough little miss, don’t
you?"
    She raised her chin. "I have no fancies about
anything."
    "Do you dance?"
    "Of course I do." She smoothed the skirt of her
yellow dress. "But there’s no one I wish to dance with." Her chin
went up even higher to show him how little the dance mattered to her. She
walked a few steps away, hoping that would make it clear to this pesky stranger
that any conversation with him was ended.
    McLowry watched her go, and only when her back was turned
did he allow the grin he had been fighting for the past few minutes, ever since
she had first raised that small, defiant chin in a gesture of complete bravado.
From the time she had struck the match and it lit up a gamin-like face with
huge dark eyes, a bow-shaped mouth and a straight nose dusted with freckles, he
had seen she was far too young and innocent for him. Still, he couldn’t help
but wonder what she was doing out here and what had her so obviously upset.
    He had figured it out now. He recognized the symptoms, and
remembered enough of his own awkwardness as a youth to grasp the real story
here. He had bet anything the right boy hadn’t asked her to dance, or maybe
nobody had danced with her. He could see where boys her age might ignore this
girl.
    She was pretty in an offbeat way. Her wide, brown eyes
were warm and friendly, eyes that carried her feelings right up front where the
world could see them. He guessed she was only fourteen, fifteen or so. Her body
was slender, but he could discern a budding woman’s figure. She carried herself
with a bold, sassy assurance that probably scared the boys she knew half to
death. Young men usually thought delicate, doll-like creatures were the only
girls worth pursuing. They had a lot to learn.
    He had learned plenty about women and other equally
dangerous things in his twenty-three, or so, years. He had stopped counting a
long time ago. With all he had seen and done in life, he felt he should be
about a hundred.
    He took out his tobacco and began to build a cigarette.
"What’s your name?" he asked.
    "Gabe."
    "Gabe?" He couldn’t stop the grin this time.
"I can’t see calling a girl by a boy’s name."
    "Nobody’s asked you to."
    Well, that put him in his place all right. "That’s
true."
    "My full name’s Gabriella," she announced.
    "That’s pretty." He lit his cigarette.
    Her mouth tightened. "I gave a fat lip to the last
person who called me by it."
    "I’ll keep that in mind, Gabe ," he
replied with great seriousness.
    Slowly, her mouth spread into a grin.
    Fiddlers began playing a fast-paced quadrille. She
clutched one elbow and turned toward the music, a wistful expression flickering
across her face before she faced him once more. "Do you have a name?"
she asked.
    "This week it’s Jess McLowry."
    One eyebrow rose. "And next?"
    "Depends on how much trouble Jess McLowry gets
into."
    He watched her initial incredulity turn into amusement as she
gave him a sidelong glance, one that would have been flirtatious if it were
given by a woman a little older, a little more experienced. "I see."
Her voice was almost a whisper and sounded suddenly knowing in a way that
jarred him.
    She was at that age where girls are an odd mixture of
child and woman, and changed from one to the other quicker than the colors
change in a desert sunset.
    McLowry tore his gaze from her and looked up at the clear
night sky. He had been at a mining camp on his last job. Clearly, he had spent
too long there if a slip of a girl