Nora Read Free

He was amazed that he felt insulted.
    But he merely inclined his head, glancing aroundat her stacks of luggage. “Are you moving in?” he drawled.
    Her eyes widened. “These are the bare necessities,” she defended. “I must have my own things,” she added, being unaccustomed to such questioning by servants.
    He sighed loudly. “It’s a good thing I brought the buckboard. With the supplies I’ve already bought, this will sure run over the sides.”
    She turned her purse over in her slender hands and smothered a smile. “If it does, you could run alongside with the overflow on your head. Bearers do that in Africa on safari,” she said pleasantly. “I know because I myself have done it.”
    â€œYou’ve run alongside a wagon with baggage on your head?” he asked outrageously.
    â€œWhy…of course not!” she muttered. “I have been on safari! That was what I said!”
    He pursed his lips and stuck his hands on his hips to stare down at her ruffled expression. “On safari? A fragile little tenderfoot like you, in a rig like that?” He eyed her immaculate tailored suit and velvet hat with amusement. “Now I’ve heard everything.” He walked back the way he’d come, to a buckboard hitched to a fine-looking horse across the way from the depot.
    She stared after him with conflicting emotions. None of the men she’d known had ever been anything less than polite and protective. This man was unflappable, and he didn’t choose his words to pander to her femininity. She was torn between respect and rock-slinging fury. He had a fine conceit for such a filthy man.
    He hadn’t removed his hat or even tipped it in a gesture of respect. Nora was accustomed to men who did both, and kissed her hand in greeting in the European fashion.
    She was too censorious, she told herself. This was the West, and the poor man probably had never had the advantage of being taught social graces. She would have to think of him as she did the native bearers she’d spoken of, kind but uneducated folk whose lot it was to serve for their meager fare. She tried to picture him in a loincloth and had to smother another laugh.
    She waited patiently until her benefactor drove up in the heavily loaded wagon and tied the horse pulling it to a hitching post before he began to load her bags in with long-suffering patience.
    She hesitated at the side, thinking whimsically that she must be grateful that he didn’t suggest that she ride in the back with her luggage. She looked to him to help her up to the wide driver’s seat. It shouldn’t have surprised her that he was already seated, with the reins held impatiently in his lean hands.
    â€œYou were in a hurry, I believe?” he asked patiently, and he pushed back his hat and fixed her with a look from the most unsettling eyes she’d ever seen. They were unexpectedly light in that dark face, a gray that was almost silver in color. They were as piercing as a knife blade, and just as unfathomable.
    â€œHow fortunate that I have athletic abilities,” shesaid with smiling hauteur before she stepped up onto the hub of the wheel and daintily swung herself into the seat. Sadly, she overshot the seat and ended up in a tidy heap across the cowboy’s chaps. The smell was dizzying, although the feel of his hard, muscular thighs against her breasts made her heart run wild.
    Before she had time to be very shocked by the intimacy of the contact, he hefted her up with steely hands and put her firmly on the seat. “None of that, now,” he said with a stern look. “I know all about you wild city women, and I am not the sort of man to be toyed with, I’ll have you know.”
    She was embarrassed enough at her clumsiness, without being labeled a hussy. She pushed back her disheveled hat with a hand that, appallingly, smelled of the cowboy’s boots. Her hand must have brushed the