Steel Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #2, Chloe and Matthew's story) Read Free

swung the empty bottle in his other hand, bringing it down hard, catching me across the back of my skull, at shoulder level.
                  The bottle shattered, shards of glass falling into the new snow.  For just an instant, I had time to childishly think That didn't do anything, you didn't do anything— and then the world grayed around me, spun and vanished.
     
                  I woke in a small, very cold, very hard room. The headache that woke me made the daylight jump uncertainly, shadows moving like animals.  Once I convinced my eyes to stay open, I turned my head gingerly, trying to make out where I was.
                  Dim light slanted through rough walls.  So did snowflakes.  Wherever I was, I lay on crates and wind and snow swirled through rough-cobbled boards.  Light danced.
                  My last memory had been of the bottle coming down at me, at my short victory at not falling, followed instantly by—falling, presumably.  I'd been behind a saloon on the corner of Carson and C Streets, south of The Faro Queen.  I guessed I still was, just now in one of the outbuildings I'd approached with caution, though apparently not cautiously enough.
                  I sat up, making a soft, involuntary sound.  If my attacker was still here, he'd know I was awake anyway.  Once sitting, my boots dangling off the crate I'd been left on, I could just make out the wooden crates, dirt floor and rough wood walls of the building.  From beyond the walls, I could hear the sound of the storm and a distant crow protesting something.  Nothing else but, by now, everyone else would be inside.  The day was growing both old and colder.  I could smell wood smoke, from The Faro Queen, I guessed.
                  I slid off the makeshift bed, stumbled a little and tried the door.  I couldn't see where there was any way for it to be locked, so it had to be blocked from the outside by something.  It wouldn't budge.
                  Panic set in.  Full blown, unreasoning.  Screaming, I pounded on the door, kicking it with my boots.  It didn't feel like there was enough air in the room, which was impossible, of course, it wasn't sealed tight in any way, but the clawing, crawling panic demanded I get out and the stench of charred wood turned my stomach.  
                  When the door didn't give, I moved fast through the room.  Meant for storage, it was small, cold and unfinished.  With the storm howling through the cracks in the walls, I could freeze to death easily; already my teeth had begun to chatter.  I moved to one of the bigger cracks in the wall, put one eye to it, and stared out.
                  From that vantage point, I could see the edge of the foothill in one direction, the back of the saloons in the other.  I was where I thought I was, just off the main street, close enough for rescue; far enough, and unexpected enough, to die under the very noses of the good people of Virginia City.
                  Stumbling back into the room, I caught my breath, tried to force myself to think this through, abandoned that idea and threw myself at the door.
                  It gave.  I tumbled out into the snow, one ankle twisting under me, one hip slamming hard into the frozen ground.  Above me, the slate gray sky spat fat snowflakes.  The air smelled like wood smoke.
                  I scrambled to my feet, turning in a complete circle.  There was no one anywhere near me, not pedestrians and not the man who had swung the bottle at me.  Shards of glass still poked out of the snow, not yet covered over with new snow.  I hadn't been unconscious for long, then.
                  Which meant whoever he was could still be near.  Again, the scarf-covered face floated at me in memory, familiar but unidentifiable.  It didn't matter; I only wanted to get away.  I could bring