The Loner Read Free Page A

slowing down any at all that she could tell.
    â€œYou’re not…the boss of me,” she said.
    He was going for water, she could tell. She couldn’t see him now but she could hear the creek. This place had been one of her favorite haunts.
    Then she caught herself. It still was one of her favorites. She might be down but she wasn’t beaten yet. She wasn’t going to let him take her out of the beautiful country that she loved.
    â€œYes, I am,” he said, his voice low and sure. “I’m the boss of you until you walk into that jail.”
    A moment later he was walking back up the little slope to her, a cup in each hand. He went down on one knee beside her, set one cup down and brought the other to her lips. To her consternation, she couldn’t hold up her head, so he propped it up with his big hand.
    It was so weird to be touched. No one hadtouched her for months and months, not since she’d hugged her little half-brothers good-bye.
    And no man had ever touched her. Except for Tassel Glass.
    The water lapped cool and wet and wonderful onto her lips and she drank it with Black Fox Vann’s long, strong fingers in her hair and burning into her scalp. She could still feel the shape of them after he’d laid her back down. Even through the pain she could feel them.
    Black Fox Vann could be a very gentle man, along with being a hard one.
    â€œI’ll let you rest a minute,” he said, and somehow the tone of his rich voice soothed her, “then I’ll give you the coffee.”
    She had to fight that soothing. It could get to be too much. She had to keep her guard up.
    â€œI don’t want it.”
    â€œI know,” he said, and now his tone was even more peaceful.
    The cool water was in her stomach now and the pain was bad and the two things were making her chill inside. She clamped her jaws together and tried to hold her body still. She had to think about something else or she would start to shake on the outside, too. That would make her more helpless than ever.
    â€œHas Judge Parker started hanging people for stealing?” she said, her teeth chattering in spite of her.
    Black Fox Vann bent over her immediately, propped up her head the way he had before, and held a spoonful of hot, fragrant coffee to her lips.
    â€œAll judges—and juries—hang horsethieves,” he said.
    Then he took the coffee away and blew on it, to cool it. Was it breath or saliva that the Cherokee believed held the essence of a person? She couldn’t remember. It had better not be breath because she didn’t want Black Fox Vann’s essence in her.
    The chill was making her tremble in earnest now, even her head shook in his hand. He held it a little more firmly. Somehow that made her feel more secure than anything else. More secure than caught.
    â€œYou’ve got to take this,” he said. “It’s cool enough not to burn your mouth.”
    She let him spoon the coffee into her and, on the fourth or fifth time, she felt its warmth begin to spread through her body. He must’ve dipped the spoon and held it to her lips a hundred times, at least it seemed that many, before the shivering lessened and finally stopped.
    â€œEnough for now,” he said, and was gone.
    She glimpsed him building the fire a little higher and then he was out of sight a while before coming back to her with a horse blanket in each hand.
    â€œI’m going to put one of these under you,” he said, “and the other on top.”
    He laid one out beside her, knelt down and picked her up, just picked her right up as easily as Mama had picked up the boys when they were babies. She landed on the blanket as lightly as a feather and the pain didn’t kick up again at all.
    â€œI know all judges hang horsethieves,” she said.
    He chuckled as he covered her with the other blanket. He was so careful with it that her pain did not intensify.
    â€œGood,” he said.