The Lone Texan

CHAPTER 12

BONNIE AWOKE WHEN THE COWBOY LIFTED HER DOWN from his horse. She felt as if every bone in her body had been broken and put back together backward. She wasn't sure she could have stood if he'd set her on her feet.

She'd cried and fretted for what seemed like hours, then she'd done the unthinkable when in danger: she'd fallen asleep. Here she was, convinced she could survive in this barbaric place, and what does she do the first time she's tested? She sleeps.

The cowboy carried her through a low door and into a dark little house that was smaller than the hotel room back in Galveston.

"You'll be safe here," he said as he lowered her to her feet.

"Safe!" she said, trying not to wobble. "I was safe back in Boston. I was even safe in Galveston. How can you possibly think I could be safe out here in the middle of nowhere with a man whose name I don't even know?" She was getting wound up, and once she was wound, she would steam for a while. "I'm out here in the wilderness with all kinds of things outside that door just waiting to kill me or eat me. And inside seems no better. How am I safe in here with a man who'll probably ravish me or kill me at any moment?"

She drew in a breath to continue, when he stopped her with a short question.

"Which do you want first?"

"What?"

He squatted and lit the fireplace. It was well after sunup, but the rain at the open door made it seem like night. "I said, which do you want first, the ravishing, or the killing?"

Straw caught twigs aflame. The fire flickered. Bonnie stood frozen, her back to the fireplace. Her worst fear was about to be realized. The constant harping of her mother to stay away from all men had been right.

Never in her life had Bonnie Faye ever been speechless. Until now.

The giant stood and stared down at her. "I vote for the ravishing. I've never done it with a woman I thought could take my weight before.” A grin grew slowly across a face that hadn't seen a razor in a week.

Bonnie Faye did a second thing she'd never done before: she fainted.