The Bounty Hunter's Bride. Sandra Steffen

      The sky was a vivid blue, the sun glinting off the white surface, causing her to squint. It was almost April, and the sun was already trying to melt the snow. Wondering how much longer she would have before Kane insisted he was strong enough to make it down the mountain, she decided she’d better not waste any time. She would begin winning him over as soon as he woke up from his nap.

      

      “I’ve never even seen Graceland. Can you believe that? Opryland, either, for that matter.” Head tipped over, Josie smoothed the brush over her damp hair with long, slow strokes. She couldn’t see much beyond the square of floor directly in front of her. Therefore, she couldn’t tell if Kane was listening to her or not. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d found herself talking to herself when she’d thought she was talking to him. Resigning herself to the possibility, she said, “I guess there are a lot of things I haven’t seen in this great big old world.”

      “You should try to get out of the house once in a while.”

      She felt her eyebrows go up. “Get out of the house,” she repeated, encouraged by his attention. “I get out of the house every day. I just don’t get very far in my travels. A storytelling festival takes place in Jonesboro every October. J.D. and Billy tried to get me to go there to spin my tales one year.”

      “You didn’t go?”

      “Nah. I’d rather talk to folks I know. I mosey on up to Picket Pass to talk to Nellie Peters every morning after breakfast. Minerva Jones says she can set her clock by me. That woman really appreciates punctuality....”

      Kane shifted in the hard-back chair, trying to get comfortable and trying not to notice the way Josie’s hair swished with every stroke of her brush. Two days had passed since she’d made her suggestion regarding the method of repayment for all her help. Although she’d talked about everything else under the sun, she hadn’t mentioned her, er, virginity again. He squirmed, scowling, because he’d thought about it a hundred times. Her hair crackled; his fingers flexed, his imagination picturing those silken tresses gliding over his skin.

      He jerked to his feet.

      Jerking to his feet wasn’t wise with a sore shoulder. The pain was his own stinking fault. Actually the pain was the fault of the bail jumper who’d shot him. Okay, then the desire shooting through him was his own fault. He knew exactly what to do about it. As soon as he was miles and miles away from here, he’d find a warm and willing woman.

      There was a warm, willing woman in this very room.

      He swung around fast, swearing out loud at the new shooting pain. Josie was so busy talking she hadn’t heard.

      “...If I’m not careful I’ll end up like Edwina Gilson...”

      Talking. Talking. Josie was always talking. She talked while she fixed meals. She’d even talked while she took her bath a little while ago. Kane had kept his back to her the whole time, commending himself on his willpower. Still, every splash had been sheer torture. He was getting worked up all over again just thinking about it. For crying out loud, he didn’t even like skinny women.

      “...She’s seventy-three, and she’s never set foot off this mountain.”

      Pacing to the bed, he reached for what was left of his sheepskin coat and groused, “You call this a mountain?”

      Josie went perfectly still. In her efforts to win Kane over, she’d tried being nice. Kane Slater was not an easy man to be nice to. He wasn’t an easy man, period. She’d just about used up the last of her patience.

      With a toss of her head that sent her hair cascading down her back and around her shoulders, she planted her hands, hairbrush and all, on her hips, and glared at him. “I’m sick and dam tired of all your disparaging comments about my mountain. I don’t know what you have against the Blue Ridge Mountains, but they are so mountains. It says so in the encyclopedia. And there’s nothing wrong with Tennessee, either. Why, Davy Crockett grew up here, and three United States presidents lived in Tennessee. Don’t ’spose you know which ones.”

      Feeling her blood pressure starting to climb, she took a step toward him. “James Polk and the two Andrews—Jackson and Johnson. I’ve never seen the mountains in Montana, but if they’re anywhere near as big as the chip on your shoulder, they must be huge.”

      She stared at him across the ensuing silence. Nostrils flaring, he glared back at her, and then, out of the blue, he turned his back on her. She did not understand him. Worse, she simply couldn’t seem to get a handle on what made him tick. He never reacted to the same situation the same way twice. He yelled, swore or withdrew, in no particular order.

      Crossing her arms, she sighed. “What makes the mountains in Montana so special, Kane?”

      Kane felt a jolt run through him, yet his feet seemed to be frozen to the floor. Staring at the rough-sawn walls and the bed and the age-old cupboard nearby, he found himself saying, “It’s not just the mountains. It’s the sky and the air and the way the land stretches toward the horizon as far as the eye can see. Some mornings, it’s quiet enough to hear the break of day.”

      He hadn’t been aware that he’d turned around until he saw her lips part and her chest rise with the deep breath she took. She smiled, and his body reacted all over again. In a voice gone soft and gentle, she said, “Quietude isn’t something people around me get a lot of.”

      It took him a full five seconds to drag his gaze away from her smile, but it was the desire thrumming through him that finally brought him to his senses. Heart pounding, he jerked around and tried to put on his coat.

      She was there all of a sudden, reaching out with a helping hand, tsk, tsk, tsking about his language. She smelled like shampoo and soap and woman. Placing an iron grip on his resolve, he moved out of her reach. “I can do it myself.”

      Josie watched him struggle to get the coat over his sore shoulder. He reminded her of a raccoon she’d come across years ago during one of her treks up to Witches Peak. The animal had been stuck in a trap fifteen feet off the beaten path. He was in agony, and would have chewed his own leg off in order to be free, and yet he’d snapped and snarled every time she’d tried to get close enough to help. She’d ended up covering him with her thick coat until she’d managed to open the trap. Free, he’d growled at her until he’d disappeared into the bushes.

      Turning on her heel, she strode to the corner where she kept her father’s twelve-gauge, thinking, Some creatures simply didn’t have it in them to be appreciative.

      “What are you doing?”

      Gun in hand, she glanced at Kane, who was watching her, obviously unnerved and uncertain of what she was going to do. She pulled a face and sputtered, “I’ve spent the last five days nursing you back to health. I’ve put up with your cussing and your grumbling and your ornery tendencies. Do you really think I’d shoot you now? Not that you don’t deserve it.”

      Kane glanced from the long barreled shotgun in Josie’s hand to the anger flashing in her eyes. “Then what are you going to do with that gun?”

      He heard her loud sigh all the way from the other side of the room. “I brought enough food with me to last me three weeks, at least, but I wasn’t expecting company. For an injured man, you eat like a horse.”

      Trusty shotgun in hand, she stomped out into the snow to try to rustle up something to eat for supper.

      

      Josie dropped a handful of baby onions into the pot then leaned over to add wood to the fire. She might have closed the door with a little more force than was necessary, but she couldn’t help it. She considered herself a reasonable woman, but she was close to reaching the end of her rope. She’d spent two and a half hours outside. A person would think all the energy she’d exerted trudging through snowdrifts would have alleviated her anger a little.

      Very little.

      She’d done a lot of walking and she’d done a lot of thinking, which had led to a lot of soul-searching.