Free WANTED (A Transported Through Time book) by Amber Scott Page A

his scent and body heat tingling her senses long before he touched her. If she didn’t have to pee so badly, she would turn and seduce him.
    Instead, she enjoyed the feel of his arms wrapped around her waist, his face nuzzled into her neck. He carefully took the gun from her. When she stepped away, he playfully smacked her ass.
    “Heavens, but you are one beautiful creature, Samantha.”
    She smiled. She kissed him and stepped inside the wooden walls. Samantha closed her eyes and waited. Any second now she’d wake up. Any time now. Her bladder thanked her.
    Finished, Samantha opened her eyes and frowned. Was she still asleep, still in the same dream? How odd.
    When she stepped out of the outhouse, her confusion grew. Several feet away, Jesse had his back to her. He was guarding the outhouse. She became gripped by the need to speak his name and tell him about this strange dream he was a part of. At the edges of her mind, a pinch of reality came through. What if this was not a dream? But that couldn’t be. She swallowed against the bile creeping up her throat and steadied herself to ask Jesse if he was real when something sharp stabbed her ankle, shooting stinging pain up her calf.
    Samantha shrieked. Jesse rushed to her, taking her elbow to help steady her. The pain was blinding, and tears streamed down her cheeks unbidden. A snake. It must have been a snake. What else could it be?
    A loud bang rang in her ears. A gunshot. He shot what was definitely a snake and picked her up, rushing her to his small cabin home. He jostled her about in his hurry, and she felt like punching him in the arm for it. She would have, too, if not for the need to hold her calf in both hands and moan while pain ebbed and flowed through the muscle.
    Jesse set her down and lit a match to a kerosene lamp at his nightstand. He turned up the flame, blew out the match, and tugged on a pair of jeans. His face serious, he examined her leg.
    “Show me where it hurts.”
    Samantha lay on the bed, rocking from side to side. It hurt everywhere. She shook her head.
    “Samantha. I need to see where it hurts. It’s a snakebite, I have to know where it bit you.”
    She nodded her head, bit her lips. Yes, snakebite. She pushed her ankle under his nose and pointed to the spot where the pain originated. Jesse didn’t touch, only looked. Thank God, because if he had, she’d have kicked him square in the jaw, and the last thing she wanted to do was knock him out, the one person here to help her.
    It seemed like he was taking forever. He scanned her skin, moving his gaze over it, rubbing his chin with his forefinger and thumb. He brought the lamp near for a better view, but didn’t seem to be able to find any marks. If he had, he’d have told her, wouldn’t he?
    “Did you twist it, too?” He looked at her.
    Samantha furiously shook her head.
    “I’ve got to get Ginny. She’ll know what to do.” Jesse went toward the door, stopped, and turned back. “We have to get you covered. She’s my sister, and a woman, but she shouldn’t see you this way.”
    Samantha’s eyes bulged, but she swallowed and nodded. If propriety got him out the door and back faster, so be it. She tried as best she could to help him get her into the long-sleeved, button-up shirt and men’s undergarment. He assured her they were clean, and she would have laughed, but it hurt so damned bad. The pain was spreading—and beginning to burn.
    She grunted to tell him to hurry. He met her gaze and kissed her forehead.
    “Don’t move a muscle,” he said.
    She rolled her eyes. He smiled, half-cocked, and left her.
    The silence he left behind filled the room, blanketing her in chill and emptiness. Samantha concentrated on her breathing, trying to imagine with each breath—in and out, in, out—that the pain was receding, lessening, disappearing. She counted up and back down, like she thought a woman in labor might do after a hundred Lamaze lessons.
    It only helped the time pass and kept her