Free A Restless Wind by Siara Brandt Page A

laugh.  “Not your usual night in Boston, I’ll wager.”
         “Not our usual night, no,”  Lieta agreed.  “Women have a great deal more freedom out here.”    
         “Well, it used to be safe enough riding alone,”  Pierce spoke up beside Hetty.  “There never was any trouble before.  And Hetty rides like an Indian.  Been riding since before she could even reach the stirrups.  She could probably outride most of the men working here at the ranch.”
         “Indeed.”  Lieta fixed Hetty with another innocent stare.  “How fortunate that you and Mr. McLaren happened to meet at the cabin at the very same time.”
         “Yes.”  Hetty said.  “We were all very fortunate.”
         “Of course you were.”  Lieta turned to Jesse seated beside her.  “There were three of the villains, Mr. McLaren?”  she wanted to know.
         A nod was her answer.
         “And you single-handedly fended them off?”
         “I wouldn’t exactly say I fended them off, ma’am.  They rode off by themselves.”
         In a voice that was just a little bit husky, Lieta said,  “I think you are being very modest, Mr. McLaren.”
         Lieta was no doubt recalling the conversation the other day in the parlor about Jesse McLaren.  She obviously found the man more than a little interesting.  Hetty had caught Lieta stealing glances at him all morning.
         Of course women would find him interesting, Hetty thought.  Not only his reputation, but his good looks ensured it.  Hetty could well imagine Amiline Marsten’s face if she could see Jesse McLaren sitting here at her kitchen table eating breakfast.  And Adalia Sweet would have been horrified.  But Lieta, certainly, found it a novel experience to be having breakfast with an outlaw.
         And Jesse did seem the perfect outlaw.  With his black hair, worn longer than would be considered proper back East, and the dark beard shadow emphasizing his very masculine jaw, he did appear more than a little wild, decidedly dangerous and, she admitted secretly to herself, compellingly handsome.
         While it was true that Jesse was different than the usual men Lieta encountered in the East, there was something else about him that made him stand out from other men even here.  It was something she could not define and yet, if she were to be honest with herself, that undefinable male essence was so strong that Hetty found herself drawn to it just as Lieta was.
         In fact, for Hetty there was a completely unsettling awareness of everything about Jesse McLaren.  There was good reason for that, of course.  She hadn’t forgotten what had happened between them in the cabin last night.  If it affected him at all, so far he had been very successful at concealing it.  As for Hetty, she had to make an effort to not think about how he had thrown her down on that bed.  But the man himself was a constant reminder.
         Strength was manifest in the wide shoulders under the blue shirt he wore.  It was evident in the strong hand resting on the table.  She tried not to relive the feel of his hands on her wrists and on her mouth as he had held her down.  But an image of their struggle on the narrow bed came to her all the same.  As did the memory of the hard, unyielding pressure of his body on top of hers. 
         Which brought to mind the completely unbidden thought of that other time, when he had kissed her, and how the hand resting on the table had touched her face with a gentleness completely at odds with the unrestrained passion that had been at the core of that kiss.
         She tried not to let herself remember because just thinking about it caused a strange commotion deep inside her.  She carefully steadied her breath and watched as Delia got up from the table and came back with the pot of coffee.
         “No, thank you, ma’am.”
         At the sound of the deep masculine voice, Hetty’s