Free Slocum and the Three Fugitives by Jake Logan Page A

you.” She cupped her apple-sized breasts, then tweaked the hard nipples until they turned red and visibly pulsed. “The idea you spied on me makes me very . . . what’s the right word?”
    â€œExcited?” Slocum supplied.
    â€œThat is close. I was thinking more of . . . outraged. A stranger doesn’t come along, gawk at a lady’s naked form, then have any gentlemanly thoughts left in his head. Admit it. Your thoughts were less than those to expect from a well-bred gent.”
    Slocum continued to drink in her sleek beauty. He found a mole lodged between her breasts that broke up the perfection, but he wasn’t complaining. And she made no move to hide her nakedness.
    â€œReckon that’s the problem. Seldom has anyone accused me of being polite and never a gentleman. So tell me. What’s a gent to do when he comes across a beautiful woman bathing in the woods?”
    â€œRide on by. Don’t snoop.” She splashed about, slipping onto her back and languidly moving about to create a froth between her legs with every scissor kick. Her breasts poked out like twin peaks as she began a backstroke to move around the pond in ever-widening circles that brought her closer to Slocum. “Averting your eyes would be the polite thing to do, also.”
    â€œGood to remember,” Slocum said. He stared at her as she stopped, got her feet under her, and crouched in the shallower water ten feet from him. “Should I offer you a towel? I don’t see one.”
    â€œI stretch out on a rock and let the sun dry me. I don’t like the feel of rough cloth against my skin.”
    â€œYou must dress in fine duds.”
    â€œSilks, mostly.”
    She bobbed about in the water, exposing the tops of her teats and then sinking below the water again as she teased him. Slocum enjoyed the byplay, but it got him nowhere.
    â€œYou saw me when I brought the three horses back to the ranch house.”
    â€œOh, yes, a week or two ago,” she said. “You have sharp eyes to see me peeking around the upstairs curtains.”
    â€œThey were lace. I saw you through them.”
    â€œAs you see me through the water?”
    â€œThis is better,” he said.
    â€œI will turn into a prune if I stay in the water much longer.”
    She had shown no modesty up to this point. Slocum doubted she had suddenly developed a sense of decorum now.
    â€œRory Deutsch your pa?”
    â€œHe is. And Lucas and Timothy are my brothers. Older brothers,” she hastily added.
    â€œYou know what they’re up to in Taos?”
    â€œI have no reason to ask about what is likely to be a sordid pursuit of loose women and too much alcohol.”
    â€œThey’re trying to monopolize the whiskey trade. Any saloon owner that doesn’t buy their Taos Lightning ends up burned out or dead.”
    â€œTaos Lightning,” she said, nodding knowingly. “I have heard Lucas speak of it. A vile concoction.”
    â€œRumor has it if a man swills enough of it, he might go blind or even die.”
    â€œThat is potent, indeed.” She paddled around but kept her chin just at the surface of the water to maintain her newly modest pose.
    â€œYou might tell your brothers that they’ll end up dead if they try to burn down the Black Hole Saloon again.”
    â€œDo you have a personal interest in it? Perhaps in the owner?”
    â€œI
am
the owner,” Slocum said.
    â€œNot the young girl? The sister of the man killed on the road to Denver?”
    â€œI’m the owner, and I don’t take kindly to extortion.”
    â€œNo,” she said, eyeing him with her brilliant blue eyes, “I can see you are not the kind to be pushed around. You should know, however, that both Lucas and Timothy are terrible men. Killers. They would not think twice about filling you with lead.”
    â€œI figured that out.”
    â€œHow do you intend to get back at