Free Beautiful Bandit (Lone Star Legends) by Loree Lough Page A

familiar.”
    While her heart hammered, Shorty grinned. If he realized she’d been featured on a wanted poster, would that have been his reaction?
    Hopefully not.
    “Don’t she put you in mind of your sister, Stretch? The youngest one, who lives in Abilene?”
    Stretch sat up, too, and stared so hard at Kate that she thought surely her blushing cheeks would catch fire.
    “Y’know,” the man said, “I have to admit that she does favor Rosa some. Mostly, around the eyes.” He nodded, then settled back onto his bedroll. “Now that you’ve solved your little mystery, you think we can maybe get some sleep around here?”
    “Yeah,” Gus barked. “Like I keep sayin’, we have a lot of territory to cover tomorrow.” He flapped his blanket. “And you newlyweds keep the billin’ and cooin’ to a minimum, now, y’hear?”
    Stretch chuckled. “Seems the least you can do since we left you both of the cots, so’s the li’l mother-to-be can get a good night’s sleep.”
    Josh sent her a silent message by way of those oh-so-blue eyes, but Kate couldn’t manage to decipher it. She rubbed her temples and tried to remain calm. How had things gotten so far out of control?
    She’d gone along with the charade to keep the Rangers from guessing her true identity. Thankfully, the plan had worked—so far. But, now, she faced a whole new dilemma, for in going along with the plot, she’d inadvertently dragged Josh into her quagmire of a life. Earlier, Stretch had said that after a good night’s sleep, things would look fine. She wanted to believe that, but something told her things wouldn’t be fine for Kate Wellington, aka Dinah Theodore, for a very long time. If ever.

    10
    Last night, amid the men’s droning snores, Kate had spent hours tossing and turning, despite the fact that Josh, bless his kindhearted soul, had stacked his mattress on top of hers for extra padding. He’d made himself a bed of blankets on the floor and, to quiet her protests, insisted it was cooler down there.
    But she’d known better.
    The shack had been constructed from the crudest of materials. A mere twelve inches off the ground, the warped and sagging floorboards acted like a wick, drawing moisture from the rain-soaked earth beneath them. Kate told him the Rangers were feeling the damp and the chill of this stormy night, and, as proof, she’d pointed out the way each had burrowed deep beneath his blanket.
    “Every one of us has slept outside on nights this bad, or worse,” he’d quietly countered. “This beats trying to catch a few winks in the blinding rain. I know it, and so do they.”
    And, with that, he’d turned the lamp down so low that it barely glowed at all and had fallen promptly to sleep, leaving Kate wide awake to ponder her situation. All through the night, though the rain drummed loudly on the shack’s roof and the wind rattled its walls, Josh and the Rangers slept soundly. Maybe he hadn’t exaggerated, and the little hovel’s shelter seemed like a mansion compared to the conditions outdoors. Between snores, Kate heard Shorty’s pocket watch counting the endless, slow-moving minutes and reminding her that her chances of living a normal life were ticking away, steady beat by steady beat.
    Shortly before dawn, Kate was relieved to hear the wind die down and the rain stop falling. She sneaked outside to check on the horses, feeding them oats and then treating them to one bite apiece of the carrots Josh had bought for Callie. He treated that horse better than her stepfather had treated her mama, and far better than Frank had treated her! If he could show that much caring and thoughtfulness to his horse….
    She couldn’t afford to entertain such thoughts. Kate sat down on the front porch step, her chin perched on her fist, as she recalled the few young men who’d inspired notions of a home and family—and had made hasty retreats the minute she’d declared that she intended to stand at the altar with a soul as pure-white