Free Carol Finch by Oklahoma Bride Page B

she clutched her discarded carpetbag to her chest as if it were her only salvation.
    “I think you should go now,” she chirped in a voice he could scarcely associate with her. It sounded small, lacking the defiance and confidence he’d come to expect.
    Rafe reached over to pull her upright as he surged to his feet. “You’re coming back to the fort with me.” His strangled voice testified to the devastating effect she’d had on him. “I admire your determination to help your brother build a home for his new family, but you are still trespassing and it is still my duty to keep this area free of squatters. Next week you will have the same opportunity as everyone else to claim your land in the Run.”
    “On a plodding old horse that already has one foot in the grave, thanks to the accident that left my brother with a broken leg? I sincerely doubt it,” Karissa muttered as she jerked her arm from his grasp and thrust back her shoulders.
    She’d spilled her guts to this man, practically threw herself at him to compensate for the churning emotion that was dragging her down after the miserable day she’d had. He’d kissed her, as if the world was coming to an end, touched her in ways she had never allowed another man to touch her. And all he had to say was that she was still his prisoner?
    Although she understood that he was a man of honor who took his duty seriously it hurt no less that he couldn’t find it in his rock-solid heart to view her plight as an exception to his confounded rules.
    Karissa drew herself up to dignified stature—at least as dignified as she could muster after she’d made a complete fool of herself in Rafe’s arms. “I’m really beginning to hate you, General,” she scowled at him. “I swear, if the day ever comes that you have to break one of your precious, honorable and noble rules it will probably be the death of you.”
    She gave an unladylike snort as she pulled herself up into his saddle. For a moment she considered digging her heels into the gelding’s flanks and leaving Rafe afoot. It would take him at least a day to track her down. But he would track her down eventually because he knew exactly where to find her. Furthermore, he would make it his mission and he was relentless when it came to following the rules.
    If she pushed him to the limit he would refuse to allow her to make the Run at all. Then her brother wouldn’t have an icicle’s chance in Hades of claiming property for his farm.
    There was a hint of a smile in Rafe’s voice when heswung up behind her. “You had your chance to escape and you didn’t take it. Why?”
    She wasn’t about to bolster his confidence by admitting that she considered him a force to be reckoned with. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out myself.” She grabbed the reins and headed for the fort. “Maybe it was your irresistible charm that swayed me,” she added sarcastically.
    Behind her— too close behind her for her own comfort—she could feel Rafe’s amusement vibrating through every fiber of her body, reminding her of how tightly she had been pressed up against his muscular body moments earlier.
    “Compliments from you, Rissa? Now why does that make me suspicious?”
    She stiffened her spine to put some distance between them and elevated her chin another notch. “I did not give you permission to use a shortened version of my name, General. It’s Miss Baxter to you. And by the way, Harlan Billings informed me that you have a fiancée. If I hadn’t been so upset earlier I would never have allowed you so close. Despite what you probably think, that incident was not a ploy to maneuver you into letting me stay on my claim. I simply wasn’t myself.”
    “And now you are?” he asked.
    The hint of amusement in his voice annoyed her. “Yes,” she said with a brisk nod. “Cynical of men for good reason and determined to do whatever necessary to help my brother. What happened between us didn’t really happen. I refuse to