Free Heaven with a Gun by Connie Brockway Page B

of lovers, have you?” he sounded only mildly interested. Damn him!
    She tilted her head far back and kicked her loose leg toward the ceiling, laughing harshly. “Lovers? I’ve had more lovers than a Gatling has shells. But my chamber’s empty now, and I’m lookin’—” She heard his chair clatter to the ground, his boot heels hard on the floor. She turned her head and found herself staring at his wool-clad thigh. She didn’t look up any further.
    “Yeah?” she sneered.
    “Gilly,” his voice was low and hard, “you are full of shit.”
    His words acted like a prod. She lurched upright, furious and miserable. “Oh, yeah?”
    “I’ve never heard such crap. Give me a little credit. Just a little. I do this for a living, ferret out the grain of honesty in the lies. You haven’t given me anything but lies.”
    “How would you even know?” she demanded. “And so what anyway? So what if they’re lies, each and every one of them? Who cares if Lightning Lil is a whore or a minister’s daughter? Who cares what I am or what I do or why I do it, as long as you get your story and your readers believe it? Who gives a damn?”
    He didn’t touch her. He didn’t have to. The look he gave her felt like a slap, it was so rife with disappointment and disgust. He shook his head.
    “Maybe I do, Gilly. Maybe I do.”
    Before she could frame a retort, he was gone.

Chapter Nine
     
     
    It was late afternoon. Bruised and battered clouds piled up on the horizon, and a cutting wind skittered along the streets, harrying most of the townspeople inside. Jim stalked the abandoned plank walk, cursing himself. Gilly had touched more than his skin last night. Her hand had moved over his flesh and he’d been branded by an urge so powerful, he’d had to clench his fists to keep from hauling her into his arms and taking what she so sweetly offered.
    He hadn’t. Because as much as he’d wanted to expose each creamy inch of her, he wanted even more to expose the mute soul of her, to touch her as deeply, as intimately as a man and a woman can. In short, he’d wanted to make love to her . . . not to have sex with the stranger she insisted on remaining.
    He was falling in love with her.
    The realization brought no surprise, only a frightening sensation of imminent loss that teased him with terrible potential. He found the telegraph office and went inside. Behind the desk, the clerk grinned. “Whoa. I haven’t had this many telegrams in one day never! First Mortie last night, back and forth to New York, and now you.”
    “Mortie’s been pestering his New York friend again?”
    “Yup. About you.” The clerk waggled his brows. “Bein’ very cagey about phrasing his questions too.”
    “You’d think the kid would have better ways of wasting his money.” Jim picked up a pencil and scribbled a note.
    “Oh, and I got a telegram from New York for you too,” the clerk added.
    Just what he needed, his ass hauled over the coals for failing to submit his exclusive interview with the “Outlaw Princess.” He shook his head at the memory of Gilly’s outrageous claim regarding lovers. How did she ever think she was going to pull that one off? He was thirty-six years old and he’d known more experienced women than she’d probably ever meet.
    “Here you are,” the clerk said, handing him the telegram. Sure enough, it was a terse demand for his story, the one he’d promised when he’d first arrived and come up with the great inspiration of how to get an exclusive interview with the notorious Lightning Lil. Maybe he shouldn’t have all but guaranteed his editor that he’d find her. Too damn bad. His editor wasn’t going to get an award-winning, circulation- doubling story from him. At least not one about Lightning Lil.
    He quickly scribbled out message:
    NO LIL. STOP. NO THRILLS. STOP. SORRY I RAISED FALSE HOPES. STOP. PURSUING DIFFERENT STORY. STOP. WILL SEND MORE WHEN I HAVE IT. STOP. HAVING A GOOD TIME. STOP.
    WISH YOU WERE