Read Online Scotsman Wore Spurs by Patricia; Potter - Free Book Online Page B

was, and about her father being dead, about being alone in the world. So alone. So apart from everything and everyone around her.
    Enough wool-gathering, she scolded herself. She was competent enough to fetch cow chips and wood, and that might be the only thing that saved her job.
    As she finished her search for cow chips, she noticed that the wind had picked up since she’d left camp. It felt good, and she even risked opening her coat and unbuttoning the top few buttons of her shirt to let it cool her overheated skin. She’d been hot and miserable all day under the layers of clothes. How she would make it through weeks, maybe even months, in all these clothes, she didn’t know.
    By the time she started back to camp, it was nearly dark. As she passed between the herd and the wagon, she slowed, then stopped, at the sound of a man’s voice. It was a voice she instantly recognized, and he was singing. She didn’t know the song but it was soft and low. A lullaby. She couldn’t identify the song, but she was instantly enchanted, both by the melody and the rich, smooth tenor that was singing it. She listened, storing the melody in her mind, until gradually he moved away and she couldn’t hear him anymore.
    In the silence, she was left feeling more confused than ever. The cursed man had done it to her again. His smile, his kind words. His voice, singing a lullaby. Nothing about him fit the image of an assassin. Yet nothing about him seemed to fit the image of a cowhand either. A part of her—the part of her that was grief-stricken and enraged at an unjust world—wanted to believe the worst of him, wanted to find ulterior motives in everything he did. Wanted to hate him.
    But another part of her whispered that he couldn’t possibly be a murderer. That he was as lonely and apart from the rest of the world as she was. As lonely as his voice had sounded, singing his beautiful lullaby to a herd of cattle.
    Suddenly, as she stood in the dark in the middle of that vast, wide-open plain, all of her own feelings of loneliness, of being isolated from the rest of the world, intensified. Damn Drew Cameron. Damn his smile, and his lullaby. Damn everything about him that made her feel things she didn’t want to feel.
    Angry at herself, feeling like a fool, Gabrielle buttoned her shirt and coat and started back for the chuck wagon. As she walked, though, she became aware that the sky had lost its last trace of light, and the cool air that had been pleasant only minutes before had turned cold. It bit through her layers of clothing. An instant later, thunder rumbled in the distance.
    She quickened her steps and, as she approached camp, she saw cowboys leave the cooking fire and head for their horses. Thunder meant nervous cattle. She’d learned that much.
    Pepper barely acknowledged her return. He was packing supplies in the chuck wagon. The fire had been cleared of everything but the coffeepot. “Put that wood in the hoodlum wagon,” he said.
    When she had dumped her load, she returned. “What can I do?”
    He glanced at her. “Storm’s coming. Damn bad one. I can feel it. You keep out of the way.”
    Gabrielle looked at the sky, then at the bedrolls scattered around, abandoned by the cowboys. She started rolling them up and putting them under cover in the hoodlum wagon. Pepper looked up at her once, nodded in approval of her actions, then went back to closing the various shelves and buttoning up the canvas.
    By the time she had completed her task, rain had started falling. She saw that Pepper had rigged a canvas flap over the fire, but the wind was fanning it too close to the wagon for safety. With obvious reluctance, he lowered the canvas, and in minutes the fire went out. The night was as black as any Gabe ever had seen. What was more, the temperature had taken another sudden drop.
    â€œGet in yer wagon,” Pepper ordered gruffly. “It’s gonna hail. I’ve