Only 05 - Autumn Lover

her skirts. Nothing snagged. She took a step. Her knees didn’t buckle.
    She let out a soundless sigh of relief.
    “Did you want something?” Elyssa asked.
    When no answer came immediately, she looked up. Mickey was staring blatantly at her breasts.
    The knowledge both embarrassed Elyssa and made her angry.
    A flush bloomed on her cheeks as she snatched her shawl off Hunter’s arm. With quick, jerky motions she wrapped the silk around her shoulders, concealing her breasts from Mickey’s pale blue eyes.
    Then Elyssa realized that she hadn’t minded one bit when Hunter had looked at her with male hunger.
    Her hands fumbled, nearly dropping the shawl.
    “You can bet your little tits I want something,”Mickey said roughly. “I want to know what the hell you’re doing rolling around in the hay with some damned stranger!”
    “You overstep yourself,” Elyssa said icily.
    “The hell you say!”
    Ignoring Mickey, Elyssa knotted the slippery silk in place around her shoulders.
    The young man’s arm shot forward. His broad fingers closed around Elyssa’s upper arm with such cruel force that she cried out. He leaned forward until his face was only inches from hers.
    “I’m tired of your uppity ways,” Mickey snarled. “You’ve been sashaying around, promising me all kinds of things with your eyes and hips, and now you’re giving them away to a no-account drifter.”
    The reek of alcohol on Mickey’s breath was enough to make Elyssa’s stomach lurch. She had learned to hate that smell since she had come back and found Bill hell-bent on drinking himself into an untimely grave.
    “Let go of me,” Elyssa said distinctly.
    “Not until I’m good and ready. It’s time you learned who’s boss around here!”
    “I am,” Hunter said.
    As he spoke, Hunter dropped his left hand onto Mickey’s right shoulder. It could have been a gesture of goodwill, one man to another.
    But it wasn’t.
    “I’m Hunter, the new ramrod of the Ladder S.”
    Though Hunter’s tone was easy, his grip wasn’t. Beneath the supple riding glove on his left hand, his fingers probed, discovered, and then ground nerve and tendon against bone.
    Mickey let go of Elyssa for the simple reason that his hand no longer had any strength.
    She stepped quickly beyond his reach. With shaking fingers she rubbed her bruised flesh.
    “Who are you, boy?” Hunter asked gently, bearing down even more.
    “Mickey,” the younger man gasped. “Mickey Barber.”
    Hunter eased the pressure on Mickey’s right shoulder. There was no possibility of a gunfight for the moment. Mickey couldn’t have held a gun in his numbed hand.
    “Well, Mickey Barber,” Hunter drawled, “the reason I’m ramrod and you’re not is real simple. You haven’t figured out yet that there’s no point in getting your kettle all aboil over a little flirt like Miss Sutton.”
    Elyssa spun toward Hunter so quickly that she nearly stumbled.
    “Some girls,” Hunter continued matter-of-factly, “just don’t know they’re alive unless some fool boy is admiring them.”
    “I am not a flirt,” Elyssa said between her clenched teeth. “Nor am I a girl. I am the owner— and boss —of the Ladder S.”
    Hunter’s slate-gray glance raked over Elyssa. Though he didn’t say a word, she knew he was remembering how her breasts had felt against his arm, how her heart had raced beneath his palm, and how her hip had pressed against his suddenly erect flesh.
    A combination of anger, embarrassment, and passion flushed Elyssa’s cheeks and tightened her throat, making it impossible for her to talk.
    Without a word, Hunter turned away from Elyssa as though she didn’t exist.
    “Now,” Hunter drawled to Mickey, “you don’t look like a fool boy. You look like a strapping young lad who puts in a day’s work for a day’s pay.”
    Elyssa waited for Mickey to give the rough side of his tongue to Hunter. To her surprise, the younger man simply nodded a bit sullenly.
    “Thought so,” Hunter said with satisfaction. “Nice rope you have. Mind if I look at it?”
    Before Mickey could react, the rope was in Hunter’s left hand.
    “Braided leather, not hemp,” Hunter said admiringly. “A true la reata . Takes a good caballero to handle a lariat.”
    “It belonged to a Mex that came here looking for work,” Mickey said.
    “I’ll bet the man is a top hand.”
    Mickey shrugged. Then he winced at the pain in his right shoulder.
    “I sent him packing,” Mickey said. “We don’t