Only 05 - Autumn Lover

grabbed a shovel.
    “I told you about flirting with the men,” Hunter said.
    The contempt in his voice froze Elyssa.
    Then it infuriated her.
    “I was milking the ruddy cow,” she snarled.
    “Not when I saw you. You were arched up like a dancer or a lover, and your breasts—”
    Abruptly Hunter changed the subject.
    “Stop pushing me, Sassy. I guarantee you won’t like what happens.”
    Hunter’s use of her hated nickname infuriated Elyssa.
    “Then stop looking at me,” she said icily. “And you do look at me, Hunter. You know it as well as I do.”
    “You look right back.”
    “Yes. Why don’t you do something about it?”
    “Weren’t you listening? You wouldn’t like it.”
    “Try me.”
    Out beyond the barnyard, one of the dogs began barking. Sharp, high-pitched, urgent, the sound sent adrenaline racing through Elyssa. She barely managed not to knock over the bucket of milk as she leaped for the gun she had propped in a corner of the stall.
    Hunter’s hand shot out and wrapped around Elyssa’s arm.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.
    “Seeing what set off the dog.”
    “Stay here. I’ll take care of it.”
    Elyssa started to argue, then reconsidered.
    Hunter nodded curtly, took her shotgun, and stalked to the entrance to the barn. Before he stepped out into the sunlight and autumn wind, he gave a careful look around.
    “Well, it’s about time,” he said.
    With that, Hunter walked easily into the sunshine. A moment later Mickey came racing in from the garden, rifle in hand. Hunter waved him off and continued across the yard.
    Three small groups of men sat on horseback close to the ranch house. Their clothes were trail-worn and dusty. Like Hunter, some of the men wore remnants of Confederate uniforms. Others wore the blue trousers of the Union.
    The rest wore the buckskin of plainsmen or the fitted leather pants and broad-rimmed hats of Mexican cowhands. Men who had come from the Texas thornbush country wore leather chaps.
    Remainders of dusty blue and gray uniforms were mixed equally throughout the three groups, as were checkered shirts and buckskin, leather chaps and flanneland wool. No one lined up according to North or South or plains.
    The former soldiers had left the war behind them in all but one way—they were well armed. Plainsmen, drifters, and soldiers alike wore their weapons as unselfconsciously as they wore their boots.
    The horses the men rode came in many sizes and all colors except one. White. A white horse made a man a target against every landscape, whether desert or grassland, thornbush or mountain meadow.
    Four black-and-white dogs circled the men at a distance, barking wildly.
    From behind Hunter came a staccato whistle. The dogs stopped barking as though shot. As one they turned and loped off to whatever livestock they had been tending before the ranch yard filled up with strangers.
    Hunter looked back over his shoulder. As he had expected, Elyssa was following him.
    At least she has that scarf tucked back in place , Hunter thought.
    The memory of Elyssa’s half-bare breasts rising from violet silk went through Hunter like lightning through a storm, tightening every nerve in his body.
    I’m going to have to come down on her like a hard rain about her clothes. The men out here aren’t used to seeing a woman like her running around loose .
    Hunter was having a hard time getting used to it himself.
    “I thought I told you to stay in the barn,” Hunter said.
    “Why? There’s no danger.”
    “How do you know that?”
    Elyssa shrugged. The motion loosened her scarf, revealing a kiss-sized patch of skin low on her neckline.
    Hunter tried not to think what that soft skin would feel like beneath his lips, his tongue, his fingertips. Hetried not to think how eagerly her nipples had risen at his accidental touch eight days ago.
    He failed.
    With a silent, searing curse, Hunter forced himself to look away from the tempting bit of skin.
    “I could tell it was safe the instant you left the barn,” Elyssa said.
    “How?” he asked roughly.
    “By the way you moved.”
    The words stopped Hunter like a wall. He hadn’t realized that Elyssa had learned to read him so well.
    Belinda was my wife for years, and she never figured out anything about me .
    The insight made Hunter uneasy. The longer he was around Elyssa, the more ways he was discovering that she was different from Belinda.
    Unlike Belinda, Elyssa knew and understood the work that went into a