Apache Fire by Elizabeth Lane

Author:Elizabeth Lane [Elizabeth Lane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781459261396
Publisher: Harlequin

When Latigo heard the shot he was in the loft, forking down some hay. He froze, then, still clutching the pitchfork, he scrambled down the ladder and made a dive for the barn door.

For a moment he crouched there, his breathing tense and shallow as his eyes scanned the trampled yard, seeing nothing amiss. A glance toward the house showed Rose silhouetted in the upstairs window. She was still gripping the pistol.

Bewildered, he plunged across the yard, mounted the front porch and bolted into the front hallway, pausing only to brace the pitchfork in a shadowed corner. Rose stood on the landing above him, ghostly pale in the darkness.

“Are you all right?” she whispered, her voice echoing down the stairwell. “I saw something, someone, in the yard.”

“I didn’t see a thing. Are you sure?”

“I don’t know.” Strain threaded her voice. Her right hand slid along the banister as she moved unsteadily down the stairs toward him. “It looked like a man, but it may have been a shadow or an animal. I fired the gun to warn you.”

“You should have been more careful,” Latigo growled as the fear he had denied too long came crashing in on him. “What if it had been a man with a gun? He could have shot back and hit you. You made the perfect target, standing there in the window like that. Blast it, don’t you know better than to—”

The words died in his throat as Rose began to crumple. Collapsing softly, like a blossom dropping from its stem, she slid to his feet in a tangle of chambray skirts and muslin petticoats.

With a muffled curse, Latigo scooped her off the floor. She whimpered as he hefted her against his chest, her head lolling back over his arm. Her eyelids were closed, the lashes dark gold where they lay in the violet hollows that shadowed her eyes.

She lay in his arms as he mounted the stairs, soft and light and precious. Her face was pale, her throat a soft ivory curve in the darkness. Latigo struggled against the warm tendrils of emotion that curled through and around his spirit, binding him like a helpless captive. He had stayed too long with this woman—long enough to put them both in danger. But he could not leave her now.

Rose moaned softly as he strode into her bedroom and lowered her gently to the bed. He managed to avert his eyes from her delicate ankles and lace-edged drawers as he pulled her rumpled skirts down over her legs. But something warm and aching melted inside him as he bent to unlace her high-topped shoes and work them gently off her small, almost childlike feet He battled the urge to cradle those feet in his hands, to caress the exquisite contours of flesh and bone with his fingertips.

With each shallow breath, her swollen breasts strained the tiny buttons that held the bodice of her gown. Two quarter-sized circles of moisture stained the blue fabric where her milk had begun to seep.

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