Brides of Texas by Karen Witemeyer

Author:Karen Witemeyer [Witemeyer, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC042030, FIC042040, FIC027050
ISBN: 9781441229663
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2015-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

21

Travis glared down at the woman who’d nearly given him a heart seizure. Her blue eyes had gone wide. Good. Maybe he’d scare some sense into her.

“Don’t you ever step in front of my weapon like that.” He ground the order out between clenched teeth. “Do you understand me?”

Meredith gave a quick little nod, her chin quivering. Travis hardened himself against the urge to set aside the lecture and gather her into his arms. This was no time to be soft. Just thinking about what could have happened made his blood run cold.

“A bump against the barrel, an involuntary jerk of my hand . . . anything could have set the gun off, and then where would you be?” He let go of her arm and stalked off a pace before whirling around, his finger jabbing toward the earth, where he visualized her bloody, prostrate form. “On the ground, that’s where. Dead.”

A shiver passed through him, and he raised a hand to his face to try to rub away the torturous image.

“I trust you, Travis.” Meredith took an uneven step toward him. “I know you would never harm me.”

“Not intentionally, but accidents happen. You need to exert better judgment, Meri. Stop rushing in to help all the time.”

“Stop rushing in . . . ?” She stiffened her posture.

A tickle of unease gathered in Travis’s gut.

“It wasn’t my faulty judgment that placed me in front of your rifle, Travis Archer. It was yours.” Her index finger collided with his chest.

Travis frowned. If she thought she was going to turn this around on him, she could think again. She was the one who needed to learn how things were done on his land. She was the one who needed to quit putting herself in harm’s way, conducting those good deeds of hers that always seemed to go awry. She was the one—

“I tried to explain who Moses was when I first came across your little welcoming party,” she said, intruding on the satisfaction of his inner tirade, “but you were so set on driving him away that you rebuffed my efforts. Had you simply listened, there would have been no need for me to get your attention through drastic measures. Perhaps I did put myself in harm’s way, but only because you drove me there.”

“I’m sure you could have found other, safer, ways to secure my attention.” Travis crossed his arms. Let her try to refute that argument.

Meredith crossed her own arms. “Maybe, but none of those options would have put me between you and Moses. And that was precisely where I needed to be. Or did you fail to notice the way his hands curled into fists when he thought I might be in trouble?” She paused, as if daring him to comment. “He would have flattened you if I hadn’t intervened.”

“I would’ve held my own,” Travis grumbled.

“Would you have shot him?”

Travis rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the tops of his boots. Meredith knew he’d never shoot an unarmed man, he could hear it in her voice.

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