Slocum's Sweet Revenge by Jake Logan

Author:Jake Logan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

11

Slocum found Lakshmi standing beside his horse along the road. He wondered if Darlene and the rest of her lynch mob had ridden past, but he doubted it from the anxious expression on the Indian woman’s face. She knew nothing of the outcome and would have known immediately if Darlene had come this way.

“Is everything all right?” Lakshmi asked anxiously.

Slocum dismounted and handed her the reins to her horse. He had used the mare as lavishly as he had his own stallion. Both horses were lathered from heavy, hard riding and deserved to be cleaned, curried and fed in addition to getting a good, long rest. Slocum found himself smiling a little at the idea that he deserved the same.

“Ali almost got his neck stretched,” Slocum said. From her puzzled look, Lakshmi had no idea what that meant. Slocum explained.

“The barbarians!” exclaimed Lakshmi. “They would murder an innocent man!”

Slocum didn’t share the exotic woman’s appraisal of Ali—or anyone else in the maharajah’s camp. Hugh Malley had been murdered, and it was passed off as an accident with no investigation of the circumstances at all.

“We should rest the horses,” Slocum said, looking around. “Over yonder.” Slocum pointed to a meandering stream some distance from the road. The grassy area on either bank would give the horses something to nibble, and a few low-growing stunted trees afforded a bit of shade.

“I must return to the camp.”

“Ali’s fine,” Slocum said. “The maharajah showed up after the crowd had decided to go home. He took Ali back.”

“They are not hurt?”

“Nope,” Slocum said. He was already walking his stallion to the stream. Lakshmi could do as she saw fit, but his expert eye caught signs that her horse would not go far before collapsing. Lakshmi had ridden it hard from the maharajah’s camp, and Slocum had given it an even more strenuous run.

“You are right,” Lakshmi said, a smile dancing on her lips. She brushed back her midnight-dark hair and lifted her chin slightly to let the gentle breeze caress her face. She closed her eyes and let out a small, contented noise like a kitten purring. Slocum studied every plane of her beautiful face, her lush body, the tempting way the wind pressed her elaborate dress against her body and then released it, taunting him.

Lakshmi opened her eyes and stared straight at Slocum. He caught his breath. He worried that she might not like the intent way he studied her, her body, everything about her. If anything, she welcomed it.

“Come,” she said, reaching out and taking his hand. Together they walked to the stream. “We should rest along with our horses.”

“Reckon so,” Slocum said. The way she looked at him told him they wouldn’t be doing much resting. He quickly unsaddled the horses, hobbled them so they could crop at the knee-high grass and drink from the stream and not wander away. As he turned back, he stopped.

Slocum stared.

“Sorry,” he said, not sorry at all. Lakshmi sat under a gnarled oak tree entirely naked. She had shucked off her dress and anything she had worn under it.

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