Page 5 of Hard Bounty

“No.”

He grunted. “Traveling light as you make a run for it. Typical.”

What he didn’t know was that she’d lost her change of clothes and what few meager possessions she had when she’d fled in the night after a local sheriff tried arresting her. There hadn’t been time to grab a thing! She was lucky she even had that little purse. At least it gave her some traveling money.

She kept all that information to herself, though. John didn’t need to know everything.

“You have a horse?” he asked.

“No, sir,” she said, grabbing the purse and standing up straight.

“How’d you get here?”

“A farmer found me walking and was kind enough to let me ride along in his wagon.”

That much was true. The farmer just hadn’t known she was on the lam, of course.

“I didn’t see a farmer in there.” He jerked his head toward the stage station.

He was standing sideways, where he could keep an eye on the door and her, probably worried those men would come out wanting revenge. And also worried that she’d try to escape.

Great. He probably didn’t even notice me showing off my assets.

She made a mental note to increase her efforts.

“He just dropped me off and kept going,” she said. “He was on his way to Doaksville.”

She stood there as he studied her.

“I have no reason to lie about that,” she added. “If I had a horse, would I be waiting on the stage?”

He nodded. “You might have stolen one to ride here. But I’m more worried about making sure…” He shook his head. “Never mind. I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

She suppressed a smile, loving the fact that she was getting under his skin. Was he also flustered because of the small amount of flesh she was showing? In her experience, it only took that small amount to accomplish most missions.

A thought occurred to her, though, and she said, “You’re wondering if I traveled here alone. You want to make sure I don’t have a partner hiding out somewhere.”

He nodded. “The thought crossed my mind. I don’t want someone lurking in the trees, ready to clout me over the head. Or someone riding our back trail, waiting for the right time to ambush me and spring you.”

“You don’t trust me.” She wasn’t asking a question. For some reason, the realization that he was skeptical hurt her feelings, though she didn’t understand why she’d feel that way.

Being cautious made perfect sense in his line of work. John Hardin did a dangerous job and was probably used to outlaws and assorted ruffians trying to kill him. But the fact that he’d lumped her in with those sorts of people stung.

Of course he thinks you’d do something like that! He thinks you’re an awful person, Mary. He only knows the lies he’s been told.

A sense of sadness washed over her. When she made her move to escape, she’d just reinforce those lies. There wasn’t anything she could do about that, though. Going back to Fort Smith to face the Hanging Judge was absolutely out of the question.

Anyway, it shouldn’t matter what he thought of her, she reminded herself. She’d never see him again after she broke free. He was just one stop along her journey.

One handsome, sexy, glorious-to-look-at stop.

But he was also irrelevant. Months from now, she most likely wouldn’t even remember him.

“You are my prisoner, ma’am,” he said, further reaffirming his notions of her.

At least he was being polite about it, she thought. Many men out there on the frontier, when they’d discovered she was unmarried, not a mother, and that she even knew outlaws, considered her as nothing but a whore and treated her as such.

John Hardin at least seemed different in that regard.

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