Texas Ranger, Runaway Heiress. Carol Finch
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first things first, she decided. She wanted to confront Eaton Powell II immediately. Although Bri could practically hear her mother pitching a fit—all the way from her palatial drawing room in Austin—she was giving Eaton notice that she had cancelled their engagement. Permanently. He could make his way home without her and he could campaign his heart out while he was at it.
All she wanted was to be rid of him for good.
Determined of purpose, Bri hiked down the hall. Two scraggly-looking characters came to attention as she approached. She kept her head down, her face concealed by the floppy-brimmed gray bonnet. She could feel the weight of the derringer she kept tucked in one garter on her thigh and the cool steel blade of the dagger she stashed on the other.
Anna Roland Price would throw a conniption if she knew what a vast education and unconventional training her daughter had received when she’d been shipped off to that snobbish finishing school in Houston. Bri had befriended a rascally, fun-loving street urchin—who had initially tried to rob her—and then he became her dearest companion.
The thought of Benji Dunlop’s life cut short by his senseless death galvanized her determination. She was not going to be the extension of her mother’s unreasonable expectations and she could handle herself in adversity, thanks to Benji’s thorough training. Bri had become a fair shot with a pistol. She could wield a knife accurately and she had learned to be a scrappy fighter in hand-to-hand combat.
“Don’t let nobody get the drop on you,” Benji had lectured her countless times. “Gotta guard yer own back ’cause you can’t count on nobody else to do it for you.”
Regret and sorrow whipped through Bri, remembering the loss of that treasured friendship. Benji had come to a bad end in a dark alley one night before he was to meet Bri for an evening adventure to Galveston. She had waited two hours but he never showed up. It was the next day before she learned that Benji had died at the hands of three knife-wielding bullies because he refused to give up the shiny gold pocket watch she had given him as a gift.
Bri slid her hand into her pocket to clasp the watch she had recovered at a pawnbroker’s shop. It was a constant reminder of the loyalty of her best friend and the uncertainty of life. Even after three years she still hadn’t recovered from the guilt. If she hadn’t given him the expensive gift that he treasured and carried proudly—visibly—he wouldn’t have lost his life.
“My, my, ain’t you easy on the eye, honey. Care for a little company?”
Bri ignored the tall, greasy-haired hombre whose smile displayed a mouthful of rotten teeth. He looked to be at least a decade older than her twenty-three years and he smelled as if he hadn’t bathed in months. When he grabbed her elbow, she jabbed him in the soft underbelly to ensure that he turned her loose so she could continue on her way.
“I bet I could teach you a thing or two about a woman’s place,” the man growled as he started after her.
“Try it and I’ll scream this place down around you. You can spend your evening in jail,” she muttered as she glared over her shoulder at him.
His slate-gray eyes narrowed menacingly. When he stepped toward her, his friend clamped hold of him to hold him at bay.
“Leave me alone, Pete,” the man said, and scowled.
“Easy, Joe, we got places we gotta be tonight. No need to call unnecessary attention to ourselves,” Pete, the heavyset, auburn-haired man insisted. “The boss wouldn’t like it.”
Bri ignored Joe Whoever-He-Was. She remained on high alert, in case the scoundrel wormed loose from his companion’s grasp and came after her.
She was proud to be the daughter of a veteran of the Confederate Army and Rangers’ upper echelon, as well as the best friend of a scrappy street fighter. Men didn’t expect her to be capable of defending herself. It was that element of surprise that had saved her several times when she chose to venture off alone to escape the restrictions of high society.
Bri silently rehearsed what she intended to say to Eaton before she wished him a final fare-thee-well. All the while, she cautiously monitored the whereabouts of the two men. She breathed a sigh of relief when they ducked into the room three doors down from her own. She halted in front of Eaton’s room and drew herself up to full stature, trying to make the most of her five-foot-three inch height.
She smirked at the thought of Eaton demanding the two-room dignitary suite. Nothing but the best for Eaton. He had convinced himself that he was entitled and he constantly put on airs to assure the public that he was something special.
Her thoughts flittered off when she heard a burst of feminine laughter on the other side of the door. Bri frowned then looked up at the room number. Yes, this was Eaton’s suite. She had come to the right place.
A man’s rumbling laugher caught Bri’s attention. It dawned on her that her soon-to-be ex-fiancé was entertaining a woman. She turned the doorknob and found it unlocked. When she poked her head around the edge of the door, she saw a string of garments—male and female—that formed a path across the small sitting room to the bedroom. The mirror hanging above the dresser in the adjoining room provided her with a view of the bed that sat against the back wall.
Bri gasped in shock when she saw a woman’s red head and bare breasts. She recognized the actress from the theater troupe. She was tumbling around in bed with Eaton, who was bare to the—
With a muffled squawk, she squeezed her eyes shut after she got a clear view of Eaton’s buttocks. She cursed under her breath when she realized belatedly that she had emitted a sound that interrupted the two lovers.
“What was that?” Eaton said as he yanked the sheet over his bare hips.
The redhead jerked the corner of the bedspread over her breasts. “Did you remember to lock the door?”
“Hell, no, you were pulling clothes off me left and right,” he muttered as he rolled off the bed to grab his breeches.
Heart pounding, Bri eased the door shut while Eaton stabbed a leg into his breeches. She really should confront him with his infidelity, here and now, she supposed. However, seeing him naked with the actress rattled her more than she expected. Her face felt as if it had gone up in flames and she couldn’t get the image out of her mind.
She became frantic when she heard the wooden floor creak as Eaton hurried to investigate. She glanced down the hall, trying to calculate how long it would take to reach her room and duck out of sight. Too blasted long, she decided.
She had to make a choice. She could face Eaton now while she was struggling to gather her composure or try to slip into the room next door until the coast was clear. She chose the latter.
To her relief the knob turned easily and silently. She darted inside the dark room and eased the door shut with a quiet click.
“What the hell—?”
Bri found herself staring at yet another bare chest. However, the man who owned it put Eaton to shame. Washboarded muscles rippled down his belly. His shoulders were much broader than Eaton’s and he stood six foot three inches in his stocking feet. His whiskered face was in deep shadows because his back was to the dim lantern light that was blocked by the dressing screen in the corner.
When Bri heard Eaton whip open his door to check for unwanted visitors in the hall, she glanced wildly at the brawny frontiersman who was staring warily at her. When he opened his mouth—in what she anticipated to be a terse demand to know why she had burst into his room unannounced—she did the only thing she could think to do to silence him quickly.
She pushed up on tiptoe and flung her arms around his neck. She kissed him soundly—sucking the breath from his lungs and the question off his tongue. When he tried to rear back to get a look at her, she held his head to hers and leaned sensuously against his solid chest. She put all she had into the embrace so she could keep him distracted until Eaton returned to his paramour.
A moment later, she heard the stranger’s rumbling purr. Then he said, “Well, if you insist, sweetheart…”