The Bounty Hunter's Bride. Sandra Steffen
gulped. “It?”
“You said you’re going stir-crazy. The activity will be good for you.”
Activity? Something intense flared through him, something he wasn’t certain he’d ever felt in exactly this way. It was the knowledge that she was a virgin. It messed with a man’s head, making him think about the darnedest things. It took the simplicity out of a man wanting a woman. And Kane believed in keeping things simple.
“Come on, Kane, let’s dance.”
“Dance? That’s what you want to do...dance?”
“What did you think?”
Since Kane wasn’t about to admit what he’d been thinking, he said, “There’s no music.”
She started to hum. Seconds later she broke out into song. Lord, there she went with the singing again.
“Come on, Kane,” she said, drawing him with her to the center of the room.
“I can’t dance,” he said, stalling.
Totally undeterred, she placed his good hand on her shoulder and his other one on her waist, talking all the while. “I’ve watched every Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie ever made a hundred times. I can teach even a mule with four left feet to dance.”
She hummed a few bars of the “Tennessee Waltz.”
“Josie, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Don’t worry,” she whispered, inching closer. “I’ll be real careful of your bad shoulder. There, how’s that?”
She started humming again, swaying slightly, easing him into his first step. “Dancin’ ain’t—isn’t—hard. It’s like playing leapfrog or making love.”
He swallowed, his feet moving him around the room, her voice sending his thoughts to the other side of the moon. “It’s all about trust and consent, about swaying this way and dipping that way. You hold me just so. And I hold you just so. There. Feel that?”
Kane felt that, all right. He felt her breasts against his chest and her hair under his chin. He felt her breath on his neck and her thighs between his. He felt a lot more than he cared to admit. It left him warm and wanting, and he didn’t want to stop.
Deciding for once it might be best to keep her talking, he said, “Would you tell me something, Josie?”
She looked up at him and nodded, continuing to hum.
“I was just wondering why a girl who can sing like a lark and glide around the room on feet that don’t even touch the ground has stayed on this mountain,” he said, pausing for quiet emphasis. He really was trying to be nice. “I mean, why would a girl like you stay if you aren’t happy here?”
She stared into his eyes for a moment, and then past him as if she was seeing something in the distance only she could see. He watched her expression, intrigued.
“What makes you think I’m not happy here?” she asked.
“Are you?”
She shrugged. “I’m not unhappy, if that’s what you mean. Some kids don’t like school, but I loved it, especially geography and reading. My mama couldn’t read very well, but she was so proud of me. I used to talk to her for hours about the people and places I read about and how I was going to visit each and every corner of the world.”
“Why haven’t you?” he said quietly.
She lifted her chin, her eyes finding his. Their feet continued to move, but their steps took them in a circle that grew smaller and smaller. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Mama got sick when I was fourteen. I missed a lot of school after that. By the time she died, I was seventeen, and Daddy didn’t see much sense in sending me back.”
Kane had the feeling that for once, Josie was leaving a lot out. A lot of pain. A lot of sadness. A lot of hopelessness. A ton of disappointment. “It’s never too late,” he said.
“To go back to school? Maybe not in other parts of the country, but in Hawk Hollow, it’s way too late. That’s why I was hoping to convince you to take me to Montana with you. I’d try to be quiet, Kane. I’m a good cook and a fair to middling housekeeper. And don’t all men need a woman every now and then?”
Kane’s feet froze to the floor, his hand tightening at her waist.
“Kane?”
There was something in her voice that struck a chord in his heart. Until that instant, he didn’t know he still had a heart.
All he had to do was make the next move, and he would find relief for the pent-up need wreaking havoc with his senses. He thought about it. God, it was torture, but he couldn’t do it. It seemed that along with a heart came a conscience.
Ending the little dance lesson, he touched her cheek first, and then he straightened her collar. “I’m tempted, Josie. Believe me, I’m tempted. But a girl like you can do a lot better than a man like me.”
“You’re wrong about that, Kane.”
He shook his head, thinking about Obadiah Olson and his tooth. “Maybe not here, but somewhere. You should do whatever you want to do and be whatever you want to be.”
He hoped he hadn’t hurt her feelings too much, and prepared himself for her tongue-lashing and tirade. Neither came. She simply stared at him for several seconds before turning away. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with her silence, but the sparkle in her eyes made him downright suspicious.
Chapter Three
That sparkle was still in Josie’s eyes three days later. And Kane was still suspicious. He’d been practicing the fine art of holding the opposite sex at bay for years. Women in general didn’t make it easy. Josie was more difficult than most.
Now that he was stronger, he’d put a stop to her offers to lend a helping hand. He bathed himself, dressed himself, even took his turn cleaning up after breakfast, lunch and supper. There had been no more dance lessons, no more anything lessons. Every once in a while he’d detected what he’d thought was a waning on her part. He was pretty sure she’d given up completely when he’d turned down her far-from-innocent ploy to play strip poker earlier that morning. Now, she seemed more intent upon asking questions than luring him into bed. It was a hard call, but when push came to shove, Kane believed it was far easier to answer her questions than deter her amorous overtures.
“I don’t get it,” she said, studying the checkerboard between them. “If you want to catch bad guys, why not become a police officer? King me.”
Kane turned her checker over dazedly. Studying his next move, he said, “In this age of attorneys and individual rights, police officers’ hands are tied. Besides, police departments don’t have the time or the resources to chase missing suspects down.”
“By resources, you mean money,” she said.
At his nod, she asked, “How much does it cost to capture one of these fugitives?”
Kane lifted his gaze from the board, only to find Josie’s eyes down-turned. “The average fee for taking a fugitive off the street is five hundred dollars. High profile cases can net anywhere from ten to eighty thousand dollars for an arrest. Those are my specialty.”
She shrugged as if thoroughly unimpressed. “Is that why you do it? For the money?”
He shook his head. “I do it because somebody has to. And because I’m good at it. I have a good head on my shoulders and I’ve learned how a wanted fugitive thinks.”
“Have you ever killed anybody?”
That was a question a lot of people asked. Sliding his black checker to the next square, he shook his head. “In the old days a bounty hunter would track and corner his prey. More often than not the confrontation