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  She tried to figure out what had caused Wyatt to put a stop to their passion, but no explanation she came up with in her mind seemed to match reality. At first, she thought he might not like her personality, or he might not respect her as a rancher, but as the days went by, she realized that wasn’t the case. He always treated her with the utmost respect in their conversations, praising her ideas and complimenting the way she ran the ranch. He valued her opinion and asked for it often.

  Perhaps he didn’t find her ladylike enough? That was another thought of hers proved false. He behaved gently and gallantly toward her, removing his hat, standing in her presence, and opening doors for her. Always in the forefront of her thinking was the memory of him saying she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on. But if he thought she was beautiful, why didn’t he act on it?

  She told herself to stop thinking about Wyatt Parker, but she could never put him out of her mind for very long. He intrigued her. There was something different about him, something mysterious, and she longed to be in his presence. Knowing how his former boss and girl had treated him, plus seeing how much physical pain he had suffered, she felt protective and compassionate toward him.

  Her feelings of protectiveness toward Wyatt grew to alarming proportions when she heard the nasally voice of Mark Xavier engaged in a heated conversation with him. The voice came from the other side of the barn out of her sight, but she heard the words clearly.

  “You’re going to tell me what you know, boy, if you value your life,” Xavier snarled.

  Though Wyatt responded in an even tone, there was no denying he sounded annoyed. “Don’t rightly know what you’re talkin’ about, Mr. Xavier, and I reckon you should take a step back before this gets ugly.”

  “Oh, I think you do know. You’re either with the law or against it. You’d better decide which side you’re on right smart, or you’re going to find yourself in a barred box.”

  Anger surged through Elsie. She withdrew her revolver and quickened her steps. Wyatt had no knowledge of her nefarious activity, and Xavier had no proof of it. She wanted to keep it that way, and she didn’t want Wyatt to be in any kind of danger. She wouldn’t put it past Xavier to hurt him to try to get the truth, and she couldn’t bear the thought of Wyatt in his injured state engaging in a fight against her worst enemy.

  She rounded the corner to see Xavier holding a threatening fist in front of Wyatt’s face. Wyatt’s left fist rested against his hip. His right arm was still recovering and helplessly cradled in a sling. He didn’t appear afraid, though. He regarded Xavier with a bored expression.

  “Get away from him or I’ll shoot!” Elsie yelled at Xavier, pointing her gun to the back of his head.

  Mark Xavier’s response was quick. He sidestepped away from Wyatt, spun around, and drew his weapon. Elsie suddenly found herself face to face with Xavier’s Colt revolver before she could decide whether or not to shoot him.

  “Now hold on just a cotton-pickin’ minute,” Wyatt said with a raised voice. He stood straighter in a less-relaxed pose and tilted his hat up so that his entire face was unshaded from the sun. “There’s no need for weapons in this discussion.”

  “The harebrained trollop started it,” Xavier growled. He spat on the ground without removing his gaze from Elsie’s face. “Typical Fin, always trying to one-up me and always losing.”

  “Oh, is that right?” Elsie taunted with a sneer. “Seems to me I’ve been on the winning side as of late. My grasses are green, my cattle are fat, and my gun is loaded.”

  “Elsie, holster that right now,” Wyatt said, his voice taut. “You too, Xavier. Ain’t no reason to talk with irons when our mouths were workin’ just fine.”

  Neither made any move to holster their weapon, but they didn’t argue either. “On three, you both stand down,” Wyatt insisted. “One… two… three.”

  With matching sighs of exasperation, Elsie and Xavier lowered their guns. “Get off my property, Xavier,” Elsie growled. “And don’t be bothering my cowhands. You got something to say, say it to me.”

  Xavier’s face twisted into a contemptuous scowl. “One of these days, you’re gonna get caught. I look forward to the day the marshal takes you away in handcuffs.”

  Wyatt stepped toward Xavier. Though obviously injured, he still looked intimidating as he loomed over him. “You’ve got some nerve making threats against the lady on her own land. You heard her, she wants you gone, so get yourself going.”

  After spitting on the ground once again, Xavier departed on his horse, cantering away and leaving dust in his wake. Elsie stared after him, her heart thumping painfully in her chest. She wasn’t sure that her original concern that Xavier would hurt Wyatt had been a valid one when she finally looked at Wyatt’s imposing figure. He was glaring at her, his eyes flashing with anger and his lips set in a firm line. A tick in his jaw indicated he was gritting his teeth, and the scar that tracked his face seemed especially pronounced. She’d never seen a man looking as fierce as Wyatt appeared in that moment. She found it hard to believe he was the same gentle, soft-spoken man she’d gotten to know.

  Her heart continued to pound, now anxious over Wyatt’s obvious displeasure. What had caused him such anger? He strode the few steps to her and grasped her arm near the shoulder. “You have a death wish, woman?” When she didn’t respond, he asked, “What were you thinking, drawing your gun on a man having words with me? He could have killed you!”

  “I-I wanted to protect you,” she stammered, trying to wrench her arm free, to no avail. His grip wasn’t tight enough to inflict anything more than discomfort, but it was unyielding. Wyatt was a powerful man, much more powerful than she’d realized, even with only one good arm.

  “I don’t need you to protect me, Elsie,” he bellowed. “I don’t need any woman coming in the middle of my argument with another man, putting herself in danger on my behalf.” He gave her a shake. “You listening to me, woman?”

  She’d never seen this severe, chastising side to Wyatt, and she felt desperate for him to understand her motivation. “But it’s not your fight, it’s mine. And you’re injured! I didn’t want him to hurt you.”

  “I would prefer for me to lose a fistfight than for you to lose a gunfight… or win one, for that matter, and end up in prison!” He walked with purpose toward the front of the barn, hauling her along with him.

  “What are you doing?” she squeaked, though she had a strong suspicion of his intention when he dragged her in the direction of the bench.

  He sat down and dragged her between his legs before toppling her over his right knee. Wyatt wrapped his other leg over hers, pinning her in place. His left hand fell in such a hard swat on her clothed bottom that she gasped and arched upward.

  “Teaching you a lesson about safety,” he growled. Grasping the waist of her trousers, he tugged them down, while she squirmed helplessly between his legs.

  She felt mortified when the cool morning air wafted over her bare bottom. Before, when she’d begged him for a spanking, she’d felt some measure of control. Now she felt like a bad little girl, helpless to prevent her punishment, especially when he proceeded with giving her naked backside a proper, no-nonsense tanning. Sharp swats peppered her bottom and the tops of her thighs, causing such a sting that tears flooded her eyes nearly immediately. “Stop this, Wyatt! I’m ordering you to stop.”

  “Order away, missy,” he responded, smacking even harder. “You aren’t in charge at the moment.” Her whole bottom blazed, with each spank igniting a new fire on her poor unprotected cheeks.

  “Ow!” she sobbed. “Wyatt, please. I was trying to help you; I don’t deserve this!”

  “Ha!” he responded. “I don’t know of anyone who deserves this more. Would your pa have let you go and do something so dangerous without consequences?”

  His mention of her father brought forth a new wave of grief and pain. She’d acted recklessly ever since her father’s death, a result of hatred for her neighbor and grief over how her pa ha
d died before his time. No one had ever cared to stop her. “No, he would want me safe. Please, it hurts…”

  He stopped spanking and rested his hand on her hot bottom. “I want you safe too, Elsie. I care about you. That’s the only reason I’m blistering your backside.”

  She sobbed, feeling regretful and in a great deal of pain. In the recesses of her mind and heart, she also felt like she was right where she deserved to be, getting the thrashing of her life.

  And boy did he give her a hiding. She felt like she’d sat on a stove by the time he finally released her. As soon as his leg loosened its grip over the backs of hers, she stumbled away from him, her hands frantically clutching her cheeks and rubbing to relieve the sting. Her bottom hurt so much that it took her several moments before realizing that her trousers were still pooled at her ankles. With a shriek, she grabbed them up over her hips, hissing with pain as the wool scraped against her punished skin but grateful to regain her modesty.

  She covered her face with her hands. She couldn’t bear to look at him, and she felt overcome with emotions. He’d made it very clear he didn’t want harm to come to her. Amidst the pain of the spanking, she felt good about that. She also felt incredibly foolish for pulling a gun. “I’m sorry I thought I needed to protect you from Xavier,” she whimpered behind her hands. “I should have known you could take care of yourself.”

  He didn’t respond right away. Finally, he stood and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her to his chest. He sighed. “You’re so good, darlin’. I appreciate that you care.”

  “It sure doesn’t seem like you do,” she said in a small voice.

  He chuckled softly. “Well, let’s just say what I’d appreciate more is you staying out of harm’s way.” She kept her head buried against his chest for some time and cried, not only from the spanking, but also for everything she’d endured alone. Wyatt rubbed her back and didn’t loosen his hold on her. “Everything’s going to be all right, Elsie,” he murmured. “I know what Xavier did to your pa, and everything’s going to be all right.”

  Her bottom throbbed as he held her against him, but the ache soon bloomed into desire. Wyatt smelled so good, and his body was so warm and comforting. She wrapped her arms around his waist and enjoyed the feeling of his embrace for as long as possible, wishing he would kiss her again. But he only held her and stroked her hair and back until her sniffles disappeared.

  Chapter Seven

  Wyatt rode his horse from the Infinity Ranch to town at a snail’s pace. Like usual, he dreaded his weekly meeting with the marshal. It wasn’t that he felt guilty over keeping Elsie’s cattle rustling a secret from the law. He’d figured out within a day whose side he was on. The Xaviers were at fault for what they did to Elsie’s pa, and her revenge was fully justified in his opinion. Though he went to sleep every night with a clear conscience, he was in the very precarious position of keeping up a ruse with Elsie as well as with the marshal.

  Despite Elsie being obviously smitten with Wyatt, she hadn’t made him privy to her theft. Until she did, he couldn’t present her with a way out. He worried that if he confronted her about it, she would deny it and redouble her efforts to hide it from him. To Wyatt’s way of thinking, this would put her in danger, since it would open up the possibility that someone else might discover it before he did. She seemed just on the brink of telling him. Several times he’d seen it in her eyes, her desire come clean, but she’d always caught herself before speaking the words aloud.

  “Sit down,” the marshal said, when Wyatt walked into the jailhouse.

  He obliged as a prickle of apprehension ran down his spine. The marshal’s demeanor and voice was none too friendly.

  “Well? Have you seen anything yet?” the marshal demanded, setting aside his paperwork and pinning him with a glare.

  Wyatt shook his head slowly. “Afraid not. She still has me working around the barn and cabin. Any time I ask to go to the range, she refuses.”

  The marshal grunted in frustration. “Have you talked to the hands at all? Haven’t they chattered?”

  “Nope. They’re careful, and they’re real loyal to Miss Elsie. She treats them like family.”

  The marshal’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I’ll speak freely. I expected you to have some information by now. It’s been a month, and I’m no wiser than I was when I first met you. You’re a shoddy deputy if I ever saw one.”

  Wyatt scowled at him and clenched his hands into fists. “Maybe that’s because I’m not a deputy. I’m a ranch hand, remember, and I’m doin’ my best at play-acting deputy and getting information I can use.” He wasn’t really offended, but he knew he had to act that way so that all appeared normal.

  “Look, Mark Xavier has been in and out of my office every day for a week. He’s as good as guessed that Elsie Fin has something to do with his lost cattle. I don’t get some answers soon, people are gonna start taking the law into their own hands. I’d rather that girl end up in jail than at the end of a vigilante’s rope.”

  Wyatt tapped his boot heel against the floor, looking down so that the marshal couldn’t read the concern on his face.

  “You’ve got a week, Parker,” the marshal growled. “You better have some news to share by next Sunday or so help me, I’ll run you out of town so fast you won’t know what hit you. And I won’t pay you a cent.”

  “Very well,” Wyatt said. “I’ll have something to report by next week. You can count on it.” He stood and strode toward the door, exiting before the marshal had dismissed him.

  A sense of urgency surged through him. The walls were closing in, and there was only a small window of time for him to make everything right.

  Wyatt walked to Mary’s Restaurant, where he sat at a table and ordered a coffee with his last quarter. He was determined that, before he rode back to the Infinity Ranch, he would work out the right words to say in order to compel Elsie to confess to him. A plan for getting her out of this mess was already brewing in his mind, but she had to trust him for it to work.

  As he thought about Elsie while sipping his coffee, his heart softened as it did every time he thought about the little rancher. She was smart and capable, but she was also so very vulnerable, and he felt determined to protect her at all costs. More than that, he wanted her for his own. He couldn’t wait until this cattle-rustling business was behind them and he could propose to her.

  Being in her presence always made Wyatt feel like more of a man. Her feminine curves and sweet face differed sharply from his angles and scars. In every way that he was tough, she was soft. How Elsie treated him had a lot to do with why he felt a few inches taller around her. She always gazed at him with admiration, even after learning about his injury. Being acquainted with a woman who admired him at his worst, when he was nothing but a poor, hurt cowboy, caused Wyatt to feel great affection and desire for her.

  It required a great deal of self-control not to take her into his arms and ignite the spark that perpetually burned in her eyes. With every day that passed, Wyatt liked Elsie more, and eventually he realized he was in love with her. Their attraction towards each other was something he’d never experienced before. It was magnetic, indisputable—

  He stopped mid-thought and nearly choked on his coffee, for he’d suddenly spotted the very woman on his mind, and she wasn’t alone. Elsie sat with a man at a table by the wall. The sunlight streaming in through the window, which was where he was sitting, prevented her from seeing him, so Wyatt watched the entire scenario unfold before his eyes, without her even knowing he was there.

  She was wearing her best dress, the same she’d worn when she’d invited Wyatt to supper, and her cheeks were flushed in excitement and merriment. The man opposite her poured her tea. Though Wyatt couldn’t hear what they were saying, he could see that whatever words being spoken were making Elsie blush.

  Wyatt fumed. What in the hell? Elsie was being courted? How did he not know this? It took all his strength not to pound his fist against the table in outrage. Elsi
e was his woman. What was she thinking entertaining another man?

  The waitress stopped by his table. “Would you like another coffee, sir?” she asked pleasantly.

  Wyatt struggled to get his feelings under control. He cleared his throat. “No, ma’am. Thank you.”

  “Oh, don’t call me ma’am,” the waitress said, giggling flirtatiously. She held out her hand. “I’m Miss Florence Clark. Please call me Florence.”

  Annoyed by the interruption but not wanting to seem rude, he shook her hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Wyatt Parker.”

  “Well, Wyatt—you don’t mind if I call you that, do you?” she asked sweetly, slipping into the seat across from him. “Welcome to Virginia City. Haven’t seen you before.”

  “Thanks,” he said, distracted and wishing she would leave so that he could study Elsie and her male companion without interruption.

  Florence caught him looking in their direction. “He’s new in town too,” she said conversationally. “I just learned he’s…” she lowered her voice into a conspiratorial whisper, “…a mail-order groom.”

  Wyatt’s full attention snapped to Florence. “What?” he hissed. “What in tarnation do you mean, a mail-order groom?”

  Florence laughed at his reaction. “I mean what I said. He came all the way from Rochester, New York, to marry Elsie Fin after she put an advertisement for a husband in the paper.”

  “Of all the…,” he sputtered. “What kind of poppycock is that?”

  “It’s sort of a pattern here. I reckon it’s not too common anywhere else, but Elsie Fin is the third woman who’s done it in Virginia City. Worked out well for the other two.”

  “Well, it’s not going to work out well for Elsie,” he said firmly, before he could censor himself.

  Florence cocked her head. “You sweet on her or something?”