Dark Torment by Karen Robards Page B

from exploding like a musket.
    “If you’ll point out your saddle to me, Miss Sarah,
I’ll be as quick as I can, Miss Sarah.” He was moving away toward
the tack room as he spoke, leaving Malahky securely fastened to the halter
line. Lips tightened angrily, Sarah followed. In grim silence she pointed out
her own sidesaddle, blanket, and hackamore. He was deliberately needling her,
Sarah thought, eying his broad back as he saddled the bay with controlled
movements that spoke of the pain he must still suffer from the beating.
    “Where is Jagger?” she asked when she could bear the
uneasy silence no longer.
    Gallagher glanced at her over his shoulder. His hands—funny
how she could still seem to feel the imprint of those long fingers on her
wrist—were deft as he tightened the saddle girth with a horseman’s
competent ease.
    “Your fiancé didn’t see much sense in having me
lying around the bunkhouse eating my head off. He told me to
replace—Jagger, is it?—three days ago. Jagger, I assume, is out
digging wells in my place. Miss Sarah.”
    Sarah gritted her teeth. The convict had a positive genius for
riling her.
    “If you are referring to Mr. Percival, he is not my
fiancé,” she said coldly.
    “So you’ve said before. But he seems to think
you’re just shy.” He moved toward her as he spoke. Before Sarah had
even the slightest inkling of his intention, his hands were closing around her
waist and he was lifting her off her feet. She gasped, automatically clasping
his bare, hard-muscled forearms for balance as he swung her around, her feet
already high off the ground.
    She felt ridiculously small as be held her before him. The sense
of being helpless in the face of such overpowering male strength was new to
her, and she definitely did not like it! The quickened beating of her heart was
due solely, she told herself, to angry alarm.
    “Put me down! How dare you! What do you think you’re
doing?” Her eyes were enormous as she glared at him.
    “Why, helping you to mount, Miss Sarah,” he said, the
glint in his eyes taunting her even as she felt her bottom make contact with
the smooth leather of the saddle. “What did you think I was doing, Miss
Sarah?”
    Bright color heated her cheeks as he guided her knee around the
pommel so that she was in the correct sidesaddle position. The feel of his hand
on her flesh, even through her gray cotton riding skirt and her single
petticoat, unnerved her. He was so very male.
    “You insolent . . .” she sputtered as he placed the
reins in her ungloved hands. She jerked away from his touch; Malahky danced
back in alarm. Controlling and soothing the animal took all her attention for a
moment. Then she glared fiercely at Gallagher. Seated on Malahky’s back,
she was head and shoulders above him. That difference in height, plus the
strength of the horse beneath her, restored her confidence.
    “If you ever do such a thing again, Gallagher, I will have
no choice but to bring your behavior to either my father’s or Mr.
Percival’s attention.” Her voice was icy, but she had to work to
keep it so. Her every instinct urged her to scream at him.
    “And they, as I’ve already discovered, don’t
subscribe to your particular brand of Christian charity.” His voice was
hard. His blue eyes met her gold ones with something like hatred. Sarah shrank
inwardly from their unsheathed menace. “But do you know,” he
continued, musing, “I find I prefer even their brutality to your treacly
hypocrisy. At least it’s honest.”
    This was the final straw. Sarah’s hand tightened around the
reins; she lashed out, catching him full across the face with the dangling
ends. The sharp crack of leather against flesh rang out. Gallagher staggered
back a pace, his hand rising to his cheek. When he withdrew it, it was smeared
with blood. More blood beaded in the hair-thin gash in his cheek.
    As he looked down at his bloodstained fingers, his