Wayward Wind by Dorothy Garlock

pan of warm water to the bedside. “It was so awful.”
    “Where’s her man?”
    Lorna glanced at him. He was bathing the sweat from Bonnie’s face. “She doesn’t have one,” she said tersely.
    “Who did this to her?”
    “It was a dirty, low-down hunk of crowbait who’s not fit to be called a man. Bonnie’s folks sold her to him because she’s
     a cripple!” Frustrated, frightened and angry, Lorna fairly shouted the words.
    The man, who was not much more than a boy, gazed down at the still face of the girl. Finally he spoke, and his muttered words
     barely reached Lorna’s ears. “Poor little thing,” he whispered sadly. His eyes moved over her quiet face and down to the arm
     that lay at her side. He picked it up and lightly caressed the handless stump with his fingertips. “Ya been alivin’ in hell,
     ain’t ya?”
    Something in his voice and the sad look on his face caught at Lorna’s heartstrings. She burst into tears, stood, and slipped
     out the door to stand with her arm against the cabin wall and her face against it. Racking sobs shook her and she cried as
     she had not done in many years.
    Cooper heard the sound of the woman weeping before he rounded the corner of the house.
The young girl had died!
He wasn’t surprised. The poor thing had gone through too much. He’d like to get his hands on the sonofabitch who’d misused
     her. He wondered what connection Lorna had with the girl. She was crying her heart out. He went up to her and put a comforting
     hand on her shoulder.
    “I’m sorry, ma’am.”
    Lorna jumped as if he had touched her with fire. She whirled in a crouched position, her head thrust forward, her moccasined
     feet planted firmly on the ground. She jerked at the knife she wore in the sash at her waist and glared up at him, her eyes
     as bright and as furious as those of a treed bobcat.
    “Don’t touch me! Don’t you
dare
touch me, you… horny, rutting swine!” she snarled. “I despise you and your kind. Bonnie’ll die because of men like you!”
    Cooper backed away. This small black-haired woman was set to fight him! She couldn’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds
     dripping wet, yet she held the knife as if she was determined to use it. The silence between them seemed to crackle as though
     each generated a violent lightning storm. Neither of them moved nor spoke for what seemed an endless space of time. He stared
     at her, all his senses completely absorbed in her, as if he were wrapped tightly together with her in an invisible cocoon.
     A tightness grew in Cooper’s chest and a numbness came up his neck and rendered him speechless. For an instant, in a small
     part of his brain, there was a flicker of recognition. It was as if somewhere in time, he had known this woman well. Her face
     and form were not strange to him, nor were her feelings. The mood would pass in an instant. Knowing that, he waited.
    The anger left Lorna as quickly as it had come. She had been unreasonably unfair and she knew it. She looked at the tall,
     fair-haired man with unabashed curiosity. He was whiplash thin, yet the muscles of his shoulders, arms and thighs bulged his
     buckskins. His hips were lean and he wore a gun strapped below his waist, as did most men. But he wore a bowie knife, too.
     Both knife scabbard and gun holster were tied down. His light sandy hair was straight and thick, his eyes a clear sky blue.
     There was an amazing quietness about him.
    “I’m… sorry. It was mean of me to blame you for what happened to Bonnie. My name is Lorna.” She tucked the knife in her belt
     and held out her hand.
    “Cooper Parnell.” Cooper took the step necessary to reach her hand and clasped it firmly. “I understand how you feel,” he
     murmured, and meant it.
    Her level brows lifted and her eyes widened slightly. As her features mirrored her changing moods, he felt as if the whole
     of her character lay quite near the surface. Frankly and openly, observing each detail, she