West of Paradise by Marcy Hatch Page B

comparison to the rest of his skin, which was dark from the sun. Faintly she could see a second line of white that began at the top of his jeans. She jerked her eyes back to the scar, a livid reminder he would carry for the rest of his life. She was surprised he’d survived the ordeal.
    “This is what you did,” Jack said, his pale eyes hard. “But I guess I should be grateful. At least I’m still alive. Some of the others you ran into weren’t so lucky.”
    “I didn’t do it,” Katherine whispered. “It wasn’t me.”
    “You know, I’m getting real tired of hearing you say that. Do you think I would ever forget your face?”
    “No,” she said in a small voice. “But it wasn’t me. I wasn’t here.”
    “Yeah, right,” Jack said, buttoning his shirt and tucking it into his jeans. He sat down with his back against the door, stretching his legs out and resting one hand on his gun. He closed his eyes.
    She searched the room for a spot that wasn’t directly beneath a cobweb and sat, leaning back against the wall and drawing her knees up. She felt her eyes fill up with tears of frustration and sorrow and put her head down, not wanting him to see her cry. She tried not to; she didn’t want to cry, but the tears came anyway, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
    “Don’t you dare cry,” his harsh voice rang out, jerking her head up. “You don’t deserve the luxury.”
    “Shut up!” she screamed. “I can cry if I want, you bastard! I didn’t shoot you and maybe you ought to be thinking about the woman that did. The one that’s still out there and free to do it to someone else.”
    “I ought to kill you now and save everyone the trouble of a trial,” Jack ground out.
    “Go ahead! I’ll be dead in a few days anyway. What does it matter? It’s what you want to do, so go ahead.”
    Jack rose to his feet, drawing his gun and walking over to her. He grabbed hold of her, jerked her to her feet, put the gun to her temple. His gaze held hers, glaring at her like she was some monster, some hateful thing. Katherine closed her eyes, trembling.
    “Bitch,” he muttered. His grip fell away and the gun dropped to his side.
    Katherine opened her eyes again and instantly a mindless fury washed over her. Without thinking, she brought her knee up hard and gave him a good shove. He fell back, landing on the floor.
    The gun skittered across the floor and Katherine launched herself at it, grabbing it and bolting for the door. She yanked it open and flew out and down the stairs. She could hear him behind her, his footsteps echoing throughout the building along with some extremely harsh language.
    She looked wildly around, fixing on the horse who was eyeing her nervously. She grabbed hold of its mane, pulling the animal toward the door. Her eyes darted about for the saddle but there wasn’t time. Jack was coming.
    As soon as she was outside she tried to pull herself up, but her skirts kept getting in the way, twisting wrong. She’d never ridden bareback and the horse seemed to know it, shying away every time she attempted to clamber up. She tried once more but the horse side-stepped again and Katherine gave up with a frustrated cry and gave the horse a hard smack on the rump. If she couldn’t ride it then neither could he!
    She watched it take off down the street before turningin the opposite direction to follow suit. Her heels sank into the earth, making running difficult, and her skirts kept getting tangled around her legs. She yanked them up and ran as hard as she could but so intent was she on escaping that she never saw where she was going, blindly running wherever her legs took her.
    By the time she realized she wasn’t even on the road—wherever that was—Jack had closed the distance between them.
    One thing left to do, she thought, hating the idea of it but knowing she had to escape, had to get to Fort Leavenworth. That’s where the key was and if she didn’t get that key she might not ever get out of