Innocence and the Outlaw

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

"I want you to learn how to draw and shoot this gun quickly," Chase asserted as he and Leah stood beside the river.

They were well out of sight of camp and Leah loved this time with him. He had been bringing her to this wide bend in the gentle river every day and Leah loved the chance to feel the sun against her and smell the fresh air.

It had been one week since Chase had been attacked by the mountain lion and while he had never complained about being in pain, Leah could tell that today was the first day he could move about freely.

In the last week she had truly learned how to read Chase. She knew what each tiny line on his face meant and how to interpret the raises of his brow and each tiny nuance in his expression. Leah was still attempting to understand the feelings that Chase stirred within her.

She couldn't explain how she knew him so intimately when they had not kissed, had barely touched other than brushes of their hands while passing each other things and yet Leah already knew him more thoroughly than she had ever known anyone else.

"I already know how to shoot," Leah argued. "I shot you, didn't I?"

Chase patiently took her gun from the holster on her hip. He had insisted that she wear the holster he had gotten for her, though she hadn't asked where he had gotten it from. He checked the ammunition and slid it back inside. "Yes, I remember," he assured her, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "I know that you know how to shoot but you need to learn how to do so quickly. I may not always be around to protect you."

Leah glared at him but managed to keep from saying anything in her own defense. She had seen his brow raise just a little and his lip twitch and she knew he had been trying to get a reaction from her. Chase somehow seemed to know her just as well as she knew him.

"Show me how quickly you can draw," he urged as he took several steps back.

Leah rolled her eyes and went for her gun but before she even had it grasped in her hand, Chase had his own gun drawn and aimed at her head. "Too slow," he grumbled.

"Well sure I'm slower than an outlaw who has built his entire life around being the fastest draw and has Indian blood flowing in his veins!" Leah exclaimed defensively.

Chase shook his head and put his gun away. "A quarter of my blood is white," he countered with a smile that took Leah's breath. Chase didn't smile often. She had only seen him do so a handful of times in the two weeks he'd been in this camp and he never smiled around anyone other than her.

"I didn't know that," Leah admitted, forcing herself to look away from his face and the way his cheeks and the corners of his eyes crinkled and his dark eyes shone with his good humor.

"Yes." Chase walked to the river's edge and sat down. "My father was a half blood, my mother full."

Leah sat down beside him, enjoying the peaceful surroundings. "Did you ever live in a tribe?"

"No." Chase tossed a rock into the water and they watched the ripples dance over the once calm surface. "My father was born to a white man who had raped a helpless Indian maiden. Her tribe abandoned her and she was forced to seek refuge with her attacker. My father said one day the man went crazy with rage and the maiden. My father was eight years old at the time and hid as he heard his mother draw her last breaths. He was later found by a teenage boy who ran with other orphans and called himself Boss. Boss took my father in and a friendship was born."

"That explains why you run with men so much different than yourself," Leah stated.

Chase frowned as he glanced over at her. "Different?"