Renegades and Pretty Women

Chapter Seven

　

Jonah was in a raw mood. He’d wanted to bed Scarlett the night before, had needed to bed her to soothe the raging desire the woman had created in his long neglected body, but thanks to Joe’s antics that hadn’t’ happened.

And to top it all off Scarlett had insisted that instead of sleeping, Jonah needed to stand guard over her and protect her from any other wild animals that might come along and try to get her.

And Jonah had done it because Jonah was a fool. He knew he was a fool but he just didn’t care enough to do anything about it. Satin and lace were his weaknesses. He’d been born into a hard life. A harsh life. Nothing had ever come easily to him. He had had to scrap, fight and struggle just to stay alive even as a boy.

The uncle who had raised him after his whore of a mother had died when Jonah had been five hadn’t given two hoots in hell about Jonah. As a matter of fact there were many times that Jonah was sure the old man locked him up without food and water in hopes that Jonah would die and he would be rid of the bother of having a child around.

Jonah had only been twelve when he had run away from his uncle, not that the man had tried to stop him or find him once he was gone.

Every day had been a struggle. He had scars from the fights he’d been in and the hard way he’d lived for the last sixteen years of his life on his own. He’d taken things that weren’t his but only for survival and he’d never harmed anyone to get it. He worked hard to be different than his father. He didn’t want to be an outlaw. A renegade.

He had killed men but only in self defense and he had killed his first man at only fourteen years of age. It had been a big, burly man more than twice his age and the man had been trying to sneak into Jonah’s bedroll.

Bart was Jonah’s age but Reb was a bit older, closer to forty. Jonah had taken up with the two men when he’d been sixteen and wandering aimlessly and they’d all been pretty much inseparable since.

Other than those two years that Jonah had tried to settle down. Those two years that he had wasted on a woman who didn’t care.

Penny had been everything Jonah had ever wanted. After the hard, harsh existence he had lived, all Jonah wanted was a bit of softness. He wanted a gentle lady. One that wore soft satins and kept her skin smooth. One with silky hair that would feel like velvet beneath his rough hands. A woman with gentle eyes and an easy temper.

Penny had been all of that. Jonah had worked hard to change himself for Penny. He’d held a steady job at that ranch. He’d given up gambling, drinking and smoking. He had done everything that he could possibly do to prove his worth to Penny.

And she had acted as if she loved him as much as he had grown to love her only to run off the moment the rich banker had asked her hand in marriage and leave his heart thoroughly shattered.

Jonah had learned the hard way that those soft, cultured painted ladies that he desperately wanted to counter the harshness of his life weren’t interested in the likes of him but that didn’t stop him from still wanting them.

A life as a gentleman with a real lady by his side had been his dream for as long as he could remember and dreams just didn’t die very easily.

Scarlett wasn’t Penny and he didn’t see himself ever loving the woman but that didn’t stop him from wanting to lay with her and get to know her better. Not all marriages were based on love and just having a soft, gentle, satin covered, painted lady to call his own would help erase and ease the pains of his past.

“Jonah, you alright?” Bart asked as he rode up beside him. It was midday and they’d been traveling since just after sunrise.

“Why?” Jonah asked as he rubbed his hand roughly over his face.