Heaven Sent

Chapter 4

He stayed away from her exactly three days. But on that fourth day, after the first dusting of snow that turned the desolate landscape into a winter wonderland, Colton gave in to his weaker self and started manufacturing reasons why he needed to drop by and see Miz Ana Redwing.

Had the snow collapsed her roof? No, it barely covered the ground. Had the water froze in her outside pump? His hadn’t, so chances were hers was fine. But then he cast his struggling mind back farther and remembered what he’d noticed the night he and Bob had interrupted Miz Ana Redwing’s quiet evening. Paper chains coiled by her fireside chair. Chains like the type you decorate a Christmas tree with. Fashioned by her slender fingers, no doubt. But she hadn’t had a tree. And that’s when he knew he’d found the perfect excuse to visit her.

With a coffee mug warming his hands, Colton stared out the front window of his temporary home. The snow clung to the barren branches of the trees hiding the little shack from casual passersby, and he took an idle moment to admire the way it glistened in the cold sunlight. Felt relieved that he’d taken the time to fill the chinks in the walls of this one-room shelter. Otherwise he and Bob would be freezing their asses off. He’d even enclosed Dot’s stall, so that one day he didn’t walk out there and find her carcass dragged off as dinner for the marauding wolves he heard at night.

He’d definitely settled in here at the foot of the Sandia Mountains. And felt relatively safe from anyone with a hankering to find him. If it wasn’t for that deadly sack of blood money crouching in his saddlebag, he would be a content man.

But it was as if the bag took on a personality of its own at night. It practically whispered to him to take it out. Run it through his hands. And then watch it become Hal and Leo’s blood trickling between his fingers. Congealing on the floor in accusatory puddles.

He would wake up reaching for his gun, heart pounding. Pulse sweeping through his body on a frantic tidal wave. And Bob would be there, leaning his chin on the edge of Colt’s cot, whining his sympathy for his master’s guilty conscience.

Once awake, he would have to remind himself that if he hadn’t gotten the jump on them they would have killed him. He had just beaten them at their own game. But that rationale didn’t hold the recurring nightmare at bay. Or solve the indecision of what to do with the stolen money.

Rousing from his introspection, Colt shoved away from the window after tossing the coffee remains down his throat. Put the empty cup in the wrecking pan that served as his sink and turned his thoughts to the other burr under his saddle.

Miz Ana Redwing.

Moving to his front door, he sent Bob out to do his doggie business while he leaned against the open door frame and considered his neighbor at the other end of the road. Felt his blood heat as he remembered their kiss. The steamy one that had earned him the boot.

He smiled at the memory, and shifted his stance to relieve the sudden tightening in his pants. Damn, but it had been hot, and worth every moment of his banishment. He’d kissed tons of women since he’d lost his virginity at the age of thirteen. Most of them more adept at the activity than Miz Ana Redwing, too.

But what she’d lacked in finesse, she’d made up for in curiosity. Curiosity, and an unusual blend of innocence and awakening desire. For she’d wanted him, there was no doubt in his mind. And he’d bet his last dollar that’s what had prompted his banishment. She’d been scared by the foreign feeling, and laid the blame at his feet. Which he was willing to accept. After all, to be banished because he caused her to lose control of her emotions was not a punishment. It was a validation of his magnetism.

He grinned again and whistled for Bob, who’d finished what he’d been sent out to do and was just moseying around, trying to scare up some birds to chase. As the big dog came loping toward him, Colt’s mind returned to the Indian woman who consumed most of his waking thoughts.