Love of a Bounty (Sequal to Unexpected Romance but can stand alone)

Chapter Two

It was early morning when Tessa finally walked out of the sheriff's office in Crow City with the money from all the bounties tucked safely in her pocket. She walked over to the tall black stallion she'd stolen the night before and felt a moment of guilt. She hoped the man she had stolen him from was okay.

She had never stolen anything from anyone before but she had been desperate. The man hadn't known it but she had held him up with an unloaded gun since she'd long since run out of ammunition as she'd tried to shoot at pheasants and grouse to eat. Her horse had broken its leg and that had taken another of her bullets. She had been out of money and all alone with no one to turn to for help.

When she had seen him with such a healthy horse dragging all those bounties, she had known it was the answered prayer she'd been waiting on. Now she had a good horse, plenty of guns and ammunition and nearly nine hundred dollars to live on.

She led the stallion over to the stables and paid the hand working to give him a good rub down and plenty of fresh oats and hay and then she went to the hotel. She rented a room and had some hot water sent up to take a bath.

Once she was locked safely in her room she took off her hat and pulled out the pins holding up all her long red hair. It fell in waves down her back and she ran her hands through it. Her father had always loved her hair since it was the one thing she had gotten from her mother who had died from fever shortly after Tessa had been born.

She pulled off the rest of her clothes and unwrapped the cloth that she used to flatten her fairly large breasts and climbed into the tub, laying down and letting the hot water cover her to her chin. She still felt the sting of pain when she thought about her father as if his death had been yesterday instead of nearly two months ago.

Six weeks she'd been chasing the man who had killed her father in cold blood while he'd been sitting on the porch reading. Tessa had managed to hide under her bed and the man, whom she had heard her father call Trigger Jones, had not found her.

She wished now that she had not just stayed at her cabin frozen in fear for two weeks after burying her father. It had given Trigger Jones plenty of time to get far away and now Tessa could not find him anywhere. Of course she had no idea if 'Trigger' was really the man's name and she had no idea what he looked like. She had only seen his hand and it had been missing a middle finger and covered in scars.

She worked hard to make sure that everyone who saw her thought she was just a teenage boy. There were too many men out here who would take advantage if they knew she was a young woman on her own. She used the lye soap that had been brought up with her water and scrubbed herself clean before climbing back out of the tub.

She wished she had some clean clothes to put on but she did not. She checked the strangers saddlebags that she had brought up to her room and found a clean pair of black pants but they were far too big for her. The shirt however she could make work.

She wrapped her bindings back around her chest wincing at the pain it always caused and then pulled on the new shirt. She tucked it into her dirty pants and rolled the sleeves up since they were a good six inches too long. She was tired and she knew that the saloon wouldn't start filling up with men to question about Trigger until much later that evening so she curled up in the bed and went to sleep.

888

"Gonna wring his damn neck is what I'm gonna do!" Richard exclaimed as he limped down the dusty road toward town. It was late afternoon and he'd been walking all day. He managed to get a drink of water at a small stream but other than that he'd had nothing. His leg was on fire where the bullet had grazed it. He knew it was probably going to end up infected and if he'd had his saddlebags he had some salve he could put on the wound to help it heal but the damn pain in the ass little boy had taken it too.