Page 16 of Fairest of Heart

What had happened to her? Had she been attacked after he left her? Titus’s jaw clenched. He should have escorted her back to her people. Maybe he could have prevented . . .

“Is she sleepin’ on a rope?”

“Poor thing.”

“What’s she doin’ out here?”

“And where are her clothes? You figure she’s one of them saloon gals?”

“What would a saloon gal be doing way out here?”

“I dunno. Maybe she got lost.”

“Your mind’s what got lost.”

Titus turned around and shushed the whisperers who’d crept in behind him. The last thing this young woman needed was to wake up to the sight of seven strange men hovering over her. He was about to suggest the others retreat to their original position when Dusty let out a sneeze loud enough to rival a gunshot.

The girl jolted awake and yanked a wicked-looking hunting knife out from under her blanket.

7

Stay back!” Penelope waved Hunt’s knife in front of her as if it had the power to stave off . . . five . . . no, six . . . good heavens . . . seven men.

She raised the blade in front of her face, noticed the sharpened side was aimed the wrong direction, and quickly twisted it around.

Maybe they didn’t notice.

“Ya probably want to fold yer thumb over yer fingers like a fist. It’ll give ya more control.”

So much for them not noticing.

A heavyset man elbowed the thinner fellow who’d offered the advice. “Shut up, Jeb,” he said in a stage whisper. “You’ll scare her.”

“I’m helpin’ by tellin’ her how to hold her knife. The way she’s got it now she’ll prob’ly drop the thing before it can do any damage.”

Well, if he was willing to teach, she was willing to learn. Penelope corrected her grip on the knife and slowly rose to her feet. The blanket started to slip off her shoulders. Her heart pounded. She dropped the knife in order to grab the edges of the blanket and draw them closed beneath her chin. None of the men lunged at her. They kept their distance, waiting patiently for her to bend down and reclaim her knife before anyone said anything.

“We’re not going to hurt you.”

She jerked her gaze to the left, toward the only beardless man of the group. It was him.

He took one slow step closer, separating himself from the others. “We met yesterday. Do you remember me?”

Remember him? She’d been clinging to the hope of him for the last twelve hours.

His dark brown eyes latched onto hers. Calm. Steady. Kind. “I had the dog.”

“I remember.”

He took another step, hands outstretched. She glanced at his hip. No gun—that she could see. He might have one stuck in his waistband. Or a knife in his boot. A man who participated in shootouts wouldn’t run around unarmed, would he?

She pressed her back against the tree and shifted her knife to point at his chest. “That’s close enough.”

He stopped. “I’m a Texas Ranger, ma’am. Company B, Frontier Battalion. Name’s Titus Kingsley. The fellas with me are hands from the Diamond D Ranch, about a couple miles west of here. Rowdy found you,” he said, turning to point at a short, thin man wearing a misbuttoned shirt. “He fetched the rest of us. We just want to help you.”

He really was a Ranger?

Penelope fought the urge to relax her guard. If Madame LaBelle had taught her one thing, it was that people were not always what they seemed.