Forever His by Chrsitine
Young
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August 30, 1895
Near Buffalo Creek,
South Dakota
The sun beat down. Searing
heat waves hit the hard packed earth, blistering, charring everything, even the
dry prairie grass. Jacob St. John, his arms stretched overhead and bound to a
whipping post, no longer counted the lashes tearing into his back, no longer
felt the horrific agony.
More than a half-dozen men
and one woman were gathered in the sage-patched backyard of the run-down shack.
So far not one person made a sound as they watched Chavez wield the whip,
stripping the flesh off his back.
If Chavez weren't so angry
and seeking revenge of his own, he would probably have just had him shot. Revenge
was a powerful motive. Chavez wanted Jacob to suffer, to yell before he died.
It seemed Etta Barringer did too. So far Chavez was toying with him, taunting
and teasing him, cutting an inch here, ripping an inch there, not doing much
damage but making mincemeat out of his back.
Jacob hadn't made a sound
yet, not even a sharp, indrawn breath. He wasn't about to even though he knew
Chavez would get impatient and start slashing. There was no hurry. Chavez had
as long as he wanted. No one save Etta knew where he was, no one would come
looking for him, at least not until the sun went down. By then Chavez would be
done with him, and he would either be dead or buzzard-bait. For the life of
him, he couldn't figure why Etta would hand him over to Chavez. She had always
been Pinkerton to the core, yet she had betrayed him once before. If he
survived this, he meant to have answers. He'd move heaven and earth to search
out the lying Etta Barringer and find out exactly what she had against him.
The pain of betrayal at
the forefront of his mind, and vows of revenge against the instigator of this
kept him going. He focused on the woman's laughter and the scent of lemons that
permeated his soul.
He had been taken by
surprise. Still, he didn't go down easily. It took all of Chavez's men to get
him bound securely to the post in back of the shack. And of those men, not one
came away from the encounter without a scratch. Blood from the multitude of
small cuts Chavez had inflicted ran in rivulets from his back, pooling on the
parched thirsty ground, soaking into the dirt, staining it.
He stood, his head proudly
erect and that seemed to draw anger from Chavez. The grip of his fingers curled
around the top of the post, the only sign of Jacob's pain--and fury.
The first real stroke of
the whip felt like a red-hot branding iron searing across his back. Jacob
didn't flinch, nor would he as long as he could hear her laughter or smell
lemons floating languidly on the breeze. He wished he could see her, stare into
her beguiling, green eyes until she knew he'd never stop hunting for her. Fury
at his own weakness rose, and the anger he felt deep inside simmered, because
she'd always attracted him. Ever since she showed up in a small town in Oregon,
seduced him then drugged him and left him to sleep off the opium-laced whiskey,
she'd fascinated him.
Concentrate on her--on
what you're going to do when you find her again . . .
Christine
Young has done it again in this historical romance. The blizzards, betrayal,
deceit and a ruthless bandito like Chavez made this a great romance.
Melinda
for Night Owl Romance 5 out of 5
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