Read As the Cowboy Commands [Ecstasy in the Old West 2] (Siren Publishing Allure) for Free Online Page A

toward Helen. He was relieved to see that she was now standing erect and holding the shreds of her dress closed sufficiently to hide her ostentatious charms. “Can you go just a little farther? If you can, I think we’ll be safe until sunrise. Those boys are like cockroaches. They disappear when the sun comes up.”
    Helen nodded, ready to accept any suggestion that Jared might make. She was exhausted to the marrow of her bones, and she had learned during the previous hour and a half that she was infinitely safer with Jared than without him.
    He crossed the alley and leaped high to grab the bottom rung of a rusted fire escape ladder attached to the back of a four-story, old brick warehouse. During the boom years of the gold rush, the warehouse had been vital for commerce. Now half the windows were boarded up, and the warehouse itself was packed with crates holding worthless merchandise that had long since been forgotten. The ladder creaked and protested against his weight, clearly not having been used in many years, and then unfolded and descended slowly. The sound of rusty metal protesting seemed particularly loud to Helen, and a stab of fear went through her. She knew she couldn’t run much farther, and she couldn’t fight the gunmen herself.
    “Come on,” Jared said, standing at the base of the ladder. “Let’s get to the roof. You can rest there.”
    Helen looked at the zigzagged path the iron fire escape ladder took up the side of the building. Her legs were trembling with fatigue, especially her thighs, and she was not at all certain she could climb all the way to the roof.
    From less than fifty yards away, a voice cut through the night, shouting, “When I finish with that bitch, she’ll wish she never left her mama’s belly.”
    Another outlaw shouted in reply, “But first we gotta find her and that big guy she’s with. You guys seen anything of ’em?”
    Helen knew that her only hope of escape lay in staying with Jared and following his commands. He understood what to do, what actions and counteractions to make. Whether Helen liked the character of the man or not, she could not deny that, at least for this evening, she desperately needed him.
    Helen released the hold she had on her ruined bodice. She tried to tell herself that she had much bigger problems than whether or not Jared could see her naked breasts, but she couldn’t completely shake her sense of embarrassment, especially when she noticed him looking at her bosom with obvious appreciation.
    It annoyed Helen that she was nearly completely exhausted while Jared appeared to be hardly winded. She thought then how easy it would be for her to resent him. Even though he was in his thirties and had been running and fighting for the past ninety minutes, he appeared only mildly fatigued. Where did men like Jared come from? What was it in their past that had made them what they were today?
    “I can do it,” she said softly as she began climbing up the metal ladder.
    The rooftop of the warehouse was flat, sealed against the elements by some kind of coal tar that had been covered over with small pebbles. It was hardly the place anyone could feel comfortable, but Helen collapsed anyway, sitting with arms wrapped around her knees as she gulped in air.
    “Stay here and stay quiet,” Jared said. “I’m going to look around.”
    As Helen recovered her strength, Jared kept vigil at the edge of the building, checking all four sides, moving from one direction to the next to look down at the gang members as they searched with increasing anger at the quarry that eluded them.
    Jared found an area on the rooftop that would provide some small measure of comfort for Helen. It was a ventilation shaft of some sort, surrounded by a wood housing to prevent the rainwater from entering the building through the shaft. Next to it were two wooden crates, long since abandoned. It wouldn’t be much, but at least Helen would have something to sit down on and something to lean