Read The Cowboy Who Broke the Mold for Free Online

around the waist and lifted her off the ground. A red haze of panic descended over her as her mind filled with dreadful possibilities.
    “Let me go!” Carrie yelled, resisting him for all she was worth. Her high heels connected with a shinbone, and an oath echoed against mountain walls.
    Judson stumbled backward, dropping her upon the hard dirt. Carrie scrambled to her feet, but Judson was already loping toward his vehicle. Helplessly she watched as he pulled something out from under the seat. When he turned to face her, a pistol dangled from his hand.
    It seemed incongruous to her that this man would want to hurt her, but having dealt with violence on a daily basis in her previous school, she wasn’t taking any chances. Her mind raced to come up with a way to make this lunatic see reason. She remembered her instructor’swords from a self-defense class she had taken. If you can, engage your attacker in conversation. Make him see you as an individual. Certainly there was no chance of some kindly police officer intervening way out here in the boonies.
    “Wait a minute…P-please…” she stammered, back- ing slowly away.
    But Judson wasn’t listening. Expressionless, he looked right through her. Raising the gun to shoulder height, he steadied his grip with his free hand and shat- tered the silence with a squeeze of the trigger. Carrie heard the bullet whiz past her and compelled her eyes to follow the direction of the smoking barrel.
    There, curled up in the long grass just a step away from her discarded length of rope lay a huge gray and yellow diamond-patterned snake. Though decapitated, its body kept coiling and winding, doubling and falling back on itself. Fearing the still-groping tail could some- how find her and wrap itself around her, Carrie stepped back.
    Judson holstered his gun. Then he rubbed his raw shin.
    “What in the hell’s the matter with you? Are you deaf and blind both?” he demanded, the look in his eyes illuminating his doubts about the new schoolteacher’s mental stability.
    “You scared me!” she snapped in her defense.
    The woman was a master of understatement. The ter- ror glistening in her eyes reminded Judson of a fawn cornered by a pack of wolves. What had he done to make her come to such unflattering conclusions about his intentions? Bothered by the question, he told himself that it was enough just knowing that the district had entered into a nine-month contract with a crazy woman.One whose innate prejudices conjured up a bad B-movie fantasy based on the old preconceptions of what savage Indians did to white women. His eyes nar- rowed in cold fury.
    Limping over to the dead snake, he picked it up by the tail and held it at arm’s length. Reaching into his hip pocket, he pulled out a knife and sliced off its rat- tles—ten to be exact. Stepping toward her, he shook his closed fist next to Carrie’s ear. As innocent as a baby’s rattle, it was indeed the sound of death.
    “Whenever you hear this sound, stop and back away slowly. Rattlesnakes, not Indians, are the real threat out here, lady.”
    Tossing the snake into the bushes, he added coldly, “One more step and we’d be having this conversation at the hospital.”
    Judson’s words clicked inside Carrie’s head like the rattles of that diamond-backed snake lying dead beneath the afternoon sun. She battled the sudden flush that swept over her. It was a sensation that had little to do with the heat of the day and everything to do with the man who stood looking at her as if he should be helping her into a straitjacket. The rustling of aspen leaves seemed quite far away as terror drained from her body and the ground swayed precariously under her feet.
    “You’re not going to faint, are you?” he asked, hold- ing out both arms to catch her just in case.
    Guilt pressed upon Judson’s heart like a grinding stone. It appeared he’d scared the poor thing to death.
    Valiantly trying to insert a hardy tone into her voice, Carrie