Read The Redhead and the Preacher: A Loveswept Historical Romance for Free Online

distinguish the difference,” she said, then bit back her anger as she realized that the man she’d been dressing down was bleeding.
    Or rather he had been bleeding, both from his forehead and, from the looks of the panel he was leaning against, the back of his head as well.
    “You’re hurt,” she said. “Were you shot?”
    “I think not, but I don’t seem to have any feeling in my lower body.”
    “Oh, my. Let me see.” She slid one knee between his legs and wedged the other one beside him. She pulled back the greatcoat and looked for blood.
    “I don’t see any bullet wounds. But you may have broken something,” she said curtly and slid her hand inside his shirt.
    Bran could have argued but the intimacy of her touch shocked him into silence.
    “What are you doing?” he finally croaked.
    “This may hurt, but we have to know if you broke anything.”
    The numbness in his body was brought back to life byher touch. When she pulled her hands out of his shirt and began to run them down his legs he couldn’t hold back an oath.
    “Here?” she questioned as she moved her hands back up his leg.
    “No! I’m all right, I told you.”
    She moved her fingertips across his groin, prodding and kneading his flesh.
    He groaned. Any fear he had that his condition was permanent disappeared as a rush of blood pooled and swelled that part of him that responded to a woman’s touch. Unless he stopped her, she’d discover his rapid recovery.
    “Stop it, woman! I told you I’m fine. Unless you want me to return the examination, you’ll stop fondling my body.”
    “How dare you, you conceited jackass! I don’t know why I was worried that you were hurt. I ought to be concerned with my own … condition.”
    “Let me,” he said, sliding out from under her and sitting up, with his back against the floor of the overturned carriage. “I insist.”
    Amidst a flurry of skirts and tangle of limbs, she managed to stand and back away, ready to protect herself if he attempted to lay a hand on her. “Don’t you dare.”
    “But I do, until I know you’re not wounded.”
    “I hit my head and my stomach feels like it’s full of prairie dust,” she said quickly, “but I’m not hurt.”
    “Can you get the door open?”
    It was then that Macky realized there were no sounds of life, other than their own breathing inside the coach.
    The coach was on its side. She managed to turn around, twisted the handle of the door and pushed against it. It flew open, letting the fading sunlight inside.
    Cautiously, she poked her head out of the open door and looked around. Nothing but prairie, and a purple shadow of mountains in the distance.
    “I think we’re alone,” she whispered, the enormity of thetruth washing over her like a rush of cold air. “I don’t see the driver.”
    “I think I’ll worry about me—us first, beginning with getting up.”
    But it wasn’t as easy as he’d expected. He was still dizzy and his legs were as wobbly as a newborn calf. “Damn! When you said you were trouble, you meant it.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means that you have the hardest head in the Kansas Territory.”
    She felt a twinge in her chin and took in the blood on his face with sudden understanding. “Did I do that to you?”
    “You had a hand in it,” he said, grabbing the bottom of the window as he tried to lift himself. He thought back to their earlier position and grinned. “Guess that makes us even.”
    She reached down to assist him, her movement pushing her cape open to reveal her exposed breasts. “Sir!” she gasped. “How could you take advantage of me when I was, when we were—”
    “I didn’t, though if I hadn’t been nearly knocked out by the force of your lovely chin, I might have.”
    “Get your own self up,” she blustered, jerking her hand back and grabbing her cloak to cover herself.
    It took her a moment to realize that there was no jingle of coins. She reached beneath her cape. Gone. Not only her