Read Wildfire in His Arms for Free Online Page A

guessed,” Tiffany said with a grin.
    â€œTakes one to know one, Red,” Hunter teased his wife.
    â€œDo either of you know where Degan was going?” Allison asked the newlyweds. “I’m not just looking for him for me, now. His father is ill. Degan needs to come home.”
    â€œHe’s going to California via Helena, the northern route,” Tiffany volunteered.
    â€œBut he could stop anywhere along the way and probably will,” Hunter added. “He is a gun for hire, after all.”
    â€œSo I’ve been told.” Allison smiled warmly. “Thank you so much. If I hurry, perhaps I can catch up with him before he leaves the territory.”
    â€œNever would have figured a broken heart for the reason Degan came West,” Hunter said as soon as Allison Montgomery had left.
    â€œI can’t quite imagine him with a broken heart at all,” Tiffany said.
    Hunter raised a brow at her. “I thought you stopped being so wary of him.”
    â€œI did, but honestly, can you imagine Degan Grant pining for a lost love?”
    â€œNo, but I liked Degan, a lot. If that city gal can make him happy, I hope she catches up with him. Speaking of catching up, I’ll race you back upstairs.”

Chapter Six

    I T TOOK DEGAN FOUR days and five evenings to find a shack in the hills. He hadn’t trusted Luella to steer him in the right direction. The forest on the way to the Big Belt range was too far from Helena, a full day’s ride that would likely require crossing the Missouri River to get to it. While there might be a ferry somewhere along the river, he doubted an outlaw such as Max Dawson would want to spend close to an hour in the company of the ferry operator who might identify him and notify the sheriff anytime Dawson visited Luella. And Degan wasn’t going to waste time looking for a ferry. He’d rather wait out the week in town for Dawson to come visiting again before he searched in that direction. But some wooded areas were closer to Helena, so he could look for Dawson there during the day and return to the hotel at night. The two to the southeast and southwest were quite extensive, which was why the search was taking so long.
    Then two prospectors at different sites he passed mentioned some old claims farther up a particular hill, which is where he’d been searching today. But he was beginning to doubt that information, too, until he came across two log cabins and a cut-wood house tucked away in the trees before he finally found what was obviously a shack at the top of the hill. Late at night as it was, he might have missed it and headed back to town if he didn’t briefly catch the moon glinting off the tin roof. As he drew close to the shack, he saw a dim light emanating from the cracks between the boards that served as walls. Was there a lantern inside? He couldn’t tell until he got closer, which he did now.
    Put together piecemeal from broken-down wooden crates, boards of different lengths, and other scraps of wood, it was barely wide enough to accommodate a small bed and maybe a table and a chair. It certainly wouldn’t keep the cold out come winter with so many cracks in the walls. But in warmer months, it might at least keep the rain out. And it was certainly better than camping outdoors.
    He almost missed the cave Luella had mentioned, at the end of a slightly sloped path, because it was in the shadow of the trees, about thirty feet away from the shack. He investigated that first. It appeared to be no more than a hole dug in the steeper side of the hill. Black as pitch inside it. He’d be annoyed if that’s where Dawson was sleeping. He couldn’t imagine what the miner who had supposedly excavated it had been thinking. Clear dirt, then dig down until he hit rock, when there might not even be rock under this hill?
    Degan took a box of matches from his jacket pocket and struck one as he ducked his head and stepped inside the