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Page 51
Her wet pink gown clung to her every curve. She was thin but shapely, and he felt a stirring deep inside him that seemed nearly unfamiliar. It had been a long time since he had allowed himself to become attracted to any woman.
He was not about to change that now.
From behind her came an angry, crude voice. "Wait up, bitch. You're worth too much for us to let you get away." The footsteps crashed through the woods. To Thorn's acute senses, they sounded only a few hundred feet away, though the men remained invisible in the thick copse.
"Please help me," she begged in a low, frantic voice. Her pleading touched him. How could he leave her here to face what those men wanted of her?
How could he not? Was not every time he attempted to help someone doomed to disastrous failure?
Stonily, he looked away, stepped around her, and took a stride in the direction in which he had been heading.
"Please," she repeated from just behind him. "You have to help me. You're Thorn, aren't you?"
"Yes," he said, without slowing his pace, though he wondered how she knew him. "I'm Thorn." His voice sounded mocking even to him. And why not? The man known as Thorn was not one who could speak his name with pride. Maybe someone at the fort had mentioned him scornfully to her.
The woman pushed herself in front of him, again staring up at him. She must not have liked what she saw on his face, for her expression fell. "I should have known better," she whispered. "It was too good to be true."
She took him by surprise as she wrenched his rifle from his grasp and took several steps away from him.
"What are you doing?" he growled, going after her.
"I'm helping myself. Like always." She stared at the long, heavy weapon in her hands, as though studying it. She started to swing it awkwardly up to her shoulder, her finger on the trigger. As it moved, it pointed at him.
He ducked, grabbing it from her. "That's not how you use it."
"Then show me. Please!"

 
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