First Class Male by Jillian Hart Page B

Mason frowned, trying to imagine just how they might do it. A direct raid would put the outlaws at a disadvantage, they’d be far outgunned. Plus, Mason and his men had the high ground. They could see the attack coming. It would be a foolish plan, but Mason couldn’t rule it out. “Whatever they wind up doing, we know the gang is going to hit fast and hit hard.”
    “Whatever happens, we’ll see ‘em coming,” Clem promised from behind his binoculars.
    “Maybe, but keep an eye out for the less obvious,” Mason said. “If they want in, they might do it undercover. As a farmer, so I’ve already checked that hay wagon. I know the man driving, so that’s safe there. Maybe they’ll walk in, keeping to the shadowed side of the buildings. Going from building to building, street to street. That would be harder for us to spot, and the gang would know that.”
    “Then we might need another pair of eyes on the rooftops,” Pauly suggested, his attention firmly on the jail.
    “I’ll talk to Bart when Deeks gets back,” Mason promised, swinging his binoculars along the ribbon of country road disappearing into the tawny foothills. All clear there, but the foreboding in his stomach grew. He had to listen to that. He drew his focus back to town, saw again the woman with the blue sunbonnet walking into the dairy’s milk barn, then spotted the farmer and hay wagon along the outskirts of town now, rolling down a residential street.
    That wasn’t too unusual. Lots of folks in town bought hay for the upcoming winter for their horses. He swung the binoculars west, intending to check the main route in to town when he spied Mariel’s bright blue boardinghouse with its hard-to-miss bright pink trim. A slender, golden-haired young woman was in the side yard, among colorful blooms.
    Callie. Seeing her was like a cannonball to his chest. He reeled, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. The world faded, his every sense zeroing in on her, just her, standing next to a big pink rosebush gently cupping a bloom in her soft hand. She inhaled the fragrance with her eyes closed, her lips uptilted and a satisfied look on her heart-shaped face, and he could practically hear her moan of pleasure. He wished he was close enough to hear it, to know that sound. He wished that he’d been the one to make her moan.
    His blood heated, hell if he could stop it. He shook his head trying to keep them back, but the images came anyway. Of her completely naked in the starlight, pale and creamy skin and tantalizing womanly curves, the blush of her nipples, the V of her inner thighs. He gritted his teeth, willing the binoculars away from her, but to no avail. The binoculars wouldn’t budge. Apparently not even his powerful will was as strong as his feelings. He wanted her. He wanted all of her.
    Framed in the glass of his binoculars, she looked up from the rose she held and smiled at someone just out of his view. She took a step, her forehead crinkling, walking toward the side street. The back of his neck buzzed, his stomach clamped and he felt the danger like a brick to the back of the head. He swung the binoculars and spotted the farmer’s hay wagon stopped along Mariel’s property. Quick as a flash, an armed man popped out of the back of the wagon and grabbed Callie. She didn’t have time to scream or run, he was upon her. Mason’s heart jumped, slamming against his ribcage, recognizing Lew Folsom. The outlaw’s rough hands wrapped around Callie’s waist, swung her onto his shoulder and ran back to the wagon.
    To her credit, she was fierce. She kicked, she hit, she bit, but it happened so fast. In a blink of an eye she’d been snatched and Mason was running, shouting orders, pounding toward the stairs, running, desperately running. Every breath, every step, every terrified fear in his heart focused on her. On getting her back. On cursing himself for not keeping an armed man two feet from her at all times.
    “Why’d he go after her?” Deeks shouted