Vampire Cowboy by Juliet Chastain Page A

dusty floor.
    The bar that had, but a second before, been filled with excited shouting, became absolutely quiet.
    “Anyone else?” Daniel inquired, barely raising his voice. Everyone stayed in his seat. A couple put their hands in the air in an “I give up” motion. The woman at the end of the bar nodded approvingly, her tight curls bouncing. The men he’d knocked aside slunk quietly to their seats. Billy Joe got slowly to his feet and lumbered forward.
    “Bartender, a drink for every man who kept his seat,” Daniel said quickly. As Billy Joe dove for him, Daniel stepped neatly aside so the man went crashing head first into the bar.
    When Daniel turned to help him to his feet, Billy Joe grabbed the heel of Daniel’s shiny, embossed-leather boot and yanked. To his own surprise, Daniel tumbled to the floor, landing facedown in the dust with a painful thud. In a flash a fat man climbed on top of him—an interesting sensation—and before he knew it, a few more men piled on as well. Shouting filled the room. He debated with himself how best to throw them off without seeming unnatural. He wanted to be on his feet before Billy Joe heaved himself up and decided to come over and kick him in the head.
    Then the room went completely silent.
    Daniel raised his head and saw the grimy doors of the bar swinging behind the woman who had just entered. She had a rifle held loosely on her arm. Her pale heart-shaped face was set in a ferocious frown.
    Daniel noted that her small frame curved in all the right places, nicely filling her faded gown. Her breasts strained the bone buttons while her hips swelled provocatively below her narrow waist. Hmmm, he thought. I’d love to hold that in my arms.
    Her black hair was tied back severely. He imagined untying it and letting it fall about her shoulders like a dark curtain. The alabaster skin of her neck would call to him, beg him to push that dark curtain aside and… “Get up off the floor, all of you,” she snapped.
    The men on top of him scrambled to their feet, collected their hats and went, shamefaced, to their seats. Daniel got up slowly and dusted himself off.
    “And what is this?” Bright-blue eyes looked Daniel up and down disdainfully. “Looks like we have a fancy man here.”
    “How do you do.” Daniel inclined his head, he didn’t think she’d go for a bow. He found her fierce frown charming.
    “Where in tarnation did you come from?”
    “England, actually,” he said.
    “He whopped Billy Joe,” said the cowboy who’d been sitting next to him. “He whopped him good.”
    She looked Daniel up and down again. “Glad to hear it,” she murmured, giving him a brief half-smile. A spark leaped between them, causing a sudden tightening in his groin, a quickening of his blood. Her smile was even more charming than her frown. She was the most delightful thing he’d seen so far in the dusty west. And the most enticing. Desire sang in his ears, his horn pushed hard against the stiff, still-new fabric of his cowboy-style pants. Physically she was the kind of woman he was drawn to, voluptuous with inviting white skin. But there was something more—he couldn’t figure what it was—about her.
    She stood immobile for several heartbeats, her smile fading and her eyes widening as though she too felt the spark. Then she spun away from him. “Which one of you has been rustlin’ my cattle. Again!” She held the gun with the muzzle pointing to the floor, but as she turned, surveying the room with narrowed eyes, every man froze. “I know it was one of you gentlemen. You wouldn’t know anything about it now, would you, Billy Joe?”
    “No, ma’am, I surely would not.” The large blue bandanna he held against his nose muffled his voice and was rapidly turning red with blood.
    “What happened to your nose?”
    “I, um, bumped it somehow.”
    “Is that a fact?” She glanced at Daniel, who stood watching, amused. Her gaze met his for a few seconds. Every man in the barroom