Scandal: A tempting Western romance. Molly Wishlade Ann

      Ellen ground her teeth together. Why did he have to live so far away? She’d get a drenching now.

      She hurried along next to him, struggling to keep up with his long-legged strides. He seemed immune to the rain as he stepped into one muddy puddle after another and his boots and legs were splattered with the red mud of the street. Deadwood had a way of doing that, of staining your clothes like it did your heart and mind. Even if folks were lucky enough to get out, Ellen suspected that the town would haunt them…her…long after she’d washed its physical evidence away.

      “You’re sure in a hurry, ain’t ya?” Ellen observed.

      He turned to her, his eyes full of concern. “I promised I’d not be gone long. Stella Rose was in a sorry ol’ state.”

      So his wife’s name was Stella Rose. Pretty name for a young woman. Ellen bet she was pretty too. A good-looking man like Clayton would surely set himself up with a handsome woman. Like attracted like, right?

      “So this is her first baby?” Ellen asked. She shivered as cold rain sneaked under her collar and ran down her spine, soaking into her chemise. When the rain came in Deadwood, it really came, and if you were unlucky enough to have to go out in it, even your undergarments wouldn’t be spared.

      “Uh huh!” Clayton nodded. “And there ain’t much of her. I ain’t even sure if she’s due yet.”

      Ellen shook her head. So he’d gotten his woman with child and the pair of them had no real idea whether the babe was ready or not. She hoped that this wouldn’t turn into a tragedy. She hated delivering dead infants into the world. Even when the mothers had clearly interfered with them deliberately, in order to avoid the shame of becoming a mother to a bastard child. It was so sad and it just wasn’t right.

      No child should be born to die before its time. Yet it happened so often.

      “Just up here now, Miss Finch.” Clayton directed Ellen towards a set of wooden steps that had been cut into the hillside. She lifted her skirts then placed her foot on the first step but slipped.

      “Darnit!” she snapped, feeling the bite of rocks as they pierced the thin skin covering her kneecaps.

      “Miss Finch!” Clayton gasped and rushed to her side. He placed his hands beneath her arms and lifted her to her feet as easily as if she were made of satin and feathers. His touch sent heat hurtling through her body and she gasped as it curled between her legs and tingled there.

      Clayton placed her before him and leant forwards to look beneath her wet shawl.

      “Are you okay, ma’am?”

      She nodded. The concern in his eyes made her heart beat faster and her blush deepen. This was ridiculous. It wasn’t like she was a virgin who’d never felt the touch of a man before. In fact, she’d felt the touch of so many men that she usually experienced no physical reactions at all anymore. But Clayton Kile was…actually penetrating her carefully constructed veneer and affecting her.

      This could only end badly.