“There’s no parson at Hoskins, either.”
He darted her another side-glance. How was she taking it? Was she, after all, going to be “sensible?” Nell was seventeen, but a woman grown.
“Shucks, honey,” Dick said, putting out a hand to touch her for the first time. “We’ll ride on and find a parson later. We’re in no rush. We’re out for a grand, good time—”
She pulled her horse across the path with a fierce jerk of the bridle-rein, and so escaped the defilement of his touch. Her right hand clutched the handle of her quirt, the knuckles bone-white.
“Do you mean—you won’t marry me?”
Dick smiled his most disarming smile, his brown eyes even twinkled. That frank and humorous look was what had first won his advantage with Nell Blossom.
“Shucks, honey,” he drawled again. “Why so serious? Don’t worry about that. I’m free to confess I’m not a marrying man. Seen too much trouble for both parties when they are tied to one another with any silly string of the law. It’s love that will hold us together.”
“That’s heathen, Dick!” she exclaimed hotly. “Just as heathen as Canyon Pass.”
“Nonsense!” He laughed. “You’re just as safe with me, whether we’re married or not.”
Which might have been quite true, but Nell stared at him, her expression as inscrutable as his own when he worked behind the green table. Dick the Devil was a shrewd gambler, but Nell Blossom had played poker herself ever since she could read the pips on the cards. And she had been fighting her own battles in harsh environment and against men almost from the same tender age. Her cold rage now sprang from the fact that he should so mistake her character.