Saviours of Oestend Oestend 2 Read Online Free

any idea how pissed Dante’ll be if I show up with a woman in tow?” he’d asked Aren.
Aren had raised his eyebrows at him, laughter sparkling in his brown eyes. “Are you afraid of Dante?”
“You’re not the one has to work with him!”
“True enough.” Aren had smiled innocently at him. He’d turned away, as if he were giving in. But Simon hadn’t really been off the hook. “So, how’s the food there?” Aren had asked. “Are you getting three square meals a day?”
Simon had found himself cursing, thinking of the day they’d eaten nothing but pickles because it was what some fool hand had dragged up from the cellar and the rest of them were too tired to argue. The truth was, Simon had worked cattle drives back in Lanstead. He knew how to cook a bit. Mostly beans and flatbread, but even that was better than pickles. But his skills were always required outside the house. It didn’t make sense to have him working in the kitchen when there was so much other work to be done. And so far, none of the other men they’d recruited had known cornmeal from dust.
Aren had taken Simon’s obscenities for the answer they were. “What about laundry?” he’d asked. “When was the last time your shorts were washed?”
“My shorts aren’t your concern!” he’d snapped. He’d always thought Aren a bit of a know-it-all. The annoying thing was, Aren really did seem to know it all.
“And how about canning?” Aren had asked next. “Deacon says the Austins had a big garden. Are you going to be able to put any of it away for winter?”
Of course they weren’t. Simon didn’t know a blessed thing about canning, and he was pretty sure Dante didn’t either.
“All right!” Simon had conceded in frustration. “I’ll take her!”
And so he’d had to deal with Lena’s eyes watching him for two more days. And because after the McAllen ranch, Cami apparently trusted him not to take advantage of her, she had stuck close to him the entire time. Of course, the fact that she’d needed to resort to such measures was one of the other reasons Simon didn’t want her along.
Women caused trouble.
Simon was level-headed enough to recognise that it often wasn’t their fault, but the truth of the matter was, once a woman was in the picture, men could usually be counted on to do stupid things. Some of the new recruits continued to ignore her. Some treated her with the careful politeness young men usually reserved for their meanest aunt. But a few had watched her the way a mountain lion watched a deer, and that worried Simon. Foster especially seemed to follow her movements with an almost predatory awareness. The girl was no fool, though. She knew to steer a broad path around Foster.
They finally arrived at the ranch. Simon breathed a mental sigh of relief when Cami took her pack and went into Dante’s house. She was Dante’s problem now. Simon planned to avoid her and her haunting eyes as much as possible.
“Do you think Dante will marry her?” Frances asked that night, after the chores were done and they were back in the barracks.
“I doubt it,” Simon said. “He didn’t seem all that pleased to have her here.”
“I don’t know why not. Saints, we might actually get a real breakfast tomorrow morning. My mouth’s watering just thinking about it!”
Simon had to admit he’d be happy enough to see some real food at the ranch. Still, he couldn’t help but think having a woman around might be more trouble than it was worth. Especially one who watched him with Lena’s eyes.
“You all right?” Frances asked.
“Right enough,” Simon lied. He looked around the barracks. The new boys were all jockeying for space. The barracks at the BarChi had held rows of cots, but it was different here. There were four bunk beds, one in each corner of the room, and a big, round, open fireplace in the middle. It meant the men had to pair up, but it afforded each pair a semblance of privacy. There were four curtains too, ceiling to floor,