"A tenderfoot get fresh with me?
Stranger, you ain't been long in Eldara or you wouldn't pull a bonehead like that." "'Scuse me.

I was hopin' that maybe you took a fall out of him, that's all." He studied the blue eyes.

They had been tinted with ugly green a moment before, but now they were clear, deep, dark, guileless blue.

He could not resist.

The very nearness of the woman was like a gentle, cool hand caressing his forehead and rubbing away the troubles.
"It was like this," he began.