Beyond The Horizon Read Free Page B

interfere with his assignment. And intuitively Blade knew Miss Shannon Branigan represented more trouble than he needed.
    “I’m looking for Clive Bailey.”
    Clive Bailey peered over his shoulder at the striking, chestnut-haired woman addressing him. She was a looker all right, Clive decided, raking her tantalizing face and form with slow relish.
    “I’m Clive Bailey. What can I do for you, miss?”
    Shannon had rented a buggy and driven herself outside town to where the wagon train was forming so that she might speak to Clive Bailey personally. Fortunately, the Indian wagon master was nowhere in sight and Shannon visibly relaxed. That man was far too intimidating for her liking. “I’m Shannon Branigan and I understand you are the man to talk to about joining your wagon train.”
    “Do you and your husband have a wagon, Mrs. Branigan?” Clive asked, disappointed that the little beauty was already spoken for.
    “I’m not married,” Shannon said, lifting her chin defiantly. “Does it matter?”
    “You’re going West alone? What about your family?” Clive was impressed by Shannon’s willingness to undertake the hazardous journey alone and unprotected.
    “To make a long story short, my family left for Idaho two months ago with an earlier wagon train. I want to join them and yours is the last wagon train forming this spring.”
    “It’s more or less an unwritten law that young women travel only in the protection of family or husband. I’m sorry, Miss Branigan, but I don’t think—”
    “Please, Mr. Bailey, can’t you make an exception?” Shannon implored. “Isn’t there some family I could travel with? I’d work hard, and I could pay something for my passage West. I just don’t have enough money to stay in Independence till spring.”
    “You are far too young and beautiful to be traveling alone, Miss Branigan, and there are too many unattached males along for me to believe your presence would go unnoticed or unappreciated. But perhaps this one time ….” he relented, never one to turn down an opportunity when one presented itself. Shannon Branigan looked ripe for the plucking, and he was a man who relished tender ripe fruit.
    The fiery glow in Clive’s pale eyes should have alerted Shannon, but she was too excited to notice.
    “It’s out of the question. Miss Branigan has no place on this wagon train.”
    Shannon raised startled eyes to meet Blade’s determined gaze.
    “You’ve met Miss Branigan?” Clive asked, furious that a half-breed savage had the audacity to address a lady.
    He had employed Blade as wagon master and guide because Blade had been highly recommended and Clive needed him. This late in the year most qualified guides had already been hired. It grated on Clive’s nerves to see Blade put on airs, as if he were as good as a white man. But at this late date Clive was grateful to find a competent man to lead them to Fort Laramie. Clive had too much at stake to wait around until next year, his cargo too precious for lengthy delays. If Clive hadn’t had problems obtaining his goods, he would have left weeks ago.
    “We’ve met,” Blade said tersely, favoring Shannon with a brief nod. “And I won’t have her disrupting my wagon train.”
    “You seem to forget you work for me,” Clive said bluntly. “I can always find another guide.”
    Blade’s anger simmered as he struggled to keep from boiling out of control. Orders from Washington were to investigate Clive Bailey, and the only way he could do that was by remaining with the outfit. However, he felt obliged to point out the dangers involved in accepting an unattached female. Especially one as lovely as Shannon Branigan.
    “Who will protect her when every randy buck on the wagon train starts fighting over her?”
    “I can take care of myself!” Shannon shot back, angered over the way the two men talked over her but not at her, as if she weren’t capable of making her own decisions.
    “The hell you can!” Blade