Bride On The Run (Historical Romance) Read Free

a little yelp as the wagon lurched sideways, its momentum pitching her out of her seat. The parasol flew from her hands and vanished into the wide, rocky void of the canyon. She might have gone the same way if he had not grabbed her arm and wrenched her back toward him.
    “What on earth—?” Her eyes were as wide as a startled fawn’s, her arm taut through the thin fabric of her sleeve.
    “It’s all right,” he growled, “I’ve got you.”
    “I can see that, but it doesn’t explain what happened.” Annoyance formed a furrow between the golden wings of her eyebrows. Close up, she smelled of clean sweat and cheap hotel soap.
    “Broken axle.” Malachi bit back a curse as he released her. “Happens now and again on this road.”
    “So what do we do now?”
    “We unhitch the mules and ride them down to the ferry. Unless you’d rather walk, that is.”
    “What—about my things?” Her eyes flickered uncertainly toward her leather-bound trunk. It was of modest size as trunks go, but Malachi was in no frameof mind to lug the woman’s useless finery down six miles of rough road.
    He scowled at her. “No reason it shouldn’t be safe where it is. Nobody comes this way when the river’s in flood.”
    “We can’t take it with us?” The eyes she turned on him would have reduced a lot of men to quivering putty, and probably had.
    “There are two mules,” Malachi swung out of the seat and dropped to the ground. “I plan to ride one of them. The other one can carry you or the trunk. Not both. Take your pick.”
    Still she seemed to hesitate. Resolving to ignore her, he strode to the front of the rig and began unbuckling the double harness from the traces. One of the mules raised its tail and dropped a steaming pile of manure in the orange dust. Yes, that about summed things up, Malachi reflected dourly. Stuck on the road with a useless city female, an hour from darkness, with the children alone and waiting for him. He hoped to blazes the woman could ride a mule.
    “Aren’t you going to help me down?” Her raspy little voice, as mellow as southern bourbon, penetrated Malachi’s awareness. He glanced back to see her watching him with eyes as bright and curious as a wren’s. There was a birdlike quality about her small frame, the quickness of her movements and the way she sat forward on the wagon seat, as if she were about to spread her wings and take flight. Anna. A good, simple name. But something told him there was nothing simple about this woman.
    “Well, Mr. Stone?” Was she demanding or only teasing him? Malachi was tempted to ignore her, forcingher to climb down on her own, but then he noticed the narrowness of her skirt and realized she could not get down except, perhaps, by jumping. How in blazes was she supposed to ride a mule? He hadn’t brought along a damned sidesaddle.
    With a sigh of resignation, he walked back to the side of the wagon and extended his arms. The corners of her mouth lifted in a tight little smile as she leaned toward him, letting his big hands encircle her ridiculously tiny waist. He lifted her without effort, bracing his senses against the onslaught of her nearness as he swung her over the edge. This was a business arrangement, Malachi reminded himself. It would remain just that until she got tired of the sand, the bugs, the isolation and the unending work, and lit out for greener pastures. That wouldn’t take long, he reckoned. A week, a month, surely no more, and he would be faced with the dismal prospect of starting over—if it wasn’t already too late by then.
    Anna.
    Her hands lingered on his shoulders as he lowered her to the dusty roadway. Close up, her skin was warm apricot in tone, luminous beneath the smudges of rust-colored dirt. Her eyes were the color of aged brandy, her body warm through the fabric of her dress and soft, he sensed, beneath the tightly laced corset. Malachi felt the all too familiar tightening in the hollow of his groin. He cursed silently. No,