Love Finds You in Sundance, Wyoming Read Free Page A

nothing appeared behind her on the horizon. Grief slammed into her like a herd of stampeding horses. Everything she’d known lay behind her, and an unknown future beckoned.
    Alone.
    She had the gold, her rifle, and José’s instructions. Somehow she’d make it. But what should she do next? Angel straightened her shoulders and raised her chin. She’d not let Hinson find her.
    Time to change direction. On the first leg of her journey, the goal had been escape. Now, she added another element.
    Survival.
    Over the past month, Hinson had dogged her steps in the banda. He wouldn’t let her go without a fight. Every bit of the training she’d received from José would be bent on one thing—hiding her tracks as she moved toward country where she could disappear. If she didn’t, her life wouldn’t be worth living.

    Bart Hinson holstered his gun and grunted with satisfaction. His men had killed the last of the posse as he tried to race away, hanging low on his horse’s neck, undoubtedly to alert the rest of the Texas Rangers about their dead compadres. No way could they allow a man to return and sound the alarm, not after Bart had shot the Ranger heading the posse. They’d be hunted soon enough when the men didn’t return, but no one knew who’d fired the shot that brought the Ranger down. No one but Angel Ramirez.
    Bart scowled and spat to the side, then swung around to the nearest man. “Where’s the girl?”
    Barnes tugged at a torn strip of cloth he’d knotted around a flesh wound in his arm. “Gone. Saw her ride off close to an hour ago.”
    Bart sprang at the man and backhanded him across the mouth. He leveled his pistol at Barnes’s head. “You let her go? Give me a reason I shouldn’t kill you now.”
    Barnes lay on his back, clutching his arm and groaning. “I’d just got winged. Weren’t nothin’ I could do to stop her.”
    “Why didn’t you tell one of us?”
    “Didn’t think about it.” The man’s voice changed to a whine. “She ain’t no account. Why you worried about her, anyway? We got most of the cattle.”
    Bart lowered his weapon, leaned over the man, and snarled a curse. “She saw me plug that Ranger, that’s why.” He jerked his head at the remaining four men. Two others had fallen in the battle, and José had been wounded and slipped away at some point. “José go with her?”
    “Naw. He limped off a different direction not long ago. Bleedin’ pretty bad. He probably won’t make it.”
    “I want two of you to go after him. Hunt him down and kill him.” They’d take time to bury their dead. Their women wouldn’t be happy that the bodies of the men weren’t returned to the camp, but he refused to cart stinking bodies along the rest of the trip.
    Once that was done, the men would start after José. Bart himself would find the girl. José must have schemed to fool Bart by going the opposite direction, so Angel would get away. Bart’s lip curled in contempt. No woman could hide her tracks well enough that he couldn’t find her. He smirked, thinking about Angel Ramirez wearing men’s trousers. He’d always fancied he’d have her one day.
    He’d suspected Angel’s uncle intended to take her away. When the bullets started flying, he knew—José planned to disappear, leaving the men to fight without him. It was one thing to be hunted as a cattle thief, but a Ranger’s death would increase the intensity of a posse’s search. No one walked away from this gang unless they were dead.
    Angel would agree to be his woman, or die.

Chapter Two

    Wyoming Territory, 1890
Three years later
     
    Angel Ramirez was tired of being alone and sick of posing as a man. In fact, living a lie these past three years had wearied her beyond measure.
    Hunkered on her belly on top of a bluff, she stared at the herd of cattle in the distance, wishing she’d followed her impulse to get a dog. “Talking to myself is just one of the things I’m tired of,” she muttered under her