Stolen Little Thing (Little Thing Series Book 1) Read Free Page A

and a few from the headmistress of St. Adelaide’s. The trunks held the entirety of her life up to this point.
    She was anxious to get to the ranch but the last person Esme wanted to travel with was Luke Crosby. The desire to return to Simon’s home burned within her. It had been six years since she’d last stepped foot in the house. Six years almost to the day. It was also the last time she’d seen Luke.
    Luke rode towards her on his horse, a massive bay. Several riders trailed behind him. She kept her gaze fixed on him. The boy she’d known and loved had grown into a man, one who over the years had rarely left her thoughts. The passing time wrought changes in Luke Crosby, so many that she doubted she would have recognized him in a crowd. As a teenager, he was tall and gangly as a yearling colt. In the intervening years, he had added bulk and breadth to that frame, muscles and sinew. His face was different. His eyes, the feature most changed, were no longer full of belligerence, but instead held a quiet certainty, as though he no longer needed to prove anything to anyone.
    When her father had told her that he’d married, it had broken something inside of her. The wound had never healed, but a part of her was happy that life had treated him well. His wife, Esme assumed, could claim credit for the changes in Luke.
    It wasn’t her choice to let him take her to Simon’s ranch. Seeing Luke had been a torment, and she had no desire to spend any time with him, but the ends justified the means. Once she was ensconced in the shelter of Simon’s home, she wouldn’t have to see him again.
    As the riders drew nearer, Esme saw that two of them were mere boys, ten to fourteen or thereabouts, too old to be his children. Ranch hands she reasoned. The other companion, a man driving a wagon, was an older gentleman. When they reached her, he introduced himself as Nolan, and the boys, he went on to tell her, were David and Joseph.
    Nolan’s buckboard was loaded with supplies: labeled sacks of coffee, flour, corn meal. The man, older and grizzled but spry, jumped down, and strode to the wagon bed where he shoved the sacks and packages toward the front. David and Joseph, still sitting on their horses, looked suspiciously at Esme.
    “Come on boys,” Nolan bellowed. “This ain’t parade day. Quit staring and help load the lady’s trunks.”
    Luke ignored the group and rode his bay to the square where the sheriff’s men were building a scaffold, hammering and sawing wood for some gruesome contraption. Luke hadn’t heard there was going to be a hanging, but the idea that a spectacle like that was going to unfold sometime soon made him doubly glad he was taking Esme out of town. He turned to see her watching too. Her face grew taut as she realized what they were building. Their eyes met. She bit her lip and turned away.
    Luke wheeled his horse around, trotted back to her, and slid from the saddle. “Shall we get you out of this den of iniquity, Miss Duval? May I help you up? Just like old times.”
    Esme stepped away from his outstretched hands. “I don’t think so. I happen to be accustomed to doing this on my own.” With a swift motion, she climbed up to the wagon’s seat.
    Luke locked eyes with her for a moment while Nolan and the boys hoisted her trunks in the back of the buckboard.
    “You still mad because I ran off your admirer?” he asked.
    “No.” She sat primly. “I simply do not need your help. I’m sure there are other ladies in need of your assistance.” Like your wife, to name one . She’d die before she uttered those words, but shot him an angered look for good measure.
    Luke laughed, his tan skin contrasting with his even, white teeth. “Esme, you have no idea how lucky you are that I’m here offering my help.” He nodded toward the scaffolding being built just a few paces away. “There are men around here that would like nothing better than to take advantage of you seven ways to Sunday. You need my