The Horseman's Bride Read Free Page A

Tanner,” she said. “You speak like a man who’s had some education.”
    “Any man who can read has the means to educate himself. And it’s just Tanner, not Mr. Tanner.”
    “But do you have a profession? A trade?”
    “If I did, would I be out here mending fences?” He gave her a sharp glance. “Would you care to tell me why you’re being so nosy?”
    Clara met his blazing eyes, resisting the impulse to look away. “I’m very protective of my grandmother,” she said. “She’s an old woman, and she’s much too trusting.”
    “But I take it you’re not so…trusting.” He was playing with her now, brazenly confident that he could twist her around his finger. Damn his lying hide! He’d probably charmed her grandmother the same way.
    If it weren’t for the stallion, she’d run him off the property with a bullwhip!
    “Let’s just say I’m not a fool,” she snapped.
    “I can see you’re not. And neither is your grandmother. She doesn’t keep that loaded shotgun by the door for nothing. If she thought I had any intention of harming her, I’d be picking buckshot out of my rear.”
    “We’ll see about that!” Out of patience, she kneed the colt to a gallop. Tanner didn’t try to follow her, but as she shot across the pasture, Clara became aware of a sound behind her. Even without looking back, she knew what it was.
    The wretched man was laughing at her!
     
    Jace watched her ride away, her delicious little rump bouncing in the saddle. Miss Clara Seavers was one sweetlittle spitfire. He’d enjoyed teasing her, but now it was time to back off and leave her alone. The last thing he needed was that bundle of trouble poking into his past.
    Mrs. Mary Gustavson was a fine woman. He would miss her conversation and her cooking. But as soon as he finished the work she needed done it would be time to move on. There would be other towns, other farms, other pretty girls to tease. As long as there was a price on his head, nothing was forever. Not for him. It was keep moving or face his death at the end of a rope.
    At least his sister Ruby and her two little girls would be all right.
    Hollis Rumford had been considered a fine catch when she’d married him ten years ago. Heir to a farm equipment company, he’d been as charming as he was handsome. But his infidelity, drunkenness and abuse had made Ruby’s life a living hell. Jace had seen the ugly bruises. He had dried his sister’s tears. Lord help him, he wasn’t the least bit sorry Hollis was dead. But he would always be sorry he hadn’t acted sooner. Maybe if he’d taken Ruby and her daughters away from that monster, he’d still have his old life—his friends, his fine apartment in Springfield, his work as a field geologist and engineer and a future in politics that might have taken him all the way to the Missouri Statehouse or the U.S. Congress. Marriage to Eileen Summers, the governor’s niece, would have opened many doors. Now those doors were closed to him forever.
    But he hadn’t acted in vain, Jace reminded himself.
    Now Ruby would be a respectable widow with a fine house and plenty of money. After a proper mourning period, she’d be free to find a new husband—a decent man, God willing, who’d treat her well and be a good father to her girls.
    That had to be worth something, didn’t it?
     
    Clara found her grandmother seated on the porch in her old cane rocker, her hands busy peeling a bucket of potatoes from the root cellar.
    “Hello, dear.” Mary Gustavson was tall and rawboned, her thick white hair swept back from her wrinkled face. Blessed with strong features and cornflower-blue eyes, she looked like an older version of her daughter Hannah, Clara’s mother.
    “Good morning, Grandma.” Clara swung off her horse, looped the reins over the hitching rail and bounded up the steps to give the old woman a hug. Mary had raised seven children, buried a husband and baby and worked the farm alone for the past nineteen years. Loss and hard