The Lawman's Betrayal Read Free Page A

can’t. That’s all I can say.”
    Somehow, he understood. He couldn’t imagine being locked up for three days, much less three years. He’d be a crazy man by now. “I think I understand, but I still say it’s too dangerous for a woman to be travelling alone out there.”
    “I’ll just have to risk it. I can’t stay.” She nudged the horse with her heels and headed down the street. As he watched, she stopped at the general store. In a few minutes, she walked out carrying a larger sack. Several drifters standing in front of the mercantile moved to block her. Wes tensed, ready to step in if there was trouble. But she stepped around them, tied the sack to the saddle horn, and, without a backward glance, rode out of town.
    Wes uttered a low curse and pulled his hat down over his forehead. He didn’t fancy this job, yet the badge he wore gave him no choice.
    “Get my horse, Nate.”

Chapter Two
    Naomi reined in her horse by a small stream where willows draped their feathery branches over the clear water. She hadn’t covered much ground, but the three hours in the saddle had her whole body aching. The heat had sent rivulets of sweat running all down her body. She fancied she smelled a bit ripe. Like she had in prison where they’d let the women bathe only once a week. Now that she was free, she planned to bathe every opportunity she could.
    The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. The entire afternoon she’d felt someone was following her. As a shiver snaked down her spine, she glanced uneasily over her shoulder. But no puffs of dust marred the horizon. Nothing stirred on the vast prairie. The marshal’s warning came back to her, and butterflies churned in her belly. But it was too late to do anything now except go on.
    She slid from the saddle. Her muscles groaned in protest when her feet hit the ground. She grabbed the saddle horn to steady herself, feeling a hundred years old instead of twenty. Gingerly, she rubbed her backside.
    Several oaks sat back fifty feet from the water’s edge, the shade beckoning invitingly. She’d not thought to buy a hat, and her nose and neck had sunburned. She sighed loudly. The prudent thing to have done was to have gotten a room at the hotel and waited for the supply wagon, but it’d been too close to that horrible place. Besides, when had she ever done the prudent thing? She knelt by the stream, scooped up handfuls of water, and splashed the cooling liquid over her face and neck.
    After resting a few minutes, Naomi unsaddled her horse and led the mare down the river bank to drink. She patted the animal’s nose. “Even though you’ve got a few years on you, you’re still a beautiful girl. You should have a name. I think I’ll call you Jo…for Josephine. That’s what I was going to name my baby if she were a girl, and Joseph if it were a boy. Yeah, Jo it is.” Unbidden tears gathered in her eyes, and she swiped at them with her sleeve. Would the pain of losing her baby ever go away?
    After the mare had quenched her thirst, she hobbled the animal in a patch of green grass. While she hated restricting the mare’s movements, she’d be in big trouble if the horse strayed. She’d never get out of this alive.
    The sun had started its downward trek. Night fell quickly on the prairie, so she scurried to gather wood for a fire. Once she had made a circle of stones, she lit the dried branches. Thank God the clerk at the mercantile had known what she needed. If he hadn’t included matches, she would’ve been faced with a long cold night. She found the coffee pot and marched back to the stream. After filling it, she returned to the fire, added coffee, and set the pot over the hot coals. Soon, a delicious aroma wafted over her camp. She put bacon to fry, then opened a can of beans and dumped the contents in a small pot.
    Ten minutes later, she sat and leaned back against the saddle to eat her dinner. It wasn’t much of a meal, but she was eating it as a free woman. She