All or Nothing by Ashley Elizabeth Ludwig Read Free Book Online Page A

statement. Could there really be a girl out there that the Lord had made just for him? He’d been so trusting. So innocent. And now, it seemed so impossible.
    His mother had raised him alone after his father passed when he was a boy of twelve; she guided him into manhood on her own. She wanted a full and happy life for him: a practical wife who would look after him and a family to share it with. Once upon a time, he’d wanted so much more. An equal partner. Someone to dream and plan with, to build a life around.
    But Bowen had long since stopped searching. When he was young and foolish, he believed his mother. That there was a woman out there made for him, to be his other half. The truth of the choices he’d made knifed his heart. He knew his guilty conscience and stained soul dictated that he must live out this life alone. In spite of knowing, he found reasons to linger just off the chapel grounds. He found himself looking toward the fence line, hoping for a glimpse of the tall, lean woman. Remembering how his heart pounded when he held her in his arms. That’s precisely why they needed to leave.
    Bowen turned toward the small Mexican church. He wasn’t comfortable encroaching on the padre’s land. Not since he began fighting the Indian campaigns for the government. He’d done more than his share of killing. It weighed heavy on his heart, seeing how the natives were treated, but it hadn’t stopped him from following orders. And when the citizens of the town decided stirring up trouble was the best way to get more attention to this Indian Problem of theirs out at Camp Grant, he’d had enough.
    The pit of his stomach soured as he dropped his rag and oil tin to the rocky ground. He drew up a chunk of white quartz and heaved it into the distance. Watched it clatter off a boulder and startle a small covey of quail. They squawked in displeasure, flying a short distance with beating wings as they relocated themselves. Camp Grant wasn’t a problem. It was a massacre. The bloodiest battle seen in the valley’s recorded history; the whole mess covered up by the army and a group of powerful citizens. And he had been left to pick up the pieces.
    The camp lay just up the mountain from where he’d found RuthAnne. The irony of saving someone where so many had died had not evaded him. RuthAnne and Mara made three he’d rescued from that bitter patch of earth. Three lives out of hundreds...
    He rubbed his side, where he still bore the scar left by a terrified, grief stricken Mariposa, whose life he had spared against orders. She had attacked him out of fear. Out of grief. How could he blame her? Bowen tore his thoughts away from the grim memory, taking a last swig of cold coffee. With a flick of his wrist, he dumped the dregs out on their fire. A hiss of steam and the scent of burnt grounds filled the air. He did his best to turn his thoughts away from that awful day. Try as he may, they just kept coming back to haunt him.
    Tucson, Arizona had been briefly declared the capital of the territory struggling toward statehood. Its citizens proclaimed loudly that with Cochise dead and buried, they were safe from Indians. Geronimo had other ideas about that from his safe haven in the Chiricahua Mountains on the border between the Arizona and New Mexico territories. He fought back by stopping incoming wagon trains, stealing and killing and reminding those good citizens that public safety was still very much an issue.
    Let them pretend to be law abiding and civilized, while hiding behind their guns and saloons. Arizona tried its hardest to hide its true colors and become a state. Bowen didn’t anticipate that happening in his lifetime, not that he expected to live much longer anyway. He did his level best to do his job and get out, taking risks and chances that had his fellow soldiers calling him fearless. A hero.
    The truth was nowhere near as romantic. He had lost his faith in what they were fighting for and had nothing left to lose.