Beloved Outcast by Pat Tracy Read Free Book Online Page B

loaded wagon pulled by oxen.”
    “So?”
    “That’s six days on flat terrain that will leave us exposed to attack from any roaming Indians.”
    “Which isn’t a good situation to be in,” she mused aloud.
    “A better choice for us would be to leave the main road and detour through those mountains.”
    Victoria looked toward the mountains in question. They loomed large and inhospitable—great granite crags stretching skyward. Caps of snow from the previous winter still covered the upper reaches. Even the tenacious pines and cedars hadn’t trespassed to those higher realms.
    “You are simpleminded to think my team and wagon can scale those rugged cliffs.”
    It wasn’t until the words popped out of her mouth that Victoria realized she’d spoken plainly enough for even a simpleton to realize he’d been insulted. She kept her gaze pinned resolutely on the jagged outcroppings.
    “Do you plan to insult me all the way to Trinity Falls?”
    There was no ignoring his tone’s stony timbre.
    She decided only a coward would refuse to look at him when she answered his question. Until this very moment, Victoria hadn’t realized she had a cowardly bone in her body. She drew in a breath and ceased her futile struggleswith her ribbon ties. Turning slowly, she confronted her offended companion.
    “I apologize, Mr. Youngblood, for hurting your feelings.”
    He stared at her hard enough with that cyclopean eye of his to raise goose bumps on her skin.
    “And,” she continued gamely, “in the future, I will endeavor to control my tongue.”
    At her words, his harsh gaze swooped to her lips. Her goose bumps multiplied a hundredfold.
    His mouth curved. On someone else the gesture would have resembled a smile. On him, the action had a kind of carnivorous aspect. She suspected that the Big Bad Wolf had sized up Little Red Riding Hood in that exact predatory fashion.
    “It’s at this point that you’re supposed to accept my apology,” she instructed.
    “If it will get that damned bonnet on your head any quicker, I’ll accept your most humble apologies.”
    She bit back her objections to his profanity, his reference to her “most humble” apologies and his entirely offensive manner. Instead she concentrated on unknotting the damned snarl that had—
    Victoria winced. Goodness, the crude man was already proving to have a corrupting effect upon her moral character. She never swore. Not when being falsely accused of misconduct with her sister’s beau, not when an unsympathetic wagon master refused to wait for her, not when dealing with unrepentant criminals.
    She governed her life by a high set of principles. And it was especially important now that she adhere to that superior code of conduct. After all, when she reached Trinity Falls, she would be instructing a young woman in the elements of being a proper lady, as well as handling the girl’s general education. It wouldn’t do at all for Victoria to show up in her new environment contaminated by her association with Logan Youngblood.
    It was she who needed to exert a positive influence upon him. Surely, with a diligent effort upon her part, he could be dissuaded from his wayward ways.
    The knot finally loosened enough for her to free the ribbons. She wasted no time in securing the hat to her head.
    “We’re not going over the mountains,” Youngblood said. “There are trails and passes I’m hoping to get this wagon through. Once we’re shielded by the forest, I’ll feel better.”
    “I suppose it does make sense for us to make ourselves less conspicuous,” she conceded reluctantly. The thought of entering the mysterious denseness of the wooded wilderness, however, was daunting to a city girl like herself. It seemed that it would be very easy to become lost among those pines that grew so astonishingly close to each other. It looked as if even the sunlight had to struggle to penetrate the lightly packed clusters of trees. “Are you sure you know the way to Trinity