Caden's Vow by Sarah McCarty Read Free Book Online Page B

started.
    “Yes.” It was hard to get the word out.
    “The men’s humor would sure improve with a woman around the
place.”
    The guy in the faded brown hat offered, “Morale has been down.
Comanche’s got everyone working double time.”
    “How much do you charge?” the boss asked.
    “For what?” she stalled.
    “I’ve got a camp of ten men who need satisfying.”
    “Around the clock?”
    “You get Sundays off and from sundown to sunup. Other than
that, the men come in, and you’d be available.”
    “And who would I be working for?”
    “Frank Culbart of the Fallen C here.” He made a token touch of
his finger to his hat. She didn’t get the impression that he was being
disrespectful but that he was just rather gruff.
    Culbart? Dear God. These were the men who’d purchased Fei’s
cousin and held her captive! “I don’t cook and clean,” she said.
    “Girl, you’ll pretty much do what I want.”
    She raised her chin, thinking of Tia. “I’m a working woman,
sir, not a slave. I’ll expect a decent wage.”
    “I yank you off that horse you’re whatever the hell I say you
are, so you best take what you get before you find yourself in a position you
don’t want to be in.”
    She didn’t want to be here at all. She wanted to be with
Caden.
    One of the men rode forward and grabbed Flower’s reins,
slipping them over the horse’s head, and pulled Flower forward.
    “We’ll leave the dog here.”
    “He won’t stay.”
    He pulled his gun out. “Then I’ll shoot him.”
    “No! ”
    “Don’t you be telling me what I will or will not do.”
    She yanked at the reins, panic gathering in her stomach. Worth
snarled and charged the man holding Flower’s reins.
    With a calm that she couldn’t fathom, Culbart pulled the
trigger. Worth howled and fell, whimpering before lying still.
    “No!”
    Culbart took aim again. Kicking Flower forward, Maddie grabbed
for that gun before he could fire again. Culbart swore.
    “Goddamn it! Hold her, Dickens.”
    She screamed when somebody’s arm went around her waist and
yanked her off her mare, hating the laughter that flowed around her, mean,
vicious chuckles that declared their superiority. She clawed at her captor’s
hands, but her nails raked harmlessly over his gloves. Before she could get her
bearings, she was thrown around. She automatically splayed her hands, but she
didn’t hit the ground; instead, her stomach hit the saddle, and the slap on her
ass was hard enough to arch her back.
    “Calm down. The dog’s already dead,” Dickens ordered.
    She didn’t want to calm down. Caden! The scream came from her heart. The ground spun as the man
wheeled his horse.
    “We keeping her, boss?” someone asked.
    “We’ll see how she works out.”
    “And if she doesn’t?”
    “Nobody’ll miss a whore.”
    The truth of that sat like ice on her soul.

CHAPTER FOUR
    U NDER THE BEST of
circumstances, mining was back-breaking work. Under these circumstances—one man
trying to discreetly salvage a mine that had been blown to smithereens—it was
brutal. Caden sighed and tied the rope to another boulder, hooked the harness
around his shoulders and dragged the stone away from the hole, muscles straining
with the exertion. The job would have been easier with help, or with equipment,
and he knew he was going to have to break down, eventually, and get both. But
right now he needed to establish his hunch as true. He had a pretty accurate
description of the layout of the tunnels from Fei, but the reality was the
explosion had collapsed everything. Even part of the mountain had caved in. When
Fei decided to blow something up, she did a thorough job.
    It was hopeless to think he could restore the natural caverns
that had formed the basis for the original mine, but Caden was banking on the
explosion having freed up a lot of that gold embedded in the rock walls. His
plan was to dig and sift until he had what he needed to set up a full operation.
Fei had given the mine a