Captive Heart by Michele Paige Holmes Read Free Book Online Page B

each until she felt one shift a little. With both hands she pushed again and again until the board popped loose, sending a blaze of heat her way.
    Emmalyne cringed back down into the hole, then forced herself to look up once more. Thick smoke filled the soddie, obscuring everything but the bright orange flames burning the bed in the center of the room. She could still make it outside. Reaching her arms up, Emmalyne struggled to lift herself out. Smoke filled her lungs, and her eyes burned, watering so badly she could barely see. As she lifted her knee to crawl out, a calloused hand closed around her arm.
    Emmalyne screamed as she pulled away and fell back into the hole beneath the floor.

Chapter 8
    “Miss Madsen,” Thayne yelled over the blaze roaring behind him and the screams from below. Wincing, he leaned over the root cellar, his hand groping blindly in the dark. A second later, her slender fingers grasped his arm. Relief, followed by caustic pain in his shoulder, washed over him as he leaned back to pull her out.
    Her eyes were tearing, and she coughed as her waist came level with the floor. He let go, and she crawled out on her own.
    “Keep low,” he shouted over the roar of the flames. Smoke filled his lungs as he waved his good hand toward what used to be the door, and she followed him on hands and knees from the cabin. Once outside, he staggered to his feet, glanced to see that she was still behind him, then made a path away from the soddie, walking as far as he could before finally collapsing on the grass.
    “Mr. Kendrich, are you dead?” she cried, dropping beside him, her hand held over him tentatively.
    Thayne opened one pain-filled eye. “Not yet. But working on it.”
    “Please don’t,” she begged. Her eyes grew large as she looked him over, taking in the gash on his forehead and the blood seeping through his shirt. “You’re shot.”
    “Reckon so,” Thayne grumbled. “A blind man coulda hit me. Hard to miss when you’re shooting down a three-foot-wide shaft.” He reached his good hand up and began unbuttoning his shirt.
    “They shot you in the well ?” Emmalyne looked over her shoulder toward the burning cabin.
    “Yeah.” Thayne grimaced as he moved his arm, his fingers still fumbling with the first button.
    She turned back to him. “But however did you get out? I heard the shots. Then they started the fire. I thought you were . . .” Her voice trailed off. After several seconds, his shaking fingers had managed to free only one button, and he looked to Miss Madsen for help. “I’ve got to stop the bleeding, or I will die.”
    She nodded and swallowed in one motion but made no move to assist.
    “Miss Madsen,” he said gently. “I could really use your help about now.”
    She looked past him and remained sitting perfectly still, hands clasped in her lap to the point of white knuckles. Thayne wondered how she made even her eyeballs freeze like that. He recognized the signs of shock setting in and knew they’d both be in real trouble if she went there. Perhaps he could get her riled up again.
    “Miss Madsen? If it’s your intent for me to die, then do me the favor of using that pistol.” He nodded toward the gun in the grass beside her. “You seem like a merciful sort, and there’s no sense in dragging things out.”
    She didn’t respond.
    “Miss Madsen,” he said sharply, reaching for the canteen strapped around her neck. “Will you—”
    “Emmalyne,” she whispered.
    “ What?” Thayne’s brow wrinkled as he tried to decipher what she’d said.
    “My name is Emmalyne.” Her voice quavered. “You’ve saved me twice now. I suppose you can know my name.”
    He scowled. “That’s four times if you count the corset and train.”
    She shook her head. “I don’t.”
    “Be that as it may, you owe me one.” Thayne let his hand drop as he looked into her eyes. “So you gonna shoot me or save me?”
    She hesitated, biting her lip in indecision. “I’m not so good at