Mail-Order Groom by Lisa Plumley Read Free Book Online

you run away again, either. You are my best chance at starting over—that means I’m counting on you. You can’t let me down. You just can’t . Not now.” She inhaled deeply, then ladled as much fierceness as she could into her tone. “Not when I’m so close. You hear?”
    He moaned but didn’t speak. Savannah didn’t say any more. All during the jostling trek back to the station, she watched her mail-order groom…and she thought about him, too. She might be eager, but she wasn’t naive. The undeniable truth was, her injured groom’s flight into the woods—like his guns and his knives—had unsettled her. Something didn’t feel right here.
    She might be counting on her mail-order groom but she didn’t plan on trusting him. Not yet. They had a long wayto go before that happened—if it happened at all. Suddenly Savannah had as many doubts as she did questions, and she needed answers.

Chapter Four
    V ivid sunshine pushed open Adam’s eyes at a time he judged long past sunrise. Disoriented and aching, he tried to sit up.
    Raw throbbing pain cut short his motions. Gasping, he sank back again. He was in a bed. In a room. In the tiny Morrow Creek adjunct telegraph station, far from his partner and his mission.
    Mariana . Last night, he’d tried to find her. He’d trudged through the wooded hillside in the dark, bleeding and hurting. After what had felt like hours, he’d found his earlier trail.
    He’d located the iron post he’d used to stake out his horse. But his progress had ended there. The rope attached to the post had been hacked off, its frayed ends still in place. His horse had been gone. Stolen, if he didn’t miss his mark.
    Bedell and his boys had been thorough. With no horse, no sense of where the confidence man had gone or how long ago he’d left—and with a gunshot wound and other injuriesto slow him down—Adam had little hope of tracking them. At least for a while.
    What’s more, he still had a job to do here at the station. Bedell’s mark still needed him. Savannah Reed still needed him . If that sharper were still loitering around, waiting to make his move on an innocent woman, Adam had to be there to stop him.
    Bedell didn’t yet have the windfall he’d planned to steal from Savannah, Adam reminded himself. If he waited at the station, he figured Bedell would return. Doubtless, he’d do it sooner rather than later, too. Roy Bedell and his brothers had never shown any signs of being less than greedy and impatient.
    And Savannah Reed had never shown any signs of being less than trusting and gullible. You are my best chance at starting over, he remembered her telling him last night. That means I’m counting on you. You can’t let me down. You just can’t .
    Her words had been truer than she’d known. She was counting on him. She had to. And he, in turn, had to protect her.
    Last night, all Adam had been able to think about was helping Mariana. But in the clear light of day, with a lucid mind and the force of all his hard-won experience to guide him, he thought about Savannah, too. There were so many things she didn’t know about the mail-order groom she’d been waiting for.
    Roy Bedell had lied to her from the start. He was a thief and a coldhearted killer. Adam had hoped to nab the knuck before it became necessary to make such revelations to Bedell’s latest target. Now that plan seemed nigh impossible. But, he wondered unhappily, how did a man begin to tell a woman that she’d made arrangements to share her life with a ruthless sharper?
    Adam didn’t know. He’d figure out something later. Because as things stood now, he didn’t have much choice. He was hurt and weak, gunshot and dizzy. Bedell and his boys were out of reach. Mariana was missing. For now, all he could do was trust that his partner had done the right thing and stayed far away, like