Outlaw's Bride by Nicole Snow Read Free Book Online

the truck – the same clunker still chugging away after Roman's repair that fateful summer so long ago – and drove down the narrow path leading to our property's edge. We hardly ever came out here.
    The fields were no good for growing or grazing past a certain point. This was dead land, and we'd never had the time or resources to till it up and revive it.
    “There!” He hit the brake, and the truck jerked to a stop next to a dusty field full of brittle weeds. Norman rolled down the window and stuck his hand out, pointing furiously at the ground, right where it formed a ditch between the rusted barbed wire and the no man's land beyond.
    I strain in my seat to sit up, scanning the ground. When I saw it, I felt like I'd taken a turn down Weird Street.
    Something resembling a trap door laid in the ground, covered only by a thin layer of sandy Redding dust.
    “What the hell?” I popped the door and clambered out, crossing the road, approaching the strange compartment I'd never seen before.
    It shouldn't have been there. It shouldn't have been real.
    Norm couldn't reach me before I crouched on the ground and ripped it open. I had to jerk hard, tugging with both hands, until the pressure holding it shut gave.
    The cavern below was surprisingly deep. Dark, too. My eyes needed a few seconds to adjust, peering through the cobwebs and dust.
    I didn't see anything obviously dangerous. It should've been a relief, but it wasn't. I reached in, feeling around. The pit was deep, about the right dimensions for a grave, and my arm burned before my fingers brushed the ground.
    I slid forward, digging my toes into the earth for support. Deeper, deeper...both hands touched something, got a hold, and pulled. I jerked myself up with a small box, and the rattle inside it said it wasn't empty.
    “Shit! Be careful!” Norm must've said it about five times. “You're gonna fall in.”
    I ignored him.
    About a minute later, the contents were sprawled out in a small circle around me.
    Old, wrinkled pages torn from an atlas. A sturdy hunting knife. A simple flip phone from the early 2000s, and it looked worn enough to really be that old too. A small booklet was taped to the map. I pulled it off and thumbed through it, seeing a few basic phrases in English and Spanish.
    All of them were things like hands up, down on the ground, don't move, don't make me shoot. If I had to guess, I'd say it came from the Mexican military, judging by the big blocky text and sharp looking crests on the front and back.
    Of course, there was no good reason for legitimate soldiers to be out here in northern California. Everything here was too fresh to be a time capsule, and too weird to be anything official. The only thing that made sense turned my blood to ice.
    Cartel. Nothing else made sense.
    “Sally, Christ! Be careful with that junk.” Norman panted. “Greg already showed me everything this morning. There's no guns or grenades in there, but hell, it'd be nice if you gave me a chance to tell you.”
    “Sorry, Norm.” I looked up. “What's the deal? You're acting like you want to leave this crap in the ground, on our property.”
    My cousin shook his head, his salt and pepper hair bobbing in the summer breeze. “You're damned right I do. This stuff could've been hiding underneath our noses for months. We don't know if or when the owners are coming back. What do you think they'll do if they realize we've been screwing around with their stuff?”
    Damn. My heart beat five times faster when his words sunk in.
    Jesus, if this was what it looked like, the cartel on the prowl, then our farm wasn't safe anymore. I'd read enough brutal stories to know what happened to anyone who got in their way, or just ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
    Whoever buried this crap out here wanted to keep it a secret. I didn't know much about the criminal underworld, but I understood men who killed and smuggled for a living would do anything to stay in the shadows.
    They