The Horseman's Bride by Elizabeth Lane Read Free Book Online

father and the hired cowhands would be driving the cattle to summer pasture in the mountains. It appeared they were about to ride out.
    Relief swept over her as she rode into the yard. Her father would be away for at least a week, maybe longer. Hopefully, by the time he returned, the mares would be bred, Tanner would be gone and there’d be no need for questions.
    There would still be her mother to get around. But one parent would be easier to manage than two.
    Her brother, Daniel, grinned at her as he reined in his skittish horse. He loved going off with the men on the spring cattle drive, and he was in high spirits. Katy sat pouting on the front steps. She had begged her father to let her go along, too. He had given her a firm refusal.
    Clara unsaddled Foxfire and turned him out to graze in the paddock. When she returned to the house, her father and mother were saying goodbye on the porch. What a striking couple they made, she thought. Judd Seavers, nearing fifty, was tall and lean, his handsome features leathered by sun and wind. His wife, Hannah, a decade younger, was a classic beauty with thick wheaten hair and a lushly rounded figure. Even after two decades of marriage, they had eyes only for each other.
    Katy was still huddled on the top step. Reaching down, Judd ruffled her corn silk hair. “Don’t be upset, Katydid,” he said, using his pet name for her. “You’ll find plenty of adventures around here.”
    In response, she turned, wrapped her arms around his legs and hugged them hard. Clara stepped up to embrace him next. “Take care of things, girl,” he whispered. “You’re the one I can always count on.”
    Guilt stabbed Clara as she kissed his cheek and stepped aside to make way for her mother. Her father was honorable to his very bones. He was depending on her, and here she was plotting behind his back.
    She could only hope that her scheme would turn out for the best.
    Judd and Hannah’s kiss was long and heartfelt. Hannah had sent her husband off and welcomed him home countless times over the past twenty years. But each time they clung together as if the parting would be their last. It was almost as if they were two parts of the same soul, neither of them complete without the other.
    Clara was well aware of the six-month interval between the date of their wedding and the date of her own birth. She’d never discussed it with her mother, but it didn’t take a mathematician to figure out that Hannah had been a pregnant bride. Clara had come to accept the fact, and refused to let it trouble her. Her parents loved each other. They had raised a close and loving family. The past was, as her grandmother would say, water under the bridge.
    Judd released his wife, strode down the steps and mounted his horse. Clara stood on the porch with her mother and sister, watching as the men rode down the long drive and out the gate. Only when the dust had settled behind the horses did the three of them turn and go into the house.
     
    Run!
    The word screamed through Jace’s mind as he galloped the stallion across the open fields. By now the police would be arriving at the house. When they discovered his abandoned Packard in the drive and his muddy boot prints on the carpet, they’d be after him like a pack of bloodhounds .
    The roads would be blocked. His best chance of a clean getaway depended on catching the midnight train. If he could scramble aboard unseen, leaving the horse to find its way home, he’d be well into Kansas by morning .
    By now the westbound freight would be approaching the Wilson’s Creek Bridge. When it slowed down for the crossing he’d have one chance to leap aboard—but only if he could get there in time .
    The midnight wind was bitter, the moon a pale scimitar veiled by tattered clouds. Behind him, Rumford’s grand plantation-style house rose out of the flatland, growing smaller with distance. Jace thought of his comfortable apartment in town—gone, like everything else he owned. If he