A Promise Worth Remembering (Promises Collection) Read Online Free PDF Page A

getting hurt, of allowing herself to fall for the only man she’d truly ever loved. Only to lose him all over again. That fear kept her grounded in the past. She didn’t want to live for the day—a carpe diem attitude Jesse had heeded. She wanted a future. Faith in something grand. Something more than she’d ever had. Did she dare put her faith in Tucker to see his promise kept?
    He curled his fingers and gently persuaded her forward just as the world breathed.
    Taking a crazy leap of faith, she latched on.

Chapter Three
     
    Along a dusty trail that paralleled the Cosumnes River, Bailey, with Tucker on her right and Copper following, walked a quarter of the way to Crooked Bridge. She’d crossed the row of Trespassers Shot on Sight signs, slipped through the wall of Alders, and past a thick blooming blackberry bramble when she spotted an unfamiliar truck. Parked, two men stood to one side of the vehicle tarped with carcasses strapped to the roof. They loaded their rifles.
    Her palms rolled into fists. She’d seen both men before, however, in town—trappers and hunters who were known to carry the proper depredation permit to kill mountain lions that attacked livestock. But these two were far too blasé about killing animals for profit.
    She jerked to a halt just as Tucker shoved her behind him, his hand sliding off her arm in slow progression like he needed to feel her there, behind the shadow of his shield. She’d been thankful he’d loaned her his shirt, which covered her to mid-thigh. He still wore an undershirt, the sleeveless kind that left little to the imagination of how much Tucker’s body had matured.
    Copper crouched at her feet, splitting his shoulder wound wide open, so, again the pink flesh turned crimson. His tail whisked from side to side and he growled.
    She could only imagine the weapons the men carried were ready to rip through any living beast they sought to add to their collection.
    To get a better look, she leaned forward and followed Tucker’s glare to the taller man. Dirt stains crusted his khakis at his knees, red dirt that lined the sanctuary side of the river, instead of the pale and more sandy soil on the Pierce’s. And boots, not pointed at the ends like Tucker’s, but rounded and heeled like those that marred the mud along her fence line. These men, whether they’d cut the fence or not, had ventured to her side of the river. Blood pounded in her ears. “Killers.”
    At her whisper, Tucker blinked slowly, acknowledging he’d heard. Quickly, his fingers landed on the action of his rifle. His chest expanded. “You’re on private lands.”
    The taller of the two men, the one with the shaved head, removed his dark glasses to reveal cruel eyes. He dug into his pocket and waved a white piece of paper. “I’ve got a permit and a contract to kill any threat on this land.”
    “Not from me, you don’t.”
    “And you are?” His lips curled in a sneer.
    “Tucker Pierce. New owner.”
    “Like I said, I have a contract to”—the guy dropped his beady stare to Copper—“take down any dangerous cat on this property. From the paw prints I tracked intermingled with the black tail deer, seems like this cat, like any other, is a definite threat to the hunting range’s quotas guaranteed by Mr. Pierce.”
    Her shoulders knotted to match her fists. By quotas, Pierce Senior’s range tailored to sports hunters who were promised the chance to shoot a trophy buck during hunting season on the private range. She peered around Tucker’s squared shoulders to see his face.
    His jaw pumped the muscle into a thick wedge and his profile showed his lashes had pinched tight. He lifted his gun to eye level.
    Both men staggered backward.
    “Right now, I don’t see a feline threat. I see trespassers that have encroached onto private lands. And signs that say Trespassers Shot on Sight . You don’t want to press me—into calling the Sheriff.”
    The thump, thump, thump inside her chest nearly drowned