Bride On The Run (Historical Romance) Read Online Free PDF

quarter mile down the road. It had to be the overhang Malachi had mentioned earlier. They had seconds to reach it.
    Malachi cursed as the mule wheeled in sudden panic and stopped still, braying and rolling its eyes. “Give me your petticoat!” he shouted. “We’ve got to blindfold him or he won’t move!”
    Clinging on with one hand, Anna tugged at the stubborn muslin. When it failed to come free, Malachi reached back, seized a fistful of cloth and yanked hard. The sodden fabric ripped, almost jerking her off the mule as it tore loose.
    A fist-size chunk of sandstone bounced off Anna’s shoulder and skittered down the slope. Malachi had dismounted and flung the petticoat over the head of the screaming mule. They were moving forward now,at the leaden speed of a nightmare chase. She could hear his voice through the rain, urging the animal forward.
    “Come on, you stubborn old devil! It’s all right! Just let loose and run!”
    Anna could hear the sucking sound of the earth washing away behind them. Just ahead the huge, pale outcrop jutted over the road like the bow of an ocean-going ship. She could see the hollow beneath it, their only chance of safety.
    “Get up, damn you!” She slapped the mule’s haunch with the flat of her hand. Startled, the animal bolted forward, almost running Malachi down in its haste. Anna lay low against its neck as they passed under the edge of the overhang, and then, miraculously they were beneath solid rock, safe for the moment.
    The air was dark here and strangely quiet. Without waiting for Malachi to help her, Anna slid wearily down the mule’s wet side, her hand catching the petticoat on the way down. The ground was solid and dry beneath her feet, but her quivering legs refused to support her. With a little moan she folded onto the sand and huddled there in a sodden ball, her knees drawn tight against her chest.
    Malachi had come inside, his presence filling the small space beneath the outcrop. Anna could hear his breath coming in raw gasps as he leaned against the rocky wall. His wet clothes steamed in the darkness.
    The mule had ambled off to one side. It snorted and shook its dripping hide, spraying muddy water. Anna thought of the stubborn, cantankerous Lucifer and how he had gone flailing off the road at the worstpossible time. She remembered the soft rabbity ears, the wheezy bray, the patient back. The accursed beast had meant nothing to her, but suddenly Anna found herself weeping—not in ladylike sniffles, but in ugly, body-racking sobs. She cried as she had not cried since her teens. She cried for the loveless years of her youth, for poor, dear Harry, for today’s hideous misadventure and for all the rough and lonely times ahead. Her tears gushed like water through a bursting dam, and try as she might, Anna could not make them stop.
    “What the devil is wrong with you?”
    She glanced up to find Malachi looming over her, his eyes glowing silver in the eerie light of the storm. “I can understand a few tears,” he growled, “but enough is enough, lady! For the love of heaven, you’re alive! You ought to be kissing the ground in gratitude instead of bawling your damn-fool eyes out! What’s gotten into you?”
    Anna raised her swollen face, too distraught to care how she looked or what this man thought of her. “Lu-Lucifer,” she hiccuped. “The slide—he—”
    “Bloody hell, woman, you don’t have to tell me! I know what happened to the blasted animal!” He furrowed impatient fingers through his wet hair, making it stand up in spikes. “That’s the luck of the draw in a place like this. You lose stock. Sometimes you even lose people, and the sooner you get used to that, the better off you’ll be. So stop your sniveling, lady! If anything, I’m the one who ought to be upset. I paid top dollar for that idiot mule!”
    Anna stiffened as her distress congealed into a wintry rage. Slowly she rose to her feet, her clothes drippingmud, her hair streaming in her