High Mountain Drifter Read Online Free PDF Page A

innocent buckboard driver with cane in hand.
What a headline that would make for the local newspaper.
    She hung her head. Yes, she really was under duress. What if everyone in town had witnessed it? She felt awful, she felt shamed, but mostly she wondered about the man who'd wiped her face as if she'd been a child. He'd been gentle, that big rugged man. Hard to say why she felt compelled to glance over her shoulder, zeroing in on the team standing obediently in the rain, hitched to the man's buckboard.
    "I wonder who he is?" Rose twisted around in the seat studying that buckboard too, squinting through the rain and the droplets plopping off the edge of the buckboard top. "We don't get a lot of strangers to town."
    "
We
came to town," Verbena pointed out.
    "Yeah," Magnolia called out from the front seat. "And we're strange."
    "Speak for yourself," Iris joked, sitting very straight and ladylike, but a corner of her mouth gave a little playful twist.
    "That's right, Mags." Rose tossed over her shoulder. "You might be the only strange one here."
    "I wish I could argue with that," Magnolia answered laughing good-naturedly. Bright and joyous, it was a wonderful sound. Magnolia had been kidnapped too on that terrible night, but she'd bounced back just fine. Of course, maybe getting engaged to handsome and dependable Tyler Montgomery had something to do with that.
    "Maybe he's come to visit family," Iris suggested, glancing over her shoulder. "It's almost November. Thanksgiving will be coming up. Perhaps he's here for the holidays."
    "Oh, that reminds me. This year we need to have a real Thanksgiving." Rose sighed as their rolling buckboard took them out of sight of the stranger's vehicle and the town's main street--and Lawrence.
    "Yum, I haven't even thought of Thanksgiving yet." Magnolia smacked her lips, reining Marlowe around the sweeping curve in the road toward home. "Where do we get a turkey around here?"
    "Well, they run wild," Rose pointed out.
    "Maybe one of the cowboys could round one up for us," Iris suggested sensibly. "I'm sure Aumaleigh over at the ranch cooks up a turkey dinner for all the hired hands who don't have family to spend the day with. How hard would it be for them to get an extra turkey?"
    "We'll have to have all the trimmings." Magnolia clearly was already making plans. "Mashed potatoes. Cranberry sauce and baked beans. And pumpkin pie."
    "Ooh, you're making me hungry." Rose clamped her hands over her midsection as her stomach gave a loud growl. "But it sounds so good. Remember our last few Thanksgivings?"
    "Yes." Verbena answered. They'd shared a meager meal of bread and beans warmed in their boardinghouse's kitchen. The dining room had been shut down for the holiday, most of the residents had traveled to stay with family. Bread and beans had been all they could afford. "Remember how Rose and Daisy brought tarts home from the bakery for dessert?"
    "Only one apiece," Rose nodded, her pretty, high-cheek-boned oval face smiling at the memory. "They were the irregular ones that didn't come out right. Our boss said we could take them. Daisy and I were so thankful."
    "We
were
thankful." Iris's sweet alto dipped with gratitude. "We had so little then, but we were lucky to have it."
    "Exactly." Verbena's throat felt tight. The financial hardships they'd known in Chicago were behind them, gone. But if not for Grandmother Maureen's inheritance, they would still be those girls, living a life filled with long endless workdays struggling to make ends meet. They had a lot to be thankful for.
    That truth lingered in the air among them, unspoken but not unfelt, and the appreciation for the comfort and easiness of their lives. Feeling even worse about how she'd acted over her dress, the weight of the man's money felt like an anvil in her pocket, in her heart.
    "Don't worry," Iris leaned in to take her hand, understanding and love soft in her voice. "Once the sheriff does his job, you'll be safe. Ernest will be in jail