Jodi Thomas Read Online Free PDF Page B

around, but when we’re alone I’m not even supposed to look at you.” He felt his face redden at the memory of the way he’d stared at her in the tent.
    “That’s the way it’s going to be.” She held her head high in challenge.
    Dear God, why did she have to seem more beautiful every time he looked at her? The angrier he got, the more he wanted to touch her and the more she seemed to hate him.
    Chance fought between the urge to grab her and kiss her, and the desire to turn around and leave her forever. Her softness had been so real earlier, and now her rage was just as genuine. He swung the saddle across Cyoty’s back. “I’ll be back in a few days,” he said without looking back.
    He didn’t see the tear that stood in the corner of Anna’s eye as she watched him ride away. He was her only hope for the future, her only road to independence. Yet how could Anna tell him of her fears, not just of him, but of all men?

    The two days of scouting turned into a week as Chance crisscrossed the land searching for the best trails. Although he slept in his saddle, ever alert to the possibility of danger, ever vigilant, deep in the corners of his mind throughout all his waking and sleeping hours was the thought of Anna.
    Why had the way she’d held her chin so high at the wranglers’ camp made him willing to forfeit a year of his life to protect her? Especially when he should be looking for the renegades who’d killed his family eight years ago. He needed to think of his little sister, Maggie, and most of all, he needed to have nothing binding in his life.
    The rain started the third day he was out, but the steady drizzle couldn’t erase the memory of her lace gown from his dreams. By the end of the week the need to see her was like a pain deep in his gut that grew worse by the hour. After meeting up with one of the other scouts, he agreed to take the far point for another few days. Maybe he could starve this craving to see Anna out of his mind if he stayed away long enough.

    Rain had pounded him for a solid week by the time Chance was finally reunited with the wagons late one afternoon. The sky was as low and brooding as his mood, with rain so thick it seemed to be hanging in the air instead of falling. He had a ten day’s growth of beard and hadn’t seen a hot meal for days. But all thoughts of a shave and a meal and even of seeing Anna were washed away by the sorry sight before him.
    The wagons, which were little better than carts, plowed through the mud single file. The thick-legged oxen heaved as they pulled each hoof from the sludgy earth and planted another step into the soft ground.
    People, like gray mourners, walked behind each wagon, trudging in the muddy ruts. Every few yards the exhausted men and women would lend a shoulder to push the wagon over a bump or out of a hole.
    As Chance walked his horse slowly down the line of wagons, no one looked up at him; they were too tired to care who passed beside them. They’d walked for days in the rain and some of the travelers were so caked with mud that they seemed part of the liquid road they slowly plowed through.
    Chance found the minister walking beside the third wagon, a sleeping child on his back. “Why don’t you stop?” Chance shouted above the rain. “There’re cliffs up ahead. You could build fires, dry out, wait for the rain to let up.”
    The minister shook his head. “If we stop, the Mexicans who drive our wagons will leave. We’ve come all this way. We will keep going until we reach the German settlement.”
    “But these people look half dead.” Chance’s anger was mounting. These families weren’t tough frontiersmen. Hell, he thought, half of them didn’t even have clothes that looked sturdy enough to last one good Texas winter.
    “You’ve got to order the people to stop,” Chance yelled above the rain as equal parts of anger and pity blended in his words.
    The minister shook his head as he said in a deep voice, “Better they die