Luke’s Runaway Bride Read Online Free PDF

“hand over the pin that’s in it.”
    She gasped at the outrageous request. “No gentleman would ask such a thing of a lady.”
    “I don’t rightly care.” He raised his gun. “Now hand it over. Nicely. ”
    Men out West certainly weren’t the same as the men in Boston! In Boston they had manners, they said please and thank you and they never looked directly at your…your bosoms! Jenny felt her nostrils flare as she groped for the pin.
    “Drop it,” he commanded.
    It pinged off the floorboards.
    As they walked out the door, the two women in front, Luke grabbed a hunk of bread from Olivia’s sack. He ripped at it with his teeth, like a hungry tiger chewing on flesh. The man was truly an animal.
    God, he couldn’t be a friend of Daniel’s.
    A quarter moon lit the deserted street and houses. Orange leaves swirled at their feet. Huddling together, the women walked ahead of Luke and his horse. Where were they going? Jenny squeezed Olivia’s trembling arm.
    Trains hissed in the railway yard behind the far trees. They were headed in that direction. Good. Jenny breathed faster, gulping down the scents of damp earth and oil. They d be more visible on a train than by horse. Other passengers might come to their aid.
    Their captor directed them around some tall pines. A number of railway cars sat in the station. As a result of the derailment, the trains headed south had no place to go. But her father had told her the trains headed north to Wyoming or east to Omaha were still running on time. This brute had obviously timed his departure well, for the Wyoming train was whistling, as if waiting for them.
    In the distance, above the rumble of the steam engine and the clatter of baggage being loaded, she heard the conductor call, “Thirty minutes to departure.”
    They approached the train from the shadows. Glancing down the line of cars toward the platform, past the trunks and crates of vegetables, Jenny spotted a crowd. Capes and bonnets, walking canes and cowboy hats. Her muscles tightened with hope. Did she recognize any faces? They weren’t in anyone’s line of vision yet, but another fifty yards and she’d yell out to them.
    She dodged a puddle. The train hissed and she jumped back in alarm.
    A gun dug into Jenny’s back and she was forced to keep walking. So help her, the first chance she got, she’d hold a gun to his head and let him know how it felt.
    They passed an open boxcar stamped Union Pacific, and a short, blond man stepped out from the shadows. “Boss?”
    Oh, no, thought Jenny, Luke knew him. The lithe stranger, who had a wide, flat nose and muttonchop sideburns, guided Luke’s horse up a makeshift ramp. He glanced at them. “What’s going on?”
    “Don’t ask, Tom, I’ll explain later. I didn’t get to Daniel, but I’ve got his woman and her friend. Forget about the tickets—we’ll have to stay with the horses and women. We’ll split them up. You take this one,” he said, tossing a shocked Olivia into the man’s arms. “The blonde comes with me.”
    Panic welled in Jenny’s throat. She staggered back and screamed, as loudly as she could, at precisely the same time as the steam engine blew its whistle.
    No one heard her except Luke. Her cries were muffled as he threw her into the car behind his horse. Her gown twisted up around her thighs, and her feathered shawl dropped to the tracks. Luke dove in on top of her, squashing her between the solid wooden floor and his hard muscled body. Her chest felt like it would burst.
    Never in all her life had she been so mistreated, had she wished a fellow human being harm.
    Before she had time to blink, he rolled off her and slid the rickety door closed behind them. Seized with dread, she watched his lean profile melt into a swirl of blackness.
    Good Lord, what would he do next?
     

    In the cool, quiet hours near midnight, Luke stared into the darkness. Now he had to face up to what he’d done.
    With a mean-awful pounding in his ribs, he dragged