Outlaw Bride (Lawmen and Outlaws) Read Online Free PDF Page A

shock in her eyes, hear it in her voice. “I spoke the truth. One doesn’t choose the veil like one orders a new hat from a catalogue! Besides, surely someone is missing her.”
    “I respect all you said, ma’am. Don’t mean to make her a nun for real. Just keep her with you for a time until I can sort things out.”
    “Sort things out? Whatever is going on, Mister, well, Redd?”
    He leaned as close as he dared, her being a nun and him not wanting to be sacrilegious, but he didn’t want even a whisper of his words to travel on the wind.
    “Someone tried to kill her, Sister. Tried to strangle her. Those big boots? She was trying to leave a false trail when she passed out from lack of water. Shock too, I reckon.”
    The nun’s mouth opened but no word came out for a while. Then she breathed out hard and noisy. “Well then, thank the Lord you came upon her and not her foes. So why don’t you fetch a lawman? Surely Pioneer Meadows has a sheriff.”
    “Nope.” He snuck a peek at the girl. She was busy driving the wagon toward the ramshackle barn. “It’s best, keeping her whereabouts secret. The law tends to side with a man’s attempts at keeping his woman in line. My ma died at the hands of her second man when the law scoffed at her complaints.”
    His voice trailed off. The words hurt just to say them. Something like a tear tickled the back of his throat, and he kept his eyes wide so the tragic memory didn’t relive behind his lids.
    “I am so sorry, Redd.” Sister Adelaide Eugene’s face grew whiter yet, but she nodded. “What should we do?”
    “Just what I said. Nurse her yourself. We can’t risk identifying her to some doctor, neither. Not till I find out who her foes are. Likely when her voice box heals, she’ll talk.”
    Just like a regular woman, Sister Adelaide Eugene chewed on a fingernail, then turned nun again quick and stuck her hands inside her robes.
    “I fear you may be right, Redd,” she said. “But as soon as you find out the truth, you must fetch her immediately. And alert the law. I’m certain her loved ones are missing her.”
    Loved ones? In spite of Tawana, Redd didn’t like the sound of someone else loving her. He grabbed for her hand inside the sleeve. “Her loved ones just might be the ones after her. You get that, right?”
    “If it’s true, this can only be a very temporary arrangement.” Sister Adelaide Eugene used a stern voice he remembered from his school days. Pulling her right hand free, she walked him farther away across the pebbles and dust. “I cannot bring any suspicion or danger to my postulants.”
    “Don’t get you, Sister.” Redd swallowed his impatience. His ma had taught him to respect women and this one was a nun on top of it. “I think this girl is in trouble, not bringing it. Don’t y’all offer safe haven or some such to folks needing aid?”
    For a long while, the nun stared where her feet hid underneath her long dusty hem, her cheek twisting with teeth picking at the inside of her mouth. Redd reckoned she was making up her mind about something. Finally she blew out a long sigh.
    “Mister Redd, Padre Cardeñas trusts you, so I believe you to be a man of conviction. What I say next is told to you in complete confidence. Mister Redd, have I your word that you will keep it so?”
    She stared at him like it was the Judgment and held out her hand, using mister . Twice. His heart hammered, same way it had whenever his captain called a charge, for he didn’t know what was coming. “You got my word of honor, ma’am,” he said, shaking her hand hard. “Forever and ever.” He hesitated. “Amen.”
    “You’ve been right, calling my colleagues the ‘almost-nuns,’ she said in a tone soft and hard both. “In truth, those three young women have no religious calling, sir. Nor do I.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’m not a nun, Mister Redd, and ‘Padre’ is a U.S. Marshal. We’re incognito, but we are living our roles as accurate as we