Renegade Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

heard of him?"
    "I know Travers," put in a rangy-limbed man seated on the opposite side of the coach. He slipped his cap off and a smile softened the weathered lines on his face. "Name's Nate Cullen, ma'am. Honest as a lookin' glass, Seth is. Sold me my first outfit—on credit, too." With a wink of pride, he added, "Paid him back every cent."
    Her heart tripped in her chest to hear someone who knew Seth speak of him. "Oh... I hope that means you've had luck in the goldfields, Mr. Cullen."
    He tugged at the colorful scarf around his neck. "I ain't complainin' and that's a fact. Some say the mother lode is right in the gulch, ripe for the takin'."
    That comment started a spirited discussion on the prospects in Alder Gulch. Most of those aboard, she learned, were headed for the placer camps of Ram's Horn, Deer Lodge, and Virginia City. All of these settlements fell within a half-mile of each other along Alder Creek, and each claimed its own merits as to the richness of its little strip of creek bed.
    Nate Cullen had been there the longest—one year in all. Of the others, two had done some mining in Bannack and farther west. The rest were green first timers, like her.
    A shiver of apprehension traveled down her spine. Mariah repositioned her hanky and gazed out the window at the passing scenery, turning her thoughts to Seth. Four years was a long time, she mused. Worries that had plagued her since she'd received his final letter last month resurfaced. What if things weren't the same between them? After all, she was not the same young girl he'd left behind in Chicago. She'd grown up.
    Seth, like her late father and grandmother, was always overprotective of her—much like a big brother. Five years older than she, he'd fought her battles for her, from Bobby Barnes snatching apples from her lunch-pail in school to making sure she and her grandmother never wanted for anything while Seth established himself in the West. His love was dependable—something she'd always taken for granted, like the sun coming up or the seasons changing.
    Seth had never felt the need to propose to her. Not down on one knee at any rate, the way she'd always dreamed about. No, their plans for a future together just seemed to happen. She was comfortable with Seth in a way she'd never been with another man. And she loved him. She'd not questioned that then, nor did she now. Seth was her life, and she'd kept herself only for him.
    The countryside passed by in a blur and the thought came again—four years is a long time. What if his feelings for her had changed? Suppose he no longer really wanted her, but had agreed to let her come out of some misguided sense of duty? After all, he'd known many women, she supposed. Most, undoubtedly, prettier than she. Some, Mariah thought with a pang of jealousy, perhaps even in the biblical sense. The thought sent a flush of heat to her cheeks and she brushed at a loose tendril of cinnamon hair that had escaped her chignon.
    It was then that she caught sight of the bounty hunter riding at an easy lope some thirty feet away from the stage. Something sharp and unexpected turned in her stomach at the sight of him. He was actually handsome in a dangerous sort of way, she realized, with strong, undeniably masculine features. And despite his obvious human failings, he rode as if he were born to it: back straight, yet relaxed, and those long, muscular legs molded around the saddle—
    Beneath the brim of his hat, the bounty hunter glanced up to catch her watching him. He didn't smile, but something in the shift of his posture seemed to mock her.
    Mariah shrunk back in her seat and slammed her eyes shut. She was mortified at the direction her thoughts had taken only moments before. What in the world was wrong with her, looking at him that way? Why, her heart raced as if she'd been running a foot race, for heaven's sake!
    Thankfully, no one seemed to notice the flush that had made her cheeks grow hot. The men in the coach had broken