Siege of the Heart (Southern Romance Series, #2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

might wait for the man there, and trap him long enough to agree to bring Solomon back only after finding the two he needed to rescue.
    He huffed, wanting to turn around but refusing to. What was the man waiting for? They had been hours in the forest by now, running their horses ragged, and Solomon knew he was beginning to tire. Was the man so good a horseman that he believed he could still have a clear advantage after an afternoon’s hard riding?
    He was a spy.
    Of course he might. Solomon swore again.
    The gully was coming up, and he led Beauty to a canter, bargaining that the spy would drop his speed to avoid being seen, if he had not yet realized he’d been caught. The short rest would give Beauty the chance she needed to recover before Solomon urged her across the stream and up the embankment, bargaining on the other rider’s wish to stay hidden.
    It was not the best plan he had ever come up with, but it was the only one he had at present. He pulled water from his saddlebags and drank a mouthful, wincing at the warmth. Only a month back at the farm, and he was already accustomed to well-made food and cold water again. How quickly one became soft.
    His mind exploded into a riot of guilt and shame as he rode. He was trying to escape what he had done again, was he not? Was that not his goal? He squeezed his eyes shut and straightened his shoulders. He would not deny what he had done, he decided at last. He would tell the truth, and hope that his honesty convinced his captor that he intended, truly, to stand trial for what he had done. He would ask if they could try him quietly. He would ask for Clara’s sake. Surely the man would understand.
    Surely not even the Union was so cruel as to make his family stand trial alongside him, dragged through the mud and vilified by the press at every turn as having raised and harbored a traitor. Solomon resolved he would go to his very death, swearing they had not known.
    Cyrus was the only one who knew, and he would stay silent for love of Clara.
    But it would destroy Jasper. He knew that.
    There was no other option. No way back.
    Why had his mother not warned him of that when he was little—that when he did wrong, and followed the wrong path, it would not be only himself he dragged down?
    He came around the bend and dropped into the gully with the back of his neck prickling. If the spy knew these woods, they might choose to ride up along the side of the gully and shoot Solomon from above. It was a possibility. They would seize their chance and he would be dead without even a chance to plead for his life. He knew that no one would speak up, for fear of what might be exposed.
    Damn this person for learning the truth, and damn Solomon himself for doing what he had done.
    No one shot.
    He thought he heard the clip of a horse’s hoof behind him once, but he did not look around, and the hoof beats did not draw closer. He could hear the stream though the trees now.
    He was close. Solomon rolled his shoulders and his neck, readying himself for the sprint. If he could wait until just before his pursuer was emerging from the gully, he could gain a considerable lead. They would be disoriented.
    He could not go until he saw the water in front of him, but when he did, he urged Beauty to a canter, and then at once to a gallop. She protested with a whinny, tossing her head, but Solomon could not afford to listen to her protests. Not now. He urged her down the bank on one side and across the riverbed as fast as she would go, kicking up spray. He was lucky there were no rocks for her to catch her foot, and they thundered up the opposite bank as he heard the other rider break, as well, into a canter.
    Let them figure out themselves that there was no way to get a horse up the bank where they were, upstream from him. He urged beauty into the close darkness of the forest and tied her to a tree quickly, his hands shaking with adrenaline. He had only one shot at this. If he doubled back just until they