The Borrowed Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

and dishes. Build a life together.
    Two weeks later she lost the baby. Two weeks after that, she lost Dan. He was away on a gig when the bleeding started. By the time he made it to the clinic, it was too late.
    He held her and wept with her, but even through a fog of painkillers she saw it. The look of guilty, sad relief in his eyes.
    “You’re a million miles away,” Juanita said. She hada wonderful smile, her creased face a relief map of a long, well-savored life.
    Isabel smiled back. “I guess I was.”
    Juanita set aside her knitting and wrung a steaming, fragrant cloth into a basin next to her chair. She wrapped the cloth around her right elbow. “Arthritis,” she explained.
    “Ma, the doc at the clinic said to take the pills and use the heating pad,” Theo said.
    “My way’s better.” She looked directly at Isabel. “I use an old Indian salve. Bethroot and wormwood steeped in hot water.”
    “It smells wonderful,” Isabel said. But it was more than that. Just being in this house caused a deep fluctuation inside her. These people didn’t question or accuse, but just accepted who she was, what she had done. As Juanita had bustled around the kitchen, getting supper and then steeping her herbs, the old folkways seemed to seep back into Isabel’s bones. And to her surprise, it didn’t hurt.
    The rain stopped as softly as it had begun. Isabel excused herself and walked out onto the rickety front porch. Stars of searing brightness shone over the dark hulks of the mountains. The air smelled of evergreen and fresh water. It was cool at this elevation, and she wrapped the warm shawl tighter around her.
    She heard Dan before she saw him. Or rather, she heard the horse. The damp thud of hooves, the occasional ripple and snort, the creak of saddle leather.
    It wasn’t every day a man came for her on horseback.
    He appeared in the darkened yard, a slick, hooded poncho enshrouding him. “And I thought,” he said in his rich, silky voice, “that going to Bainbridge to get you was a pain in the ass.”
    Theo came out on the porch. “You okay, Dan?”
    “Yeah. Petunia’s good and mad at me, though.”
    “Petunia?” Isabel asked.
    “She came with the name. Won’t answer to anything else.”
    “You can put her up in the barn for the night,” Theo said. “Gary’ll ride her to your place in the morning. You want to stay here?”
    “I’ll borrow your truck if you don’t mind.”
    Isabel opened her mouth to protest. Then she thought about the small house, the meager supplies. It wasn’t fair to impose on the Sohappys.
    But the prospect of spending the night alone in a luxurious wilderness lodge with Dan Black Horse didn’t thrill her, either.
    Or maybe it thrilled her too much.

Five
    “Y ou mean there’s a road leading to your place?”
    Dan smiled into the dark and ground the pickup’s gears a notch higher. “It’s an old logging trail. Real old. You have to know where to look for it.”
    She clutched at the edge of the seat as they bounced over a rut. “Good,” she said. “Then you’ll have a way to get me home tomorrow.”
    He said nothing. He didn’t want her to go home tomorrow. More than that, he didn’t want her to insist on going home tomorrow.
    Finally, he asked, “Did you like the Sohappys?”
    “Very much.”
    “They’re my nearest neighbors.”
    “I was lucky Gary found me.”
    “He’s a good kid. Wasn’t always, but he is now.”
    “He told me you hope to get the Seahawks up here. Why didn’t you tell me?”
    He drove to the front of the lodge and parked. “Because now it might not happen.”
    “Why not?”
    Dan killed the engine and draped his forearms over the steering wheel, turning his head to look at her. The rain had ruined her fancy hairstyle and made it glossy and straight. He liked it better that way.
    “’Cause I stole their promoter’s girlfriend,” he said.
    “Oh, please.” She jerked the door open and jumped out, climbing the porch steps to the front