The Dowry Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

vicious guard dog. If she kept running she’d soon be out of strength and eventually collapse. Her hunter would catch up with her. He had looked big and muscular—a man accustomed to the hard, violent life on the streets.
    She eyed the wall again. Could she scale it? The man was gaining ground behind her. She could feel his presence closing in. It was now or never. Clenching her teeth hard with the effort, she gripped the top edge of the wall, pulled herself up with one strong thrust and vaulted over it.
    With a dull thud she fell into a garden of some kind, wincing as her bottom hit the hard ground and her arms and legs got scratched some more by low-lying plants. Swallowing against the sharp sting, she gave herself a moment to recover then tried to rise to her feet. She couldn’t—her legs were paralyzed rubber. Could she have broken a bone somewhere?
    Setting all thoughts of injury aside for a second, she cocked her ears to listen for sounds. The hastening steps were unmistakable. He was coming! She’d made it over the edge not a moment too soon. Her pursuer had reached the spot where she’d been standing mere seconds ago, and come to a stop. She could hear his labored breathing clearly on the other side. Even the combined stench of his stale-liquor breath and body odor was wafting up and over the barrier.
    Paralysis worked to her advantage, however, since she seemed to have frozen on the spot, although she hoped her own hard wheezing wasn’t too loud. Even the beat of her heart sounded like drumbeats. With any luck, the miserable bastard was too intoxicated to be able to hear well.
    For what seemed like endless minutes, Megha heard the man inhale deeply. Did he know she was on the other side? Is that why he stood there, waiting for her to reappear?
    She glanced about in panic, looking for an alternate escape route in case the man decided to scale the wall and come after her. A large house stood in the background, shrouded in dark silence. If there was a way around the house, she couldn’t see it. Thank God there was no sign of guard dogs. Maybe there was a garden tool or a piece of wood or something she could use to defend herself. But it was too damned dark to see anything. The fog was proving to be one hell of a nuisance.
    “Kidhar gayi salee?” she heard the drunkard murmur in Hindi. Where did the whore go?
    So he didn’t know where she was! Megha exhaled a deep but quiet sigh. Thank you, God! The bum hadn’t seen her leap over the wall after all. Good thing she was wearing a dark sari. And the fog, which she had considered a curse a second ago, was proving to be a blessing in some ways.
    She seemed safe for the time being. But she didn’t slump in relief or budge from her spot despite her temporary sense of reprieve. The man was still very much there. She could hear the profanities he kept grinding out and his cough, a deep, guttural, phlegm-packed sound typical of people who smoked beedis: tobacco leaves hand-rolled into tubes that resembled thin cigarettes. A beedi was the poor man’s cigarette.
    After a minute, Megha’s brain thawed a little and her numb limbs seemed to come semi-alive. She flexed her hands, wondering if she would be able to climb back over the wall. What if that wretched beast decided to camp out right there for the night?
    Another round of panic shot through her when something soft skittered past her feet. Snake? She was terrified of reptiles. Or was it a rat? She hated rats, too. Could it be the blood oozing from her injured foot that was attracting some kind of blood-sucking creatures? She sat still, hoping to play dead. Maybe they’d sniff and go away.
    God, what had she plunged into—from the proverbial frying pan into the fire? Only, in her case, it was more like the fire to the frying pan. And how much longer could she hide out in some stranger’s garden? Daylight was only a few hours away.
    Time was running out.
    She listened, praying the vagrant would give up on her and