The Scent of Jasmine Read Online Free PDF

the night, and some food. You can keep the rest.”
    She reached into the satchel by her leg and pulled out the bag of money that Uncle T.C. had given her. She couldn’t help pausing for a moment as she remembered when he’d put it in her hand. He and Hope were so far away now.
    “Do you mean to keep it all night?” the Scotsman snapped at her.
    She wanted to throw the coins in his ungrateful face, but she held back. “How much do you need?”
    “A dollar or two should do it. Now, will you stay here and wait or will you run to the authorities? I need to know what to expect when I return.”
    Part of her wanted to go to the local sheriff and say she’d been kidnapped by this man, but the larger part of her knew she couldn’t do that. She’d never be able to face Uncle T.C. again. “I need a pen and paper and ink,” she said. “I must send a letter to my family letting them know I’m all right.”
    “Do you plan to lie then?”
    “I beg your pardon.”
    “You’re under the care of a man who was one day from being hanged. I don’t think your family will see that as ‘all right.’”
    Cay didn’t want to think about her father’s anger or her mother’s tears. She especially didn’t want to imagine what her brothers would do to search for her.
    “If you mean to weep again I’ll have to get the hanky.”
    Cay sat up straight in the saddle. “I am not going to cry and I’d rather blow my nose on my sleeve than use that filthy rag you gave me.”
    “Wise choice,” he said, his eyes again crinkling at the corners. “Now stay here, be quiet, and wait.”
    “I will if I feel like it,” she said defiantly but knowing that she just wanted to stop moving.
    Again she saw the corner of his mouth twitch, as though he was holding in laughter, and he turned his horse and headed east.
    When she was alone, Cay thought that she should get down, if for no other reason than to show him that she wasn’t going to be ruled by him. But she didn’t have the energy. Instead, she let her head drop forward, and she fell asleep instantly.
    When Alex returned, that’s how he found her, sitting on her horse, still holding the reins, and sound asleep. Leaning forward, he peered into her face. She was a pretty little thing. The beads on her fancy dress reflected onto her small chin, and she looked no more than twelve years old. What in the world had T.C. Connor been thinking when he’d sent this child into the middle of the hell that Alex’s life had become?
    There was a part of him that wanted to turn himself in and be done with it—done with life. There wasn’t one moment when he didn’t remember the vision of seeing the woman he loved lying beside him, her beautiful throat one bloody cut.
    Everything that happened after that, the way he’d been treated in jail, the trial, all of it, had seemed to be what he deserved, not because he’d harmed her, but because he’d failed to protect her.
    So now, T.C. Connor, the only man who’d been his friend during the ordeal, had put another woman under Alex’s care—and he was ill equipped to shield her from the dangers that were all around them.
    Carefully, he took the reins from her tired hands and led her horse forward. He watched to make sure she didn’t fall out of the saddle, but she held steady as they rode the distance to the barn where he’d bought them shelter for the night. The old man who owned the place, Yates, had driven a hard bargain, so Alex was glad he’d had little money with him. If the old man had seen the girl in her expensive dress, he would have demanded everything they had. Or worse, he would have put two and two together and gone to the sheriff.
    Alex knew that the two of them were such an incongruous pair that they’d arouse suspicion wherever they went. The girl was young, and there was an air about her that proclaimed that she was rich. From her hair, which fell about her shoulders in thick, lustrous curls, to her tiny feet encased in silver