Bride On The Run

“I was desperate,” she said, settling on a half truth. “I was out of money, out of work, had no place to go.”

Malachi sighed, his powerful shoulders shifting in the deep indigo twilight. “I wish I could believe you,” he said. “But your kind isn’t exactly known for veracity.”

“My kind?” Anna glared at him, her stomach churning.

“I think you know what I’m talking about.”

She fought the nauseating rage that rose like bile in her throat. “Would it make any difference if I told you I’m not a—” She hesitated, staring down at her pale hands. No, she could not even bring herself to say the word whore. She had known too many of those poor, lost girls. And she had come all too close to sharing their fate. In those homeless, hungry days, only the gift of her voice had saved her from the hell of those upstairs rooms.

“I’m not what you think I am,” she said, recovering her poise. “But of course, I can’t expect you to believe that, can I?”

His silence answered her question, and for the space of a heartbeat Anna was tempted once more to tell this man the whole true story and beg for his protection. But no, she reminded herself, he would not believe her. And even if he did, he would not like what he heard. The upright Malachi Stone would not take kindly to the fact that the woman on his hands was wanted for murder.

Beyond the winding, narrow thread of the road, the canyon was a darkening wonderland of castle-shaped buttes, spires and buttresses. Colors changed with the changing light, deepening from sienna to violet, from indigo to midnight. The wind moaned as it funneled down the arroyos, a lonely, haunting sound that was broken only by the rush of the river and the steady, plodding hoofbeats of the two mules.

Anna gazed upward at the darkening gap of sky. Her spirits sank even deeper as she saw the flicker of lightning and heard, a heartbeat later, the distant roll of thunder.

Malachi had not spoken. Glancing at his stubborn profile, she knew that this was one contest of wills she could not win. Her breath slid out in a long sigh of defeat. “Very well,” she said. “I understand and accept your position, Mr. Stone. If you’ll consent to give me shelter until your wagon is repaired, I’ll be on my way. I assume your cousin Mr. Wilkinson will take care of the contract cancellation…and the divorce.” How strange to say the word, when there had been no semblance of a marriage between them. They were strangers to one another, and would remain so until the end of their days.

Malachi stirred at last, as if awakening from sleep. He shifted his seat on the mule, cleared his throat and spoke. “Where will you go?”

“California, as soon as I can manage the fare. There are plenty of opportunities there for my kind, as you so generously described me.”

She sensed the tightening of his jaw as the irony sank home. “The buckboard shouldn’t take more than a day or two to fix,” he said wearily. “Then I’ll take you as far as Kanab and put you on the stage for Salt Lake. It’s the least I can do to compensate you for your trouble.”

“That’s very kind. Thank you.” Anna spoke through a haze of disappointment. If only he would offer to pay her way to California. She could get work there, maybe even a singing engagement if she changed her name and dyed her hair. If things went well, she could save her money and go anywhere she wished—Mexico, even Europe. But Salt Lake City was too small, too isolated for safety. Sooner or later, she was bound to be noticed. Her face would be matched with the face on the poster, and then the bounty hunters would come.

The wind had picked up, carrying the first elusive drops of rain. Anna licked the moisture from her dusty lips, savoring the coolness as Malachi pushed ahead of her once more. “Let’s get moving,” he said. “Storm’s going to break soon, and this stretch of the road is prone to slides.”

He kneed his mule to a brisk trot. Not wanting to be left behind, Anna jabbed her heels into Lucifer’s flanks and was rewarded by a sudden burst of speed. She gripped the collar, her teeth clenched against the pain that jarred her pelvis and chafed her thighs with every bounce. Walking would be agony tomorrow—if she survived that long.

Lightning cracked across the sky, casting buttes and mesas into stark blue relief. The earsplitting boom of thunder echoed across the canyon, and in the next instant the rain began to fall. Not a gentle shower but a stinging, lashing torrent. Within seconds it had plastered Anna’s clothes to her body and turned the road into a seething river of mud.

Startled by nature’s sudden savagery, the perverse Lucifer stopped dead in his tracks and began wheezing like a ruptured steam calliope.

“Come on!” Malachi swung back toward Anna and yanked the frightened animal into motion again. “There’s an overhang about a mile down the road!” he shouted above the rain. “We can stop there till the worst of this passes!”

He swung ahead of her to lead the way and was at once swallowed up by darkness and rain. All but blinded by the stinging raindrops, Anna gripped Lucifer’s collar, trusting her life to the erratic beast. The mule knew the way home, she reminded herself. As long as she stayed on its back, she would be safe. All the same, it was hard not to be terrified when water was gushing over the road with a force that threatened to wash away the entire hillside.

“Keep him away from the edge!” She could hear Malachi’s voice shouting from somewhere off to her left. “This way!”

Another lightning bolt split the sky above the gorge. In its ghostly flash she saw him plunging toward her, one arm outstretched in an effort to grasp her mount’s harness. Then thunder broke like the roar of cannon fire, and Lucifer lost his footing. Squalling and kicking, the mule went down and began to slide.

Anna screamed as she felt herself flying through the black rain, felt the twisting jerk as Malachi’s powerful hand caught her wrist, wrenching her upright. She slammed into the side of his mule and hung there, her breath coming in hard little sobs.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” Malachi was hauling her upward. Wild with terror she fought against the pull of his arm.

“Lucifer!” she gasped. “We’ve got to save him!”

“He’ll have to save himself! Get up here, damn you!” He was dragging her alongside the mule, almost twisting her arm out of its socket.

“Please—” she started to argue. Then she heard it—a roar of sound that rose out of the rain like a demon out of the sea, growing, building until it became the scream of the earth itself.

Landslide!

Malachi bent down and caught her waist, sweeping her off her feet as the mule shot forward. Anna used the harness to clamber up behind him, and they rocketed down the road, skidding around curves, dodging boulders and exploding through mud pits.

Too terrified to think, Anna pressed against Malachi’s back, her arms encircling his lean, muscular waist, her knees spoon-cupped against the backs of his thighs. From behind them she could hear the rush of water and the rumble of falling earth. She could hear it gaining on them, moving closer with every breath, every heartbeat.

Malachi’s body strained forward against her clasping hands. His muscles bunched and lengthened through the rain-soaked shirt as he lashed the mule’s flanks with a loose harness buckle. Startled by a crashing boulder, the mule skidded sideways, giving Anna a fleeting glimpse of a whitish rock outcrop that loomed perhaps a quarter mile down the road. It had to be the overhang Malachi had mentioned earlier. They had seconds to reach it.

Malachi cursed as the mule wheeled in sudden panic and stopped still, braying and rolling its eyes. “Give me your petticoat!” he shouted. “We’ve got to blindfold him or he won’t move!”

Clinging on with one hand, Anna tugged at the stubborn muslin. When it failed to come free, Malachi reached back, seized a fistful of cloth and yanked hard. The sodden fabric ripped, almost jerking her off the mule as it tore loose.

A fist-size chunk of sandstone bounced off Anna’s shoulder and skittered down the slope. Malachi had dismounted and flung the petticoat over the head of the screaming mule. They were moving forward now, at the leaden speed of a nightmare chase. She could hear his voice through the rain, urging the animal forward.

“Come on, you stubborn old devil! It’s all right! Just let loose and run!”

Anna could hear the sucking sound of the earth washing away behind them. Just ahead the huge, pale outcrop jutted over the road like the bow of an ocean-going ship. She could see the hollow beneath it, their only chance of safety.

“Get up, damn you!” She slapped the mule’s haunch with the flat of her hand. Startled, the animal bolted forward, almost running Malachi down in its haste. Anna lay low against its neck as they passed under the edge of the overhang, and then, miraculously they were beneath solid rock, safe for the moment.

The air was dark here and strangely quiet. Without waiting for Malachi to help her, Anna slid wearily down the mule’s wet side, her hand catching the petticoat on the way down. The ground was solid and dry beneath her feet, but her quivering legs refused to support her. With a little moan she folded onto the sand and huddled there in a sodden ball, her knees drawn tight against her chest.

Malachi had come inside, his presence filling the small space beneath the outcrop. Anna could hear his breath coming in raw gasps as he leaned against the rocky wall. His wet clothes steamed in the darkness.

The mule had ambled off to one side. It snorted and shook its dripping hide, spraying muddy water. Anna thought of the stubborn, cantankerous Lucifer and how he had gone flailing off the road at the worst possible time. She remembered the soft rabbity ears, the wheezy bray, the patient back. The accursed beast had meant nothing to her, but suddenly Anna found herself weeping—not in ladylike sniffles, but in ugly, body-racking sobs. She cried as she had not cried since her teens. She cried for the loveless years of her youth, for poor, dear Harry, for today’s hideous misadventure and for all the rough and lonely times ahead. Her tears gushed like water through a bursting dam, and try as she might, Anna could not make them stop.

“What the devil is wrong with you?”

She glanced up to find Malachi looming over her, his eyes glowing silver in the eerie light of the storm. “I can understand a few tears,” he growled, “but enough is enough, lady! For the love of heaven, you’re alive! You ought to be kissing the ground in gratitude instead of bawling your damn-fool eyes out! What’s gotten into you?”

Anna raised her swollen face, too distraught to care how she looked or what this man thought of her. “Lu-Lucifer,” she hiccuped. “The slide—he—”

“Bloody hell, woman, you don’t have to tell me! I know what happened to the blasted animal!” He furrowed impatient fingers through his wet hair, making it stand up in spikes. “That’s the luck of the draw in a place like this. You lose stock. Sometimes you even lose people, and the sooner you get used to that, the better off you’ll be. So stop your sniveling, lady! If anything, I’m the one who ought to be upset. I paid top dollar for that idiot mule!”

Anna stiffened as her distress congealed into a wintry rage. Slowly she rose to her feet, her clothes dripping mud, her hair streaming in her tear-blotched face.

“How dare you?” She forced each word past the barricade of her chattering teeth. “How dare you speak to me like that—as if I were nothing, a piece of livestock, bought and paid for?” She took a step closer, her eyes drilling holes in his face. “I’ve known some cold-blooded, self-righteous prigs in my day, but you, Mr. Malachi Stone—you deserve the blue ribbon! You take the all-time first prize!”

Chapter Three

The darkness shimmered with the storm’s electric glow as Malachi stared down at her—this small, hysterical creature who had suddenly flown at him like a bantam hen defending her nest.

Cold-blooded? Self-righteous? Priggish? Lord, how his friends from the old days would have laughed at her description of him. Malachi didn’t much like the names she was calling him, but for the moment, at least, he was too bone-tired to respond.

“So you paid top dollar for that mule, did you?” she lashed him “How much did you pay for me, Mr. Stone? And what would you have said if I’d been the one to tumble off the side of the road and disappear in the storm?” She squared her shoulders and thrust out her trembling chin in imitation of a male swagger. “Paid top dollar for that fool woman!” she drawled in a voice that was startlingly deep for the size of her. “Damned shame she’s gone, but I reckon it can’t be helped. ‘Luck of the draw in these parts.’ But what the hell, there’s always more where she came from. Maybe I’ll order a taller one next time.”