Bride On The Run (Historical Romance) (12 page)

“The rope—” She reached around the cow and
snatched it out of his grip. Spurred to action, Malachi scraped furiously at the mud. Before each hollow could fill in, Anna shoved the rope lower. She had been right, he conceded. This was far easier than doing the job alone. Even so, it was hard going, especially in the icy current. Anna was already weakening. Her lips were blue, her teeth beginning to chatter. To make matters worse, she was on the downstream side of the cow and had to hang on with one hand to keep from being swept away.

Malachi was scooping the last few handfuls of mud from around the cow’s haunches when he heard a little cry. Anna’s chilled fingers had lost their grip. The treacherous river had caught her and was sweeping her downstream. “The rope!” he shouted. “Anna, grab the rope!”

He saw the flash of her white hands reaching out, and, an instant later, felt the rope snap tight where it crossed behind the cow’s haunches. The loose end, which she had left on the bank, whipped outward, the tension swinging her into the roiling current.

“Hang on!” Malachi shouted, praying she would not lose her grip. He could feel the weight of her body, feel the leaden drag of the water as he pulled her toward him, hand over hand. If he were to lose her now—

His heart stopped as he caught sight of her. By some miracle, the rope had twisted around her hands, but Anna was not holding on. She was floating faceup in the muddy river, her golden hair streaming behind her.

One lunge and he had her by the arms. Her face was as gray as wood ash but her eyes were open.
Dizzy with relief, he caught her close. She coughed, spitting up water. Together they staggered into the shallows, still dragging the rope. “I’m all right,” she croaked. “Let’s get Patches.”

Malachi eased her to the ground. Then, seizing one of the shovels, he began to scoop out a path between the trapped cow and the bank. Anna, still coughing, scrambled to her feet and waded in beside him with the other shovel. Then the children were there as well, scooping out hollows with their small, bare hands. Mud and sand flew, coating all four of them as they dug a water-filled path toward the cow. Patches’s front legs were nearly free, but she had long since stopped lowing. Her eyelids drooped; her breathing was shallow and labored.

“Is she going to die?” Josh was covered with mud and close to tears. The boy’s question tore at Malachi’s heart.

“Not if we can help it. Come on, let’s pull her out.” Malachi found the mud-soaked rope and tied one end to Lucifer’s saddle horn, the other to Beelzebub’s pack frame. “Stand between them and keep them pulling evenly,” he told Carrie. “Can you do that?”

“Yes, Papa.” She stepped into place, dwarfed by the big animals but unafraid. Malachi felt a stab of pride. Lucifer and Beelzebub were headstrong creatures, but his daughter could handle them.

“You be our watcher,” he told Josh. “Stand over there on that rock and let us know if you see anything about to go wrong.” In truth, Malachi just wanted the boy out of harm’s way. But Josh, taking his assignment seriously, clambered onto the boulder and stood
at attention with one hand shading his eyes against the glare.

Anna had waded back into the water-filled trench and was half-crouched at Patches’s head, stroking the long, bony face and crooning softly. She looked as spent as the poor cow, but Malachi knew better than to order her onto the bank.

Taking his place at the river’s edge, he barked a command to the well-trained mules. “
Ha
!” The rope tightened and quivered as they strained forward. Malachi could hear the loosening suction of the mud as the cow’s body shifted forward.

“Malachi! She’s going down! She’ll drown!” Anna’s cry pierced his ears, and he turned to see that Patches had fallen to her knees with nothing but her nose and her horns above the water. Anna was shoulder deep in muck, struggling vainly to get her up.

Malachi plunged in and thrust himself beneath the cow’s chest, causing her to lurch upward. He felt her stumble forward as the rope cut into her haunches. Then, with a hideous sucking sound, her hindquarters came loose from the mud. Anna held her head, crooning encouragement as she strained forward. One quivering step, then another, until, with eye-bulging effort, Patches lunged up onto the bank, where she stood with her sides heaving and her coat streaming mud.

Anna’s knees gave way beneath her. She folded, collapsing like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Just short of the ground, Malachi’s powerful hand caught her waist. He had come out of the river just behind her. “It’s all right,” he murmured, his own
voice trembling with exhaustion. “Everything’s all right, Anna.”

She sagged against him as the children bounded toward them, Josh whooping, Carrie sobbing. They came together and suddenly all four of them were hugging, dancing, laughing and crying. “We did it!” Josh crowed, flinging his arms around Anna’s legs. “We saved Patches, all of us together!”

Malachi’s arm tightened around Anna’s waist. With his free hand he reached down and caught up his son, hefting him to shoulder level. Anna herself reached out and drew Carrie into the circle of arms. She felt the fresh, salty wetness of the girl’s tears as she hugged her close.

The dog pressed against Malachi’s legs, whimpering and wagging like a puppy. Even Patches was caught up in the spirit of celebration. She snorted, then shook her filthy hide, sending a shower of mud splattering down over them all. Josh and Carrie squealed with laughter.

Anna nestled close to Malachi, savoring the strength of his big, warm, solid body. Was this what it was like? she wondered. Was this how it felt to be a family?

Malachi bent to ease his son’s way to the ground. “No more work for the rest of the afternoon,” he said. “We’ll get Patches cleaned up and resting in the barn. Then we’ll pack a quick lunch and take the dory upriver to the Indian Cave. How does that sound to you?”

“Yay!” Josh sprang the rest of the way to the ground, whooping like a little savage as he dashed for the house with Carrie at his heels. Anna knew she
should follow them, but Malachi’s arm still circled her waist, holding her against him in a powerful grip she had no will to resist.

Arching her back, she looked up into his mud-smeared face. His pale-blue eyes blazed down at her like fire opals, igniting hot little swirls of desire in the core of her body. The need that awakened in her was a deep, throbbing ache, a molten pool of yearning. “You’re…all muddy,” she whispered inanely.

“Yes.” His voice was a thick, velvety rasp. “Yes, I know. So are you.” His hands slid around her, their contact so intimate through the wet, clinging flannel of her nightshirt that she might as well have been naked. Anna pressed closer, needing him as she had never needed anyone in her life. She needed his hands, his strong, seeking mouth, the heavenly heat of his skin against her own. But needing was one thing, she reminded herself harshly. Having was something else—something a woman in her circumstances could not dare to dream of.

Aching, Anna pushed herself away from him. “We made a bargain,” she said. “And this wasn’t part of it.”

His features hardened beneath the muddy mask. “So I should remember,” he said, the sun glittering in his granite-flecked eyes. “Don’t worry, Anna. I won’t touch you again.”

“Thank you.” She mouthed the words as she turned away, hiding her anguish. The shouts of the children echoed down through the willows. Seconds later they burst onto the bank carrying buckets and a scrub brush for washing down the cow. Forcing her face to smile, Anna strode to meet them. They had so
few pleasures, these two endearing youngsters. She would not spoil their day.

Taking a bucket from Josh, she waded into the shallows, scooped a pail of water and splashed it over Patches’s mud-caked flanks. “We’re the ones who need a good scrubbing!” she laughed. “Look at us!”

“We can swim and get clean at the Indian Cave. The water’s warm and clear there, and there are old Indian ruins, high up on the cliff.” Carrie bent to fill her own bucket. Patches’s brown-and-white coat gleamed through the sloughing mud, and the gentle, bovine eyes had begun to show glimmers of life.

Malachi had set off for the corral with the mules, probably glad to be out of her presence, Anna reflected gloomily. Things would be strained between them for the duration of her stay. But maybe that was for the best.

“The Indian Cave was one of Mama’s favorite places,” Carrie was saying. “We used to have a lot of fun there, but Papa hasn’t taken us to the Cave since she died. I guess he was afraid that being there would make him sad.”

“But he didn’t seem sad today,” Josh glanced up from scrubbing Patches’s hip with the brush. “Maybe that’s because you’re here.”

Anna squeezed the boy’s shoulder, touched by his sensitivity. Her eyes blinked back furtive tears. It didn’t matter, she told herself. She would never have to worry about competing with Elise’s memory. As soon as she had fulfilled her part of the bargain with Malachi, she would be leaving this godforsaken place. She would begin a new life, hopefully in California;
and she would never see Malachi Stone or his children again.

Resolving to bring up a pleasanter subject, she cleared the tightness out of her throat. “By the way, Carrie,” she said, “your father told me that last year, when a peddler came through, he traded ferry service for some cloth and sewing supplies. You don’t happen to know where those things are, do you?”

The girl frowned thoughtfully, then brightened. “Why, yes! They’re in Mama’s old trunk, the one in my room! But I don’t know how to sew. Mama wasn’t very good at it, either. She was saving the cloth to take to a dressmaker in Kanab, at least that’s what she said.”

“Well,
I
can sew up a storm!” Anna declared. “And as soon as we get back from the Indian Cave, we’re going to open up that trunk and start making some clothes for you and Josh. You can help me—I’ll teach you what to do as we go along.”

“Really?” Carrie’s lovely, mahogany eyes sparkled. “There’s a bolt of blue gingham I like—but, Anna, there’s so much cloth! We could make some dresses for me and some for you, too!”

“We’ll see about that.” Anna poured another two gallons of the Colorado over the Patches’s muddy neck. “I also play the piano. Not very well, I’m afraid, but if you’re interested, I could at least teach you how to read music.”

“Oh!” Carrie dropped her bucket and flung her arms around Anna’s neck, hugging her exuberantly. “Oh, you can’t imagine how much I’ve wanted to learn! How soon can we—”

The sound that cut off her words shattered the midday
calm and startled two ravens into squawking flight. Anna froze, her nerves screaming as the sound echoed down the canyon, ringing off the high, rocky walls.

Someone had just fired a rifle.

“G
et down!” Anna seized the children and jerked them flat beside her on the bank. To her surprise, both Josh and Carrie promptly sat up and began to giggle. “What on earth—?” she muttered, spitting out sand.

“Over there!” Josh pointed to a pair of mounted figures on the far side of the river. “Those men need to come across. The shot’s a signal for the ferry, that’s all.”

“I see.” Anna clambered to her feet, still uneasy. As far as she was concerned, no visitor should be trusted. But at least this pair of travelers was coming from the south. They would not have encountered Sam Johnson or heard the gossip about the ferryman’s blond mail-order bride.

“Come on!” Josh was tugging at her hand, pulling her to her feet. “You’ve never seen Pa run the ferry. Sometimes he even lets us ride the boat across!”

Anna hesitated, weighing her chance of being recognized against the eagerness of the children. “I look a mess!” she argued, grasping for an excuse to stay out of sight.

“Don’t be a goose, we all look the same!” Carrie looped the rope around a stump to keep the cow from wandering, then seized Anna’s free hand and pulled her along the bank. The girl was right, Anna conceded. No traveler, seeing her, would ever make the connection between this filthy, bedraggled creature and the glamorous Anna de Carlo. For once, she would be perfectly safe.

Malachi was already at the landing when they arrived. Anna avoided his gaze, focusing her attention on the ingenious system of cables and pulleys he had rigged to guide the large, flat boat across the rushing current. She imagined him leaving his family in Santa Fe for months on end, coming here all alone to build the ferry and the house. She thought of the isolation, the hours of backbreaking work as he strung the cables, hauled the lumber, moved and laid the heavy stones. Malachi had built this place out of nothing but sweat, blood and hope. No wonder he had no desire to leave.

“Pa, can we ride over with you?” Josh bounced with excitement, his brown eyes sparkling. “With just two horses, there’ll be plenty of room!”

Malachi scowled at the roiling current. “All right. But you’re to stay close to Anna and Carrie and hold on to the side rails. Hear me?”

“Yes, Pa.” Josh grinned at his father, then gave a loud whoop as he scampered onto the deck. Even then, Anna might have hung back. But Josh was already aboard, and Malachi had ordered his son to stay close to her. How could she risk letting the boy fall overboard? She followed Carrie, her bare feet stepping
carefully on the splintery pine deck, until she stood beside Josh at the rail.

The timbers creaked as the ferry cast off from the landing. Anna gazed down at the water, so thick with silt that it looked like a solid, seething brown mass beneath the boat. An image flashed through her mind—Elise drowning in the darkness, her black hair swirling in the muddy water, her fine, white hands reaching, groping at thin air, then vanishing from sight. How had Malachi managed to find her so soon? she wondered. By rights her body should have been carried far downriver.

Forcing the thought from her mind, she swung her gaze toward Malachi, where he sat manning the long sweeps. His massive shoulders bulged and rippled as he drove the squared-off craft across the sweeping current. The cables and pulleys would serve to stabilize the boat and keep it from being carried downstream, but it was Malachi’s strength alone that kept it moving forward.

As they neared the south bank, she could see that the two riders had dismounted and moved onto the landing. They were lean, hawkish creatures, both of them clad in trailworn clothes that had taken on the rusty hue of desert dust. The shorter man held the rifle he had used to signal the ferry. The two would be wearing side arms as well, Anna calculated, her blood running cold in her veins. Such men as these she knew by instinct, as a doe might come to know the sight of wolves. Her throat moved.

“Bounty hunters.”

She did not realize she had spoken aloud until Carrie answered her. “Yes, you’re right. Those two men
come through here once or twice every season, sometimes with a prisoner. But it doesn’t look as if they’ve caught one this time.”

“No…it doesn’t.” Anna swallowed a surge of nauseating terror. What could she do if they recognized her? Where could she go?

Malachi’s muscles strained as he pulled the oars, moving the boat across the boiling brown water. Only now did Anna notice that he had slipped a leather vest over his muddy chambray work shirt—a vest that did not quite conceal the outline of the holstered pistol that bulged along his hip. Strapping on the gun would be routine, of course, a precaution against any trouble at the ferry. Malachi would not take any chances with the safety of his family.

But would she want him using the gun to protect
her
? Anna weighed the question, her heart pounding as the boat closed in on the landing. No, she swiftly resolved. There could be no gunplay where Malachi or the children might be caught in the line of fire. If the bounty hunters recognized her, she would have only two choices—surrender peacefully or go into the river.

The end of the boat crunched lightly against the bank, and Malachi strode ashore with the line to secure the craft while he lowered the ramp and collected the required fare. Then he stepped back and allowed the two bounty hunters to lead their mounts onto the flat pine deck.

Anna clung to the side rail, drawing Josh close against her to keep him from getting under the legs of the horses. In truth, she knew the boy could take care of himself. But it was only her grip on the small,
bony shoulder that kept her fear from dissolving into utter panic.

Malachi’s conversation with the two men was terse, confined to the price of passage and the condition of the road. He was not a talkative man, and neither were the bounty hunters. The two of them stood grimly beside their dusty mounts, steadying the nervous animals as the boat pushed back into the current. Anna studied them with the furtive, frightened gaze of a rabbit watching a pair of coyotes. Could they feel her terror, smell and taste it as she could?

The taller man wore a ragged Mexican serape and a shapeless, moth-eaten felt hat. His mouth was a narrow slit above the greasy black smudge of his beard. His hands, long and thin, like a concert violinist’s, toyed with the reins he held, constantly moving, twitching. The shorter man had grizzled hair and a face like the side of an old leather valise. He hawked and spat a yellow stream into the churning water. Neither of them gave Anna more than a cursory glance. She was only the ferryman’s woman, barefoot, unkempt and ragged, hardly worth a glance, let alone a one-thousand-dollar reward.

Anna stared down at the mud-spattered deck, keeping her face lowered as her fingers clutched Josh’s shoulder. The bounty hunters probably thought she was the boy’s real mother. So much the better. She was safe for the moment—but that moment, she knew, would not last. Sooner or later someone would make the connection between the woman at Stone’s Ferry and the wanted murderess on the poster. When—not if—that happened, they would come for
her, men like these, wolves and vultures in human form who would show her no mercy.

An eternity seemed to pass before the ferry boat nosed up to the landing and Malachi leaped ashore with the rope. He moved with the easy grace of a man who knew exactly who he was and where he belonged, knowing exactly the lay of the deck, the knotting of the ropes, the rise and fall of the water. Whatever had happened to him in the outside world, here he was master.

Anna hung back with the children while the two bounty hunters led their horses down the ramp and mounted up. “You say there’ll be no trouble getting over the slide?” the older man asked Malachi.

“Not if you’re careful.” Malachi bent to tighten one of the lines. “But I’d lead the horses over the worst of it if I were you. No sense taking a chance on one of them breaking a leg or sliding down the scree.”

“We’ll keep that in mind.” The man swung his horse toward the road, his companion following as Anna led the children ashore. Her knees buckled as she watched the pair swing their mounts onto the deeply rutted trail that skirted the yard before joining the road that ascended the canyon. It was all right, she reassured herself. The men had not recognized her, and now they were leaving. But, dear heaven, she had been so afraid—

“Anna, what is it? What’s the matter?” Carrie’s question pierced the sultry midday silence. Anna’s heart dropped as the taller man halted abruptly and turned in the saddle. His hard-eyed gaze caught Anna full-face, and she dared not show her fear by looking
away. For the space of a breath he stared at her, as if taking her measure. Then he turned, nudged his mount to a trot and followed his cohort around the bend, behind the willows.

Once more, Anna’s legs threatened to collapse beneath her. The man was gone. But he had seen her face and heard her name. An ordinary stranger might forget her, but a man who lived by searching out names and faces would not.

“Anna?” Malachi’s daughter touched her arm. “Please say something. Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Anna forced herself to stir, to turn and look at the girl. Malachi was watching her with narrowed eyes, his hands resting on the knotted rope. “Yes, I’m fine,” she lied. “Just a bit too much sun, that’s all.”

“Can we go to the Indian Cave now?” Josh tugged at his father’s vest. “Can we, Pa? Please?”

Malachi nodded, looking tense and weary. “All right. As soon as the chores are done and the cow’s put away and fed.”

“I’ll make lunch!” Carrie chimed in. “Do you want to help me, Anna?”

“Gladly.” Anna followed the girl’s darting figure, feeling the weight of the day like a millstone on her shoulders. She would put on a pleasant face for the sake of the children and do her best to enjoy the outing to the cave. But the tension between herself and Malachi had cast a pall over the day. Worse, the encounter with the two bounty hunters had left her with a case of screaming nerves. Bargain or no bargain, she could not risk her freedom or the safety of this family any longer. She would find no peace until she was gone from this place.

Malachi sat on a flat rock, his rifle balanced across his knees. Thirty feet below, at the foot of the ledge, lay the shallow, rock-lined pool where Anna frolicked, laughing and singing, with the children. The lilting melody and nonsensical words that drifted up to him on the afternoon breeze, only served to darken his spirits.

The Indian Cave—named long ago by Carrie—was a complex of hanging gardens above the river, where tiny, sparkling waterfalls cascaded into sun-warmed pools. Clumps of fern, ivy and wild columbine festooned the seeping sandstone walls where swallows dipped and darted in the misty spray.

High above the river, perched like an eyrie near the top of a sheer ledge, was the Indian Cave, a shadowy recess in the rock, walled in by ancient mud bricks. It could be reached only by a dizzying line of footholds that had been chiseled into the stone by long-ago hands. Years ago, during his time alone in the canyon, Malachi had made the ascent and found a store of shriveled maize ears inside, along with some broken shards of pottery. He had left the spirits of the place undisturbed and forbidden his children to make the dangerous climb.

All the same, his entire family had enjoyed the pools. Even Elise had seemed at peace in this mystical place—or so he had thought at the time. But in truth
she had never been at peace. Neither here nor any other place.

Willing the memory away, he gazed down into the crystal water below, where Anna and Josh romped like otters while Carrie, already the lady, kept a more sedate distance at the pool’s far end. The mud-stained nightshirt Anna had worn all day served, now, as a swimming garment. It floated around her, revealing flashes of leg as she kicked and paddled, ignoring the ravenous gaze from above.

Malachi cursed in burning frustration. At that heart-stopping moment in the river when he’d looked into her muddy face and realized he loved her, someone should have whacked him in the head with a singletree. How could a woman be so hot one minute and cold the next? And how could a man make such a fool of himself? It was enough to make him swear off the gentler sex for the rest of his life!

But that wasn’t the worst of it—not by a long shot. He’d suspected all along that Anna was hiding something, and now he knew it. When that bounty hunter had turned in the saddle to look back at her, the stark terror in her amber eyes had told him all he needed to know.

What was she running from? He could not depend on her to tell him anything resembling the truth. But what difference did it make? If Anna had broken the law, he had to get her out of here before she broke his children’s hearts as well.

Even now, it might be too late. Josh was already following her around like an adoring little pup. And Carrie…Malachi sighed as he watched his daughter laughing in the pool, splashing water on her brother.
The girl had unfolded like a blossom since Anna’s arrival. The promise of new clothes and music lessons had her glowing with excitement. He had not seen her so happy since the days before her mother died.

How would the girl take it when Anna left? How would Josh? What was he going to tell them, his tender, twice-betrayed young children?

Malachi tore his gaze away from the tawny-hired siren in the pool. He scanned the flawless turquoise sky, his sun-dazzled eyes tracing the high, circling flight of a golden eagle above the vermilion cliffs. The hell of it was, he needed Anna. Without her help, he wouldn’t have a prayer of convincing the courts his children had decent motherly care. Even with her help, the odds were so long that it sickened him to think of them.

He looked down at them again, his children, laughing and splashing with Anna in the crystal pool. Josh’s wiry young body was as brown as a Paiute’s. Carrie’s was as pale and delicate as English bone china where she rose from the water in her clinging shift, her arms crossed self-consciously over her swelling young breasts. Malachi ached with the need to shield her from harm. The outside world was such a dangerous place. And now even here, in the canyon, there was no promise of safety.