Читать книгу Ruthless Heart - Emma Lang - Страница 7

“You’re going to have to wake up some time, so it might as well be now.”

Eliza started awake, momentarily confused by the cold morning air, the unfamiliar surroundings, the hard ground beneath, and the man standing over her with the biggest knife she’d ever seen.

A gasp flew from her mouth, and she was instantly and completely awake as if she’d had a bucket of cold water thrown over her. Heart pounding like a bass drum, she finally got a clear view of Grady Wolfe. He was tall and whipcord thin, with wide-set shoulders and long limbs, likely giving him a great reach, agility, and speed.

She stared at his face. Each piece was nothing special, but together made Grady absolutely striking. He had the darkest eyes she’d ever seen, barely a distinction between the pupil and the iris. They were velvet pools of dark ice set in gaunt cheeks with at least three days’ worth of whiskers. A dirty hat covered waves of brown hair brushing his collar. His lips were set in a tight line, almost as sharp as the knife in his hand.

Grady Wolfe was positively frightening.

“Mr. Wolfe?” Eliza didn’t know how she managed to actually form the words with her stiff lips. And she had thought she had been scared last night. Obviously she had no idea what being truly scared really was.

“What the hell are you doing, Just Miss Eliza?” He frowned fiercely, his eyebrows slammed together so hard she almost heard the snap.

“I don’t know what you mean.” She sat up, pushing hair out of her face and trying to appear normal, whatever that meant. The last thing she should do is cower like a little mouse facing a big cat.

“You were following me, don’t deny it. I want to know why.” He fingered the tang of the blade, sending a shiver up her spine at the caress.

“I-I wasn’t following you. I was traveling alone and you happened to be riding ahead of me.” She didn’t even believe herself.

Apparently he didn’t, either. “You were in the alley near the saloon. I saw you. Then when I left town, you were right behind me. Don’t shovel any more shit at me.”

Although she was shaking hard enough to rattle her teeth, Eliza knew she couldn’t admit what she had been doing. Something told her giving into his bullying would be the absolute wrong thing to do.

“The fact you saw me in town doesn’t mean I was following you. That’s ridiculous logic.” She rose to her feet, intent on holding her ground, feigning ignorance. “I wasn’t being disingenuous about my intents.”

“Using a five-dollar word ain’t gonna change a thing, woman. You need to get your ass back on your horse and go back to town. There must be some foolish man out there looking for you.”

Eliza held back the blush by force of will. If only he knew her father didn’t care about her other than his meal being late. No doubt he had all kinds of punishment scheduled for her, including penance on her knees for days.

“I assure you, there’s no one worried about me. I am traveling in the same direction as you, a pure coincidence.” Hoping he didn’t notice the trembling in her hands, Eliza tried to pick up her saddle, but found herself on her fanny in the dirt instead. It didn’t occur to her that the saddle she lifted off the stall wall the day before would be heavier when lifted from the ground. It was simple science, of course, and Eliza was embarrassed she hadn’t come to the conclusion earlier.

“That just proves to me you don’t belong out here, Just Miss Eliza.” He picked up her saddle as if it weighed nothing and plopped it on the horse’s back, dead center on the blanket. The man was stronger than he looked. After cinching the saddle with expert speed, he grabbed her bags, then immediately dropped the larger one. “Jesus Christ, what’s in here?”

Eliza forgot to be scared for a moment when her most precious possessions were in danger. “Be careful! That contains my books.”

He poked the bag. “Books? You’re out here with coyotes and scorpions and you got a bag of damn books? What the hell is wrong with you?”

His words should have stung, but Eliza was more annoyed than insulted. “I’ll thank you to give my books the proper respect, Mr. Wolfe. These are very precious to me.” She pulled the bag across the dusty ground, away from the toes of his boots.

“Go back to town, or I’ll tie you to a tree and leave you here.” He slid the big knife into its scabbard on his hip.

“I’m heading west, Mr. Wolfe, whether or not you want me to.” She swallowed the big lump in her throat with effort.

He stalked toward her, that lean-hipped swagger making her want to turn tail and run. Leaning in close, he puffed out a breath, which smelled like coffee and tobacco, the heat a strangely welcome feeling in the cold morning air.

“What the hell do you want, Eliza?”

It seemed strange to have any man use her given name, much less a man like Grady Wolfe. She was used to being called Sister Hunter or Daughter, but only Angeline called her Eliza. The reminder made her courage return in equal measure to combat her fear. Then her imagination took over and saved her.

“Fine then, I’ll tell you the truth. I’m a widow with no means to support myself.”

“You could sell the books,” he mumbled under his breath.

“My husband’s family threw me out of the house, so I took what I could carry and left.” She gestured to the bags. “The books are all of what’s left of Ephraim.” Her throat closed up at the truth of her words even if she was using the memory of him to tell a falsehood.

Grady stared at her in that intense manner of his. Eliza wanted to squirm, but she didn’t even reach up to wipe her eyes.

“You have no other family?”

“Some distant relations.” She was at least being somewhat honest about that since Angeline was physically distant.

“Where are these relations of yours?” He fingered the grip of the pistol hanging on his hip. Her gaze was absolutely glued to the small gesture. She doubted a man like Grady touched his gun for effect—when he touched it, it was for a purpose.

She only hoped she wasn’t that purpose.

Eliza attempted to swallow her dry spit. “West, but I’m not sure where. I was hoping to find them without help.” Now that wasn’t the entire truth of course.

“Glad to hear it. Stop following me and stay out of my way.” He threw himself into the saddle with the agility she recognized from the night before. Without a backward glance, Grady Wolfe rode away hard, leaving Eliza alone.

“Phooey,” she whispered, suddenly more nervous than she was when she started following him.

Grady had never met a woman like Eliza, if that was even really her name. She talked like a professor, rode around with twenty pounds of books, and could build a campfire like nobody’s business. Yet she was as innocent as a child, had a sad story about a dead husband he didn’t believe for a second, and seemed to be waiting for him to invite her along for his hunt.

He snorted at the thought. Grady worked alone, always and for good. There sure as hell was no room for anyone, much less a woman like Eliza.

He had damn well tried his best to shake the woman, but the blue-eyed raven-haired fool wouldn’t budge. Truth be told, he was impressed by her bravado, but disgusted by his inability to shake her off his tail the night before. Rather than risk having her do the same thing again, he decided to ride like hell and leave her behind. He should have felt guilty, but he’d left that emotion behind, along with most every other, a long time ago. Grady had a job to complete and that was all that mattered to him.

The only thing he was concerned about was finding the wayward wife he’d been hired to hunt and making sure she regretted leaving her husband, at least for the five seconds she lived after he found her.

Grady learned as a young man just how much he couldn’t trust the fairer sex. His mother had been his teacher, and he’d been a very astute pupil. No doubt if she hadn’t drank herself to death, she’d still be out there somewhere taking advantage of and using men as she saw fit.

The cool morning air gave way to warm sunshine within a few hours. He refused to think about what the schoolmarm was doing, or if anything had been done to her. If she could take care of her horse and build a fire, she could take care of herself. Food could be gotten at any small town, but then again maybe she could hunt and fish, too.

Somehow it wouldn’t surprise him if she did. The woman seemed to have a library in her head. Against his will, the sight of her unbound hair popped into his head. It had been long, past her waist to brush against the nicely curved backside. Grady preferred his women with some meat on their bones, better to hang on to when he had one beneath him, or riding him. He shifted in the saddle as his dick woke up at the thought of Eliza’s dark curtain of hair brushing his bare skin.

Jesus Christ, he sure didn’t need to be thinking about fucking the wayward Miss Eliza. If she was a widow, no doubt she’d had experience in bed with a man. It wasn’t Grady’s business of course, so he needed to stop his brain from getting into her bloomers, or any parts of her anatomy.

As the morning wore on, Grady’s mind returned to the contents of her bags. The woman didn’t have a lick of common sense and fell asleep, vulnerable and unprotected. Good thing he didn’t have any bad thoughts on his mind or she wouldn’t have been sleeping. She even snored a little, something he found highly amusing as he’d rifled through her things.

Her smaller bag had contained a hodgepodge of clothes, each uglier and frumpier than the last, a hairbrush, half a dozen biscuits in a tattered napkin, and some hairpins. A measly collection of a woman’s life, and quite pitiful if that was all she had. Perhaps she’d been at least partially truthful about taking everything she owned and hitting the trail. Her husband must have been a poor excuse for a provider if this collection of rags was all she had.

The bag of books was just that, a bag stuffed full of scientific texts ranging from medical topics to some titles he couldn’t even pronounce. In the bottom of the bag was a battered copy of Wuthering Heights. He didn’t know what it was, but it was much smaller than the other books, likely a novel. She obviously put the spectacles to good use judging by the two dozen tomes she had in her bag. He wondered how she’d gotten it up on the saddle in the first place.

“Fool.” He had to stop thinking about Eliza and what she was doing and why. Grady would never see her again.

As a child, Grady learned very early not to care or ask questions. It only bought him a cuff on the ear or a boot in the ass. A boy could only take so much of that before he kept his mouth shut and simply snuck around to find out what he needed to know.

As a young man, it served him well and garnered the attention of the man who taught him how to hunt and kill people in the quickest, most efficient way. Grady had learned his lesson well, even better than his mentor expected. When the job was put before him to hunt and kill the very man who had taught him those skills, Grady hesitated only a minute before he said yes.

The devil rode on his back, a constant companion he’d come to accept. He didn’t need a woman riding there, too.

Eliza spent half an hour trying to get her bags onto the saddle and by then she was sweating and angry—at herself and at Grady Wolfe. He’d scared her, yelled then left her behind.

She’d been sleeping as if nothing could hurt her, somehow safe in Grady’s company, although she’d been sure she was anything but safe. He’d left her and she had to follow.

Eliza spent the time to perform morning ablutions in the creek, so at least the sweat was off her body before she perspired again on the back of the horse. It didn’t matter, though, she needed to get clean if only to feel normal.

After filling her canteen, she was returning from the creek when she saw the snake. Eliza’s breath caught in her throat, and she froze, eye to eye with the serpent. It was light brown with a darker pattern on its back, and its head was diamond shaped. She was never more grateful to have read about snakes in Utah and knew the shape of its head meant the snake was poisonous.

Of course, that meant it could kill her with one strike of its fangs. Fresh sweat rolled down her face as she stood as still as a tree a mere twenty feet from her horse. The snake slithered toward her, its tongue slipping in and out of its mouth. As it slid between her feet, Eliza closed her eyes and pictured Angeline. Her sister was all that mattered, and she had to be strong to help her. If Grady found her before Eliza caught up with him, there was no hope for either one of them.

A soft breeze caressed her face, almost as if someone had cupped her cheek as if she were a child. Her eyes popped open expecting someone to be standing in front of her, but there was no one there. She glanced down and realized the snake was gone.

Her breath came out in a gust, and she shook like the leaves on the small tree in front of her. She took a moment to make sure the snake wouldn’t return and her legs would actually work when she walked. The last thing she needed was to fall and injure herself because of her own frailty.

Eliza made it to the horse and leaned into his neck. “I don’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m glad you’re here, Melba.”

With equine understanding, he allowed her to hang on to him for a few minutes before he shook his mane. She took the hint and patted him. “Thank you, boy.”

Eliza hadn’t spent much time outdoors, but she had read many books, which she was happy to say prepared her to make a campfire. Perhaps it would help her to track Grady, too. There had been information about tracking animals, which should also work for a human animal, too.

She looked around until she found the tracks from the horse Grady rode in and around camp. The back right shoe had a nick in it, so she could easily see the direction he’d rode, and keep her on the right trail.

Grady had no idea how powerful books could be, but Eliza did. She had brought ones to help her, both with her adventure and with her courage. Ephraim’s books were so important to her, she couldn’t imagine being able to do this alone without his guidance in her memory.

Eliza took hold of Melba’s reins and led him over to a rock so she could mount without making a complete ass of herself. As she slid up into the saddle, her behind and thighs groaned in protest. After the long ride the night before, there wasn’t a place on her that didn’t hurt. However, none of it mattered. She had to find Grady.

Eliza didn’t care how she did it, but she was going to catch up to him and teach him a thing or two about bespectacled women. She gritted her teeth and started off west following the horseshoe prints.

The sun was high in the sky before Eliza stopped to eat. Food didn’t seem important, but her stomach was yowling like a beast and had actually become quite painful. She knew it was partly due to anxiety, but if she got herself sick because she didn’t eat, she wouldn’t be good for anything or anyone.

Every half hour, she checked to be sure she could still see the horseshoe track with the nick. He was consistent in his riding skills judging by the horse’s stride. Grady was obviously a man used to being on the back of a horse.

Eliza’s backend had long since gone numb, along with everything below the waist. She had no idea just how physical riding a horse actually was—no book talked about just how hard the saddle was, either. Of course, the saddle she rode was meant for a man, and likely thirty years old if it was a day.

It was a sad realization, really, of just how much she didn’t know. Books taught her so much, as did Ephraim, but the real world was full of lessons she still had yet to learn. Some of those lessons were hard, and she had a feeling they were only going to get harder.

The biscuits she’d put in her bag were barely enough to keep her going. In addition to being sore and tired, Eliza was hungry enough to eat one of her books. At least she had freshwater; that was a blessing even if the biscuits barely fulfilled a smidgen of her appetite.

Eliza had read a book about hunting and using snares, yet she shuddered to think about actually skinning and preparing a rabbit for cooking. That particular volume had not been put in her bag for that reason. Now she regretted it considering how hungry she was. No wonder people hunted for food, regardless of the blood and violence of it.

Eliza knew they lived in an insular society with the LDS church and the ward that surrounded them. Ephraim had been her neighbor and friend, a non-LDS resident who lived in a small cabin on the outskirts of town. She’d met him quite by accident when she’d been out looking for raspberries one spring seven years earlier. Angeline had stayed at the house because she’d been feeling poorly.

Of course if Silas had known Eliza had gone out on her own, he would have tanned her hide. Ephraim, however, had saved her life that day. She’d been picking berries she thought were the raspberries common to the woods behind their house. Yet they’d been poisonous and Ephraim had stopped her before she finished chewing the first bite.

With a patience Eliza had never known in an adult male, Ephraim, white-haired even then, taught her the difference between the berries. Then he taught her about what she could eat in the forest, what was dangerous, and what she could use every day for things like cleaning and curing headaches.

He was an amazing font of information, one she visited as often as possible. His books became precious to her as he taught her about science, inventions, and the world around her.

Her father never knew of Ephraim’s teachings, and for that lone fact, Eliza was grateful she could lie. It wasn’t a skill she had used in her life until she realized Silas Hunter would never let his daughters be exposed to anyone who did not believe what he did. The LDS church had no room for nonbelievers, and as a prominent man in their ward, her father had a reputation to uphold.

Eliza had no such qualms. At nearly twenty-one years old, she had long since given up on God and the LDS teachings. Science and all its glory had shown her the true meaning of what surrounded her. She’d always questioned the entire concept of faith, but had kept quiet for fear of embarrassment and ostracism.

She’d been right in doing so, because once she became a scientist in truth, and began doing experiments and building inventions with Ephraim, she would have been expelled from her family and her life if discovered. As it was, Silas had found her doing experiments, or constructing inventions, on six occasions. He’d been beyond furious and had forbidden her from performing the devil’s bidding, destroyed her work, and beaten her until she’d been bedridden for days afterward. Eliza remembered each and every one very clearly.

Angeline was the only one who accepted her as a whole person, never judging Eliza or condemning her for beliefs she didn’t share. Eliza’s younger sister was the angel her name implied. She was sweet, obedient, and seventeen years old, and she was out there in the world with only another woman for company.

Eliza had to find Angeline before anything horrible happened. She’d disappeared nearly two weeks earlier along with Lettie Brown, the second wife to Josiah. Angeline was wife number three. Eliza might have believed Josiah had murdered both of them if it weren’t for a conversation she overheard in her own house.

Josiah had hired Grady Wolfe to hunt down the two women. Eliza knew then she had to find Angeline before Grady did or her sister would have to return to the life she had run from. Knowing how much Angeline followed the LDS teachings and how obedient she’d been all her life, something horrific had happened. Eliza knew a great deal of what had happened in Brown’s house, how Josiah had beaten his new wife, and she could only wonder what truly horrible thing he’d done to send the two women out into the world alone.

Eliza had never been so frightened in her life. Angeline was her baby sister; she’d practically raised her from the time they were girls and their mother passed away. Eliza had always thought it was due to unhappiness with her life, since Margaret Hunter had been a convert to LDS, never quite fitting into the community. Her girls had been her life, and her death had deepened the bond between them.

There wasn’t anything Eliza wouldn’t do for Angeline, including setting out on a dangerous adventure she had never imagined doing. Now here she was alone in the middle of nowhere riding a horse and chasing a bounty hunter.

If it weren’t true, Eliza might have thought she was reading about it in a book. That thought made a chuckle burst from her dry throat. In another hour she might start talking to herself, and that would be not only embarrassing but worrisome. She needed to keep her wits about her. Grady Wolfe was a smart man, exceptionally smart.

The moon had long since been hanging in the dark velvet sky when Eliza slid off Melba. The horse shook its head as if it was as exhausted and shaky as she was. The small campfire fifty yards ahead had to be Grady. It had to be.

If it wasn’t him, she might lose whatever grip she had on consciousness and fall to the scrubby ground in a faint. Dramatic but sadly true. Eliza wasn’t generally given to dramatics or frailty, but she had to accept she’d reached her limit and desperately required relief.

She secured the horse to a low branch on a tree, then took off her shoes to creep up on the fire. Grady might be asleep or simply waiting for her to get close enough to slit her throat with that enormous knife of his. Her breath came out in white puffs in the frigid night air. It seemed colder than the night before, but more than likely it was due to her complete exhaustion.

Eliza almost wept when she recognized his horse. She could hardly believe it, but she’d successfully tracked a professional tracker. Ephraim would be proud of her. She was proud of herself.

As she approached the small fire, nearly embers, it popped and snapped, sending Eliza’s heart into a gallop. She stopped in her tracks and waited, but the still figure on the other side of the blaze didn’t move. He lay on his side with his bedroll tucked around him, snug as a bug in a rug. Eliza debated what to do before she turned around and returned to Melba to unsaddle him.

She whispered an apology to the old but steadfast horse before she gave him a quick rubdown with his blanket and made sure he could reach the sweet, cool grass nearby. Eliza felt the sting of tears as she retrieved her own blanket and ignored the sheer agony in her legs.

The tiny fire called to her, offering sleep and warmth. Eliza followed the lure of the fire, knowing the man who slept beside it would likely be quite angry with her when he woke. Angry was probably a mild word, but that was the least of her concerns. Right then she felt as though she’d become a singular being with simple needs of heat, sleep, and food.

Eliza stumbled, nearly falling on her head, as she reached the edge of Grady’s camp. After righting herself, she stepped around to where he lay on the ground. She put her blanket down on the ground next to him, then got to her knees and crawled in beside his big, warm body.

For the second time that day, tears pricked her eyes as she lay down and felt the heat from the fire on her front, and Grady’s behind her. She was instantly asleep.