LITMIR.BIZ

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      Most certainly, Josh would find having a helpmate a completely new experience.

      Meagan stood as Will approached. The deputy stepped away to afford them some privacy, but Meagan’s voice echoed through the room.

      “I will not go!” she said firmly. “I would rather be dead than spend the rest of my life as a slave in punishment for a crime I did not commit.”

      “And that is exactly what will happen,” her lawyer told her. “If you don’t go with Josh there is no way I can save your pretty neck.”

      “I’ll not be any man’s slave,” she reaffirmed, but her declaration fell on deaf ears, for the sentence had been handed down and the room cleared.

      Will Carmichael took the girl’s arm and guided her from the schoolhouse. “Come, we’ll get your belongings.”

      Josh Daniels watched them from across the schoolroom. He still intended to try to talk to the judge, if he could find the man before he was too deep in his cups to listen to reason. Surely Judge Osborne would see that the sentence he had imposed was impossible. Not that Josh wanted Meagan to die. Never that. It was just that he did not want her living with him, reminding him that if it wasn’t for her, Lily would still be alive. Meagan’s presence would be as great a punishment for Josh as the enforced service would be for her.

      And, despite her size, Meagan was little more than a girl, with her bright brown eyes and golden brown hair. She was almost as tall as Will. She looked strong and capable. Perhaps that had gone against her. Not only with the court, but in Josh’s mind, as well.

      Lily had always looked as though the slightest breeze would blow her away. Josh knew he had been a fool to bring his wife into the wilderness and expect her to survive, much less thrive, in its harshness.

      Meagan Reilly would survive. Her life might not be a happy one, but she would stay alive and earn her keep, and that was something. It was more than Lily had been granted.

      As he glared at her across the room, Josh felt anger surge through his body, hard and unyielding, like molten steel.

      

      Meagan stood in the doorway, clutching a bundle containing all her worldly possessions.

      Will Carmichael was giving her some last-minute instructions. His voice droned on. Meagan no longer heard it. Her mind—her whole being—was focused on the man behind her. She could feel his eyes burrowing into her back. She could sense the hostility, the anger, the hatred.

      She wanted to tell him that she had done nothing to deserve his hatred. She wanted to beg him to forgive her for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but more than that, she wanted to slap the smug expression from his face. He was so self-righteous in his capacity as the bereaved widower, the grievously wronged party who suffered in silence. But Meagan had also been wronged.

      She turned and her eyes caught his and held them with a question that seemed also to be a challenge.

      Without dropping his gaze, Josh came toward them and stopped when Will Carmichael’s hand dropped on his shoulder.

      “She is young and strong, and should be a good worker,” Will reminded Josh. “She can cook and sew and bake…” The unspoken premise that Meagan could do all the things Lily had not been willing to master hung in the air.

      “I still don’t want her in my house,” Josh ground out the words.

      “Let her sleep in the barn.” Will laughed. “The judge didn’t say she was to be treated as an honored guest. But Josh—” he sobered as he spoke “—don’t be too hard on the girl. There is a question in my mind as to whether or not she is guilty. Something smacks of deception, but I was unable to ferret it out in the few days I had to build my case.”

      “You heard Ruth Somers,” Josh fired back. “She knows what she saw. And she saw this woman kill my wife.”

      “Ruth saw what she wanted to see,” Will grumbled, “just like she always does. It’s just too bad Meagan hired on to help with Ruth’s children. If she hadn’t been there Ruth wouldn’t have had such an easy scapegoat.”

      Meagan gave Will a look of gratitude. But before she could speak, Josh grabbed her elbow and steered her toward the street, neither asking nor wanting to hear what Will Carmichael had meant by his words. A burst of laughter from down the street told him it was already too late to approach the judge.

      “Get in the wagon,” Josh ordered. “And you can stop making sheep’s eyes at Will Carmichael. He can’t help you anymore.”

      And neither can I, he added silently.

      When it came right down to it, Josh Daniels suddenly realized he was unable to help himself, for when he touched Meagan Reilly a bolt of unwanted attraction shot through him that boded no good for either of them.

      He drew a deep breath and climbed onto the seat of the wagon. God knew he wouldn’t have such untimely, and unwelcome, surges had Lily been able to fulfill her duties as his wife. But ever since Abbie’s dangerous birth she had been unable to receive him as her husband. And now Lily was dead, and the law of the land had given to Josh a young woman bursting with life and health and, God help him, an earthy sexuality to which a man would have to be dead not to respond.

      If he were smart he would follow the judge and demand that, drunk or sober, the man rescind his order and give the girl over to Will Carmichael and his wife, with whom she had stayed while waiting for the judge to arrive to preside over her trial.

      But where women were concerned, Josh Daniels was not a smart man. There was no question about the fact that he needed the help. Nor was there a question that he would have accepted assistance from any soul on the face of the earth rather than Meagan Reilly.

      He wondered how long she would stay with him before bolting into the wilderness. Personally, he knew he would take his chances with the Indians before he’d work as another man’s slave. He glanced down in time to see Meagan toss her bundle into the back of the wagon. She was about to follow when his voice stopped her.

      “Get up here on the seat beside me,” he ordered brusquely. “I don’t want to get home and find you gone.”

      He clucked to the horses as she scrambled into the seat. The wagon hit every rut as they followed the road out of town.

      Meagan was perched on the very edge of the seat, putting every available inch of room between herself and Josh Daniels. With each jolt of the wagon he expected to see her disappear over the side and fall beneath the wheels, or run for open country. He pulled the wagon to a halt.

      “Look, Miss Reilly, I don’t want to be responsible for your death either through an accident if you fall off the seat and under the wagon wheels, or through your foolishness should you decide to try to run away. Now get enough of your body on the seat so that I can be sure you’re not going to kill yourself on this bumpy road, or I’ll be forced to tie you in the back of the wagon.”

      Meagan shot him a venomous look but she did allow herself a bit more of the seat. They rode through the afternoon, stopping only to rest the horses and allow them to drink at the plentiful streams.

      Meagan’s eyes scanned the horizon. How she longed for the sight of her brother. But Reilly had gone to join his mother’s people and it was doubtful that he would have heard of her plight. Still shocked and confused by the situation that had ended in her conviction, Meagan tried to focus on anything other than the unbelievable circumstances in which she found herself.

      Josh reached into his haversack and brought out some bread and cheese, which he thrust toward her. “Chew it slowly,” he cautioned, “and make it last. There will be little else until after we get home.”

      “Home,” Meagan repeated as though the word were new.

      “What did you say?” Josh asked.

      “I said home. I don’t remember ever going home before.”

      Josh raised

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