LITMIR.BIZ

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to their tree branches. The warmth of the day had bled away, leaving the air chilly. The nightly freezes continued and would do so for a few more weeks. The passengers would need the remaining daylight to get to Whitehorn before nightfall. They didn’t have a lot of time to waste.

      He reached past the rich woman and grabbed Haley’s arm. His action obviously startled her. He nearly had her to her feet before she started to resist. She squirmed and braced her legs against the floor of the stage.

      “I won’t,” she cried. “No! I won’t leave with you. Let me go. You don’t know what you’re doing. My fiancé will hear about this, I swear he will.”

      “I’m counting on it,” Jesse muttered.

      The grandmother turned on him suddenly and landed a quick kick against his knee. Her feeble strength barely registered, but Harold’s wife decided an attack was a good idea and wrapped her arms around his waist.

      “I’ve got him, Harold. Shoot him. Shoot him now.”

      “I don’t have my gun anymore,” her husband lamented, still making soft moaning noises. “I swear he broke my wrist, Lydia. I may never be the same.”

      “No great loss,” Jesse said under his breath. He ignored the older woman, and Lydia’s enthusiastic attack, and focused his attention on Haley. She squirmed, but he didn’t release her arm.

      “I don’t want to hurt you,” he told her.

      “Of course not,” she snapped. “Kidnapping is a colorful way of welcoming strangers to town. Forgive me for not wanting to participate in your well-planned entertainment, sir. Obviously I don’t travel enough to appreciate the experience.”

      This was getting him nowhere. He was trying to pull her up and keep from bruising her. While he might not appreciate her sarcasm, he recognized the truth in her words. There was no way to kidnap a woman and maintain the illusions of being a gentleman.

      He tightened his hold on her and jerked her once, hard. She gasped as he pulled her upright. Before she could gain her balance, he dragged her out of the carriage and onto the road. Then, quickly, he bent at the waist, bumped his left shoulder against her midsection and straightened. Her legs kicked out at him and her hands pummeled his back, but he simply wrapped his arm around her thighs to hold her bottom half still. He ignored the top half.

      “You can’t do this,” she screeched as she hung over his shoulder like a sack of flour. “I refuse to allow this.”

      “No one’s asking your permission. Charlie, which bag is hers?”

      “Don’t tell him!” Haley demanded.

      Charlie’s mouth dropped open. “Jesse, do you know who she is?”

      “Yeah, I do.” That was the point of the kidnapping. He kicked at the tapestry carpetbags that had spilled out with Harold. “Which one?”

      The grandmother pointed to a plain, worn, brown bag. The handle straps had long since broken and had been replaced by a couple of pieces of rope. A long rip down the center had been repaired with small, neat stitches of black thread. Either Stoner had sent money for the ticket and nothing else, or his mail-order bride didn’t waste funds unnecessarily.

      Jesse grabbed the bag and whistled. His horse stepped out of the wooded grove on the side of the rutted road. He’d tied the second gelding to his saddle and that animal walked alongside his mount.

      “I won’t go with you,” Haley said, her voice more muffled as her struggling settled her harder against his shoulder. He figured she was having some trouble drawing in enough air. If she kept up her squirming, she was going to pass out. Of course that would make her easier to handle.

      “You don’t have a choice,” he said and glanced at the stage. Harold still sat on the ground, holding his injured wrist. Lydia had moved to her husband’s side, but Jesse wasn’t sure if she was offering comfort or seeking protection. The grandmother watched him warily, but he figured she wasn’t likely to best him with a surprise attack.

      He slipped the rifle into the holster on his mount, then moved to the second horse and hoisted Haley across the saddle. Before she could regain her composure enough to scramble off the other side, he had pulled a rope from the open saddlebag and secured her feet together.

      “It’s a long way down,” he told her as he walked around the horse and reached for her hands.

      She jerked them away and tried to glare up at him. Green eyes flashed fire. “You are evil and disgusting and you will be punished.”

      “Yes, ma’am. I’m sure you’re right. But first they have to catch me and I mean to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

      He grabbed her wrists and tied them, then he squatted in front of her. “If you struggle too much, you’ll slip off the saddle. Now hitting the ground is going to hurt like hell. You might even break something. But your real worry is the horse. You spook him and he’ll rear. There’s no telling where those hooves of his are going to hit. If they land on you, well, horses have killed people before.”

      “If you were so concerned about my safety, you wouldn’t be taking me in the first place.”

      Jesse fingered the brim of his hat. “You know, you might have a point there.” He stood up and surveyed the broken stage, then the passengers. “You’ve got a couple hours until sunset, so I suggest you get headed for Whitehorn.” He nodded west. “It’s that way. Charlie?” He looked at the old man. “When you tell Stoner I kidnapped his mail-order bride, I need you to give him a message for me. Tell him all I want is to talk. He can name the time and the place and I’ll be there. I’ll send someone to contact him to get that information.”

      “He’s gonna kill you,” Charlie said.

      “I’m sure he’ll try,” Jesse agreed. After all, Stoner had already murdered Jesse’s father, not to mention several other ranchers in the area. What was one more death on his conscience?

      “But if he wants his chance, he’s going to have to meet with me,” Jesse told the stage driver.

      “Jesse, you’re making a big mistake,” Charlie said. “It’s not too late. Leave the girl with me. No one has to know what happened today.”

      Haley let out a squeal of disagreement. “Of course people have to know. This man is dangerous and he should be locked up. My fiancé will see to that. Mr. Stoner will come after me and make you pay for what you’ve done.”

      “I hope you’re right,” Jesse said as he swung into his saddle. “It’s getting late, Charlie. You’d best get these folks to town. I don’t think they’d take kindly to spending the night on the side of the road.”

      With that he reached down and grabbed the other horse’s reins, then urged his gelding into a walk and headed into the screen of trees. Within a couple of minutes, the stage and its passengers were lost from view. In less than five minutes, the sounds of their complaining had faded, to be replaced with the familiar chirps, trills and rustles of the forest.

      He spared a glance for his captive and tried to ignore the flicker of concern when he saw that she’d stopped struggling.

      “Miss Winthrop?” he asked.

      “What?” The word came out on a gasp of air.

      Now that he had her attention, he felt foolish. Was he supposed to ask if she was all right? Of course she wasn’t. Her arms and shoulders would be aching from their unnatural position. The saddle would dig into her belly and ribs until she wasn’t sure if she was going to faint or throw up.

      “If you promise not to try to escape, I would be willing to let you ride astride in the saddle.”

      “Fine. I won’t try to escape.”

      That was too easy. “I don’t think I believe you.”

      “You should, Mr. Jesse whatever-your-last-name-is. When I give my word, I mean

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