LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter Two

      The mule wheezed and laid back its ears as Anna settled her tender buttocks atop the bony ridge of its spine. “There now,” she murmured, struggling to soothe the nervous beast. “Take it easy, old boy. You got the best of the deal here. You could be carrying that big hulk of a man instead of me.”

      But the mule did not appreciate her logic. It rolled its eyes, shook its dusty hide and began kicking out at the buckboard with its hind legs. Anna groped frantically for reins to control the creature. There were none.

      Malachi had mounted the other mule—a much calmer animal than the one he had chosen for her, Anna noted wryly. If he was concerned for her safety, he did not show it. “Just hang on to the collar and give Lucifer his head,” he told her. “He knows the way home.”

      “Lucifer?” She shot him a sidelong glare, struck by the aptness of the name. “And, pray tell, who might you be riding? Saint Peter?”

      “Beelzebub.” He nudged the flanks of his longeared mount and moved ahead of her on the trail. With a contemptuous wheeze, Lucifer fell into line. Anna clung grimly to the padded leather collar as the massive beast swayed down the road. She’d lied to Malachi about being able to ride—just as she’d lied about other things to Stuart Wilkinson and to the kindly couple who’d let her wait at their ranch for Malachi to arrive. Lies had come more and more easily to her since that shattering night in St. Joseph. By now they were almost second nature.

      A fresh breeze, smelling of rain, ruffled Anna’s sweat-dampened hair. She glanced up to see clouds sliding across the jagged gash of sky. In the depths of the canyon the shadows had deepened from mauve to purple. Fear twisted the knot in her stomach as she realized the daylight would soon be gone. They would have to pick their way down the narrow, dizzying roadway in full darkness.

      Even now she could feel twilight closing around her. Its bluish haze blended with the back of Malachi’s faded chambray work shirt as he moved in and out of the shadows like a ghost, keeping well ahead of her. He had fallen as silent as the great stone buttresses that lined the canyon. Oh, but she knew what he was thinking. Disappointment had been etched all over his big, craggy face from the first time he looked at her. She was not what he had expected, let alone what he had wanted.

      But then, what difference did it make? Anna reminded herself harshly. If she had anything to say about it, the dour Mr. Stone wouldn’t have to put up with her for long. She could only hope that when the time came for goodbyes, he would be decent enough to buy her passage to California.

      As the sky deepened a coyote sang out from a distant ridge top. The sharp crescendo of yips climaxing in a long, mournful wail, puckered the skin at the back of Anna’s neck. Malachi’s broad-shouldered back was no more than a flicker in the gathering murk. He was deliberately leaving her farther and farther behind. She could pitch off this accursed beast, tumble into some bottomless ravine, and he would not know—or likely care—until the mule wandered into the corral without her.

      “Get up, Lucifer!” She kicked at the mule’s flanks with her sharp little boot heels, but the stubborn animal only wheezed and stopped to nibble at a trailside plant. Anna clung to the harness, kicking and cursing under her breath as the collar slid forward. Malachi had not even glanced back to make sure she was all right. The big, sullen wretch was more than disappointed, she realized with a sinking heart. He was angry. It was almost as if he’d hated her on sight.

      Maybe she should have invested her last dollar in a set of itchy woolen long johns and a flour-sack dress. Yes, and braided her hair in scraggly pigtails tied up with rags. Maybe she should have smeared a little mud on her face and practiced belching out loud and saying ain’t and gol-darnit. Would that have elevated her in Malachi Stone’s esteem? Or was this just the way men treated women in these parts?

      “Wait up, blast it!” she shouted after Malachi’s vanishing form. “Lucifer won’t budge, and you’re leaving me behind!”

      Malachi paused, glancing back over his shoulder. Putting his fingers to his mouth he gave a long, shrill whistle.

      Lucifer’s huge, bony head shot up like a catapult, throwing Anna backward as the animal plunged onto the road and broke into a spine-jarring trot. She gripped the collar for dear life, her hips alternately bouncing into the air and slamming down on the mule’s rock-hard back. Malachi sat and watched her, his face hidden by the deepening shadows. If he was laughing at her, Anna vowed, she would kill him for it!

      “I thought you told me you could ride,” he said as Lucifer came abreast of his own mount and slowed to a swaying walk.

      “I did,” Anna muttered, tugging her skirts over her knees. “I just didn’t specify what I could ride.”

      He rewarded her witticism with a scowl. “It’s clouding up. Let’s get moving,” he said, nudging his mule to a brisk trot. This time Lucifer fell into line, bounding down the rutted road like a nine-hundred-pound jackrabbit. Anna clenched her teeth as her raw buttocks pounded the bumpy ridge of Lucifer’s spine. Misery rankled and roiled in her, festering until she could keep her silence no longer.

      “You—don’t like—me, do—you?” she muttered, spitting out the words between bounces.

      “Did I say that?” Malachi did not look at her.

      “You didn’t—have to! Damn it, I’m not stupid!”

      “I never said you were.”

      “Then slow down, for mercy’s sake!” She seized Lucifer’s harness and by sheer force of will wrenched the big, lumbering animal to a halt. “No matter what you might think of me, I won’t be treated this way!” she said. “Either we come to some kind of understanding here and now, or I’m not budging another inch!”

      Malachi, who had already gained half a furlong on her, hesitated, then wheeled his mount and rode back to where she waited. “All right,” he said in a cold voice, “have it your way. Your call.”

      Anna’s breath hissed out in a ragged exhalation as she prodded Lucifer to a slow walk and waited for Malachi to fall in alongside her. She swallowed hard, steeling her nerves before she spoke.

      “You desperately wanted me here,” she said. “At least that’s what your cousin, Mr. Wilkinson, led me to believe. And I did believe it, or I never would have come such a distance. So why are you treating me as if I’d brought in the plague?”

      Malachi’s silence was as long and deep as the shadows that flowed through the craggy hollows of the canyon. The haunting cry of a desert owl shattered the darkness. As the sound echoed across the gorge, Anna realized how alone she was in this place, how helpless, how utterly dependent on this hostile stranger who was her lawful husband. It was too late, this time, to go flouncing off and climb aboard the next train out of town. She was stranded in this alien landscape with no money, no food and no one else who would help her.

      “You’ve asked a fair question. I’ll give you that.” Malachi’s voice rumbled out of the shadows, almost startling her. “But not even you can believe this is going to work. I asked Stuart to find me a woman who could survive and pull her own weight in this wild, hard place—a woman who could run the ferry and drive the mules and—”

      “You could have hired a man for that,” Anna said curtly.

      “Could I have hired a man to help an eleven-year-old girl grow up to be a good woman?” His voice rasped with emotion reined in too tightly for too long. “Could I have hired a man to dry the tears of an eight-year-old boy who still misses his mother?”

      Anna let the damp evening wind cool her face for a moment before she spoke into the awkward silence. “So I’m not a fit candidate for the job. Is that what you’re saying?”

      Malachi’s answer was a disdainful snort.

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