Free [Montacroix Royal Family Series 03] - The Outlaw by Joann Ross Page A

get away from here without getting killed." His tone was as hard as his flinty eyes. His dark glance swept over her dismissively. Then he clucked at the mare and turned away, leaving her to follow.
    As the hours dragged on and the miles passed by, Noel became exhausted and sore and thirsty. Depression battled with pain and fatigue. Despite the fact that her behavior had been justified, never mind the fact that she would do it again in a heartbeat, the idea of having shot another human being hung heavily on her heart.
    Hot tears stung at the back of her eyelids. She blinked them away. The always serene Princess Noel never cried. Ask anyone in Montacroix. Not that anyone currently living in her country would even know of her, she thought wretchedly.
    Only days ago, she'd been comfortably living in her family's palace, preparing for her wedding. She'd been happy. Contented, which for her, had always been pretty much the same thing.
    Since stepping into whatever time warp she'd somehow entered, she'd been thrown from a carriage, had suffered what well could be a concussion, had been mistaken for a whore, had shared a distressingly hot kiss with an escaped outlaw she'd just met, had shot a bounty hunter, then had stolen his horse.
    Her family would never believe it.
    She hardly believed it.
    Which meant that if Wolfe Longwalker ever did stop riding long enough for her to try to explain her situation, he'd undoubtedly find the scenario preposterous.
    "I'm beginning to have my doubts about this being a very good idea," she murmured to the horse, stroking the silky black mane as they settled down for a walk. Since that initial burst of speed when they left the Road to Ruin, they'd been maintaining a pace of walk, trot, canter, then walk again "But there's not much I can do about it now."
    Which, of course, brought to mind another question. Having landed here in the first place, would she ever be able to return home? To her own country? And her own time?
    The fancy lady had guts, Wolfe determined grimly as he guided the mare across ground that was as familiar to him as his own face. Except for that brief hot argument in Belle's kitchen, the woman hadn't opened her mouth once. And for a woman who, if that diamond ring and those pearl earrings were any indication, appeared to earn a very good living on her back, he had to admit that she sat tall in the saddle.
    That she'd proven unafraid of confrontation did not surprise him. A lot of whores he'd met over the years tended to have violent natures. Fighting seemed to be as much their specialty as loving. He'd certainly seen more than one pair of bawdy-house belles come to blows over the favors of a man. He'd also witnessed a drunken bully ending up on the wrong side of a female's dagger for cheating her out of her rightly earned pay. On the other hand, the violence didn't even out. Since the women were invariably smaller and weaker, they tended to end up on the losing end of most physical battles between the sexes.
    Unless, of course, Wolfe amended, they were armed with a derringer, as this one had been. Thinking back to that expression of utter shock and disbelief on Black Jack's face when he realized he'd been shot, almost made Wolfe smile.
    Almost but not quite. Not yet. He cast a glance upward at the sun, gauging time and distance. And continued.
    Noel desperately longed to stop. But Wolfe continued to set a grueling pace, backtracking, riding the horses in the shallow waters along the banks of Whiskey River to throw their pursuers off the track. And since she had the feeling that there was absolutely nothing she could say to make him take a break, she had no choice but to follow his lead. Although he seemed to know exactly where he was going, she could not pick out any discernible trail.
    Keeping single file, they threaded through a series of narrow canyons, headed toward the top of the mesa. Every so often, a loose stone skipped away from beneath a hoof and scattered downward,