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

landing with a clatter on the rocks below.
    Only sheer determination kept her in the heavy, unfamiliar, high-backed saddle. Her bottom ached, and her thighs, bare beneath the silk skirts, felt as if they'd been rubbed raw.
    Finally, she had to ask. "Can't we stop?" she called out, ducking to avoid a tree branch that threatened to take off the top of her head. Her tongue was literally sticking to the roof of her mouth. "Just for a little while?"
    "No."
    The single word was flat and final. He didn't even bother to glance back at her. Indeed, if anything, he picked up the pace, urging his horse to a canter. Cursing in a very unprincess-like way, Noel picked up the pace and rode after him.
    She didn't believe he'd leave her out here in the wilderness all alone, not after having already saved her life. And surely not after she'd saved his.
    But she wasn't quite ready to put it to the test.
    Wolfe glanced up at the sky again, almost unconsciously calculating the time until sundown. Although he'd spent much of his life among the whites, he'd been born with the iron stamina of the Dineh and could travel for days without sleep.
    Before he'd been sent away to that hated white man's boarding school in the East, back when he'd still lived with his mother's sister's family, in the warm red heart of Dinetah, Wolfe had heard stories of how the elders had been capable of covering a hundred miles a day, and more.
    His own mother's father had reminisced about the days when members of raiding parties would run their horses into the ground, then dismount and run.
    During the Naahondzond —the Fearing Time—when the hated Kit Carson, known to The People as the Rope Thrower, had tried to kill off every Navajo in Arizona Territory, the outgunned Dineh had been forced to hide among the canyons. His grandfather had told of several instances of going seventy-two hours without sleep, much of it in the saddle.
    But that had been desperation. This was reality.
    He knew she had to be exhausted. Still, better to be exhausted, Wolfe reminded himself, than dead.
    The sun was sinking below the jagged mountain peak to the west in a blazing display of crimson and gold. As dusk settled over the land, spreading deep purple shadows, Noel decided that things had gone on long enough.
    She didn't care if the entire U.S. Cavalry caught up with her, not that she'd caught so much as a glimpse of any pursuers. She'd worry about being captured—and, heaven help her, hanged— when and if the occasion presented itself. Right now, she was getting down from the back of this horse while she could still move a muscle in her aching body.
    Before she could insist that she could not ride another moment, Wolfe reined in his horse. "We'll stop now."
    "So soon?" she asked with atypical sarcasm. Princess Noel Giraudeau de Montacroix was never sarcastic. Never!
    Wolfe shrugged, vaguely irritated at the way he found himself enjoying her acid tone. The fancy lady's fragile blond looks might give the impression of sugar and spice, but down deep, where it counted, she had a steel core.
    Just like him.
    "You could have stayed back at Belle's. Upstairs, where you belonged," he said pointedly.
    "I belong with you."
    That earned a weary sigh as he dismounted and walked a few feet away, lay on top of a low rise and trained a pair of field glasses on the vast valley.
    "Do you see anyone?" she asked.
    "No." He took another quick perusal, then, not wanting to chance that a stray glint of polished lens would betray their presence, he stood up and returned the field glasses to his saddlebag.
    When she began to dismount, afraid she'd become hopelessly tangled in the voluminous skirts, Wolf caught her around the waist and lifted her easily to the ground.
    It was then that she discovered her legs had about as much consistency as water. "Thank you."
    She continued to hold on to his upper arms, afraid she'd embarrass herself by crumbling into a pile of red silk if forced to stand on her own.
    Beneath