Free The Drifter's Bride by Tatiana March Page B

at the man. The glass shattered on impact. The fire flared high as the alcohol spilled over his clothing. Screaming, the man crashed to the ground, rolling in the dirt to suffocate the flames.
    A shot rang in the darkness. Carl waited for the pain to slice through him. Nothing came, only the dull throbbing in his left arm and the fiery burn in his right palm. The man on the ground jerked and stopped rolling. Jade stepped into the circle of light and lowered her rifle. Behind her, Carl saw three children huddled together. One of them was a tiny girl with golden pigtails.
    ‘Did we get them all?’ Jade asked.
    He gritted his teeth against the pain. ‘Yes.’
    ‘They’re cold.’ She gestured at the children. ‘Can they sit by the fire?’
    ‘Yes.’
    She turned to the children and spoke a few words to them. They moved into the light, and Carl could tell two of them were Apache. They settled with no fuss, clustering about Jade as she tossed more wood into the fire. The little blonde girl circled around to him, dragging her feet in hesitant steps.
    ‘Are you the sheriff?’ she asked.
    Carl managed a ghost of a smile. ‘Why do you ask?’
    ‘My Pa says that if I ever get into trouble, I should find the sheriff.’
    ‘I’m almost as good.’ Ignoring the throb in his left arm from the bullet wound and the sting in his right palm from the burning branch, he reached out to curl his hands around the child and lifted her to perch on his hip.
    ‘You’re safe now,’ he told the little girl. ‘I’ll take you home.’
    As he spoke the words, emotion swelled in his heart—regret, but also release.
    You are safe now . The words he had longed to speak for fifteen years.

Chapter Seven
    Jade bustled by the stove, stirring the pot of stew. It seemed strange that after last night’s adventure she had to concern herself with something as mundane as cooking. They had slept by the river with the recovered children. In the morning, the sheriff and his deputies had arrived. They had taken Jenny Lindstrom home. Carl had ridden with them to see Doc Mortensen about his wounds, while some of the deputies had accompanied Jade to take the Apache children back to the village from which they had been stolen.
    She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Carl walk in from the bedroom, brown hair tousled, left arm in a sling tied around his neck. Yawning, he raised his uninjured arm and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.
    ‘You’re supposed to rest,’ she reminded him.
    ‘Not sleepy.’
    He’d been like that ever since he rode back from town. Quiet. Contemplative. At first Jade thought it was the pain, but it was not pain she saw in his amber eyes now. It was a mix of emotions—confusion, hope, uncertainty, grief. She knew he was reaching into the past in his mind. A longing to console him filled her, but she didn’t dare to intrude on his privacy by revealing that she had rummaged through his saddlebags and found the newspaper clipping about those girls dying in the orphanage.
    A buggy rattled to a stop outside. Before Jade had time to move the stew from the flames and rush out to the porch, the clicking of dainty boot heels echoed up the steps. A knock sounded on the open door, and the screen flung aside. A small, sparrowlike woman in her early thirties darted through, a folded newspaper tucked under her arm.
    Jade recognized Hortensia Wilson, who had taken over as the editor of the Gazette last year. The visitor charged up to Carl who had settled into a seat at the table, his injured arm folded against his chest.
    ‘I came out to bring this to you myself, Mr. Ritter.’ Hortensia slammed the newspaper to Carl’s knee with the force most people would use to discipline an unruly child. ‘My article is very dramatic, if I may say so myself,’ she added with undisguised pride.
    Jade saw Carl struggle to fold the page open with one hand and hurried over. ‘Let me see.’ She snatched up the newspaper and muttered her way