Fortune's Treasure by Carol Carson

Author:Carol Carson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, romance, historical, western
Publisher: Carol Carson

Nora-Leigh was Clay’s responsibility. He didn’t need to remind himself. Guilt bit deep into his uneasy thoughts.

He’d made hard promises to her granddad, to her mother, nd to Nora-Leigh herself. He promised to keep her safe and, dammit, she would have been if he hadn’t tried to get the jump on whoever was following him.

He had no doubt about it now. He’d circled back and caught sure signs of a single shod horse, and when he rode forward he found evidence of a small campfire. Heat still emanated from the dying coals. That was before the cold rain set in. Despite pulling up his collar, water dripped off the brim of his hat and ran down his neck soaking his shirt and bringing gooseflesh to his chilled skin.

He prayed Nora-Leigh was safe and out of the worst of the rain. Right now, it fell lightly. That wouldn’t last, though. He could just make out a bank of scuttling clouds, dark as pitch, off to the west. Behind this light rain would come a good old-fashioned thunderstorm, just like the one that had scared Nora-Leigh the other night. Just their darned luck. One could travel for days in eastern Montana and never see a drop of rain. In the last forty-eight hours they’d suffered through two gully-washers.

Did Nora-Leigh see the bank of gray, roiling clouds off to the west? Was she making preparations to get out of the worst of the coming storm? God, he hoped so. Still, if they didn’t meet up soon, he’d play hell finding her in the dark of night and the driving rain.

He kept on—his head down, rain pouring off his hat brim—inching northwest. He couldn’t see or hear the river in the dark and the driving rain. He prayed Jolly’s good sense would tell him when they were near the river and he wouldn’t step off a steep bank and drown them both.

Clay worried, something he’d never done in his entire life. It was an emotion he didn’t know how to deal with. His stomach churned with acid. His heart pounded inside his chest. His mind whirled with thoughts of Nora-Leigh. He couldn’t stop remembering little, seemingly insignificant things about her. Her pert, sunburned nose. How her laughing hazel eyes sparkled with delight and wonder. How her proud chin popped up like a jack-in-the-box when a stubborn thought entered her head or determination drove her to speak her mind. How she drove him crazy with her questions. And at the same time drove him crazy with wanting her.

He couldn’t lose her.

Not now, when he was just beginning to know her.

Not now, when he was just beginning to like her.

Not now, when he was just beginning to love her.

Going any farther in the pelting rain was a foolish, chancy proposition. Clay couldn’t judge direction or distance. He couldn’t see ordinarily recognizable landmarks. And he was passably certain he wasn’t on the old Indian trail anymore. Still he and Jolly miserably trudged on: Clay, feverish and shivering with the onset of illness, the stallion loyally obeying his master.

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