Snow Fire by Hess Norah

Author:Hess, Norah [Hess, Norah]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Published: 2004-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

The man and the horse were weary but the Appaloosa plodded on even though its head was hanging low. It was as if he knew that the lean, middle-aged man with the tanned, lined face was anxious to get to his destination as soon as possible.

Rudy Martin had been on the road ever since Caleb had told him of Flame’s disappearance. He had closed up his cabin, packed most of his belongings, and started down the mountain toward the ranch he’d left behind fifteen years before.

Rudy’s first fearful thought was whether Flame was alright. On the heels of that question came another worry. Would he ever see her again? As long as she was at the old ranch, he’d felt satisfied that one day he would see his little girl again. Of course, when he found her, which he was determined he would, she wouldn’t remember him, he thought, full of remorse that he had gone off and left her.

If she had been a little boy, he would have taken her along. But Flame was a delicate little thing, fair and fine of bone. She would have gotten sick, sleeping on the ground and eating game cooked over an open fire. But in the fifteen years that had gone by, a day hadn’t passed that he didn’t think of his daughter.

Now he had his life savings in his saddlebag and a forty-five strapped across one hip. On the other hip hung a canvas-covered canteen. A Winchester lay cocked across the saddle pommel. It had been years since he had been out of the mountains and he didn’t know what to expect. Indians could be warring, cattle rustlers and bank robbers could be holed up in the valleys. Whatever he might run into, he was prepared.

So far, his journey had been uneventful.

As Rudy rode along his thoughts went back to his marriage to Bertha. Theirs had never been a love match. He’d married Bertha only because she’d told him she was pregnant with his baby. He’d known that she was man-crazy, so he had had his doubts that the child was his. But honor forced him to turn his back on the girl he had really loved, so that Bertha’s child would have a father.

When the baby was born, one look at the tiny mite with the fuzzy, flame-colored hair told him that the little one was his. She was the image of Grandmother Martin. It was he who had named her Flame.

Bertha had wanted a son and had never paid any more attention to the child than she had to. She never cuddled her daughter, or talked baby-talk to her.

For the little one’s sake, he had tried to make a go of his marriage. But Bertha became more and more flagrant with her infidelities. She slept with any man who came along, while he was working his butt off with the cattle.

When Flame was four years old, he came home one morning unexpectedly. He found Bertha in bed with the man he had hired two days before to help him with the branding.

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