The Husband Tree by Mary Connealy

Author:Mary Connealy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction/General
ISBN: 9781607421443
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

The little minx barely left a trail. And Wade considered himself a fair hand with tracking.

Since he’d left his father’s ranch, he’d spent long weeks living off the land in these very mountains. He felt close to God up here. The big sky felt wide enough to hold heaven, and the mountains would make a grand footstool as God watched over His children. Finding he could survive with the strength of his own hands gave him hope that he was a worthy man. It tore down all the mountains of self-contempt his father heaped on him with constant criticism and hard fists. This land made him believe in his own worth.

So Wade didn’t expect to have trouble keeping track of Glowing Sun.

But he did.

She was easy to follow for the first day. The only trail she could take was the one they’d been on.

He pushed his horse and hoped to close the gap between them. But once he was through the toughest passages, there were choices. Scared he’d choose wrong, Wade studied the ground often until he assured himself he was still on Glowing Sun’s trail.

Buck had given him detailed directions to the Flathead camp, and Wade considered several times just riding straight for it as the second day stretched to three, then four. He could go to her village, stay back from it but remain watchful, and wait for Glowing Sun. All he needed was to see her arrive safely.

His common sense told him the woman was well equipped to survive in these rugged mountains.

But if he was so sure she’d be fine, then he might as well go throw in with Belle’s cattle drive and be done with the wild-goose chase. His reason for following after Glowing Sun was to protect her. Abandoning her trail didn’t figure in.

He swung to the ground, checking what looked like the pad of a moccasin on a stretch of damp forest soil, when his horse reared with a wild squeal and jerked the reins out of his hands. Wade made a dive for the suddenly frantic animal and managed to swing himself up onto the buckskin. Even with Wade’s hand pulling hard on the reins, the horse ran nearly a hundred yards back in the direction they’d just come. Only then did Wade manage to halt his gelding. Snorting and wheeling, the horse must have been far enough from whatever upset him because, though he fidgeted, he let Wade take charge and hold him nearly in place.

“Wade!” A woman’s voice. Glowing Sun.

Wade turned, trying to locate her.

The horse stopped and perked its ears forward.

A snarling grizzly lumbered out of a clump of quaking aspens near where Wade had stood just seconds ago.

His horse whinnied and backed away.

Wade patted the horse on the neck to show his thanks. As the bear charged forward a dozen feet, baring its teeth, Wade pulled his rifle from its sling on his saddle and snapped a shell in place.

The bear skidded to a stop. The wily animal had obviously seen and heard a gun before.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.