Read Cole's Redemption (Love Amongst the Pines) for Free Online

looking questioningly at the prisoner's hands. "What happened to him?"
                  "We did, Derm . We're taking him home. He belongs to us now."
                  "What do you mean? I've never laid eyes on him. I know I'd remember. I may forget what day of the week it is, but I never forget people."
                  "I know that, Derm . This is different. He and I were just married. He's a condemned man, and I married him so that he could help us work the mine."
                  "It's gonna be mighty hard to do any work with those hands. What'd he do, get ' em caught under a wagon?"
                  "They broke his hands so he wouldn't be able to use a gun," she told him as she watched the men struggling to lift her new husband onto the back of the buckboard.
                  "He won't be able to use a fork much either, I reckon." "No. I hadn't thought of that."
                  "There you go, Natty. I hope things go well for you," Judge sighed. "Doc and Preacher will be out to check on you Sunday afternoon. Just send Dermott into town if you need anything. I know he won't remember your message, but we'll come out just the same." He tipped his hat and started to go back in the jailhouse.  At the last minute, he turned around. "Oh, and congratulations on your wedding."
                  "Wedding, did he say wedding? Who got married, Plum?"
                  Natty sighed as she climbed onto the front seat of the wagon. Reaching down, she helped settle her uncle beside her. "I did, Derm ."
                  "You did? I didn't go, did I? Was it at a church? I don't remember giving you away. How long have you been married?"
                  His questions rattled on over the sound of the wagon trundling across the road towards the wilderness. Natty only hoped she'd made the right decision.
                  Cole dreamed of home.
                  Not the ragged encampments he'd kept over the last two years. But the real, honest-to-goodness place where he'd grown up. It was his mother's house, a red brick mansion built beside a small lake just outside of Boston.               He remembered all of the times he'd awakened to the smell of apple pancakes. Back to the time when he drank his fill of milk and ate sugared treats until his stomach was full to bursting.
                  He remembered his mother's soft kisses and his father's firm hand as they'd helped him learn his letters and numbers. Lost in his dreams, he thought about the time he'd come home from his first semester in England. They'd been so proud of him.
                  That was before the beautiful little maid, Maggie, with her red hair and green eyes. Never would he forget the gentle way she took his arm and sidled up to him. Again and again, his thoughts went back to the dreamy expression she wore whenever he'd leaned down to kiss her.  Unfortunately, his memory of seeing his parent's shrinking away in horror and disdain when he'd first told them of his love for her returned to him as well.
                  Then his sleepy mind took him to another place and time, when he held his dying wife and child in the midst of a desolate Illinois prairie.
                  "No!" He shouted out into the darkness. He jerked forward, and then gasped from the excruciating pain in his hands.
                  "Easy," a soft voice said beside him. Gently pushing him back, a woman hovered over him. Well, at least he thought she was a woman. Truth be told, she looked more like a half-grown boy.
                  "Where am I?" He asked, as she gently wiped a damp cloth across his forehead.
                  "You're at the Denton Lane Silver Mine."
                  He squinted, looking around the darkened area. It was a cluttered, single room cabin