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

with dirt floors. Sparse slivers of evening light slipped through the broken windows, which were shaded by boards nailed unevenly into place.
                  "You live here?" He carefully surveyed the mess.
                  "Yes. And now, so do you," she said.
                  He laid his head back on the pillow and waited for his addled brain to settle. He was lying on a narrow cot.  While it wasn't as big as the feather bed he'd grown up on, it was a far sight better than the one in the jailhouse.
                  On the other side of the room, a bulky figure lay on a similar bed, snoring.
                  "That's my Uncle Dermott. He's as sweet as the day is long, but, in the last few years, his mind's been slipping. He's got a bad case or rheumatism, too, so he can't handle a lick of work. But he's got a big heart and is good company." She sighed as she dipped the cloth in a pan of water beside the bed.
                  "What's your name?"
                  "I'm Natalie Lane, but you can call me Natty. Everybody does. I own this cabin, a shed out back where the mares are and the mine. It's really only a hole in the ground, right now. Took my Pa and Uncle Derm nearly two years to dig it."
                  "How'd I get here?"
                  "You were about to be hung when I bought off your sentence with my Ma's wedding ring. Then, you and I got married."
                  He sat up again, jolting his injured hands. Gasping at the new onslaught of pain, he nearly passed out again.
                  "Here, here! It's not as bad as all that! Be careful or you'll hurt yourself more!"
                  "Married?" He managed to speak when the throbbing in his hands settled down again. "How could I get married? I was supposed to be hung!"
                  "I guess that's my fault. I told them that I needed the extra help here, and it's the best we could come up with at the time."
                  "I can't get married again."
                  "Are you already married?"
                  Cole noted the slight tremble in her voice. "I'm widowed." Carefully, he raised his hands, and inspected the bloodstained bandages. "They did this to me?"
                  "I'm awful sorry. Judge and Sheriff Watkins just wanted to make sure that you'd not be able to shoot me once I got you home. I wouldn't have let them if I'd have known what they meant to do."
                  "I guess I'll never play the piano again. Another item on the long list of my mother's disappointments."
                  "You got family somewhere?"
                  "No. My parents are dead." Cole didn't know why he lied. Or, perhaps it wasn't a lie after all, he reasoned. Though she still breathed, his mother, like everything in his life before Maggie, was gone.
                  "Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."  She looked downward a moment. "My Pa died last year, and my Ma passed only a week ago. I sure do miss ' em ."
                  "What do you want from me?'
                  "I want you to help me work the mine. After all that hard work, we never found anything but dirt. My Pa used to be a gambler back in San Francisco. After won the deed to this place in a poker game, he moved my ma and me out here.  I swear, they put their whole lives out here but we ain't seen one dime from it."
                  "Maybe, there's no silver here."
                  " Naw , my Pa wouldn't be unlucky enough to get a dry claim. He could win at cards like he was charmed. Ma used to say he was the luckiest man alive. She was a dancehall girl before they met. When I was little, I used to watch her dress up in fine clothes and serve gentlemen drinks on a fancy silver tray. She would tip her feathered hat and curtsey real