Read JMcNaught - Something Wonderful for Free Online Page B

"It's time for a joust."
    "No, let's duel first," the thirteen-year-old argued, brandishing an old saber. "I'll best you this time, Alex. I've been practicing day and night."
    Laughing, Alexandra awkwardly dismounted and hugged Mary Ellen, then both girls threw themselves into the games, which were a ritual reenacted on each of the seven O'Toole children's birthday.
    The afternoon and evening passed in exuberant games, cheerful rivalry, and the convivial laughter of a large family gathered together—something that Alexandra, an only child, had always longed to be part of.
    By the time she was on her way home, she was happily exhausted and nearly groaning from the quantity of hearty food she'd eaten at the insistence of kindly Mrs. O'Toole.
    Lulled by the steady clip-clop of old Thunder's hooves on the dusty road, Alexandra let her body sway in rhythm with the horse's gentle motion, her heavy eyelids drooping with fatigue. Left with no other way to bring her suit of armor back home, Alexandra was wearing it, but it made her uncomfortably warm, which made her feel even drowsier.
    As she passed the inn and turned old Thunder onto the wide path that led through the woods and intersected the main road again a mile away, she noticed that several horses were tied in the innyard and the lamp in the window was still lit. Masculine voices, raised in lusty song, drifted through the open window to her. Overhead the branches of the oak trees met, swaying in the spring night, casting eerie shadows on the path as they blotted out the moon.
    It was late, Alexandra knew, but she didn't urge her mount to quicken its walking pace. In the first place, Thunder was past twenty, and in the second, she wanted to be sure that Squire and Mrs. Helmsley had departed by the time she arrived.
    The visor of her helmet abruptly clanked down across her face again, and Alexandra sighed with irritation, longing to take the heavy helmet off and carry it Deciding that Thunder was unlikely to feel either the energy or the inclination to try to run off with her, particularly after his exhausting day at the "lists," Alexandra pulled him to a stop, then let go of his reins and transferred the heavy shield she was carrying to her left hand. Intending to take off the helmet and carry it in the crook of her right arm, she reached up to pull the helmet off, then halted, her attention suddenly drawn to the muffled, unidentifiable sounds coming from the perimeter of the woods, a quarter of a mile ahead near the road.
    Frowning slightly, wondering if she was about to encounter a wild boar, or a less threatening—perhaps edible—species of game, she withdrew her rifle from its scabbard as quietly as her armor would allow.
    Suddenly the serenity of the night was shattered by the explosion of a gunshot, and then another. Before Alexandra had time to react, old Thunder bolted in wild-eyed confusion through the thinning woods—galloping blindly, straight toward the source of the shots, his bridle reins flicking the ground beside his flying hooves, with Alexandra's legs clamped in a death grip against his sides.
    The bandit's head jerked toward the eruption of clanking metal from the woods beside them, and Jordan Townsende tore his gaze from the deadly hole at the end of the pistol that the second bandit was aiming straight at his chest. The sight that greeted him made him doubt his eyesight. Charging out of the woods to his rescue atop a swaybacked nag was a knight in armor with his visor pulled down, a shield at the ready in one hand and a rifle in his other.
    Alexandra stifled a scream as she crashed out of the woods and catapulted straight into the midst of a moonlit scene more sinister than any of her worst nightmares: A coachman was lying wounded in the road beside a coach, and two bandits with red handkerchiefs concealing their faces were holding a tall man at gunpoint. The second bandit turned as Alexandra clattered down on them—and pointed his gun straight at