Read The Redhead and the Preacher: A Loveswept Historical Romance for Free Online Page B

men who were waiting for her to finish her statement. “The sheriff probably caught them,” she finished uneasily. She couldn’t figure out how they got away.
    Bran studied her gravely. She knew more than she was admitting about what had happened back in Promise. Herquick departure was becoming more suspect. Sooner or later he’d do a bit of discreet questioning. For now he’d just watch her.
    Watching her was becoming an interesting task since she’d lost that awful-looking bonnet, allowing a riot of rich red hair free across her shoulders. Any thought that she was odd-looking had vanished when he’d seen her hike up her skirt, throw shapely bare legs over the window of the coach and slide to the ground.
    Trouble, as he’d begun to think of her, was an intriguing young woman. She had the kind of mouth that made a man lust to taste it at the same time she dared him to try.
    He could tell that he was making her uneasy, studying her so seriously. She quickly averted her eyes, turning to the driver, spying the gunbelt strapped to his hips. “You have a pistol. If the thieves return, you can protect us, can’t you?”
    The driver worked his shoulder and winced. “Not likely, ma’am. They got me in my shooting side.” He unsheathed his pistol and handed it to Bran. “You take it, preacher. You’re a better shot anyway.”
    Bran took the weapon, examined it, then inserted it in his own holster. “Ammunition?”
    The driver pulled back his jacket to reveal the bullets in the loops of his gunbelt. “Some, enough maybe.”
    “Good man. At least we’re not helpless. I think we’d better get out of here, before the bandit who got away decides to come back. Any idea what he was after?”
    “Not unless it was the mail. Ain’t carrying nothing else on this part of the run, ’cept you two. Going the other way, sometimes I carry gold from the mines. But they usually send a couple of guards then.”
    “Look, isn’t that the mail sack?” Macky asked, pointing to a bag lying against a rock.
    The driver struggled to the bag and tried to lift it, groaned and let it fall back to the ground. “Don’t think I can carry it. What about it, Reverend? I’ll take your Bible if you’ll tote the mail. Can’t afford to lose it. That new Pony Expressis already getting the mail across country faster than we can.”
    “How far to the way station?”
    “Too far to walk before dark,” the driver said. “Maybe we’d better find a place to make camp.”
    “Make camp?” Macky could sleep on the ground as well as the next one, but she was famished.
    Bran studied the driver, then looked down the trail. “Let’s get to that outcropping of rocks just ahead,” Bran said as he picked up the mail bag. “At least it will give us some protection from the wind.” He turned his head, speaking under his breath to Macky. “I don’t suppose you have any beans and bacon in that carrying case, do you, Trouble?”
    “Afraid not.” He didn’t have to tell her that she’d have been a lot smarter filling it with food instead of nightgowns and petticoats. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t call me that. I had nothing to do with our attack.”
    “Maybe not,” Bran said. “But the name still fits.”
    “Let me help you, Mr.— What is your name?” Macky asked the driver.
    “Jenks Malone,” the driver said, pressing his hand against the circle of blood spreading beneath his fingers.
    Macky took a step toward the grizzly old man. “You need medical attention before we go anywhere, Mr. Malone.”
    “Call me Jenks and I can wait,” he insisted, through clenched teeth that said how painful the injury really was. “Right now, we gotta find shelter away from the wagon. Cover our trail.”
    As if on command the wind sprang up, whipping Macky’s cape like a sail as she tried to collect it around her. Leaning against the strong current of air, she headed off down the rutted trail, the wind erasing evidence of her footsteps as she