Bride On The Run (Historical Romance) by Elizabeth Lane

Anna said, warmed by impulse. “Your father and I have already agreed that this arrangement isn’t going to work. I’ll be leaving as soon as the road is cleared.”
    Carrie did not answer. Her elbows jerked as she pumped water into an enameled coffeepot. Her pretty mouth was set in a grim scowl that made her lookstartlingly like Malachi. Brooding, Anna surmised, seemed to run in the Stone family.
    “Your father said something about a privy.” Anna did not really need one right now, but any excuse was better than standing here in the kitchen making polite, one-sided conversation with this sour child.
    “Out the door and to your left. You won’t need a light. Just follow the path around the back of the shed.”
    “Thank you.” Anna made a hasty exit, closing the screen door behind her. The yard lay muddy and trampled, silent beneath the moon, with no sign of Malachi, the boy or the mules. Welcoming the nighttime solitude she stepped off the porch and veered to the left.
    Her steps slowed as she found the path and followed it through a stand of willows. Cricket songs filled the warm darkness. Anna could hear the rush of the river and smell the sweetness of rain-soaked earth. Above her, on all sides, the walls of the canyon rose like a towering fortress. Anna’s breath eased out in a long, ragged sigh. Her arms dropped to her sides, tension flowing out of her fingers. Here, for the first time in months she felt safe.
    How long would it take Malachi to clear the wagon road? she wondered. How long before the chase began again, the haunted nights spent listening for the creak of a floorboard, the terror every time she walked down a public street, heart pounding with the fear that someone would recognize her? The sketch on the Wanted poster was taken from her performance picture—Anna DeCarlo in low-cut satin, her hair piled high on her head, her face artfully painted, her rhinestone earbobs sparkling with light. Her present, subduedappearance had fooled Stuart Wilkinson. But it would not fool a seasoned bounty hunter. One chance encounter, one careless slip, and she would be hauled back to St. Joseph in irons to face Louis Caswell’s own brand of justice—and Anna’s instincts told her she would never live to tell her story in a court of law.
    She had spent long hours speculating why Harry had been murdered. Caswell had all the earmarks of a lawman in the protection business. Had Harry threatened to expose him with evidence? Was that why the safe had been rifled? Had Caswell found what he was looking for?
    Anna ran a hand through the muddy tangle of her hair, pushing it back from her face. She was tired of questions, long since sick of fear and uncertainty. But even here, in this deep, isolated canyon, there could be no refuge. Her time here would be nothing more than an all too brief respite from terror.
    The path meandered through the willows, then curved back behind the barn. Lamplight danced and flickered through the open chinks between the boards. Anna heard murmur of voices and the low, wheezing snort of a mule. This, she swiftly realized, was where Malachi had taken Lucifer to dress his wounded side.
    “Well, I don’t care what Carrie thinks. I say she’s pretty and I like her.” Joshua’s voice piped through the wall with bell-like clarity. “Why do you want her to leave, Pa?”
    “I didn’t say I wanted her to leave.” Malachi’s shadow moved, blocking the light as he worked. “I said we talked it over and came to an agreement. Anna’s not the kind of woman who’d be happy in a place like this.”
    “How did you know? Did she tell you?”
    “She didn’t have to tell me.” Malachi muttered a curse as some unseen object clattered to the floor. “Blast it, Josh, she’s not what I expected, let alone what I wanted for you and Carrie. And I’d wager I’m not what she wanted, either. The only thing I can do now is clear the road, drive her back to Kanab and put her on the stage.”
    The silence