Come Spring by Jill Marie Landis Page B

violet, Annika didn’t intend to start now. Besides, she thought, she had to keep her wits about her so that she could escape this madman at the first opportunity.
    The drummer in the crowd slipped his hand inside his coat and pulled out a handgun. Buck Scott froze and held Annika tighter. He threatened to use his knife, pushed it closer against her tender skin. “Don’t do it,” he warned the man. “Drop the gun.”
    The drummer dropped his gun.
    When Buck started to walk backward, holding her tight against him with the wicked blade of the long knife pressed against her throat, she did not struggle, but moved with him instead. It was like walking with a solid wall at her back. She knew when they reached his horse, for he paused and lowered the knife long enough to grab her around the waist. Before she expected it, he tossed her up onto the saddle. Ever conscious of the weapon that threatened her rib cage, Annika made no move to escape. Instead, she met the eyes of the conductor and said slowly and carefully, “My brother will be waiting on the platform in Cheyenne. His name is Storm, Kase Storm. Please, please tell him what happened, and tell him I’ll be all right until he can find me.”
    The conductor nodded, afraid to make a move that might anger the man who had vaulted onto the back of the horse behind her and grabbed the reins. The knife was at her throat again.
    With the slightest movement of his knees, Buck controlled his prancing horse. The rich brown bay backed away from the crowd. The extra mount and the mules were forced to follow. Buck stared down the crowd until he was far enough out of gunshot range to feel safe, then he spun the bay toward the west, sheathed his knife, and kicked the horse into a gallop.
    B UCK Scott couldn’t believe his bad luck.
    It was one thing to finally come to the decision that he had to marry, but it was altogether another one to learn that the woman who had promised to do so was refusing so adamantly. He wished like hell that he had taken the time to clean himself up, bought a new shirt, and tried to impress Alice Soams. Maybe then she would have come along with him willingly. Maybe.
    But as soon as he thought it, he knew that even a new shirt probably would not have helped. She was far too beautiful, too finely dressed, too citified for a man like him. He could tell just by looking at her that she would never fit into his life, never adjust to the cramped quarters of his cabin or the loneliness of life at Blue Creek. So why in the hell didn’t he just turn around and take her back?
    He’d been asking himself that question for the last few miles, but the answer was not swift in coming. He tried to tell himself it was because she had promised to marry him and a deal was a deal. He’d always stood by his own promises. But deep down when he wasn’t trying to fool himself, Buck knew that the real reason he’d carried her off the train in the first place was because she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen or could ever hope to call his own. From the moment he’d laid eyes on her, it had been impossible to stop himself from wanting to keep her. Time would be on his side, he decided. In time he’d convince her to accept him.
    Annika had been too scared to speak for the first few minutes as they thundered across the landscape and he held his knife tight in his fist, close enough to her side to scare her, but expertly enough so that it would not cause her any harm at all. As soon as he had sheathed the weapon she had started arguing with him, adding to the incessant rattling sound from her satchel. Whatever was inside it kept banging and clanging against the side of the pack mule. She had hollered at him for a good quarter of an hour and although he’d tried to drown her out, he couldn’t.
    “When my brother hears about this, he’ll kill you!” She squirmed in his arms, trying to get a better look at him.
    Buck didn’t let her twist an inch in his embrace. He