Once Upon a Mail Order Bride - Linda Broday Page 0,114

You rule over everyone through fear, but even as a child I saw your weakness. You can’t take what’s truly mine. That’s what you hate in me. I won’t let you tell me what to think, or how to feel.”

“Shut up!”

“You’ll never take control of my thoughts. You make people believe you’re God, but you’re nothing but Satan. I see it, and so did Jane Ann. That’s why I will never ever let you have your son.”

A jarring slap forced her head to the side, and her teeth sank into her lip. Shards of pain crawled along her body, stealing her ability to breathe.

“I said shut up.” Ezekiel picked up a hammer and brandished it.

While she hated letting him think he’d won, she acknowledged the danger in continuing. She sat down to watch him, and soon fear crawled up her throat, strangling her.

He was fashioning a large cross out of the scavenged boards from the shack.

* * *

Ridge retraced his path to the last clear set of prints and squatted to study them as the last of the daylight fell around him. He’d failed. He tore off his Stetson and held his head in his hands. Where was the woman he loved more than life itself? He’d sworn to keep her safe. What good was a promise if he couldn’t keep it?

The light breeze bore the scent of wild roses, the flowers that she loved best. Or maybe that was his imagination, a fantasy caused by his incessant longing to see her. Hold her. Kiss her.

He straightened and jammed his hat back on. A cry tore from his lips, followed by an agonizing yell. “I don’t know what to do! Addie!”

Silence answered back.

Cob nuzzled his shoulder as though offering sympathy. The sorrel kept it up until Ridge stroked Cob’s neck. “I know. You miss her too.”

Finally, Ridge wearily wiped his eyes and painstakingly followed the wagon ruts back the way he’d come, only to discover he’d taken the wrong fork in the road at first. He’d wasted precious time that Addie didn’t have. The left fork took him down into a cedar brake and he found a trail left by a wagon breaking through the overgrown thicket. The person driving the wagon would’ve found it very difficult going, yet somehow by the looks of it, they’d persevered.

Darkness fell, and he kept riding through the night, driven by the horrors of what Addie was having to endure.

One time he let his eyes drift shut and almost slid from the saddle, catching himself at the last moment. Fear set in that he’d missed another turnoff on the trail, and he’d had to backtrack to make sure. After that, each time he felt his eyelids start to close, he slapped himself awake. He couldn’t afford any mistakes.

Coyotes howled nearby, a reminder of the constant danger of night predators. They sharpened Ridge’s senses and he moved with caution, driven on by one thought.

Addie needed him. She was depending on him to rescue her, and he wouldn’t let her down. The conversation they’d had the night of the dance haunted him now. “If I do vanish, will you come looking for me?” Addie had asked.

Ridge repeated his answer to her aloud, “Better believe it, lady. No one had better try taking you away from me. No one. I will find you, Addie.”

He meant that more than anything he’d ever uttered.

But when would he make good on the promise? Would he be too late?

Thirty-Two

No moon traveled the sky that night and it seemed fitting. Ezekiel hammered the last board onto the makeshift cross, and Addie shivered at the cold hardness of his stone features. Fear, stronger than anything she’d experienced before, slid over her like the bony fingers of doom. Fear that was amplified by the liquor he’d consumed as he worked.

He stalked to her through the darkness, his black frock coat flapping like a crow’s wings. “This can all be avoided if you tell me where my boy is. I’ll give you one last chance.”

She moved slightly to look at her mother through the hole in the hood covering her head. Ingrid Jancy remained motionless on the wagon seat where she’d sat for hours. Every bit of life inside her mother had shriveled and died. It appeared she awaited her own death now. It was impossible to think this was the same woman who had warned her a few hours ago.

Addie curled her mouth. “I’ll tell you nothing, so whatever it is you mean to