Outlaw Hunter. Carol Arens

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      Dimly, she registered that the wagon horses pranced, nervous in the confinement of their tack. The marshal’s horse stood still, his ears pointed toward the danger but his training keeping him in place.

      She wouldn’t make it in time. Not even the marshal, with a thirty-foot lead, would make it.

      The beast, ravaged and skinny, hunched his legs for the jump.

      She stopped and snatched up a rock. She wouldn’t be able to halt the animal, but maybe she could distract his attention for the seconds Marshal Prentis needed to reach Flynn.

      She pitched the rock. Joe saw her and did the same, firing stone after stone in the coyote’s direction.

      They might as well have been hurling feathers. The beast’s full attention was riveted on Flynn.

      “Mama!” Flynn cried. He backed up, then he turned to run.

      The coyote lunged. She screamed.

      Marshal Prentis dove. Midair, he drew his gun. He snagged Flynn about the waist.

      A shot exploded.

      Dust clouded the ground where the marshal rolled with her son tucked close to his belly.

      The coyote was propelled backward by the blast. It crumpled to the earth, a lifeless mound of filthy fur. A few feet away the marshal hovered over Flynn, clearly offering himself as a shield in case the shot had missed.

      Hysteria and relief gripped her at the same time. She wanted to collapse where she stood, to cover her face with her hands and sob. Her little wild man had come within inches of death.

      Even though the danger had passed, fear pumped her heart hard.

      What if Libby had spotted the coyote a few seconds later? What if the marshal hadn’t been a quick runner? What if his shot had missed? What if he hadn’t been willing to shield Flynn with his own body?

      She wasn’t sure she would ever purge this nightmare from her heart.

      As much as she needed a moment to give in to her emotions, she couldn’t.

      Flynn sobbed, “Mama! Mama!” Even the big solid hand of Marshal Prentis stroking his back could not calm him.

      It did calm her, though, enough that her knees didn’t give out as she dashed forward. She plucked Flynn from the strong hands reassuring him, then pressed his small head to her breast.

      She cooed over him for a moment, until his sobs turned to hiccups.

      When she finally looked up, she saw Libby standing in the buckboard, hugging Seth to her chest and clutching Pansy’s hand tight.

      Joe bent over the coyote, the marshal beside him.

      “Got him straight between the eyes!” Joe said.

      “Poor beast.” Marshal Prentis put his hand on Joe’s shoulder.

      Hattie heard him talking to the boy while they returned to the wagon. “We’ll need to be on our way, and in a hurry. Coyotes stay in their packs even when they’re mad. Could be more of them.”

      “Yes, sir. I’ll do the driving so Hattie can tend to the little ones.”

      Joe scrambled into the wagon.

      Marshal Prentis slipped his wide hand under her elbow to help her up.

      “We’ll need to travel late, get as far clear of here as we can,” he told her. Behind his back the sun had begun to set. “It’ll be rough travel for a while. We’ll have to sleep in the wagon tonight.”

      That suited her fine. She was not about to allow any of the children on the ground until they were far away from this horrible, barren of anything gentle, land.

      The marshal turned toward his horse. She tapped the shoulder of his buckskin shirt, halting him. He looked back, and up. For the first time she noticed how handsome he was, with a bold, square jaw dimpled with a slight cleft.

      He clutched his hat in his hand, showing off hair that was very dark. Nearly but not quite black, it grew in close-cropped waves about his face.

      In another lifetime she would have flirted with him. The young woman she had been before Ram would be dreaming of his kiss.

      It was just as well that Ram had laid that girl to rest. She was a mother of two now...a guardian for three more. There was scarcely enough time to breathe, let alone go soft over a handsome face.

      * * *

      Hattie had been asleep in the wagon bed for only an hour when she woke suddenly. She tried to stifle her gasp but it escaped before she could call it back.

      She willed her heartbeat to still. By breathing slowly, she pushed back the panic.

      The jab to her back had been inadvertent, only someone’s knee. Sudden movements in the night still terrified her. How long, she wondered, would it take before she could truly put her memories behind her?

      Fortunately, her outburst hadn’t wakened the children. Carefully, she moved Flynn away from where he had curled his small self against her bosom. She sat up slowly, dislodging Libby’s knee from her spine.

      She groaned under her breath, stretching and easing the aches from her muscles. Sleeping on the hard wagon bed without enough room to turn was difficult.

      But it was a difficulty she blessed with every heartbeat.

      Anyplace, no matter how barren or dangerous, was preferable to the Broken Brand.

      “Mrs. Travers, is something wrong?”

      The marshal appeared at the side of the wagon, a frown creasing his brow and his breath puffing white in the cold. She couldn’t see lower than his chest, but from the position of his right arm, she guessed that he had his hand on his gun.

      It alarmed her that he slept wearing his weapon. Perhaps he expected another mad animal to appear out of the dark. If so, he should not be sleeping on the ground under the wagon.

      “I just need to get up and walk for a few minutes.”

      “I’d advise against it, ma’am.”

      So would she, but just the same she stood, careful not to wake anyone with her stiff-jointed maneuvers.

      The marshal helped her down from the wagon with one hand under her elbow and another at her waist. She forced herself not to cringe.

      A man’s touch was not something that she welcomed. Sadly, that was one more thing that Ram had ruined for her.

      Perhaps with time that aversion would ease. She prayed that her dead husband had not cursed her soul forever.

      He let go of her as soon as her feet were solid on the ground, and she took a quick step away.

      She looked up at him. He hadn’t been sleeping with his hat on. The moon shone full on his face.

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