Inheriting A Bride. Lauri Robinson

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      “A bath!” The kid’s squeaky voice sounded downright self-righteous.

      Clay bent to pluck his hat out of the water, having lost it when he dived in. A thought occurred to him and he twisted, ready to get his first good look at Henry. Dumbfounded, he stared. The shabby hat, now black instead of dirt brown, with water dripping off the floppy brim, was still on the kid’s head.

      As if he knew what Clay was thinking, Henry grabbed the brim with both hands and held on tight. The kid spun, an action that made it appear he was about to shoot back beneath the water. Clay caught the tail of the well-worn shirt and started walking toward the grass-lined bank.

      Squirming and digging his heels into the creek bed, Henry fought him every step. Clay, shivering from the icy water and damn near steaming at the same time, gave a hard wrench to pull the kid out of the water.

      A rip sounded and the cloth went slack.

      “Aw, shit,” Clay mumbled. He hadn’t meant to tear the shirt off the boy’s back any more than he’d meant to drown him. His patience, though, was running thin. He spun and this time caught Henry around the waist. Hooking him next to his hip, Clay carried the kicking and squirming kid out of the water before they both ended up with pneumonia.

      Andrew snorted and, with haughty horse eyes, looked at Clay as if he’d lost his mind. At that moment, he could have agreed with the animal. One-handed—not trusting the kid to stay put—he untied his bedroll.

      “Here.” He lowered Henry so his feet touched the ground, and offered him a blanket at the same time.

      The kid took a step back, head down and arms folded across his chest.

      Clay flipped open the blanket, intending to drape it over the scrawny shoulders, but the boy took another step back and spun around. His shirt had ripped from hem to collar, straight up the back. The wet, frayed ends were stuck to wide strips of cloth wrapped around his torso.

      A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature or his dripping clothes shivered up Clay’s spine. Along with it came a horrendous bout of ire. “Henry,” he asked, barely able to keep a growl out of his voice, “who beat you?”

      “No one,” the kid answered gruffly.

      Clay shook his head, disgusted with himself. The poor kid probably stank like he had due to a salve or poultice on his injuries. Why hadn’t he asked, instead of tossing the boy into the pond? He took a step closer. “I see the bandages, Henry.”

      “Ban …” The kid’s arm twisted backward and his fingers searched the opening. “Those aren’t bandages,” he scoffed, flipping around. Drops of water dripped from his hat brim and plopped steadily onto his soaked, torn shirt.

      Though he wanted to wrap the blanket around the kid, who was now visibly shivering with the after-effects of his icy dip, Clay didn’t move closer. Injured children were no different than injured animals. The thing to do was tread carefully, but firmly. “I know bandages when I see them.”

      “They’re not bandages. Just give me the blanket.”

      An odd sensation tickled Clay’s spine. Henry’s tone no longer held that note of gruffness. Actually, the way he stood, with one hand stretched out, the other folded across his chest, was like a woman shielding herself.

      The shiver inching its way up Clay’s back turned into a fiery flash that all but snapped his spinal cord. “Tarnation,” he muttered, leaping forward to snatch away the floppy hat.

      Wet strands of long hair fell in every direction, and squinting eyes full of fire and ice glared at him.

      “It’s you!” he declared, as the fire reached his neck.

      “Yes, Mr. Hoffman, it’s me,” Katherine Ackerman assured him. She stepped forward and grabbed the blanket from his hand, wrapping it around herself with a quick flip of her wrists. “I’ll probably end up with pneumonia, thanks to you.”

      The woman before him looked nothing like the snooty canary he’d met at the station, and gazing at her now, sopping wet, in tattered boy’s clothes, with her mass of wet hair plastered to her head, Clay experienced a humorous rumble erupting. He pinched his lips to hold it in, but it burst from his chest with enough pressure that he had to toss his head back to let the entire bout of laughter out or else choke on it.

      “I don’t find anything funny, Mr. Hoffman,” she screeched above his hooting.

      “That’s because you’re not seeing what I’m seeing.”

      Caught up in laughing, Clay didn’t see her move until it was too late. Pain shot up his shin from where the toe of her boot struck him. He hopped on one foot and grabbed his other leg, applying pressure to stop the stinging.

      Knowing that only time would ease the ache, he let go, and turned around to discover her using his other blanket to sop the water from her hair. As she finger-combed the tresses and squeezed the ends with the blanket, he wondered how all that hair had fit under one floppy hat. Furthermore, how had he not noticed he was a she?

      “What are you doing out here, Miss Katherine Ackerman from Boston, Massachusetts?”

      “You know.” She bent, flipping her hair forward. The tresses almost touched the ground as she wrung them out with her hands and then shook them.

      Moving away from the spray of droplets, he walked over to sit on a boulder and empty the water from his boots. “How would I know?”

      Her hair made a graceful arch as she flipped her head up and turned to cast him a look—one of those glares that women produced and expected everyone to understand. And if truth were told, hers was quite adorable. Clay frowned at the thought, and went back to dumping water from one boot and then the other.

      “You know I’m tracking Samuel Edwards.”

      Her smugness, mixed in with that nasally accent, was charming. Clay stiffened and tugged on a boot. There was nothing about her, including her accent, that was charming, pleasant or even likable. She was like every other female gracing this earth—a conniving little imposter. This one even went so far as to dress up as a boy just to get her way.

      Clay pulled on the other boot and stood. “Sam. His name’s Sam.” Walking across the grass, he didn’t stop until he stood right before her. “And you, Miss Katherine Ackerman from Boston, Massachusetts, are not tracking him.”

      The way she sighed, the way she rolled her eyes, even the way she squared her shoulders irritated the pants off him, but her answer, “Yes, Mr. Hoffman, I am,” downright infuriated him.

      “No, you’re not. If there’s anything you want to talk to Sam about, it goes through me.”

      After an icy glare, she spun around.

      “What do you want with him, anyway?”

      She lifted her chin snootily and glanced over one shoulder. “That, Mr. Hoffman, is none of your business.”

      He didn’t know if he wanted to insult her by laughing or by paddling her bottom. She deserved both. Instead he went with logic. “Tell me, Miss Ackerman, how do you plan to track him? You’ve lost your horse, have no supplies and …” he pointed a СКАЧАТЬ