Liz Ireland - Millie And The Fugitive

He rolled his eyes. He should have expected her to be difficult on this point. “You know I can’t let you do that.”

“Why not?”

“Look—it’s just a little trading post. You won’t be missing out on much.” He shot her a keen glance. “Unless you were planning on trying to escape.”

“I told you I wouldn’t!” she cried. “I gave you my word. You can’t just leave me out here, tied up to some tree.”

Sam leaned forward on his saddle. “Why not?”

“Well... I’d scream.”

“Not if I muffled you.”

“You would do that!” she said in disgust. “But just the same, it’s a bad idea. What if someone saw me out here? There’s no place around where you could hide me and Mrs. Darwimple.”

She had a point there. And she knew it.

“If someone should happen upon me, once I was free you’d be caught for sure,” she continued. A second later, she added smartly, “And then you would have lost your very valuable hostage.”

Millie apparently wasn’t going to let go of that pet theory, no matter how many problems she caused him.

“If you go down there with me, I’ll be watching you every minute.”

“I know.”

“Don’t think you can escape.”

“I don’t,” she answered, tossing her head testily. “I’m no fool. Besides, didn’t I tell you that you could trust me? I have a repu —”

“I know, I know,” Sam interrupted. “You’re as honest as a looking glass.”

She shrugged immodestly. “I’m only repeating what people tell me.”

He smirked. “Guess what? I’m honest, too.”

Millie’s eyebrows raised dubiously. “I didn’t say I was gullible!”

“You see, Millicent, I have a theory that most people are honest... until chance forces them to be otherwise. Good people lie when they’re in trouble and can’t see any other way out. Some people, the lucky ones who never have to face serious troubles, never are really tried.”

As he spoke, Millie’s jaw went slack. “Are you insinuating that I have never had real troubles?” she asked in astonishment. The very thought made her laugh incredulously. “Believe me, Mr. Winter, if anyone’s life was ever a strain, it’s mine! You had no way of knowing this, of course, but my mother died right after I was born, and since I was a little girl, I’ve borne the responsibility of running my father’s household, and being his hostess.”

Sam waited for further tales of woe, but apparently planning her father’s dinner parties was the extent of the strain in Millicent Lively’s sheltered life. “That’s it?” he asked.

“No...” She sighed. “This might come as a shock to you, but my life is hardly as exciting as it might seem to an outsider.”

“You’re telling me that on top of having responsibilities, you’re bored,” he guessed.

“Boredom is a strain!” she said.

“Listen, Princess,” Sam replied, anxious to get moving. “There are a lot of people in the world who would pay to have your troubles.”

“Well, of course! I know that. That’s the whole point of being rich. But you can’t say my life is carefree.”

“Maybe not now, at any rate,” Sam allowed, swinging down from the black. He took Millie’s arm. “Get down.”

“Why?” Her face showed alarm. “I thought you were going to take me.”

“I am. But you’ll have to go bareback. That saddle sticks out too much.”

She let herself down and watched as he ungirthed the saddle and slid it off the gray’s back. “I’ve never ridden Mrs. Darwimple without a saddle,” she said.

Somehow, it didn’t surprise him. Millicent Lively probably had a groom to saddle and unsaddle her horse at her every whim. “Chalk this up as part of that troubled life you were whining about.”

Millie crossed her arms petulantly. “Just because you’ve gotten yourself into a mess, that’s no reason to be sarcastic.”

Without a word, he turned and walked toward her, his arms outstretched.

“What are you doing?” she asked, stepping backward as if she suddenly expected to be mauled out here in an open field.

“I’m going to put you on top of that horse,” he said, hoisting her light frame onto his shoulders and heaving her onto the dappled mare. “We don’t have time for you to try to fuss about how you’re going to get up there on your own.”

She pounded a fist against his back until, with a final shove, she found herself seated on the horse. Sideways.

“You could have given me some warning before you started throwing me around like a sack of flour!” she protested, her face flaming as she awkwardly straddled the horse. Her skirts hiked up her legs, and she struggled to cover herself.

Sam looked away. Not that it did any good. He wouldn’t forget what those legs looked like anytime soon. “Just remember,” he said, nudging the black into a walk. He held up Toby’s derringer for her benefit. “Once we get near the store, my finger won’t be far from the trigger, so stay close and keep your mouth shut.”

She shot him a wry glance. “Since you put it so sweetly, how could I do otherwise?”

“Murderers aren’t supposed to be sweet,” he reminded her, hiding his amusement as he urged their horses into a trot and watched Millie bounce and slip all over Mrs. Darwimple’s back.

Millie fumed all the way down the hill. Not just because Sam refused to slow to a pace that would allow her to keep her seat without having to hug Mrs. Darwimple’s neck for dear life, either. Worse. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Sam had been trying to insinuate that she was spoiled.

Her!

Millie had known coddled people before, and she definitely wasn’t one of them. Her aunt Clara in New Orleans had never even brushed her own hair. How was that for spoiled? Or what about Sally Hall? Now there was a pampered girl. When Sally was upset over her broken engagement to Warner Simms, her parents had sent her to Europe for an entire year! Millie had tried that trick on her father, but after eleven broken engagements she hadn’t been sent anywhere besides her room. And now he actually wanted her to get married!

Besides, if the hallmark of a spoiled person was that she didn’t do work, then she just didn’t fit the bill. Far from it. Why, the very moment Sam found her, she had been picking pears that, once she’d run away long enough to bring her father to heel, she’d intended for a dessert for the family dinner. If that wasn’t work, she didn’t know what was — and look what a dangerous task it had turned out to be! She would have to remind Sam of that.

Of course, if she did tell him she would probably be forced to explain that she wasn’t actually going to do anything with those pears except hand them over to their family cook, Sonya. She herself didn’t know one end of the kitchen from the other. How could she? She’d been a motherless child, and after Sonya had caught her burning a batch of muffins all those years ago...

Well, anyway, lots of women couldn’t cook.

Not that she actually cared what Sam thought, anyway. Why should she? It wasn’t as if being a criminal were a noble way to spend one’s time. It was far better to be a lady of enviable leisure than to run around killing people!

The thought made her feel much better about herself, and she glanced over at him with a renewed sense of self-satisfaction. Or as much as she could muster, looped as she was in such an undignified position around her poor horse. Sam rode straight and tall atop his black horse, his eyes scanning the horizon for signs of other riders approaching the small building.

Watching him, it was hard to believe he was the ruthless outlaw she’d seen murder two deputies with her very own eyes. Yet so much was deceiving about Sam Winter. He spoke like a man of some education, and his manners weren’t unrefined. Not completely, at any rate. Of course, traveling out in the wild didn’t bring out the best in anyone, least of all herself. She was certain her daddy would have some choice words to say to her if he could have seen her traipsing around in her underclothes yesterday morning.

That was another strange thing about Sam’s behavior. In most of the books she’d read, criminals didn’t treat women so...gingerly. Sam had barely even spoken to her unless circumstances forced him, and he certainly hadn’t made any advances on her person. Thank goodness! She didn’t know what she would have done if she’d been kidnapped by someone more unmannerly.

In fact, if Sam weren’t her captor, she would have been tempted to say that his rough edges were rather endearing. True, he was overly gruff toward her at times, and perhaps a little too unconcerned about her comfort, but she couldn’t deny that she found his wry humor charming, in its own peculiar way. And his dismissive way of treating her was a bit refreshing, frankly. Most men she knew made perfect fools of themselves trying to be nice to her and treat her as though she were a delicate flower. Not Sam. The moment he tied her to a tree and threw a horse blanket over her, she’d known he was different from all the others.

Millie sighed. Just as she had expected, it would be a little sad to part company with this strange man. And she would be terribly sorry to see him follow his brother to the gallows, as he no doubt would. Perhaps he might even beat Jesse there. Killing two sworn officers of the law topped wife-murdenng any day, in her book. Even so, she couldn’t deny having fallen under Sam Winter’s spell, just a tiny bit.

What woman wouldn’t? He was handsome in a rugged way that she just didn’t run across among the men she knew. And his voice was deep, melodious. And his gray eyes practically lit up when he teased her. And when he touched her, as he had when he lifted her onto Mrs. Darwimple...

Oh, it was hopeless. What was the use of dwelling on details? They might serve her well when she was relating the events of her exciting abduction to Sally, but in the meantime, she was better off not romanticizing the man too much. After all, he’d be as good as dead once she was through with him.

Right now she had to concentrate on the task ahead of her. She couldn’t forget Sam’s threat; alerting the proprietor of the store that she had been kidnapped was going to be no easy task, with a gun trained on her the entire time. She only hoped that the person who owned the store was big and strong—or at least bigger and stronger than Sam.

As they slowed to a walk in front of the low building, she got a better look at the sign. Ned Sparks’ General Store She felt as if her whole future were in Ned Sparks’s hands

Sam eyed her cautiously. “You remember what I said?”

She straightened. “Of course.”

“Good. Get down—and don’t make any fast moves. And don’t talk unless whoever’s inside talks to you first. Understand?”

She gritted her teeth and nodded. Then she slipped off her horse. There was no other way to describe it. She put one leg back and lost her grip on the animal’s slippery hide and shot to the ground with a thud. As she landed, she half expected to hear gunfire, although that particular fast move hadn’t been intended. But instead, Sam appeared beside her and kindly yanked her back up to her feet.

“Sorry,” he said as she dusted her backside off heatedly. “I forgot that your excellent horsemanship might not extend to the fine art of dismounting bareback.”

“Never mind,” she muttered. She wasn’t going to argue with the man now. She needed him to think she was going to do exactly as he wanted. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“You first,” he said, gesturing for her to walk ahead.