Cora's Pride (Wilderness Brides Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

you.”
    Cora patted the top of his head. “Soon, you will be.”
    “I didn’t think he’d steal our horse. He looked honest.” The boy stared up at her with an apologetic frown.
    Cora tightened the cinch around the mule’s belly. She shot another smile at her brother to reassure him. “It’s not your fault. Looks can be deceiving,” she said. “We have to be careful with people we don’t know anything about.”
    Patrick nodded. “Are you really going after him?”
    “Of course.” Cora reached for her rifle. “You mind Anna while I’m gone.”
    She’d barely spoken her friend’s name, when Anna came up beside her and placed her hand on Cora’s arm.
    “How do you plan on finding him? Gray is much faster than a mule.”
    Cora’s eyes widened. “I can’t stay here and let someone steal our horse. What’ll it be next? The mules? Our wagon?” She glanced at the canvas covering the rig. Pulling the mule a short distance away to be out of earshot of Josie and Caroline, she leaned toward her friend and whispered. “Or worse. We have to protect ourselves, no matter what, or we might as well just head back to Ohio.”
    Anna nodded. She wrung her hands in front of her. “I’m just not sure if I’m cut out for this, Cora. Going to Oregon seemed like a fine idea months ago, but that was when we had a man to look after us, and we were with the other wagons. Perhaps getting married wouldn’t be such a bad idea.”
    Cora reached for her friend’s hand and smiled. “If you want to get married, that’s your choice. I only advise you to make sure you don’t marry a man for the wrong reasons. Look where it got me with Ted.”
    “Not every man out there can be bad,” Anna argued. “Just because your pa left, and now Ted, doesn’t mean you should hate all men.”
    Cora pressed her lips together. Anna had apparently forgotten what had happened to Josie. Rather than remind her friend, she gathered the reins to the mule and lifted her foot into the stirrup. She was wasting time. That scoundrel was getting too much of a head start. Once she was seated in the saddle, she glanced down at Anna.
    “I don’t hate men,” she said firmly. “I just have little cause to trust any of them.”
    Cora blinked several times and swallowed past her reservation about giving chase. It was her responsibility to keep everyone safe, no matter what. Nodding to Anna, she kicked the balking mule into a gallop away from camp. She guided the beast in the direction in which her beloved horse, Gray, had disappeared. She’d already lost her other saddle horse to Ted. She couldn’t lose Gray, too.
    Coming to the top of a rise, she slowed the ornery animal underneath her and scanned into the distance. Nothing but trees and mountains, as far as the eye could see. Looking to the east, the valley expanded into a wide meadow, while the forest grew dense toward the west. There was no sign of her horse.
    Cora pressed her lips together and kicked the mule into a run, guiding him toward the forest. Even if he'd chosen to cut through the vast meadow, Nathaniel Wilder's head start wasn't so great that he could have disappeared. He must have thought it best to ride through the trees.
    Forced to slow the mule once she reached the trees, Cora studied the ground as she rode and smiled in relief. Fresh hoof prints clearly led through this forest. Her forehead scrunched in puzzlement as she glanced in the direction from which she’d just come. The prints should have been visible sooner, but it was as if Gray had simply materialized in this very spot. She shrugged. The ground must have simply been harder before, making it more difficult to see the prints.
    That thief had thought wrong if he figured she wasn’t going to pursue him. For the better part of an hour, she followed the hoof prints through the forest. Sometimes the tracks would lead out in the open, then back into the trees, until she lost them again completely.
    “Damn,” she swore under her