Dangerous Heart Read Online Free Page A

the likely possibility that he actually had giventhat order. Admitting the possibility meant she had better stay put. Glancing across the plain, she hesitated, but only long enough to make a firm decision.
    A gentle nudge to Tulip’s flank was all it took for the mare to bolt and run, leaving Grant in a cloud of dust, his face mottled in anger. Ginger grinned as she put distance between herself and the wagon train. Even if Grant saddled up and rode hard, he’d never catch her. She didn’t care a bit. Let him be mad. Grant was a bully and always tried to tell her what to do. He might not remember her. After all she had been only eleven years old when they’d last met. But she remembered him well, and he would soon find out that she had her own bone to pick with the doc. The folks of this wagon train would discover that Grant Kelley wasn’t everything he pretended to be.
    After a few minutes, her head began to clear. She looked up into the gathering darkness and figured now was as good a time as any to have that conversation with the Almighty.
    She cleared her throat. “Uh…” This was strange. How did Toni and Fannie and Blake and just about everyone she knew just talk into air without thinking anything of it? “You know I’m not much of one to talk out loud to a person that probably isn’t even there. But just in case…I’d like to thank You for bringing Yellow Bird’s babe and keeping them both alive.”
    That was about all she could muster. And even at that, her face was as hot as July at the very thought that someone might have heard.
    She began to regret her hasty actions in riding off. What if Blake really had ordered everyone to stay in camp? It soundedlike something the conscientious wagon master would say. If he got wind of her disobedience, it might be the final straw for him. Not that Ginger deliberately got herself into trouble, but it just seemed to find her when she least expected it. She slowed Tulip to a trot and finally to a walk. “I think I might have messed up again, girl,” she said, leaning forward and throwing her arms about Tulip’s neck. “But Grant is like a burr in my saddle. And I know you know what that’s like. Why can’t he stop acting all high-and-mighty all the time?”
    If only he knew why she’d joined the wagon train in the first place, he’d be a lot more careful how he treated her. That was for certain.
    Why hadn’t she done what she had come to do? For seven years, all she had wanted was the satisfaction of seeing Grant pay. It had taken her that long to convince Web to let her do it, too. So why, after more than two months of traveling with the wagon train, hadn’t she?
    These folks on the wagon train…they were different from the band of thieves and thugs she’d grown up with. The thought of doing what she’d come to do and returning to the band of outlaws waiting for her return didn’t sit right. As a matter of fact, it filled her nightmares. The only explanation was that all this talk about God had somehow sunk in more than she’d ever thought possible.
    As the child of a prostitute and an outlaw, Ginger had never heard about Jesus until arriving on the wagon train. God was simply a curse word, except her ma used to cry and pray to Him when she was drunk. It hadn’t occurred to Ginger that the life they led was wrong. Gambling, drinking, and outlawing. That was her world until a few months ago. Life in the train had changed her. And not just on the inside, either. She’d started taking regular baths. Toni had forced her to initially, but now she actually enjoyed being clean. She attended when Sam Two Feathers preached, and she was even starting to understand and look forward to the meetings. God was becoming real instead of myth, and prayer seemed more than drunken petitions. Going back to her former life filled her with dread. And not only dread, but