Defiant Read Online Free Page A

surrounded the house and stopped, riveted by the sight of two bodies hanging from them .
    Through blinding tears, he galloped over to them. His brother and father were hanging by their necks from a tree limb he and Drew used to climb. Their hands hadn’t been tied but were hanging obscenely as the bodies swayed in the light breeze .
    Brad slid down from his horse and cut the ropes with his knife. The bodies fell, and Brad straightened them out on the ground, trying to give them some dignity. Then he started looking for his sister and mother .
    He found them several hundred yards from the cabin. Both were naked from the waist down. Both were covered with blood. Both were dead .
    Brad sat down next to them. He took his mother’s hand and held it for a long time, unaware of anything but overwhelming grief. And then guilt. He should have been here. He was good with a rifle. Maybe …
    The full moon was high in the sky when he started to bury all of them, including Pavel. It was dawn before he finished .
    He looked out over the neat fields that had given his father and Drew so much satisfaction. The dawn was pink, soft, but something hardened in Brad that night. He didn’t see the beauty of the sunrise; the only thing on his mind was vengeance .
    He would never return here. He couldn’t, not without seeing those bodies swaying in the wind .
    He knew who had done this. The Jayhawkers, pro-Union guerrillas out of Kansas, had been raiding farms throughout the area, attacking every family they suspected of being pro-Southern. They had become so bloodthirsty, they needed little proof. Brad’s father had been neutral, wanting only to mind his own business, but he would have defied someone trespassing on his land .
    Brad felt the hate filling his heart, his gut, every corner of his soul. Its intensity wiped out every other human emotion. And he knew exactly what he was going to do .
    He would find the antislavery irregulars. And he would kill every damned Jayhawker in Kansas .
    His father hadn’t wanted any part of this fight, but now it was Brad’s …
    â€œJake.” The name was spoken softly but authoritatively, and the dog moved away from Wade. He heard a swishing of skirts, then smelled something sweet, like flowers. He turned his head slightly, feeling a pounding behind his eyes as he did so, and swallowed a groan.
    A woman. He hurt too much to notice more, to be more than mildly curious about how he came to be here.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said in a pleasant, husky voice. “Jake seems to have sneaked in here. He’s taken it into his head that you belong to him.”
    â€œJake?” He barely managed to say the name. His voice was weak and shaky even to him.
    â€œThat huge beast of a dog,” she said with a slight smile. “He found you.”
    Wade closed his eyes. A dog. He should have known. Perhaps it was a hound of hell after all.
    â€œHe didn’t do me any favors,” Wade said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.
    â€œDon’t,” she said sharply. “I’ve lost a husband and a good friend, both of whom wanted to live very badly. Don’t tell me I’ve wasted time and effort on a man willing to throw life away.”
    Wade opened his eyes and looked at her more intently. Her hair was auburn and pulled back into a knot at the back of her head. It was too severe for her face, which was strong but tired-looking. Her eyes were green, and bright with intelligence and, at the moment, a bit of anger.
    But Wade didn’t care about being polite. “I didn’t ask you to. Why in the hell couldn’t you leave well enough alone?”
    Her lips tightened. “My son and his dog found you. I don’t like the kind of lesson he’d learn if I left you there.”
    A kid! So he owed this ninth life to a kid. And a dog. His kind of luck.
    He tried to move, and agony shot through him. “My arm?”
    â€œIn bad