Mail Order Cowboy (Harlequin American Romance) Read Online Free Page B

throat felt as if he had swallowed a torch.
    The old woman and the young boy exchanged glances. “Jeremy found you in the Nelson forty. We thought maybe you had heatstroke...you know, from walking with your suitcase and all. By the way, where is your suitcase?”
    Heatstroke? Suitcase? Why would he have been walking when he had a horse? Didn’t she realize that her neighbors had tried to hang him?
    “You look confused. Don’t worry. That’s what too much sun does to a person.”
    “It’s hot,” Wood rasped.
    She chuckled. “No one expects Minnesota to be this hot in September. I remember back in 1940 when it hit ninetytwo degrees on the fourteenth of September. It was my cousin Eileen’s wedding.” She shook her head wistfully. “She chose September thinking it would be cool.”
    Had she said 1940? He frowned. She must have said 1840, which would mean her family had been among the original settlers in this area.
    Again he surveyed his surroundings. What had happened to the Nelson Homestead? The log house where he had stayed, the corral where they kept their horses, the open prairie for grazing? They were nowhere in sight.
    His hands weren’t tied, and there was no rope around his neck. Wood thought the horse had slipped out from beneath him and that he had tumbled to the ground. Maybe he hadn’t fallen to the ground but ridden away on the horse. Yet how could that have happened unless someone had slipped the noose from his neck and untied his hands?
    “Did you get hit by lightning?” the boy asked.
    Wood wondered if that’s what had happened to him. Could it be that a bolt of lightning had saved his life? The last thing he could recall was a bright flash of light.
    “I reckon I might have been,” Wood answered cautiously. “The truth is, I can’t remember.”
    “You are Alfred Dumler, aren’t you?” the gray-haired woman asked.
    Wood wanted to tell them that his name was James Woodson Harris, but thought better of it. He wasn’t sure who these people were, but it would do him no good to reveal his name—especially not if he was still wanted for murder. They obviously knew the Nelsons—she said they had found him in the Nelson forty. What “the forty” was he had no idea, but he wasn’t going to inquire, either. It was because of George Nelson that he had nearly been hanged.
    The thought of how close he had come to death caused him to shudder. No, he couldn’t let anyone know that he was Wood Harris, the man falsely accused of killing this old woman’s neighbors. Before he could answer her question, she shot him another one.
    “Maybe you should tell us why you’re in our cornfield?”
    “I don’t know how I got here, ma’am,” he answered honestly.
    “What do you remember?” she asked.
    “I was looking for Hannah. She’s—” he paused, rawness in his throat again making it difficult to speak.
    The old lady smiled. “I know who Hannah is. It’s okay, Alfred. You don’t need to explain. We’ve been expecting you.”
    “You have?”
    “Sure. Everything’s a little confused, that’s all. You poor man,” the old woman crooned in sympathy. She offered him the plastic water bottle. “Here. Take a sip. It’ll do you good.”
    He took the bottle from her, staring at it for several moments before tipping it upward. It was unlike any container he had seen. When he saw water trickle through the narrow tube protruding from its top, he held it over his open mouth. The liquid did little to ease the burning in his throat.
    “Is that better?” she asked solicitously.
    He nodded, then sank back, feeling as weak as a foal.
    “Maybe we should call for help,” the boy said.
    “No,” Wood croaked, not wanting to run into any men from the vigilante group that had tried to lynch him. “No help.”
    “We need to get you out of this sun,” the old lady stated. “If you think you’re able to walk, we’ll take you back to the house.”
    “Whose house?” Suspicion tightened his whole