Mary Connealy Read Online Free Page A

Standing by the railing won’t get you off a second faster.” Without mentioning the man who’d taken off, Braden caught her arm.
    Now past the grumbling men, Braden noticed that worthless Barnabas Stucky standing at Amy’s elbow—another overly interested miner.
    Amy’s eyes widened at his firm grip, but Braden felt an urgent need to get her out of this crush. He nodded at Stucky, then parted the throng of stampeders, dragging Amy away from the edge. Since the men were all trying to get closer to the railing, they let Braden pass with little trouble.
    Braden worked his way around the ship. The side not facing port was nearly deserted, and he leaned against the wall. He’d seen that Amy had her meals here every morning, noon, and night since that first time he’d brought her food. The ship served no breakfast this morning because the crew had been occupied since before dawn with navigating the Skaguay port. But they’d dock early so they’d find a meal on shore.
    Disgusted with Amy’s lack of survival skills, Braden wondered if she’d have even lived through the trip without his help. He leaned against the wooden walls of the wheel house and crossed his arms. “We’ll just wait here until the captain tells us to disembark.”
    “Thank you for helping me through that mob.” Amy spoke quietly as she always did. Her voice carried a note of calm, a husky sweet sound that soothed his battered heart. She leaned beside him, one arm wrapped around her chest, staring straight forward at the mountains across the bay from Skaguay.
    Through the entire voyage she favored her side, although in their long days together on the boat, she’d never mentioned being hurt. Of course, Braden hadn’t talked about himself much, either. They’d discussed the trek to Ian’s house and the rough voyage and the conditions Braden could expect in Alaska, but he’d never so much as said Maggie’s name.
    Maggie would have shared every trouble. Amy’s lack of complaint told Braden she wasn’t hurt, just weak, probably stiff and sore from the rugged voyage. She never should have taken this trip.
    “Welcome.” Braden nodded and stared at the majesty of Alaska looming high over the ship. When the beauty of the mountains had worked its way into his soul, he produced his letter from Ian one more time and discussed the route with Amy until long after the ship had docked and the deck had cleared.
    Amy overflowed with ideas for the journey home, and Braden found it easy to trust her.
    ❧
    “I don’t trust him.” Braden whispered to Amy.
    The gaunt, bearded man to whom Amy had led him limped away.
    “Why’d you pick this man to haul my supplies?” Braden watched the man, looking more animal than human, scratch his neck as he hobbled along. His long, snarled hair, black and streaked with gray, straggled below a fur hat with dangling ear covers.
    “Wily? He has been carting supplies up the river all my life. He will do fine by us.” Amy barely glanced at Braden, then followed after the foul-smelling man.
    Braden suspected the man had been avoiding baths all his life.
    The man snagged his suspenders with his thumbs from where they drooped around his hips and snapped them over his shoulders. Then he stooped over, grabbed a pair of ropes off the ground that were attached to an oddly shaped boat, and began pulling the strange contraption down the bank toward the vast bay that opened on the south side of the settlement of Goose Chase.
    Amy got on the uphill side of the thing. It looked like a flat boat wrapped in animal hide. She dropped to her knees in the sand with a groan Braden heard from ten feet away, and began shoving. Braden looked at his sizable stack of supplies, which he’d transported from the ship to Goose Chase by paying an outrageous sum to rent a rickety hand cart.
    Amy shoved, and Braden decided that even if it meant letting someone steal everything he’d brought for Ian, even his mother’s precious mantel clock, he