The Trail Master's Bride Read Online Free Page A

financially. Now, I regret not borrowing the money and marrying Betsy Snow. That gal was stout as an ox and could have pulled the wagon by herself, I have no doubt.”
    Mina didn’t know what to think. She’d known love wasn’t involved; nonetheless, it stung to have been essentially sold to a husband who didn’t really want her. No wonder he had barely touched her. Except for a requisite buss on the cheek when the preacher told him to, he’d never even kissed her. He acted like he’d been the one forced into this farce of a marriage, and furthermore, he was certainly no prize himself. Only a few years younger than her father, he was too old and foul-tempered. And he certainly wasn’t one to make the ladies swoon with his gallantry and good looks. She hadn’t expected much from a contracted marriage, but was it too much to ask for civility? What hurt her the most about the situation was the fact that she had went from being unloved and unwanted under one man’s roof to the same situation with another. It was heart-rending and dreadfully humiliating.
    Unable to deal with it, she whirled on her heel and started walking. To where, she didn’t know. What she’d do when she got there, well, she didn’t know that either, and at this point she didn’t care. Leaving the circle of light behind her, she stomped on weary legs and aching feet off into the darkness.
    With half an ear, she listened for her husband, hoping to hear him call her name and tell her to stop, to show a semblance of husbandly concern for her well-being, or for God’s sake to come after her as she went tramping off in the dark in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t and she hadn’t really expected him to; that didn’t mean it hurt any less.
     
    * * *
     
    Having heard the argument clearly—hard not to when whispered voices carried well on the prairie after dark, and the Hobarts were far from whispering—Weston had steered clear at first, leaving the couple to work out their differences amongst themselves. He was saddling his horse to patrol beyond the perimeter of the camp, when one of the women waylaid him to tell him that Mina Hobart had gone off on her own in the dark and her husband seemed not to care. He couldn’t let it slide.
    Wasting no time, he finished up with his mount and headed over to the Hobarts’ wagon. Not surprising, Ben Jacobs, who was one wagon ahead of them on the train, had arrived ahead of him. “Go after her, man,” the older man urged.
    Unconcerned, Elliott merely shrugged and muttered, “She’ll come back after she calms down.”
    “It’s dangerous out there for a woman alone,” Jacobs insisted. “There are coyotes, bobcats, and all sorts of critters, not to mention the two-legged kind.”
    When the man just blinked up at him, clearly unmoved, Weston snapped. He grabbed Hobart by his collar and lifted the puny man off his booted feet. “She’s your wife, you jackass. Now, saddle up and go after her, before I make you regret it.”
    Elliott sputtered and coughed ineffectively in his grasp, collapsing in a heap at his feet when he suddenly released him.
    “Deuced useless piss-ant pilgrim,” Weston grumbled as he stared down at the poor excuse for a man with contempt.
    “I’ll go fetch the gal myself, by God,” Mr. Jacobs asserted angrily as he started toward his wagon.
    “No, Ben. My horse is saddled. It’ll be faster if I go,” he said this while mounting up. “If we delay, there’s no telling what fix she’ll be in by the time I find her. You stay here and see if you can reason with this imbecile. Start with explaining the finer points of being a husband and seeing to his responsibilities.”
    “By all means,” the older man replied, also glaring with disgust at the man still coughing and carrying on in the dirt. “Although, I seriously doubt I’ll have any success.”
    Throwing Jacobs a look of complete understanding, he whirled his horse and rode out on the trail of a very foolish young