Read Online Anna's Heart (Wilderness Brides Book 2) by Peggy L Henderson - Free Book Online

followed old Harley’s movement and her mouth fell open. Standing in the open doorframe, staring at her, was Ethan Wilder.

Chapter Six
    E than sat on his bunk and slipped an arm though the sleeve of his shirt. His stomach growled while his dry tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. At least the nausea was gone, even though pain still jabbed his gut like hot needles. He stood, grimacing when his bandaged hand bumped into the wooden corner of the bed.
    Which hurt worse – his stomach or his injured hand? They seemed to have traded off tormenting him during the night. He scowled. Nothing had plagued him more than the look on Anna’s face last evening when she’d offered him the glass of water and he’d made that snide remark to her about always being so helpful.
    Remorse and even a hint of pity had been clearly written in her eyes, yet she’d bristled when he’d acted like the mule his brothers so often accused him of being. It was just as well. He didn’t need her damn pity. Wasn’t it because of her that he’d been feeling sicker than a dog?
    Ethan fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. Aimee Osborne had wrapped the confining bandage around his hand so effectively, his fingers couldn’t move to slip the button through the hole. After several attempts, he gave up. His left hand was useless at the moment. There hadn’t been a time in his life when he’d felt like such an invalid. The muscles along his jaw tightened instantly before he’d even finished that thought.
    There had been one day in his life when he’d felt even more helpless, and it had nothing to do with a physical injury. He might not have been an invalid as a fifteen-year-old boy, but the day he’d found his parents slaughtered had changed his entire life, and he’d never felt as helpless before or since. A dozen years had passed since that horrible day, and it was still as vivid in his mind now as if it had happened yesterday.
    Ethan glanced at his hand. He’d gladly slice off his entire arm if he could alter the course of events of that day. It had changed him as a person, had made him hard and unfeeling, because he never wanted to experience that kind of pain or guilt again. Voices from his past echoed in his head – the voice of a hot-tempered youth yelling at his father that he hated him for telling him what to do, then the voice of his mother calling to him that he surely didn’t mean his disrespectful words when he’d stormed from camp. He’d ignored her, and the baby sister he’d left sitting in the dirt. She’d cried, repeatedly calling “Ean, no go,” because she’d been too young to say his name correctly.
    Ethan wiped a hand over his damp face. Those had been the last moments he’d spent with his folks alive. When he’d returned to their camp, their wagon had been in flames and the bodies of his parents and baby sister lay on the ground, bathed in their own blood, and lifeless. His three younger brothers hid in the bushes, far enough away not to have been discovered.
    Anger had been Ethan’s first reaction. The guilt followed later. When he’d lain his little sister in her grave, his heart had turned to ice. She’d adored him, and he’d ignored her on her final day. She shouldn’t have died in the wilderness. She shouldn’t have even been in the wilderness. Why had his father brought his family to an unsettled place along the Missouri, away from the safety of a settlement and other people?
    Self-loathing and a steely resolve had steadily grown inside him. He’d felt weak and helpless, and consumed by guilt, making him rigid and unfeeling. Had he not been so impulsive, he could have done something to save his folks. He should have been there, rather than running through the woods, trying to prove he was no longer a young boy who had to listen to his folks.
    Ethan shook his head. Frustration made the muscles along his neck and shoulders taut. He would never be like his father and risk the lives of a wife and family in