Read Online Dawson Bride (Wolf Brides Book 3) by T. S. Joyce - Free Book Online

hadn’t missed a meal in his life. I’d seen how people looked at him. Some crossed the thin streets to escape his path, while others openly stared. Whatever the reaction, the man undeniably drew people’s attention.
    “Why are you doing this?” I asked.
    His brows drew down in confusion. “Because you’re my woman.”
    “Yes but what benefit does that give you? You’ll never marry me. You don’t have an intimate relationship with me. Why risk your life on a woman you barely know?”
    He was quiet for a long time. So long that I thought he wouldn’t answer. I leaned back on my locked arms and lost myself in the deep blue of the sea.
    “If something happened to you, it would hurt.” He placed his hand over his chest and inhaled deeply. Honesty crept into every syllable. “I don’t care about that other stuff right now as long as you exist.” He leaned forward on hands that gripped the edge of the wall and looked away.
    My insides churned. I knew what he meant. If something happened to him, I’d break too. I didn’t know him very well but that didn’t matter. Even in his confusing way of explaining feelings, I understood. I saw him.
    “Swear to me you’ll be careful,” I said. If he was getting to America by means that weren’t safe for me, I wasn’t at all confident he wouldn’t get hurt in his travels, or worse.
    “You worried about me?”
    I stood and brushed sand and dust from my skirts. “No, but it would be terribly awkward if I showed up to your parents’ house without you.”
    He offered his arm and we strolled slowly toward the make-shift shopping district near port. Offered at the market were any and all supplies one could need for any length of journey. Gable assured me food would be taken care of, but he bought enough breads, cakes, and smoked meats to last until they started to rot. Enough food to binge for a week and a half. He pressed the food gently into a large canvas sack and hefted it over his shoulder. Next he paid for a small looking glass I’d taken a fancy to, a sewing kit, a bar of rose soap, and a large knife tucked into an animal hide sheath. The last one bothered me, but I suppose it was a wise idea for me to carry some sort of defensive weapon on a ship full of sailors. The handle lay limply in my hand and he pulled me to the side of the street and gave me a quick lesson on the finer points of stabbing someone. I imagined Ralston at the end of my blade.
    Gable pressed a small coin purse of money into the palm of my hand. “Use this to get you to the address I gave you when you get to Boston Harbor. Don’t wait for me at port. I’ll meet you at the house.”
    I pushed the small cache into my hidden pocket with shaking fingers. The rest of my trinkets along with the knife fit into one of my big pockets. Admittedly, the comforting weight of the blade did make me feel safer.
    Two small boys begged coins from Gable and he leaned down and pulled a shilling from behind one’s ear like magic. He grinned at me when they asked him to do it again and handed the coin back. I laughed and continued looking at the tables of offered goods.
    “Lucianna?” a woman asked.
    Automatically from a habit of answering to my name since birth, I looked up to find Mrs. Tabernathy, lifelong friend to Mother, waving frantically to me. Gable was nowhere to be found and my heart pounded as I searched for an escape. I backed up and into the considerable weight of Mr. Tabernathy.
    “It is you,” he said. “Sarah swore up and down it was you but I told her she was seeing ghosts again.” He grabbed my escaping shoulder. “My dear, everyone thinks you’re dead.”
    “I’m sorry, sir, but you have me mistaken for someone else.” Where was Gable? The masses roiled around us and faces blurred together in my panic. Mrs. Tabernathy caught up and hugged me until I thought my bindings would burst.
    “We have to tell everyone back in London you’re still alive. Ho!” she hailed to a passing man in a