Read Online Magnificent Passage by Kat Martin - Free Book Online

when she was alone, miles from home, with two men she didn’t know.
    â€œIt’s only a coyote,” James said, rubbing his eyes sleepily. “Go back to sleep.”
    â€œNot so brave now, eh, city girl?” Langley grumbled, heading back to his place by the fire.
    â€œI was just surprised, that’s all.” Mandy wished she hadn’t let them know she was afraid. She’d be lucky to get any sleep at all. She was far more worried about the two-legged coyotes near the fire than the four-legged ones on the hill.
    As she returned to her bedroll, she reflected on the coming ordeal. She hoped being raised in a military family would give her some advantage. She recalled her early years when she rode constantly, climbed trees, hiked, and fished with the boys. She used to be able to sit a horse better than most men. She could also shoot a rifle and a sidearm and do a little tracking. She’d ridden some with her father these past few years, but not as much as she would have liked.
    Her thoughts turned to the man who’d raised her, to the
last five miserable years she’d spent with him. He’d become completely unreachable. She guessed something inside him must have snapped after her mother died. It was one of the reasons she understood her younger cousin so well—they both had experienced great loss at an early age, and both were raised by men unable to show their love.
    She was thankful it had toughened her in some ways. But she wished she could be a little tougher when it came to men. She had so little experience, and her father had painted such a dismal picture of what men were like, that her heart beat wildly every time she thought of spending more than three weeks alone on the trail with these two. It had all seemed so easy, almost unreal, when she and Julia had been making plans. Now that she was here—alone with them—it was a whole different story. What could Uncle William have been thinking—sending men after Julia with no chaperone?

    Hawk returned to sleep somewhat fitfully. He always kept an ear cocked for intruders; it was something he’d taught himself years ago. Now, as he slept, he tossed and turned and, against his will, the dream came.
    He was a small boy again huddled on a pallet of threadbare woolens in the back of a canvas-covered wagon. His body looked shrunken and frail; his sandy hair lay dull and matted across his forehead. Beads of perspiration ran down the hollows of his cheeks.
    â€œPapa . . . Papa? . . . Where . . . are you, Papa?” He tossed and turned, moaning as he slept. He felt a hand on his forehead and bolted upright.

    â€œIt’s all right, boy.” His uncle Martin leaned over him. “Gonna take us both a while to git used to your pa and ma bein’ gone.”
    Travis straightened, fighting the sting behind his eyes. His father would have wanted him to be strong. “It ain’t fair, Uncle Marty. Why’d it have to happen to them?” His cheeks burned with heat. He always got angry when he thought of the accident, though he knew it was nobody’s fault.
    â€œDon’t seem like life ever is fair, boy. Your Aunt Beulah and me worked hard all our lives. We ain’t never cheated no one. Always tried to do what’s right, but our boy was taken from us just like your ma and pa. Who can understand the ways of the Almighty?” Uncle Marty scratched his beard-stubbled chin. “Maybe the three of us gittin’ together makes up fer some of it.” His uncle smiled.
    The dream flashed backward to another place, another time. At first hazy, then sharply focused.
    He was talking with his father—a “man-to-man talk.” They were riding in the shiny open carriage, moving along the shaded streets of St. Louis. They stopped in front of the family’s two-story colonial home and his father laid a hand on Travis’s shoulder.
    â€œI’m going to be doing some traveling for a