Read Online Wild Indigo by Judith Stanton - Free Book Online

impatiently.
    â€œWhat is ‘give up’?”
    â€œYield, man. I yield, Blum, I’ll let you be. Let me up.”
    Shaking his head, Jacob released the man’s hands and raised himself off his body. The circle of townsmen melted, but Jacob watched cautiously. Scaife shrugged inside his sweat-stained buckskins, grabbed his musket from the sergeant, then looked up.
    â€œIf I catch you out spying…” Scaife bared his yellow teeth in a half-hearted attempt to placate the man who had defeated him.
    â€œWe are not enemies,” Jacob said to him quietly. “Go. Brother Meyer will serve your supper.”
    Scaife collected his men, who followed him down the street with their ragged horses. Breathing a sigh that mingled anger and relief, Jacob surveyed the crowd milling in the Square. A disgusted hunter packed up pelts and deerskins to leave. A farmer spread out meats and vegetables hastily stowed from harm. In this lean summer, trading his stores meant he was desperate. Mrs. Finney took her baby out from under her wagon’s seat.
    All was well, Jacob thought. He had forestalled another ugly incident. Relieved, he looked around for Retha.
    She was standing in the circle of Gottlieb Vogler’s arms.
    What else would the woman dare to do? he wondered angrily. His gut filled with an unfamiliar, powerful emotion.
    She was his. His. He clenched his jaw. He could not be jealous. Not of Gottlieb Vogler, of all men. Still, she looked far too secure in Vogler’s arms, too trusting of him.
    She should have come to Jacob. Marching up to them, he could see her pale face damp with tears.
    â€œAre you hurt?” he rasped, not in enough control to ask what he needed most to know.
    Are you safe? Are you mine?
    Breaking away from Gottlieb awkwardly, she lifted her eyes to Jacob’s. Then her gaze traveled nervously down his soiled shirtfront, down his dusty breeches. Impatient, unsettled, he endured her inspection, then gently touched a hand under her chin.
    â€œWho hurt you?”
    She averted her eyes. “No one. ’Twas naught.”

CHAPTER 3
    â€œD o you understand my question?” Retha felt Jacob Blum’s massive presence, his breathing still ragged from his fight. “Are you hurt?”
    Yes. No. She shook her head. She wasn’t hurt. She wanted him to go away. If he hadn’t come after her looking like a thundercloud, she might have stilled her trembling. She might have ignored the bile that had risen in her throat while he grappled with the redheaded captain.
    Whoever that man was. He was vile, she knew it without knowing how she knew. When he had raised his hand, gesturing rudely in the air, then swung his musket at Brother Blum, she had flown into Vogler’s arms, her wits as scrambled as if the captain had swung at her.
    Now Jacob took her elbow protectively, as he had that day with the soldiers, and drew her to the edge of the crowd onto a crackling span of drought-dried grass.
    â€œCan you answer me? Are you hurt?” Jacob repeated huskily. Though he sounded riled, to her his soft German had the silkiness of song.
    â€œNo, not hurt.” She shook her head, eyes closedagainst a confusing sweep of tenderness. The man who wanted to marry her was safe, he was holding her elbow tight. She had decided to accept his proposal the minute she had seen him ride into town, tall and stalwart and in charge. Yet as the argument escalated, fear overwhelmed her until he took his quarry down. It was as if he had been fighting for her, as if she had thrown her heart into the fight with him. She would have died if he’d been hurt.
    â€œLook at me, Sister Retha.” His voice sounded gentle, but she opened her eyes to a darkly troubled gaze. “Something troubles you.”
    â€œI…” What could she say? That the sight of the redheaded man had made her skin crawl? That the prospect of Jacob being hurt had torn at her heart? “Fighting upsets