The snake shifted.
Abby closed her eyes.
Then a horse screamed above the creek.
A man shouted.
“Don’t move!”
Abby opened her eyes.
A rider appeared against the blazing horizon.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Hat low over his face.
He swung from the saddle before the horse had fully stopped.
The stranger slid down the embankment with one hand already reaching for the revolver at his hip.
A shot exploded.
Dust jumped beside Abby.
The snake twisted violently and disappeared beneath the rocks.
Abby flinched.
The stranger reached her.
“You bitten?”
“No.”
“Let me see your arm.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding through a wedding dress in a dry creek bed.”
Abby stared at him.
“I said I’m fine.”
His gray eyes moved over her face.
Not her body.
Her face.
That somehow made Abby more uncomfortable.
He removed his neckerchief and pressed it against the wound.
“You need stitches.”
“I can stitch myself.”
One corner of his mouth moved.
“Of course you can.”
He rose.
Abby attempted to stand.
Pain shot through her feet.
She collapsed again.
The stranger extended one hand.
Abby ignored it.
“I can walk.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I am not helpless.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
Then, before Abby understood his intention, he bent and lifted her.
She gasped.
“No!”
Her humiliation came rushing back.
“You’ll hurt yourself. Put me down.”
The stranger adjusted his grip.
His expression barely changed.
“I haul salt blocks heavier than you.”
Abby stared at him.
He glanced down.
“Was that the wrong thing to say?”
Despite blood, exhaustion, ruined lace, and the worst day of her life, a laugh escaped her.
It surprised them both.
The man carried her up the slope.
“What’s your name?” Abby asked.
“Caleb Boone.”
She stiffened.
Everyone within fifty miles knew Boone Ranch.
Caleb Boone was said to be a difficult man.
A solitary rancher who had spent years in the mountains before returning to Kansas after his older brother died.
Some called him half wild.
Some called him dangerous.
Abby had seen him once from a distance at the cattle market.
She had never imagined being carried across the prairie in his arms wearing a bloodstained wedding gown.
Caleb glanced at her torn veil-less dress.
“Bad wedding?”
Abby closed her eyes.
“You have no idea.”
Boone Ranch sat beneath a low ridge three miles from the creek.
It was not grand.
But it was solid.
A broad timber house stood near two barns, a smokehouse, corrals, a blacksmith shed, and acres of grazing land stretching toward the horizon.
Caleb carried Abby into the kitchen.
She immediately demanded boiling water, whiskey, clean thread, and a needle.
Caleb supplied everything without argument.
He watched as Abby cleaned the wound herself.
“You’ve done that before.”
“My father raises cattle.”
“Whittaker?”
Abby looked up sharply.
“You know him?”
“Everybody selling cattle between Abilene and Hays knows Gideon Whittaker.”
