had carriages, and her parents had thought riding too dangerous a pursuit for young ladies.
And at this speed, Laura could see why.
“Do we have to go so fast?”
This time, the noise Owen made before speaking was one Laura knew all too well. Let him be irritated. Hadn’t he been irritating her?
“As a matter of fact, we do. I’m deliberately taking a convoluted route to our destination so that if anyone has been following us, or tries tracking us, they’ll be lost for sure. However, we have a lot of ground to cover if we are going to make it there by dark.”
It had been the most he had said to her in a while. She should have been grateful for the information, and in the past, it would have been enough. But now that Laura had taken control of her own life, it seemed foolish to blindly trust this man, even though she’d done so before.
“When are you going to tell me where we’re going? You said at the house you couldn’t tell me because you didn’t want anyone who might be eavesdropping to overhear. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Surely you can tell me now.”
Owen made another annoyed noise. This seemed to be how their conversations had gone since he showed up on her doorstep. Him needing to be in control, and her no longer living a life where she was pushed around all the time.
“What happened to the woman who used to trust me?”
“She grew up. Learned to take charge of her own life. And now she resents the fact that you’ve swooped in, taken over and coerced her from her home and are making her go somewhere without revealing the destination.”
Owen let out a long sigh. “I wouldn’t have had to coerce, as you say, if you’d just listened to reason.”
His condescending tone rattled something in her. She didn’t deserve to be spoken to like that. “Funny, James used to say the same thing.”
The reminder killed any remnants of those schoolgirl dreams she might have once had of Owen. He wasn’t the man she thought he was, and now that she knew she didn’t need a man, she wasn’t interested in one like him. How had she been so blind?
He pulled back on the reins and asked the horse to stop. Owen got off the horse, then helped Laura to the ground, giving her a glare.
“Fine. Have it your way.” Owen pointed in the direction from which they’d come. “Town’s that way. I promised I’d protect you and that I would never let James hurt you again. But it seems to me that you are determined to let that man kill you. And now you want to compare me to him? Fine. I can act like James. He’d have no problem letting a woman fend for herself in the middle of nowhere. You want to be free so bad? Have at it.”
He turned on his heel and walked over to his saddlebags, where he untied the canteen, then took a long drink out of it. When he finished, he walked to the front of the horse, poured a bit of water into his hands, and stuck it under the horse’s mouth so he could drink.
Owen appeared to be completely oblivious to Laura. She looked in the direction he’d indicated, remembering how long it had taken them to get this far. On foot, there was no way she’d get back to town by nightfall. Even if James wasn’t potentially out there, the danger she faced as a woman alone made such a choice impossible.
“I just don’t know why you can’t tell me where we’re going.”
“And I don’t know why you have to argue with me about every little thing when I’m trying to save your life.”
His tone hurt. Even more so, the thought that he would abandon her in the middle of nowhere. Was this the man she’d once had a slight tendre for? “Would you really let me leave?”
Owen held the canteen out to her. “If you have to ask that question, then I guess you don’t know me as well as you think you do. I made you a promise, and I intend to keep it.”
She stared at him for a moment before taking the canteen. Owen kicked at the dirt, making another irritated noise. “Sorry, threatening to leave you wasn’t the brightest idea. I let my frustration get the best of me. I just thought that after all the time we spent together, you’d know what kind of man I am. I need you to trust me enough to go when I tell you to go and not spend so much time arguing with me about it.”
Knowing it was a burst of temper didn’t make Laura feel any better, even if he had apologized for it. He was so different from the kind man who’d cared for her in her time of need. How could she have not seen this side of him before?
Letting out a long sigh, Owen took off his hat and mopped his sweaty brow. “No, I wouldn’t leave you here. I’m just extremely frustrated, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“You could try talking to me and explaining what’s going on.”
“I never had to before. We had to get out of there fast.” Owen looked back in the direction of town. “I just hope we got out fast enough.”
More things he hadn’t explained. “We’ve been riding for at least an hour now. Plenty of time to tell me what’s going on.”
“Possibly,” Owen said. “But I’ve been busy thinking about what we’re going to do. Figuring out the best route to get you to our destination so that any trackers who try to come after us won’t be able to find us.”
He went over to his saddlebags and pulled out some cloths. Laura watched as he tied the cloths around the horse’s hooves one by one.
“What are you doing?”
“Now that we’ve gone a ways out of town and taken a break, I’m making sure that from this point on it will be even more difficult to track us. They might be able to track us here, and ascertain that we took a few moments to rest, but they won’t be able to figure out where we’ve gone after this.”
He turned to look at her and grinned. “I was once known as a very good tracker. One of the best. I’m pretty confident we can evade anyone who might be following us.”
“You think James would hire a tracker?” Laura looked in the direction they’d just come from, staring out at the vast expanse of brush rock and a few scraggly trees. Most of the good trees had been cut down for wood—either to be used in the mines or to build houses. Some of it probably had been claimed for firewood. But as Laura looked around the area, it seemed as though she and Owen were the only two people for miles.
“I wouldn’t put it past him. That’s why all the secrecy. As far as anyone knows, I am no longer a lawman. In fact, when Will goes back to the sheriff’s office, he’s going to tell everyone that I wasn’t willing to help him.”
So many questions ran through Laura’s head. She didn’t even know where to begin. “Where will Will tell everyone I’ve gone?”
“He’s going to tell a variety of stories, depending on who asks,” Owen said, brushing off his hands. “He isn’t sure who he can trust right now. James had to have had help from someone with a connection to the law. Though Will hates lying, we decided it would be best to use it as a means of figuring out who we can and can’t trust.”
Laura wasn’t sure what to say. She’d always assumed that because a man was with the law, he was honest. Certainly, all of her dealings
