Ruthless Heart. Emma Lang

and fell asleep, vulnerable and unprotected. Good thing he didn’t have any bad thoughts on his mind or she wouldn’t have been sleeping. She even snored a little, something he found highly amusing as he’d rifled through her things.

      Her smaller bag had contained a hodgepodge of clothes, each uglier and frumpier than the last, a hairbrush, half a dozen biscuits in a tattered napkin, and some hairpins. A measly collection of a woman’s life, and quite pitiful if that was all she had. Perhaps she’d been at least partially truthful about taking everything she owned and hitting the trail. Her husband must have been a poor excuse for a provider if this collection of rags was all she had.

      The bag of books was just that, a bag stuffed full of scientific texts ranging from medical topics to some titles he couldn’t even pronounce. In the bottom of the bag was a battered copy of Wuthering Heights. He didn’t know what it was, but it was much smaller than the other books, likely a novel. She obviously put the spectacles to good use judging by the two dozen tomes she had in her bag. He wondered how she’d gotten it up on the saddle in the first place.

      “Fool.” He had to stop thinking about Eliza and what she was doing and why. Grady would never see her again.

      As a child, Grady learned very early not to care or ask questions. It only bought him a cuff on the ear or a boot in the ass. A boy could only take so much of that before he kept his mouth shut and simply snuck around to find out what he needed to know.

      As a young man, it served him well and garnered the attention of the man who taught him how to hunt and kill people in the quickest, most efficient way. Grady had learned his lesson well, even better than his mentor expected. When the job was put before him to hunt and kill the very man who had taught him those skills, Grady hesitated only a minute before he said yes.

      The devil rode on his back, a constant companion he’d come to accept. He didn’t need a woman riding there, too.

      Eliza spent half an hour trying to get her bags onto the saddle and by then she was sweating and angry—at herself and at Grady Wolfe. He’d scared her, yelled then left her behind.

      She’d been sleeping as if nothing could hurt her, somehow safe in Grady’s company, although she’d been sure she was anything but safe. He’d left her and she had to follow.

      Eliza spent the time to perform morning ablutions in the creek, so at least the sweat was off her body before she perspired again on the back of the horse. It didn’t matter, though, she needed to get clean if only to feel normal.

      After filling her canteen, she was returning from the creek when she saw the snake. Eliza’s breath caught in her throat, and she froze, eye to eye with the serpent. It was light brown with a darker pattern on its back, and its head was diamond shaped. She was never more grateful to have read about snakes in Utah and knew the shape of its head meant the snake was poisonous.

      Of course, that meant it could kill her with one strike of its fangs. Fresh sweat rolled down her face as she stood as still as a tree a mere twenty feet from her horse. The snake slithered toward her, its tongue slipping in and out of its mouth. As it slid between her feet, Eliza closed her eyes and pictured Angeline. Her sister was all that mattered, and she had to be strong to help her. If Grady found her before Eliza caught up with him, there was no hope for either one of them.

      A soft breeze caressed her face, almost as if someone had cupped her cheek as if she were a child. Her eyes popped open expecting someone to be standing in front of her, but there was no one there. She glanced down and realized the snake was gone.

      Her breath came out in a gust, and she shook like the leaves on the small tree in front of her. She took a moment to make sure the snake wouldn’t return and her legs would actually work when she walked. The last thing she needed was to fall and injure herself because of her own frailty.

      Eliza made it to the horse and leaned into his neck. “I don’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m glad you’re here, Melba.”

      With equine understanding, he allowed her to hang on to him for a few minutes before he shook his mane. She took the hint and patted him. “Thank you, boy.”

      Eliza hadn’t spent much time outdoors, but she had read many books, which she was happy to say prepared her to make a campfire. Perhaps it would help her to track Grady, too. There had been information about tracking animals, which should also work for a human animal, too.

      She looked around until she found the tracks from the horse Grady rode in and around camp. The back right shoe had a nick in it, so she could easily see the direction he’d rode, and keep her on the right trail.

      Grady had no idea how powerful books could be, but Eliza did. She had brought ones to help her, both with her adventure and with her courage. Ephraim’s books were so important to her, she couldn’t imagine being able to do this alone without his guidance in her memory.

      Eliza took hold of Melba’s reins and led him over to a rock so she could mount without making a complete ass of herself. As she slid up into the saddle, her behind and thighs groaned in protest. After the long ride the night before, there wasn’t a place on her that didn’t hurt. However, none of it mattered. She had to find Grady.

      Eliza didn’t care how she did it, but she was going to catch up to him and teach him a thing or two about bespectacled women. She gritted her teeth and started off west following the horseshoe prints.

      The sun was high in the sky before Eliza stopped to eat. Food didn’t seem important, but her stomach was yowling like a beast and had actually become quite painful. She knew it was partly due to anxiety, but if she got herself sick because she didn’t eat, she wouldn’t be good for anything or anyone.

      Every half hour, she checked to be sure she could still see the horseshoe track with the nick. He was consistent in his riding skills judging by the horse’s stride. Grady was obviously a man used to being on the back of a horse.

      Eliza’s backend had long since gone numb, along with everything below the waist. She had no idea just how physical riding a horse actually was—no book talked about just how hard the saddle was, either. Of course, the saddle she rode was meant for a man, and likely thirty years old if it was a day.

      It was a sad realization, really, of just how much she didn’t know. Books taught her so much, as did Ephraim, but the real world was full of lessons she still had yet to learn. Some of those lessons were hard, and she had a feeling they were only going to get harder.

      The biscuits she’d put in her bag were barely enough to keep her going. In addition to being sore and tired, Eliza was hungry enough to eat one of her books. At least she had freshwater; that was a blessing even if the biscuits barely fulfilled a smidgen of her appetite.

      Eliza had read a book about hunting and using snares, yet she shuddered to think about actually skinning and preparing a rabbit for cooking. That particular volume had not been put in her bag for that reason. Now she regretted it considering how hungry she was. No wonder people hunted for food, regardless of the blood and violence of it.

      Eliza knew they lived in an insular society with the LDS church and the ward that surrounded them. Ephraim had been her neighbor and friend, a non-LDS resident who lived in a small cabin on the outskirts of town. She’d met him quite by accident when she’d been out looking for raspberries one spring seven years earlier. Angeline had stayed at the house because she’d been feeling poorly.

      Of course if Silas had known Eliza had gone out on her own, he would have tanned her hide. Ephraim, however, had saved her life that day. She’d been picking berries she thought were the raspberries common to the woods behind their house. Yet they’d been poisonous and Ephraim had stopped her before she finished chewing the first bite.

      With a patience Eliza had never known in an adult male, Ephraim, white-haired even then, taught her the difference between the berries. Then he taught her about what she could eat in the forest, what was dangerous, and what she could use every day for things like cleaning and curing headaches.

      He was an amazing font of information, one she visited as often as possible. His books became