Would-Be Wilderness Wife. Regina Scott

of guilt that he wasn’t as eager. In truth, he dreaded what he’d find at Wallin Landing, about a two-hour ride from Seattle.

      He’d watched, helpless, the past two weeks as his mother had sunk beneath a virulent fever. At first he’d kept his brothers and sister away to prevent the disease from spreading and neglected his work to tend her. The past few days, Levi and Beth had served beside him. Only the combined insistence of his family that they needed help had driven him from Ma’s side today.

      He hated having to relay the news that Doc Maynard wasn’t coming. But he hated more the thought that his mother might not be alive to find out.

      So Drew let Levi drive the team more than four miles, until the road petered out to a narrow track near the south of the lake, before he insisted on stopping and giving them a rest. Only when the horses had quieted did he hear the muffled cries from the back of the wagon.

      “Now, don’t get angry, Drew,” Levi said, edging away from him on the bench as Drew frowned toward the sound. “You know we have to have help.”

      Drew felt as if one of the firs he felled had toppled into his stomach. He stared at his brother. “What have you done?”

      “Ma needs a nurse, and you need a bride,” Levi insisted. “So I got you one.”

      Drew jerked around and yanked the canvas tarp off what he’d thought were only supplies in the bed of the wagon.

      Rag stuffed in her mouth, hands trussed before her, Catherine Stanway lay on her back, her bun askew and hair framing her face. She had every right to be terrified, to cry, to swoon.

      But the blue eyes glaring back at him were hot as lightning, and her look was nothing short of furious.

      He’d have to do a lot of talking if he hoped to calm her down and keep Levi from ending up in jail for his behavior. But he feared no amount of talking was going to keep his brothers from interfering in his life, especially when Levi had just gone and kidnapped Drew a bride.

       Chapter Two

      “What do you think you’re doing?” Catherine demanded the moment Drew Wallin set her on her feet and pulled the rag away. Her mouth felt as dry as dust, every inch of her body bruised by bouncing around on the wagon bed. “I am a citizen of the United States. I have rights! Untie me and return me to Seattle immediately, or I shall report you to the sheriff!”

      “Bit on the spiteful side, ain’t she?” the young man who had grabbed her said, sitting on the wagon’s tongue, safely out of reach of both her and Mr. Wallin.

      “Release her, Levi,” Mr. Wallin said to him, jaw tight. “And apologize. Now.”

      The youth jumped down and hurried to Catherine’s side. He didn’t look the least bit contrite about snatching her out of the hospital, treating her as if she were no more than a bag of threshed wheat. She held out her hands toward him, and his fingers worked the knot he’d made in the rope that bound her wrists.

      He’d looked so innocent when he’d appeared in the dispensary—a mop of curly blond hair, eyes turned down like a sad puppy’s, cotton shirt and trousers worn but clean. He’d bounded up to her and seized her hands.

      “Please,” he’d said, lips trembling. “My ma’s real sick. You have to come and help her.”

      She’d thought he’d had an ill woman in a wagon outside. He wouldn’t have been the first to pull up to the hospital begging for help. It seemed Doctor Maynard tended to at least one logger a day with a broken arm or leg or a crushed skull. As soon as Mr. Wallin had left, her employer had gone into surgery with his wife, Susanna, assisting him. Catherine had known she couldn’t call him away from that until she knew the severity of this young man’s mother’s illness.

      “Show me,” she’d said to the youth, taking only a moment to dry her hands before following him out the back of the hospital.

      But instead of an older woman huddled on a bench, she’d found a long-bed wagon partially filled with supplies and tools and no other person in sight.

      “Where’s your mother?” she’d asked.

      “About eight miles north,” he’d said, wrapping one arm around her and pinioning her arms against her. “But don’t you worry none. I’ll get you there safe and sound.”

      She’d opened her mouth to call for help, and he’d shoved in that hideous rag. Though she’d twisted and lashed out with her arms and feet, his whip-cord-thin body was surprisingly strong. He’d tied her up, tossed her in the wagon and covered her with a tarp.

      She supposed she should have been afraid, being abducted from her place of work with neither her employer nor any of her new friends to know what had become of her. In truth, she’d been furious that anyone would treat her like this. What, did he think her friendless, an easy victim? When Doctor Maynard realized she was gone, he would likely ask after her at the boardinghouse where she and some of the women who had come West with her were living.

      That would concern her friend Madeleine. The feisty redhead would have no trouble enlisting the aid of the sheriff and his young deputy to find Catherine. A posse could be on its way even now.

      If the men had any idea which way to go.

      That thought gave her pause. As her young kidnapper worked on the rope and Mr. Wallin stood sentinel, arms crossed over his broad chest, she glanced around. The wagon was pulled over among the brush at the edge of the road, two horses waiting. A muddy track stretched in either direction, firs crowding close on both sides. In places she could still see the low stumps of trees that had been cut to carve out the road. She could make out blue sky above, but the forest blocked the view of any landmark that might tell her where she was.

      Levi stepped back with a frustrated puff. “She went and pulled the rope too tight. We’ve going to have to cut it.” His voice was nearly a whine at the loss of the cord.

      “If you value your material so highly,” Catherine said, “next time think before using it to kidnap someone.”

      “No one is kidnapping anyone,” Mr. Wallin said, his firm voice brooking no argument.

      She argued anyway. “I believe that is the correct term when one has been abducted and held against her will, sir.”

      He grimaced. “It may be the right term, but I refuse to allow it to be the right circumstance. We’ll return you home as soon as possible.”

      He pulled out a long knife from the sheath at his waist, the blade honed to a point that gleamed in the sunlight. Though he towered over her as he reached for her, she felt no fear as he sawed through the rope and freed her.

      “I haven’t heard that apology, Levi,” he reminded the boy with a look that would have blistered paint.

      Levi shrugged. “Sorry to inconvenience you, but my mother is sick. Now, will you just get back in the wagon so we can go home?”

      Catherine took a step away from them both. “I am going no farther. Return me to Seattle.”

      “Can’t,” Levi said, hopping back up onto the wagon’s tongue. “Too far.”

      “He’s right,” Drew Wallin said before Catherine could argue with his brother, as well. He nodded to what must be the west, for she could see the light slanting low through the trees from that direction. “The horses are spent. We’ll never make it back to Seattle before dark, and it isn’t safe for the horses or us to be out here at night.”

      She could believe that. Since coming to the town, she’d rarely ventured beyond it. Those forests were dark, the underbrush dense in places. Allegra’s husband, Clay Howard, who had accompanied them on their journey from New York, had explained all about the dangers of getting lost—bears, wolves and cougars; unfriendly natives; crumbling cliffs and rushing rivers. She certainly didn’t want to blunder about in the dark.

      She