Wanted Read Online Free Page B

family.
    Nick had always been the conscience of the family. He had participated quite willingly as a boy and young man in their father’s small cons, but lately he had been trying to get the family to settle down. The west was changing, he’d repeatedly said. Law and order were coming. The life they had lived was no longer feasible. People were now questioning the “miraculous medicine,” and the Medicine Show was barely surviving.
    But Jonathon Braden was reluctant to give up his gypsy ways, and his wife was totally devoted to him and supported him in all things.
    Now Nick was paying the price. Nineteen-year-old Andy had fallen in love for the hundredth time, but this time he chose the daughter of the most important man in town where they had stopped for several weeks. The brother went after him with a whip, and Nick was forced to face him. The boy was killed in a fair fight, but Nick had known there would be trouble. Wade had been Lew Wardlaw’s only son. His pride. Everyone in town knew that.
    Nick had convinced Jonathon to head toward Denver, their home base, and Nick had planned to disappear. Then Lori learned that Nick had been charged with murder, and she went after him to warn him. She had stayed with him, much against his wishes. But there had been no use in forcing her to leave him. She would just follow.
    They had made it safely to Wyoming and thought themselves safe there. No one knew about this land, except the Bradens. Nick had staked it out years earlier when the Medicine Show was in Wyoming, and he left the show each winter to work on a ranch house, which he hoped to use as a lure to the rest of the family.
    He had loved the days spent there, the hard physical work of building something. So, to her surprise, had she. After years of living by wits, it had been paradise to accomplish something lasting. She was finally beginning to understand what had attracted Nick to this life.
    But somehow the Ranger had tracked them.
    Lori felt sick as she thought of the trap awaiting Nick.
    She fought even harder against her bonds. And for one of the few times in her life, she prayed.
    Nick Braden looked forward to a good rabbit stew. Lord, but he was hungry, and Lori was a good cook.
    He’d been furious when Lori had followed him to Wyoming, but since they had arrived at the ranch three months ago, she had proved to be invaluable, first in helping him complete the cabin and now with the corral. And she was a cheerful companion, seldom complaining except good-naturedly.
    It had always seemed a miracle to him that ten years after his own birth, his parents had had another child, Lori, and then a third, Andy. He’d wondered aloud once why Lori and Andy were so fair when he was dark. His mother had quickly explained that he must have taken after her father’s side of the family, the dark Irish, while Lori and Andy resembled their father’s Viking ancestors. Because Nick’s question seemed to distress his mother so, Nick never mentioned it again.
    The cabin came into view, smoke curling pleasantly from the chimney. He had already dressed the two rabbits caught in snares he’d set yesterday, and Lori would have baked fresh bread. This afternoon they would finish the small corral and start a makeshift stable. Winter wasn’t far away. There was so much to do to prepare for it, but every time he viewed this land, he felt a new surge of optimism.
    He’d yearned so long for a place to call home. He wanted to make it a home for the whole family. The gunfight a few months ago had made him realize how much. He had almost died then. If he’d been a second slower …
    Regret rushed through him. Wade Wardlaw had been little more than a kid, but he’d given Nick no choice. Wade was going to kill Andy, who was no match for him, so Nick had stepped in, even though he’d never been in a gunfight before. He hadn’t even known whether he could actually shoot another human