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"Let me come, too," Mariah demanded quietly. "Maybe I can help." |
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"You can help more if I know you are out of my way." He glanced again toward the soldiers. The two tattered young men listened to all that was being said, yet neither volunteered to assist him. Were they not shamed by the offer of a mere woman? |
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Not that Mariah Walker was a mere anything. She was unlike any other woman he had ever met. |
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The one named Will, whom Mariah said would be his doom, had a speculative gleam in his eye as he looked sidelong at Thorn. Maybe he was hoping that, if something were indeed wrong, someone else would end his troubles by slaying Thorn. |
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Not, however, if Thorn could help it. |
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Making certain the others were sheltered in the shadows of the forest and that his rifle was at the ready, Thorn dashed quietly into the clearing and toward the inn's gate, stopping with his back pressed against the palisade. |
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He listened carefully. From behind him came the usual sounds of the woods: leaves rustling in the slight breeze, the melodic chirping of robins interrupted by the strident caws of a crow, the chattering of a squirrel, perhaps his friend who visited him in his cabin. |
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From ahead, there were no noises at all. |
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That in itself was a warning. |
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Holding his rifle in his right hand, he used the left to push the gate open further. |
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He crept toward the edge of the gate and peered around it. The compound appeared normal. |
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Thorn entered and stopped, glancing this way and that, feeling strangely vulnerable yet foolish at his apparently unwarranted concern. |
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Still, he did not call out for René, as he would had he truly believed all was well. Instead, he ran toward the inn, passing his cabin and the smokehouse. |
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He was nearly at the kitchen door when he glanced back. Mariah followed, running, as he had. |
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