Outlaw Bride
Sacramento, California November 1850
The jailor eyed Bridget Callahan with sterile blue eyes. "You carrying a weapon?"
"What?" she asked.
"Or anything else that would help him escape?"
"I just want to speak to the man, not hang beside him." The jailor nodded and led her across the deck of the prison brig Stafford, moored on the eastern bank of the American River. Stripped of all rope and sail, the ship wallowed in the mud like a sow, left to rot along with those poor souls locked belowdecks.
Bridget's nose wrinkled at the stench. Stone or wood, the housing didn't matter. Unwashed bodies, urine and filth smelled the same, both sides of the Atlantic.
Keep your family together, and the rest of the world can take care of itself. Her father always said as much.
Bridget set her jaw. Mary and Chloe were all she had left of her family. She would not lose them, as well.< ... read full excerpt from Outlaw Bride ebook
