They Sold the Rejected Bride With a Sack Over Her Head, but the Mountain Man Gasped Before the Horse She Saved Exposed Why She Had Been Hidden

PART 1 — The Woman Beneath the Sack
Three beaver pelts hit the muddy ground, and the entire town of Bitter Creek fell silent.

“She’s mine,” the mountain man said.

Hannah Whitmore stood on a wooden stump, her wrists bound and a filthy burlap sack covering her face. The men had spent the morning laughing at the rejected bride nobody wanted.

“Don’t take that sack off!” Hyram Pike shouted. “You’ll regret what you paid!”

Cole Mercer ignored him.

He stepped forward, cut the ropes around Hannah’s wrists, and caught her when her weakened knees gave way.

“Can you walk?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Then you’re coming with me.”

He lifted her onto his mule and wrapped his bearskin coat around her trembling shoulders.

Hannah had expected cruelty. Instead, the stranger gave her warmth.

They traveled into the Montana mountains beneath a darkening sky. For nearly an hour, Hannah said nothing.

Finally, Cole stopped beside a frozen creek.

“Why won’t you let me remove that sack?” he asked.

Her entire body stiffened.

“Because the last man who saw my face tried to bury me alive.”

Cole stared at her.

Before he could respond, a distant horse screamed somewhere among the trees.

Hannah jerked upright.

“That horse,” she whispered. “Please tell me what color it is.”

Cole looked toward the sound.

A magnificent black stallion stood between the pines, trembling violently. A deep white scar crossed its shoulder.

“Black,” Cole answered. “White mark on the left shoulder.”

Hannah began shaking.

“His name is Midnight.”

Cole frowned.

“How could you possibly know that?”

She swallowed.

“Because I saved him from a burning stable three weeks ago.”

The stallion suddenly charged toward them.

Cole reached for his rifle, but Hannah cried out.

“Don’t! He won’t hurt us!”

The horse stopped beside her and pressed its enormous head against her knee.

Then something extraordinary happened.

Midnight caught the edge of the burlap sack between his teeth and pulled.

The filthy covering slipped from Hannah’s face.

Cole stumbled backward.

Across her cheek lay a healing burn, but that wasn’t what made him gasp.

Hanging around her neck was a small silver locket.

Cole recognized it immediately.

He had buried its owner eleven years earlier.

Or so he had believed.

And now the woman wearing it was staring at him with terrifi