by Jillian Hart
Betsy Hunter stood in the shadows, radiant as a midnight star in a moonless sky, but he was not fooled. Not by a woman’s beauty. Not by her seeming goodness. Not by her kindness. She wanted something. What? How was she going to use this to her advantage?
Duncan saw the barred door close on his future once more. Her rescuer with his search party stormed through the dark main room. Beefy hands closed around his throat and Duncan knew the sting of a woman’s betrayal twice in his life.
At the edges of his vision he saw her. Perky Betsy Hunter, ready to condemn him. No one was going to believe him, a man convicted of rape. Defeat curled around his soul and from a distance he heard the men shouting, the flare of lantern light on a rifle barrel as it aimed directly between his eyes. He felt stitches at his neck tear, felt the hot rush of blood.
“No!” Suddenly she was there, her calm touch against his face, she was splaying the flat of her free hand against his wound. “What is wrong with you, Joshua? Put him down before you kill him.”
“That’s the idea.”
“Stop it. Didn’t you see the bears dead in the road?” Men. She would never understand them. She’d grown up in a houseful of brothers, she’d been married, and all the time in the presence of the species she could never figure out why they were so downright bullheaded and pushy and all male temper. “What’s wrong with you? I said, put him down.”
Her oldest brother kept right on choking the dying man. Duncan might be the bigger of the two, but he’d lost more blood than Charlie had, at least it seemed that way, and she couldn’t bear it, she simply couldn’t. “James! You get over here and help me. His stitches are torn. Isn’t that just like a man to rip out half an evening’s work.”
Joshua gaped down at her, some of the wild male protective rage leaving him. A small glint of intelligence came back into his eyes. “But he hurt you. Don’t try and defend him.”
“He saved me. Think, would you? Look at the wounds. Doesn’t that look strangely as if a bear clawed him?”
Betsy gave her brother a kick in the shins, and grabbed her other brother by the wrist. “That’s no way to treat the man who nearly died for me. Ease him down gently… That’s right.”
Her heart was breaking, that was it. It was a lost battle from the start, she knew that, but now all her work was nearly undone and fresh blood wet his chest.
The image of him standing tall against the great black bear—no man fought one of those creatures and lived to tell about it—he’d known he was forfeiting his life from the start. From the moment he must have heard her gunshot. And yet he’d come anyway, to save her.
His hand flailed, that’s how weak he was. His big fingers were cold as they closed over hers. “T-thank you.” He coughed, blood staining his bottom lip. “For the truth.”
Whatever could he mean? She watched his eyelids flicker. As silence filled the room, it seemed as if his life force was disappearing.
“You’re my very own hero,” she whispered in his ear. “You can’t leave me now, when I’ve only found you.”
But his breath rattled and his fingers went slack.
In the silence, Betsy waited for his chest to rise with his next breath. It didn’t, but she kept waiting.
“Come away from him now.” Joshua’s hand settled on her shoulder, a comforting weight in the darkness broken only by the lantern hung on a nail over Duncan’s bed. “You’ve done all you can.”
“It isn’t enough.” It could never be enough. She was banged up and bruised and bandaged, and without her favorite dress, but it was nothing—nothing—at all. The bear attack had been terrifying—beyond terrifying.
Now, safe in the cabin with her brothers at her side, the shock had worn off and horror clawed at her soul. The images of the huge man battling an enemy at least twice his strength tormented her. Images of how the predators gathered, drawn by the scent of spilled blood. Duncan, his life force rushing out of him and pooling on the dusty wheel tracks. Duncan, so still that death hovered in the room above him like an invisible smoke cloud, draining the brightness from the lantern and making the night seem more hopeless.
She could have died, and in terrible pain. She’d seen the damage on Duncan’s neck and chest and shoulders. He’d saved her from that fate and chose it for himself. She’d never met a braver man. What did a person do for someone who had not only saved her life, but also sacrificed his?
Thanks was not nearly enough. She’d made a promise that she wouldn’t leave him—the very least she could do was to keep her vow. No man should die alone, without someone to care.
“The doctor will stay with him.” Joshua, her sensible big brother, presented her with his coat. “We need to get you home. You can’t stay the night here, Bets. You have to think of your reputation.”
“I’m thinking of my honor.”
“Folks won’t understand. You know how some people can get. Quick to judge and quicker to condemn. I don’t want you to be hurt, Bets.”
“You are the best brother a girl could have.” She didn’t take his coat. She squeezed his hand that remained on her shoulder, a comforting presence.
For as long as she could remember, Joshua had watched over her and protected her, and she loved him for it, but sometimes the right choice wasn’t the easiest one. Some folks might hear about her staying the night with a mountain man. Then they would know what Duncan Hennessey did to defend her. They would have to see how noble he was.
It was that simple. How could this be mistaken for anything else?
“Go home, if you have a mind to.” She gently waved away the offer of his coat. “And thank you, for fetching the doctor.”
“I can’t leave you here.”
“You have responsibilities to tend to. Go home, get some sleep and see to them. I’ll be fine.”
“Mother would box my ears if I did.”
“Mother isn’t tall enough to reach your ears.” It was an old familiar joke, grown fond through the years, of how their tiny Irish mother had birthed such a collection of fine, strapping and tall sons. All of her children had looked down on her since they were eleven years old, including Betsy. “This is something I must do.”
“And how am I supposed to leave you?” Joshua straightened, losing the argument. For all his deep booming voice and big hulking presence, he was really not so fierce at heart. “I can see you owe this man the courtesy, but surely he has family.”
“I don’t see any evidence of it, do you?” She gestured at the bare walls and empty tables. Not a single tintype or photograph anywhere. No hints of birthday or Christmas gifts from a mother or sister. “Do you know what would help? Send Liam tomorrow with a change of clothes. I can’t ride back to town wearing naught but my drawers and Mr. Hennessey’s flannel jacket.”
“You’d cause a scandal, that’s for sure.” As if relenting, Joshua ruffled the top of her hair, as he always used to do when she was little. “I’ll be back. Let me know if you need anything. You know I’ll be ready to help with any…arrangements.” His gaze traveled to the bed.
He meant for the man’s burial. Betsy took a shaky breath. Joshua was only being practical, it was his way. But she couldn’t give up hope. Not as long as Mr. Hennessey drew one breath and another. It seemed an eternity between them, but her tough savior was still alive and so there was hope.
“You’d best go on with your brother, ma’am,” Doc Haskins told her as he packed his stethoscope into his medical bag. “I’ll stay on here until the end. It won’t be much longer now.”
“No, I will stay with him.” Sadness choked her. She said nothing more. There was nothing left to do but to hope her presence gave him some comfort. He’d never seemed to like her much. Well—to the point—he’d been extremely clear how much he didn’t want to be anywhere near her. But deep down, she didn’t believe him. Why would a man who hated her trade his life for hers?
Already grieving him, knowing that even her most fervent, optimistic thought could not spare him from the inevitable. She
could feel it, too, how still his big body was, taking up so much room on the bed. And now, the space between breaths seemed a longer eternity. The doctor was packing up the rest of his things. It would not be long now.
She lifted his hand, lying so still at his side, onto her thigh and covered it with her fingers. Felt how cool he’d become. She moved away to find another blanket. She found a lined buffalo robe and added that to the top of his bed, smoothing it with care. When she returned to her chair to sit and took his hand in hers again, she was surprised when his fingers gripped hers. Strong. With need.
Something broke apart deep in her chest, like a shattering pain she’d felt once when she’d broken her wrist when she was eight. It was like that now, sharp and jagged pain centered so deep within her, it hurt to breathe.
There, where it had been as if dark, a small warmth glowed.
Chapter Four
It was shadow land. Duncan did not know if he dreamed or if he lived, but he could hear a soft sound. Low and bright, like the solemn call of a sweet bell, but it was a woman’s voice. His mother’s? He knew that wasn’t right even as he thought it.
No, his mother’s singing was deeper, with a lower note, the rhythmic roll of her native tongue like thunder and wind, rain and rivers running. Those were the sounds of his childhood and those memories returned with a stinging clarity. Rich green grass and hot sunshine and dry and dusty earth between his bare toes, and his mother singing while she worked.
It was the melody he’d woken to in the dark hole of prison, where for an instant he was caught in dream and happiness. Then the dream would break into wisps like smoke, blowing away to the real nightmare of the dank cave of his cell where mice skittered and bugs crawled.
He did not awake there. He could not seem to wake at all. The shadows held him, and there was no pain. But that voice—it was captivating. It held him as if the cuff and chain were once again tight on his ankle. There were no words, this was not singing, but a humming cheerfulness, and it glittered inside him like sunshine through rain. A melody that rose and fell and lured him back to the darkness of his life.
He did not want to go back. Here, in the shadows, there was no grief. Loneliness didn’t stick in his soul like a sharp rock, jabbing deeper and deeper with every step. Here, the bitterness seemed far away and he knew, if he simply let go, he would travel to what his grandfather had called happy hunting grounds, his father heaven, and his mother simply home.
His mother. Would he see her there? Was she waiting beyond the threshold? The thought of seeing her again made joy crackle inside him. Roaring and growing like a fire in dry grass.
But the humming melody called to him, too. Made him yearn with the heart of a man. He knew it was her, the woman and her corkscrew curls and her generous smile and kindness. He would not like her. He would not want her. He no longer believed in the good of any woman, and yet he followed the sound of her voice, innocent and sensual at once.
Pain slammed into him like an avalanche of snow…and he was falling. Then there was her. Standing over him like an angel in morning light, and her clear alto. It was a tune he didn’t know, and the brisk dawn’s sunshine was suddenly too bright. His eyes stung and he couldn’t seem to focus. Maybe it was the pain leaving him breathless, as if he’d been crushed at the bottom of that avalanche.
But it was strangely all right. For she was here, her hand in his, holding on to him, pulling him back, even as oblivion claimed him, it was only sleep.
Betsy knelt at the edge of the hand-dug well. The board frame bit into her knees as she unhooked the bucket. Cool, clear water sloshed over the side of the pail and onto her clothes.
Every inch of her seemed to ache, or maybe that was just sorrow brimming over the rim of her heart. Through the golden streaks of the sun rising at the edge of the forest, she watched the doc’s buggy bounce down the road. The stand of evergreens closed around him and she was alone.
The doctor’s prognosis echoed in her thoughts. I’ve seen this type of lingering before. He’ll not awaken. No man loses that much blood and lives. Remember Charlie.
Remember Charlie? She’d never forget. She hurt as if the doctor had reached out and slapped her, and she thought of the injured man still breathing, still living, and refused to give up hope. For without it, what good would life be? Without it, how could any good at all come out of this? He’d tried to awaken earlier, she was certain of it.
Perhaps it was the doctor’s job to be so practical, but he’d been drowsing when Hennessey had stirred. It had been slight, but there.
Cool water sloshed over the rim and onto her again as she unhooked the bucket from the rope. Exhaustion made her muscles feel heavy as she stood. Overhead an army of birds twittered and chirped and flitted from tree to tree, and the noise they made was as loud as the train rumbling through town. A body certainly wouldn’t need a clock living out here.
On her way back to the cabin she felt…well, watched. The nape of her neck prickled, but there were no obvious signs of danger. Goodness, how could there be with the breeze pleasant through the drying grasses and the tall trees waltzing with their branches outstretched and the sunshine warm and friendly? The splashes from the water bucket sprinkled across her bare feet and plopped onto the soft earth.
There, in the loose dust in the path, were tracks. As clear as her own footprints heading to the well, but those imprints hadn’t been there when she’d gone to fetch water.
She looked around carefully and shivered. Was it her imagination or did the wind have a mean edge to it? Nothing knelt behind the woodpile, not that she could see, or crept through the unmown grasses.
The giant cat tracks ambled along the road, as if the cougar had been heading to town and following the doctor’s buggy. Maybe the animal had continued on. Maybe not. Maybe it was watching her from the thicket of the crowded evergreens—and getting hungry.
She certainly had no notion of being any creature’s breakfast! Heaven on earth! She’d been out this way on her deliveries once a week for several years now. Before yesterday, the most wildlife she’d seen in these woods had been a few grazing deer. She picked up her pace and sprinted up the porch steps. With the stout wall to her back she felt safer as she looked back, at the fresh tracks—they looked just like her little kitty’s paw prints back home except each imprint was as big as her foot. She didn’t feel safe until she shut the door behind her.
“W-water.”
“Mr. Hennessey?” She nearly dropped the bucket in shock. Coming to her senses, she set it on the nearby table and was at his side without remembering crossing the room. His eyes were open and in them she read the agony he was in. “Oh, it’s so good to see you.”
His hard mouth curled into a frown. “Water.”
“Oh! Of course. I can’t believe it, but I wouldn’t give up hope for you. The doctor was less than encouraging, but I knew.” She was babbling, and she couldn’t stop the happiness from bubbling up. “You’re going to be fine. I know it. I’m so glad. You were so heroic, coming to my rescue as you did.” Her fingertips reached out—she simply couldn’t help it.
Emotion overwhelmed her and tears blurred her vision as she stroked the side of his face. Stubbled with prickly whiskers, it felt so good and right just to feel the very manly texture of several days’ growth. Her chest clenched tight with an odd longing. It wasn’t sexual—she’d tried very hard not to notice the incredibly perfect chest of his and more, much more.
It was something else, something amazing. Her very being seemed to quicken and that warmth new in her chest seemed bigger. It hurt, strangely, and she didn’t know what to say. How to tell him she knew he was weak and he would be bedridden for a long while, but she wouldn’t let him down.
He’d saved her, and she intended to save him right back.
“W-water,” he snarled.
At least he had the strength to snarl. That had to be a good indication, right? She smiled at him because nothing could dim her gratitude. She raced to the table and s
tole a tin cup from the shelf overhead. Her fingers were trembling, she spilled water everywhere, but she didn’t spill a drop when she eased down beside him on the wide feather bed and held the rim to his cracked lips.
He groaned with pleasure as the cool goodness ran across his bottom lip and over his tongue. He swallowed with difficulty and grimaced in agony at the pain it must have caused.
“Oh, I am so pleased,” she told him, holding the cup to his mouth again. “It is not every day a woman gets her very own hero.”
Hero? Hardly. Duncan growled and, although he’d only swallowed twice, it had exhausted him. He lay panting, eyes tearing, his entire body vibrating with unbearable pain and he remembered her humming. He remembered her at his side and how she’d told the truth.
This morning her eyes were red-rimmed and she was pale with strain. She was wearing his shirt and a pair of his trousers tied with a rope at her waist. The clothes engulfed her, but nothing could dim the sincerity as she eased over him, careful of his wounds and laid her head over his heart.
A sharper pain than he’d ever known bore through his chest. It was an odd thing, to feel tenderness for this strangely emotional woman who’d been honest. And the way she held him seemed just as honest as when the men had come and he’d thought, confusing the present with the past, that he was going to be wrongly accused again.
The sweet scent of honeysuckle filled his head and he wished he could move his arm. Because if he could, he’d lay his hand over her head and wind his fingers through her soft hair. He’d press her close and hold on tight, because she was surely a dream. Surely.
But too soon the outside door swung open and eye-stinging light filled the room. It was more people—he saw the swish of a woman’s skirts and heard the low murmur of a man’s voice—the same one from before. And she was leaving him, lifting her head and straightening it.
Longing pierced him, but it was impossible because he didn’t need or long for anything or anyone. Especially not a pretty and proper town lady who was everything he’d come to distrust. She stood. Her weight lifted from the mattress and he was alone. His chest ached with emotion, but it was impossible to know what emotion he was feeling.