by Jill Barnett
Sure, Hallie thought, and I’m the fly. She eyed the ropes. They weren’t tight, so she would have to grab hold and then get her feet on them while they swayed. She didn’t want to do that. “No.”
“Well then, I guess we’ll stay up here.” Kit sat down on the platform and crossed his legs at the ankle. He patted the empty spot next to him. “Have a seat. The afternoon breeze should come up soon, and it will get good and cold up here.” Kit smiled. “But don’t you worry, Hallie-girl. I’ll keep you—and your bloomers—warm.”
The hunger in that smile set Hallie’s mind spinning, and the thought of spending any time with Kit, especially in the small confines of the Sea Haven’s crow’s nest when he had that goat-randy look on his face made her say, “Get up. I’ll go.”
Hallie inched nearer the edge of the platform and looked below.
“Don’t look down,” he ordered.
Hallie swallowed and obeyed; her fear superseded her pride.
“Here,” he said, “give me your hand.”
She placed her left hand in his. Taking a deep breath, she grasped the ratlines and stepped onto the rocking ropes, keeping her eyes scrunched shut. Immediately she felt Kit’s warm body against her back as he straddled her frame on the ropes.
“Good girl.” His breath was hot against her ear. “Now move one hand down to the next rope, and then the other—that’s right.”
Hallie followed his commands.
“Now you can step down. I’ll be right behind you so you can’t fall.”
She knew he was right behind her. With each step his body, male, hard, and protective, brushed against her own. The breeze picked up, sending the rich, exhilarating scent of tobacco swirling around her. Caught in his magnetic web, she continued to do as he patiently instructed, not realizing that his voice had lost all its cocky tone.
When her feet touched the solidity of the deck, she finally opened her eyes and swayed slightly. She sat down hard on the main hatch, relieved and exhausted, her head spinning. The children huddled around her, and she met Kit’s gaze over their excited blond heads. “Thank you,” she said sincerely.
“I need to talk to you,” Kit told her.
Hallie got up. “I don’t feel like arguing over the ship, and I have to find Dagny.” She started to walk away.
“I’ll give you the Sea Haven.”
She spun around. “What did you say?”
“You can have the ship. But there’s a condition.”
Hallie was skeptical. “What condition?”
“I want you and the children to move to my home.”
“Live with you?” Hallie asked, amazed, appalled, and a little excited.
“With my aunt. I’ll stay on Lee’s ship until I can make arrangements somewhere else,” Kit explained.
“Why?”
Kit shoved his hands in his pockets and stalled. He looked everywhere but at her. Finally, he opened his mouth to speak, but a commotion captured their attention.
Duncan, the blond giant, was walking toward them. He carried Dagny, lying limp and frail, in his beefy arms.
Hallie raced to him, with Kit and the others right behind. Dagny’s face was marked and puffy and her lips were crusted with dried grains of blood. “Oh God, what happened?”
Duncan’s pale eyes turned a colder blue when he answered. “Abner Brown nabbed her. I tried to catch him but . . . I . . . I would have had to leave her. I couldn’t, so he got away. I don’t know what he did . . .”
He looked past her to Kit, and Hallie saw the look that passed between the men. She read the gaze and looked at her battered sister.
Rape. They thought he might have raped her. Hallie grabbed her sides as she fought the urge to vomit. Then she turned, stunned and drained, to Kit. “Get a doctor. Please, Kit, hurry.”
An instant later he was gone. Hallie grabbed Duncan’s arm. “Bring her this way.” She pulled him toward the captain’s cabin, and then remembered the children. “Liv, bring your brothers along.” Hallie opened the door for Duncan and turned back to her little sister, brushing back the girl’s straggly bangs from her worried eyes. “I need your help. Can you keep the boys busy out here while I see to Duggie?”
Liv bit her bottom lip and nodded. Hallie entered the cabin and closed the door. Duncan had laid Dagny on the bunk, and his huge gray sack coat still covered her pale sister. Hallie went to the basin and poured some water, taking it over to the shelf by the bunk. She paused, afraid of what she might uncover, then pulled back the coat.
Dagny’s neck was marked, and though the bodice of her dress was torn, Hallie noticed that all Dagny’s underthings appeared untouched. She checked her sister’s petticoats and drawers and beneath and was hopeful no rape had occurred, then she covered her up, bathed Duggie’s battered face with cool water and whispered soothing words to her.
Duncan knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
Inside, he came to Hallie’s side, his eyes on Dagny’s face. “I’m so sorry. Dagny . . . She should not to have to go through something like this.”
“I know.” Hallie wiped off the dried blood. “Why would he do this? It’s insane.”
“He is insane.”
She always thought of Abner as only a strange priss.
“Something snapped. The fire left him devastated. The last time I saw him, he was kneeling in the ashes of the funeral home, screaming and carrying on something fierce. I don’t know where he’s been since the fire, but . . .” Duncan tightened his powerful hands into fists. “I’ll find him. I promise you, I’ll find him.”
Kit arrived with the doctor, the same man who had tended her burn. While he examined Dagny, Kit and Duncan waited outside, and Hallie joined them. She shut the door quietly and glanced down the companionway to where Liv was confusing the twins with a game of cat’s cradle. Hallie sat on a wheel housing. “The doctor said she wasn’t molested.”
Duncan slumped back against the wall with his eyes closed.
“But clearly she’s been beaten hard, and he’s concerned because she’s been unconscious for so long.” Hallie rubbed her hands over her burning eyes.
Kit squatted down beside her. He took her hand, and the shock of his warm fingers against her icy ones made her thread her fingers through his. “Hallie?”
She heard him but didn’t answer. She stared at his hand. It was so hard and strong, yet it had held her own so gently. Oh, why was everything so confusing? She wasn’t sure if he was her enemy or her friend. Would he hurt them or help them? He spoke her name again, and his voice was as gentle as his hold. It made her instinctively tighten her hold around his. Her gaze met his, needing to see if those deep green eyes betrayed the kindness of his tone. They didn’t.
“I think you need to get off this ship and someplace safer. My offer still stands. It makes sense, now more than ever.” Kit nodded toward the others. “Maddie’s great with children, and she can help with Dagny, too. It would be best, for all of you.” He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.
He was right. And now, it didn’t matter what her confused feelings were for Kit. Her family needed a stable home, and she was failing with them. She couldn’t protect them. Just thinking about Dagny made her want to fall to her knees and just sob. She needed some help. Nothing but bad, horrible things had happened to them since Da had died. She hated the tears she felt but she couldn’t stop them.
His fingers touched her chin, lifting it upward so she was forced to look at him again. His image was blurred. She wiped her eyes and looked away.
“Hallie,” he said.
When she looked back, the honest concern in his face was her undoing. She nodded. “We’ll move.”
Chapter Fifteen
Hallie studied the parlor. No one, not even Maddie, could find one speck of dirt in here. The dark walnut furn
iture glowed from Maddie’s polishing concoction, a mixture of candle wax and oil of almonds, and the rich, nutty fragrance made the room smell delightful, like Christmas marzipan.
She stretched her tired arms high over her head. Her muscles ached like the very dickens. She rolled her shoulders to work out the kinks. Pressing her hands against the small of her back, she arched backward until a satisfying crack eased her tight spine.
Lordy, but she was tired, and her leg itched. She sunk into the soft pillows of an overstuffed chair, scratched her healing leg, and took a break. They’d been in Kit’s home for five days, and she had yet to get a good night’s sleep. The boys were having trouble sleeping in their new surroundings, what with all the recent upheaval in their lives. The large bedroom Maddie had given them was right across from Hallie’s, but apparently that wasn’t close enough for them. For the past few nights either Knut or Gunnar, or the two of them together, had crept into her room and crawled into the big feather bed. Those imps did more roving in their sleep than they did awake.
Their first restless night, Hallie had repeatedly trotted them back to their own beds. It had done no good. Like magic seers, those boys had the uncanny ability to discern exactly when Hallie would finally fall back to sleep, and then they’d sneak back in, fall asleep, and pummel an unsuspecting Hallie with a small fist or a flailing foot. Her nights spent sleeping with the twins had her feeling as if she’d been beaten.
The thought of her sister’s bruised face and puffy lips sparked guilt in Hallie. She was responsible for the welfare of her family, and she had failed. Dagny’s beaten features and catatonic state proved it. If Kit hadn’t provided for them, they would still be struggling along on board the Sea Haven, unprotected. Of course, she would still have her pride. Lucky her. But then who else would she sacrifice for it?
A whistle of appreciation pierced the quiet room.
“The place smells like home.” Kit walked into the room. “Has Maddie been working you too hard?”
“Not really. I was just sitting here . . . thinking.”
“How is she?” Kit walked over to the sofa across from her and sat on the arm.
Hallie frowned at him. “How did you know I was thinking about Dagny?”
“A good guess.”
She averted her eyes. “There’s no change. She just stares out at nothing, dully, as if we don’t exist. The doctor was here again this morning, but he still couldn’t get any response out of her. He said there was no surefire way to snap her back. She’s retreated into another world.”
Silence hung in the room. It was awful for her, sitting there, feeling responsible and helpless yet not knowing what to do or say. There was nothing Kit could say either. No words could ease her sister’s pain. He knew it, too. She could feel it in the awkward air.
“I just came from talking to Sheriff Hayes,” Kit said. “No one’s seen Abner Brown. He’s either left town, or he’s holed up somewhere. The sheriff seems to think he’s left, but I’m not sure. If he’s as crazed as Duncan thinks, well, I don’t want to take any chances.
“I’ve hired Duncan as a bodyguard, and he’s moving into the downstairs bedroom this afternoon. No one, not even Maddie, is to leave without him accompanying them. He can handle the carriage and will take any of you wherever you need to go. I’ve spoken to Liv and the twins, while Maddie was present, but I need you to help me enforce this.”
“I will,” Hallie said, standing. “I’ll make sure the children understand.” She fidgeted with her hands. “Thank you, Kit. For all you’ve done.”
“I meant it when I promised to take care of you, all of you.”
She nervously tucked some strands of loose hair behind her ear. It gave her the chance to do something other than look at him. The air in the room took on a sudden thickness, and when Kit stepped even closer, she felt that same familiar racing of her heartbeat. His hands rested on her upper arms, and he rubbed them slowly, up and down. Ever sensitive to his touch, she shivered.
His breath whispered past her temple. “Are you cold?”
Her eyes drifted closed. “No.”
He rubbed her arms, a simple gesture of comfort. His shoulder was just inches away. Her cheek moved to rest on the rough wool of his coat and she settled closer, breast to chest. She looked up at the dark stubble shadowing his jaw, and when his lips descended, slowly, toward her own, she met him halfway.
The taste of him, of their kisses, drove the feeling from her legs. Her hands roved his shoulders as his hands stroked her back, and she opened her eyes again, wanting the eye contact that heightened their last kisses. His eyes were closed but she willed them to open. They did, but an instant later he pulled back and pushed her hands down and away from him.
“What the hell am I doing?” he muttered, stepping back to put a few feet between them while he stared at her as if she had made him hold her and kiss her.
His look carried no love, just censure, which Hallie assumed he directed toward her. She shivered with all the mixed emotions that were racing through her. “I am cold,” she blurted, knowing that the word cold was too mild a term for how she felt.
He reached out. “Hallie, wait.”
She sidestepped his hand and rushed out of the room, her good-bye echoing in the wake of her need to get away.
Later that evening, as the sun was beginning to set, Hallie was in the kitchen trying to forget she had ever met Kit Howland, let alone kissed him. But her thoughts on him no matter how much she tried to control them.
Maddie walked in and stopped suddenly. “What have you got there?” She asked Liv.
Halled glanced over her shoulder.
“Nothing.” Liv was wedged into the corner, and every few seconds her shoulders would wiggle as if she were struggling with something behind her back.
Hallie pulled her hands from the tub of dishwater and wiped them on her apron. “Liv . . . Don’t you fib.” Anyone could see her little sister, an imp of the first order, was hiding something.
“Let me handle this, Hallie,” Maddie said, setting down the dinner tray she had just brought down from Dagny’s room. She crossed her arms. “Let me see your hands, young lady.”
Guilt filled Liv’s face, then she leaned back against the wall. Whatever she held was now pinned between her skirts and the corner wall. She stuck out one hand, then the other, and tried to look innocence . . . and failed.
Hallie and Maddie exchanged knowing looks, but before either of them could speak Liv’s eyes widened with shock and a loud, ear-piercing screech erupted from her skirts. “Ouch! Ouch! Oh cripes!” Liv jumped away from the wall. “Get her off!”
Clinging to the back of Liv’s dress was a huge, muddy cat.
“Ah! Hallieee. Get her off!” Liv hopped in a circle as the poor, frightened cat held on with its claws for all it was worth.
Maddie grabbed Liv by the shoulders. “Hold still, Liv!”
Hallie plucked the frightened cat from her sister’s back, and cradled it in her arms. The cat was so big it spanned from one of her elbows to the other.
Maddie still held Liv by the shoulders. “Why were you trying to sneak the cat inside?”
Liv averted her eyes before she whispered to her toes, “I didn’t think you’d let me have her. She’s so dirty, and you’ve been cleaning everything, and I . . . I just couldn’t leave her all alone. She probably got burned out just like we did, and I . . . I just wanted to help her.”
“You should have asked first.” Maddie’s voice was stern but kind, and she had Liv’s full attention, which was not always the case with Hallie and Liv. “Where did you find her?” Maddie asked after a long, silent pause.
“Out back. It’s so cold and she was hiding under some bushes, all alone . . . crying. I had to do something or else she’d starve.”
Hallie’s arms were growing numb from holding t
he fat cat, which was now purring in her arms. “Starve? This thing’s too heavy to starve.”
“Maybe she has big bones, then,” Liv argued. “That’s what you always say, Hallie.”
Maddie gave Hallie an exasperated look, then scrutinized the cat and Liv’s tragic face. After a pregnant pause, Maddie said, “I’ll let you keep the cat this time, but you are not to try to sneak anything again. Is that understood?”
“Oh yes! I swear on my eyes” Liv promised.
“And you’ll have to take care of her. Starting right now with a bath.”
“Oh, thank you, Aunt Maddie! I’ll take real good care of her. You’ll see.” Liv’s smile beamed from ear to ear.
“And for trying to sneak her in?” Maddie added. “You will do each of your multiplication tables ten times.”
The start of a groan escaped Liv’s frowning mouth, but to Hallie’s amazement, instead of arguing, Liv held out her arms for Hallie to hand over the cat. “I’ll take her, please,” Liv said. A few minutes later she was happily scrubbing the squealing cat in a tub of dishwater.
Maddie brought out a flannel towel and set it on the drain board. “What are you going to name her?”
“I don’t know.” Liv looked thoughtful.
The kitchen door banged open and the twins galloped into the room, doing their best to mimic a tribe of Indians. They were followed by Duncan, cast in the role of Great White Father. The boys stopped their whooping the minute they saw the cat peek around Liv’s shoulder while she dried its back.
“Golly! It’s a cat!” Gunnar rushed over to get a closer look, and Knut followed.
“It’s mine.” Liv clasped the cat to her chest and the animal meowed a protest.
Knut turned around. “Hallie. Liv’s not sharing.”