Victoria frowned. “What money?”
He shook the paper in her face. “The money!” Stomping back to the table he snatched up something and then marched back to pause before her. Between his thumb and forefinger he held aloft a key. “This key was in that doll’s head. It goes to something! What does it go to?”
She gasped. “You were the one who— You? The doll?” She darted a glance at Rocky but he was distracted with Jimmy, who had slipped his knife under one of the ropes around Rocky’s ankles and was working to cut through it. She immediately looked away so as not to draw Baxter’s attention to them. “I—I don’t know anything about any money.”
He cursed and backhanded her again.
This time she saw the blow coming and was able to move her head enough that it glanced off her cheek and she didn’t crash to the floor. But the pain made her gasp and for a moment she saw double.
“I guess you need a little more persuading.” Baxter started to turn around.
He was going to see Rocky and Jimmy! “Wait.”
He froze studying her, and she swallowed away the coppery taste of blood, taking her time, yet trying to think quickly, but to no avail, the room gyrated in an uneven dance and she couldn’t seem to focus on any one spot.
“Well?”
“If I tell you where the money is, do you promise to walk away and leave us alone?” Dare she lie to the man? If she could just get them out of this situation surely Rocky, Sean, Cade and Sky could track him down and arrest him. But where should she say the money was? She had no idea what type of lock that key went to.
But in that moment Jimmy dropped back to the floor and Rocky stood, lifting the chair by the one hand that was still strapped to its arm. Baxter heard the sound and started to turn, but Rocky only had to take one long stride before he swung the chair with all his might. It crashed across Baxter’s shoulders and upper back, splintering into pieces that flew in every direction.
Baxter merely grunted and turned to face Rocky, fists raised. Quickly he stepped in and thrust a punch to Rocky’s injured shoulder.
Rocky hissed in pain and dodged back. He was free from the burden of most of the chair’s weight, now. But the arm rest and two splintered spindles still dangled from his right wrist. He flipped it up into his hand like a club, leapt forward, and jabbed the end of it into Cane’s solar plexus then followed that up with a left jab to his face and danced back out of his reach before the man could retaliate.
Cane gasped for air, but kept his hands up and at the ready.
They circled in the middle of the room, eyeing each other warily.
And then, Baxter Cane dodged in and swung an uppercut toward Rocky’s chin.
Rocky feinted left, and Cane’s punch skimmed harmlessly by his face. Rocky took advantage of the man’s now unprotected torso and jabbed him with the armrest twice in quick succession.
Baxter stumbled back, gasping for air, and Victoria, seeing him coming, extended her foot into his path. He tripped over it with a cry of surprise and fell flat on his back. He groaned audibly and then his head slumped over to one side.
For a heartbeat, no one moved as they all stared at the man on the floor. Then Rocky, still breathing heavily from the fight, surged forward, and bent over the man to feel for a pulse.
As soon as Rocky’s fingers touched Cane’s throat, the man’s eyes snapped open. With lightening speed his fists smashed into both sides of Rocky’s momentarily unprotected face.
Victoria gasped. “Rocky!”
Rocky shook his head and stumbled sideways.
Cane’s knees curled in towards his chest and with a hard kick to the middle of Rocky’s torso, he launched him backwards across the room.
The entire frame of the little cabin shook violently as Rocky crashed into the log wall and slid toward the floor.
Cane was on top of him in a heartbeat, fists pummeling mercilessly.
Rocky’s head snapped back and forth like a flag in a strong wind.
“Rocky!” Victoria screamed again. And that’s when she saw Jimmy. He had managed to cut himself free and now ran across the room with a leg from Rocky’s broken chair above his head.
Cane was too busy with Rocky to notice the boy.
With a scream of wild cougar proportions, Jimmy brought the wooden leg down over Cane’s back. The wood splintered into a blur of shattered pieces, but Cane only grunted and spun away from Rocky to focus on the boy.
The distraction was all Rocky needed. With Cane’s attention on Jimmy, Rocky gripped the broken armrest still strapped to his wrist and swung at Cane’s head with all his might.
There was a hollow thunk, as the rounded end connected with his temple, and then the man slumped over onto the floor.
Scrambling to his feet, Rocky rolled the man onto his stomach and pinned him down with one knee. For a moment he shook his head and pressed his fingers and thumb against his eyes, blinking as though to shake off a fog. Then he fumbled with the rope still keeping the armrest tied around his wrist, keeping a wary eye on Cane. But the man showed no signs of having any fight remaining.
Victoria slumped in relief.
It took Rocky only a few seconds to free himself and he didn’t waste any time using his own ropes to bind the man’s hands and feet.
Just as he was finishing that task there came a call from outside. “Hello the house!”
Rocky chuckled and glanced at Jimmy. “Get the door, would you son?”
Jimmy jogged across the room and jerked open the door.
Sean, Sky and Cade stepped inside, guns drawn and wary.
With Cane tied up, Rocky sank back onto the floor. “Nice timing fellas.” A weary grin stretched his lips as he leaned his back against the wall. “You arrive just when Jimmy and I finally have things under control.” He met Victoria’s gaze across the room and slowly his smile faded. Lurching to his feet, he crossed to her.
At the sight of everyone okay and the unconscious man on the floor, Sky, Sean, and Cade holstered their guns. Sky squatted down in front of Jimmy checking him over, and Sean and Cade hauled Baxter up between them and began to drag him out the door, but Victoria never took her focus off Rocky.
He scanned the plains of her face, then reached out and ever so gently, like the brush of a butterfly wing, skimmed his fingers over her swollen cheek bone. “You okay?”
She nodded, studying his left eye which was swelling so that he wouldn’t be able to see out of it soon.
His fingers slid back into her hair. “I’m so sorry.”
Her breath escaped on a huff. “I’m the one that should be sorry.”
He shook his head and touched her chin. “This is not your fault.”
A dark stain spread across his shoulder. His wound must have opened up. “Your shoulder is bleeding.”
His attention never left her face as he nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
She wanted nothing more than to be in his arms. “Can you untie me?”
In a flash he was down on his knees and working on the knots. “Of course. Sorry.” And when he had her free he pulled her into a gentle embrace.
She sank into his strength with a sigh. Then reached out an arm to gather Jimmy, who was hovering nearby, close. Thank you, Lord.
26
Later that evening, with Baxter Cane safely behind bars, everyone gathered around the table at Sean and Rachel’s place. Mama and Doc were there and ChristyAnne had shyly inserted herself between them. Damera sat on Rocky’s lap, her tousled head resting back against his shoulder. Sky was down at the jail, but Brooke sat to Victoria’s right and Sharyah, a little more quiet than usual, sat at the end of the table talking in low tones with Jimmy.
Hannah had left one of her older girls in charge at the orphanage and had shared dinner with them. She’d promised Victoria the story of how she happened to know Baxter Cane and now with dinner done and coffee before all the adults, everyone settled in to listen to her story.
Hannah twisted her mug on the table, then glanced
up and met Victoria’s gaze. “Long time ago, I used to be a slave to a rich family back east. The man what owned that plantation was your grand-daddy.”
Victoria felt her jaw go slack.
Hannah waved a hand. “I know. I know. I shoulda tol’ you a long time ago. But there’s so much pain there that I thought it best to leave you think what you may for a few more years. But today…, well, when I saw the man who, well the man who should have been a daddy to you. Your father.” Hannah sighed. “I knew nothin’ good could come from him bein’ here.”
Mama moved uneasily and Victoria glanced at her before fixing her attention back on Hannah.
“Why?”
Shifting to a more comfortable position, Hannah sighed. “Massah Ewan, your granddaddy, he done freed all us slaves the year yo mama turned twelve. But we all stayed with him on account o’ he was so good to us. Miss Maggie – thet’s your Mama – when she was just eighteen, she up an’ married Simon Saunders. Oh he seemed slick to her ‘fore she took the plunge, but the rest o’ us, we seen the signs.” Hannah shivered. “A few months after the weddin’, Massah Ewan took sick. We done everythin’ we knew how to do, but he went to a Senatorial ball one night and never made it home. And thet very night, everyone o’ the hands left. Right in the middle o’ the night. Everyone ’cept my Zeb and I. We tried to talk some o’ them into staying and helpin’ but Massah Simon…. Well…, no one wanted to be around if he was gonna be in charge. Zeb and I, though, we couldn’t see leavin’ Miss Maggie all alone with her new husband.”
She swallowed and stared into the black depths of her mug, her gaze unfocused and Victoria knew she wasn’t really seeing, but was lost someplace back in time.
“After that, Massah Simon…”
Hannah’s voice trailed off and she remained silent so long that Victoria finally prompted, “After that, Master Simon, what?”
Hannah sighed. “He never beat her ’fore that. But after her daddy was gone, thet’s when he started into the beatin’s.”
Tears pooled in Hannah’s eyes.
“I know’d thet girl from the time she was in wetpants and many’s the time I wanted to offer thet man a passel o’ his own medicine. Zeb did, too. But neither of us ever spoke up in her defense. We jus’ helped doctor her the next day and prayed he’d leave, or thet she’d be able to figure out what it was thet set him off so.”
Hannah swiped at her cheeks and blinked back the tears.
“Then she was with child.” Hannah met her gaze directly. “For awhile he left off the beatin’s but then toward the end he started in again. Thet’s when she decided she’d leave him. But she knew she couldn’t leave with you. The chances were too high he’d find her – an’ you with her. So she waited until he was gone on one o’ his trips. Was the Lord’s own providence thet you came a few days early. You and your curly red hair and balled up fists, just a screamin’ at the world.”
Hannah smiled softly then, a sad longing in her expression and Victoria fidgeted. Rocky reached one hand to rub her back and she scooted closer to him, pulling Damera up onto her lap.
“I handed you off to Zeb to hold whilst I helped clean up your Mama and he just laughed and laughed about how cute you was, hollerin’ like you could do somethin’ about everyone’s troubles. Your Mama and I, we could hear him out in the hallway trying to shush you and him makin’ almost as much racket with his shushin’as you were.” She cleared her throat. “I think thet’s when your Mama decided for sure to give you up. When I put you back in her arms, she took one look at you and busted up cryin’. It weren’t a light decision she made to give you up. She done it because she loved you so much.”
Victoria heard the words as though they were coming to her from a far distance. Pressing her lips to the top of Damera’s head, she let her eyes drop shut. All these years, she’d thought her parents had given her away because they didn’t want her. “So my mother’s still alive?”
Hannah fussed with stirring another teaspoon of sugar into her cup, her lips trembling and tears finally spilling over to course down her cheeks. “Thet very afternoon, after she dropped you at the Foundling Hospital, when she got home, Massah Simon he was there and already half way to drunk, as was his way. You see, when your Mama gave you away, she not only took you from him, but she done sold anything what was worth somethin’. I never did know what she did with all the money, but she spent several days just before you were born and had me and Zeb help her in emptyin’ thet ol’ house of every valuable. She and my Zeb they took four or five trips into town with wagon loads of things from side rooms in the house. Everytime Massah Simon took a day trip somewhere, Miss Maggie, she’d have us empty another room and she and Zeb would come home empty handed. Zeb, he wouldn’t tell me what she done with it. He said it was better that I didn’t know nothin’ in case somethin’ ever happened. Well, then Massah Simon, one day he discovered thet his silver cigar snips was missin’. Thankfully he didn’t look for it hisself, or he’d have discovered the other things she’d sold. As it was, he gave her a bad beatin’ and she went into labor and had you early in the morning on July twenty-first.”
Victoria frowned. “The twenty first? You mean the twelfth, right?”
“No,” Hannah shook her head. “In order to protect you when they sent you away, they changed your birthday to the twelfth, but really you was born on the twenty-first.”
Victoria felt numb. Her birthday wasn’t even her own, and yet all these years she’d had the wrong impression of why she’d been given up for adoption. What would it be like to have to give your child away in order to protect it? She pinched her lips together and brushed at her skirt. She still had so many questions. “So where was my father that day?”
“He was gone on a business trip. He was supposed to be gone for neigh onto a week, but he come home three days early. Your Mama was just walking in the door from the trip where she left you at the Foundling Hospital.” She blinked hard. “The minute he seen thet you’d been born, he flew into a rage. By thet time he’d also discovered all them missin’ things and he set to chokin’ Miss Maggie because she wouldn’t tell ’im where you was.” Hannah’s hand trembled as she took a sip of coffee. “I broke a vase over ’is head, then I opened the door and hollered for Zeb to come quick. But Zeb, he tried to talk to him instead of jus’ knockin’ him out like he should have. Massah Simon, he shot Zeb in the leg and then Miss Maggie she tried to stop him and he pushed her and she hit her head on the arm o’ the settee and—” she glanced at Damera, “well, she didn’t make it and neither did my Zeb.”
Victoria handed Damera to Rocky and stepped over to pull Hannah into a firm embrace. “I’m so sorry, Hannah. And here all these years, I’ve been thinking that my parents gave me up because they didn’t want me. My mother made a huge sacrifice to protect me, but so did you. Thank you.” She set Hannah at arm’s length. “How did you get away from Bax—Simon after…?”
“When he seen what he’d done to your Mama he sorta went into a trance. He didn’t care none about Zeb, but I think he mighta been sorry ’bout what happened to your Mama. I hurried out the door and hid in the fields whilst he was still dazed. About an hour later he rode off and never come back. I, well, I laid them to rest the next day myself.”
“How did you find me?”
“I followed you from the Foundling Hospital. When you lived in Nebraska I lived there, too. You was just too little to remember. Your Mama and Daddy…” Hannah cleared her throat and looked over at Mama.
Mama’s eyes softened and she nodded for Hannah to continue.
“I went an’ tol’ them my story not too many days after you was adopted. They agreed to let me stay around so’s I could keep an eye on you like I promised your Mama I would. But I never tol’ them yo Daddy might come lookin’ for you. I guess I jus’ hoped he’d never find you.” Hannah swiped at her cheeks and pushed back. “Now where’s this letter you said Simon found in the locket?”
Victoria pulled it out of her pocket and smoothed it
out on the table.
“Well I’ll be…. Go on and read it to us.”
Victoria cleared her throat and began….
My Dearest Girl and the God Blessed Family who took you in,
I set down today and put my pen to paper with the heaviest of hearts and great trepidation. For I ken not another way to solve this problem but to give my child into the hands of God for her own safety. Though it breaks my heart to undertake this forfeiture, I canna in good conscience keep her in this house of danger for even another day.
Even as I set pen to page, my trusted servant stands guard at the door and the babe sleeps by my side. I can see that twill be my own red hair she’ll be having.
For her sake, when she comes of an age to understand, I want her to have the story from me own hand of why this lot fell to her.
I am of the house of McKenna. My father is the right honorable senator Ewan McKenna from New York.
A year and a half past, I met a man who presented himself as a gentleman visiting the continent from England. The Good Lord in heaven help me, I fell for his silver tongue and fabrications and married we were, Simon Saunders and I, ten months past.
It took me naught but a week to realize that I’d fallen prey to one of the lowest pretenses of humanity on the face of the earth. And me body bears the scars to prove it.
Yet from one of the most awful nights of me life sprang one of me greatest blessings, and she sleeps in quiet peace next to my side at this very moment.
One month past Da, God rest his soul, expired while at a senatorial banquet. While he ate nothing but what those around him ate, I know in me heart that Simon had something to do with his passing. Yet the doctors could prove nothing and came to the conclusion that his heart simply gave out. If that be the case, it is still the fault of Simon, who had tormented Da quietly for those many months previous.
With Da now out of his way, I and me precious one are the only two people standing between Simon and that which he most covets, our family money. For me father (perhaps in wisdom, perhaps in an unwitting stroke that brought about his death) when he discovered that Simon was frittering away money at the gaming tables, cut him off. What me father didn’t consider, (Lord help us, what none of us considered) was what the case would be if Da died. Having spoken at length with me trusted attorney I am assured that the courts will uphold the despot’s claim to the finances, since it couldn’t be proven there was foul play at work in Da’s death.
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