by Nancy Bush
“Then I’ll ride over to Tremaine and Lexie’s and see if he’s there.”
“No!” Jace was adamant. A squeak of merriment erupted from Emerald. She’d seen him come home escorted by the sheriff and knew he’d just managed to save his skin from that mangy collection of thieves who’d held him for ransom. Goddamn that Harrison Danner! He’d told them they could have his money. How was Jace supposed to wrangle out of that without some official help? The bastard. In his heart Jace hoped Harrison had met some extremely painful end. Next to Tremaine Danner, Harrison was his most hated enemy, and then right on down the line to Jesse Danner, the family’s black sheep who’d disappeared from Rock Springs ten years earlier, and Samuel, the quiet youngest brother who’d moved to Portland but had a head for business that somehow alarmed Jace in a deep-down visceral way.
Damn all those Danners to hell!
“It’s your wedding day, Kelsey! You’re going to stay right here until we leave for the church!” he snarled.
“And wait at the altar for a missing groom?” Kelsey questioned, lifting one eyebrow in that arrogant way, Jace hated. “Joseph wouldn’t have come here looking for Harrison if he wasn’t extremely worried. Not with Eliza being sick.”
“Eliza Danner’s ill?” Emerald asked with quick interest. She was an unbridled, unprincipled gossip.
“Yes,” Kelsey said quietly, worried about Harrison’s mother. “Even if Harrison does show, I might have to call off the wedding.”
“No,” Jace said again with a shake of his head. “The wedding takes place as planned.”
Kelsey looked at him in that way that always made his stomach tighten. He could sense something in her, revulsion, he suspected. She’d been a hellcat as a child, and she was even worse as a young woman. Jace wished their mother had lived to take her in hand. Lucinda Garrett wouldn’t have allowed her to be the way she was. She would have taught her how to behave, even if she’d had to beat it into her. But Lucinda had been thrown from a horse two summers past and had never recovered from her injuries.
Now Jace suspected he’d been too soft on his sister.
“I sure hope Eliza gets well,” Emerald murmured, straightening her skirts so they fanned out smoothly over the horsehair couch. “She’s a fine woman.”
Lexie and Harrison’s mother was a true lady; even Jace could admit that. But she was a Danner, and the truth of it was he didn’t care whether she lived or died.
“Don’t you go near that house if there’s sickness there,” Jace warned his wife. “I know how soft-hearted you are.”
Emerald smiled sweetly, tilting her head in that pretty way of hers.
An inarticulate sound escaped Kelsey throat, and she banged out the front door.
“Darling,” Emerald said, patting the sofa beside her. “I’m sure Harrison will show up for the wedding. He’s no fool. He knows how much trouble he’ll be in if he isn’t there.”
Jace sat down beside her, uneasy. What had happened to Harrison? Had he survived? Though Jace would be happy to dance on the man’s grave, it was damned inconsiderate of him to stand up a Garrett, making Kelsey a widow before she was even married.
Emerald’s dark hair was scraped back into a taut line, several curling tendrils highlighting her heart-shaped face. “What did you do to him?” she asked.
“I didn’t do anything to him!” Jace growled angrily. “Harrison Danner’s as unreliable as the rest of them!”
She clucked her tongue sympathetically. “He didn’t burn last night, did he?”
Jace turned to stare directly into Emerald’s eyes. Gooseflesh rose on his arms. His wife’s guesses were just too close to the bone sometimes. “In the barn fire?” he asked, to give himself time.
“You were there, too,” she said, as if there were no room for argument. “Those men Sheriff Raynor wanted descriptions of – you were paying them off. You didn’t pay them to burn the barn, did you?”
Jace had to fight to keep his jaw from dropping. “You just accused me of murder!” He knew Raynor and his men had scraped several bodies from the smoldering ashes. “Harrison and I were gambling. Nothing more.”
“If he’s dead, darling, the war between the Garretts and the Danners will begin again.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Jace asked in sudden realization. “Sometimes I think you hate the Danners even more than I do. Why?”
Emerald’s palm was silky as it trailed down his cheek. When he opened his mouth to badger her some more, she pressed a finger across his mouth, then slipped it between his lips.
Jace was sufficiently distracted to stop asking questions, and Emerald smiled to herself, as capable and ruthless at hiding her own thoughts and feelings as her husband was.
¤ ¤ ¤
Miracle combed her hair and braided it into one long, shining rope, tossing it over her shoulder. For the first time since her kidnapping, she had time to think, and her thoughts weren’t pleasant ones. She gazed at Harrison’s sleeping form, considering. Why had he tried to rescue her? What would happen when he was well enough to remember what she’d done and strong enough to do something about it?
She frowned. While she’d been fighting for survival she’d had no time for introspection. Now her mind was plagued with uneasy thoughts.
What had he said to her in the barn loft? He’d been kind, she remembered, teasing.
“One kiss for freeing you,” he muttered. Then his lips had captured hers, and she responded by stabbing him in the back.
She grimaced at the memory. No man would forgive a woman for such treachery, no matter what the circumstances. Hellfire! He would be hard pressed not to turn her into the sheriff.
She should just leave him here and run for her life.
Miracle’s hands were gripped so tightly together they hurt. She sighed. She couldn’t leave him. She wouldn’t. It wasn’t in her nature. But Lord, she was in trouble! If Harrison lived, he would stir up a storm of trouble for her, and if he died… she would be a murderess.
Jumping to her feet, Miracle bit back a cry of frustration. Where was Uncle Horace when she needed him? For all his faults he was an insightful soul. He would know what to do.
Harrison was lying on his side, inhaling in short, pain-filled breaths. The sweep of his lashes against his cheeks made him seem approachable, almost innocent, but the strength of his jaw, the hardness of his muscle, belied the impression. Besides, Miracle was too learned in the ways of men’s treachery to trust him. Hadn’t her mother suffered a terrible fate for trusting too much?
Briskly, she rubbed her elbows, though there was no need. As the day grew longer, it was also growing hotter and more still. She paced around in a circle for a while, restless and anxious. But her gaze kept coming back to him, returning again and again. A small part of herself relived the moment of his kiss and the warm possession of his hand on her breast.
What did she feel for this man? It was a mystery to her, these sensations that seemed to have no place. God’s truth, but he was an attractive devil! If circumstances were different…
Appalled at her thoughts, Miracle clenched her jaw, angered and bewildered at the way her pulse raced whenever her mind touched on his kiss, the hard burning feel of his hand on her skin. She wasn’t foolish enough to miss the signs of desire stretching and awakening inside her. But not with him! Not with any white man!
Sighing, Miracle aimlessly stirred the embers of her small fire. She’d made the poultice and done her praying. Now it was time to wait, and she found it the hardest task of all. To keep herself busy, she opened one of the tins of soup and strained it through cheesecloth, saving the broth for her patient. She ate the remainder without tasting. When Harrison’s head started moving back and forth she brought the broth in a bowl to where he lay.
She’d given him some laudanum, and it hadn’t been easy. He’d practically spit it on her. “You need to eat,” she told him. His eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. She saw his lips part as if he were trying to talk. But the f
ever had him now. He was flushed and restless and muttering strange, meaningless sounds. Her medicine was doing all it could. It was time for something to cool his flesh, and the best potion she knew was Uncle Horace’s potent elixir.
She spooned broth past his lips, waiting until he swallowed. He was unaware of her ministrations, but some of the fluid went down; she saw the convulsive movement of his throat, convincing her he was at least getting some nourishment. When she’d managed to feed him half the bowl, she laid the broth aside and went to find the elixir.
Carefully, she poured out a teaspoonful. It would bring cooling and relief, but she was also aware of the hallucinations. Better than having him burn up from sickness fever. He was unconscious, so there was no need to sweeten the remedy with liquor. She quickly pinched his nose and slipped the potion past his lips.
His reaction was immediate. He half rose and tried to spit it out, and had she not been prepared, he would have. But Miracle held tight. In his fight to get rid of her, he swallowed the bitter fluid.
“…damn… son of a bitch…” He swore a string of epithets, some Miracle had never even heard before. She watched him carefully, but he lapsed back into exhaustion almost immediately. As soon as he was quiet Miracle slipped into a mood of melancholy she couldn’t shake. Uncle Horace could be dead, for all she knew. She’d tried to keep that thought from her mind, but now it came like a persistent beat, hammering at her until she could no longer push it aside. The highwaymen who kidnapped her had done something to him. Hurt him. Made it impossible for him to find her.
Sorrow filled her, burning her eyes. She rested her chin on her palms and watched shadows move across the lake as the sun fled behind the mountains. It amazed her that it had not yet been a day since the kidnapping, yet her whole life had changed.
She shivered. Harrison’s life had changed also. With a vague sense of premonition she wondered who was waiting for him in Rock Springs, and what they were thinking had happened to him.
¤ ¤ ¤
The Rock Springs church was an unpretentious clapboard building with an iron bell in the belltower, a small juniper hedge lining the front walk, and a sign welcomed one and all. There was a square rectory attached by a breezeway to the back, and a dusty rose garden, wilted and straggly now, which was the reverend’s own pride and joy.
On that hot September evening everybody who was anybody in Rock Springs showed up at the church to offer congratulations and best wishes to the bride and groom. The mayor, a personal friend of the Garretts, was resplendent in a black suit with a black and gray striped waistcoat. Sheriff Raynor, a personal friend of the Danners, stood by uncomfortably in a shirt buttoned to his throat and a string tie that looked to be choking him. The ladies of the Ladies Aid Society wore taffeta, satin, and even silk. They stood in an uncompromising line near the church steps, a dozen old biddies with sour faces and gossipy tongues. Jason Garrett, the brother of the bride, waited at the open church doors. A hot breeze ruffled his hair, and he sweated in a solid navy wool suit. His pretty and seductive wife, Emerald, stood proudly at his side. Tremaine Danner was in a black tuxedo, his wife, Lexington, wore a peach satin gown. Their expressions were grim and anxious, revealing their feelings eloquently. Beside them, like small, silent soldiers at attention, stood their two sons, Jamie, nine, and Seth, eight.
Joseph and Eliza Danner, the groom’s parents, remained beside the barren rose bushes. Joseph’s arm was around his wife’s waist, offering her support. Her face was pale behind a netted blue veil, and she leaned against her husband as if the early fall heat had quite prostrated her.
The bride was sequestered in a room near the back of the church, swathed in creamy white lace from hem to throat, only the most demure of décolletages peeking through a long netted veil studded with seed pearls.
Yes, everyone was there except for the groom.
Alone in the backroom, Kelsey felt the oppressive heat weigh down on her, prickling her scalp and making it itch. She tried to sneak a finger beneath the waving folds of her shimmering veil and only succeeded in hearing the delicate fabric rend. Sighing, she gave up and resumed pacing the small and stifling room, wearing a path in the already worn red carpet.
A muffled knock sounded at the door.
“Come in,” Kelsey called. Had Harrison finally arrived?
Her matron of honor, Lexington Danner, slipped inside in a rustle of peach satin. One look at her face and Kelsey knew Harrison hadn’t shown.
“Hi,” Lexie said, regarding Kelsey with a twisting, sympathetic smile. “Beastly weather, isn’t it?”
Kelsey didn’t answer. She liked and respected Lexie and was still embarrassed for the way Jace had treated her after Lexie had broken their engagement. Though Kelsey didn’t know the whole story, she was astute enough to sense Jace had hurt Lexie in some unforgivable way when she’d professed her love for Tremaine. Kelsey suspected he’d made improper advances; Jace was not a man known for his self-control. But she also suspected that Lexie had held her own; her future sister-in-law was too quick, too skillful to be tricked by anyone as single-minded and predictable as Jace.
“He’s not coming, is he?” Kelsey said.
Lexie didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Yes, he is. Harrison’s a man of his word.”
Kelsey knew how close Lexie was to her younger brother. Harrison and Lexie were only one year apart. They worked together and shared the same passion for their profession; they were loyal to each other, to their family, and to anyone else they called a friend. Lexie would never believe Harrison would ignore his obligations.
“He never wanted to marry me,” Kelsey said slowly. “He only agreed because he wanted to please his family.”
Lexie snorted. “Harrison never does anything just to please someone else! He asked you to marry him because he wants you to be his wife.”
Kelsey smiled faintly. She knew Eliza Danner, Harrison’s mother, had wanted this wedding more than anyone. She’d wanted to put an end to Danner-Garrett feuding. That was Harrison’s main reason for marrying her. That and the fact that Isabella Weatherby had ruined Harrison’s trust in women, and now he wanted Kelsey – because he did at least still trust her – by default.
“He’ll be here,” Lexie said determinedly, high points of color heightening her cheekbones. At thirty she was still a beautiful woman, with sparkling green eyes, thick blond hair, and a sharp, spirited tongue and manner that were the horror of every well-bred lady in town.
“He may not have run out on purpose,” Kelsey said uncomfortably. “I just hope something hasn’t happened to him.”
Lexie’s satin skirts ruffled. “He was with Jace last night,” she said perceptively. “There was no trouble.” To Kelsey’s continued silence, she asked sharply, “Was there?”
“I don’t really know.”
“Damn that brother of yours!” Lexie declared, committing a blasphemy that made even Kelsey stare at her in surprise. Profanity in the house of the Lord? What would the Ladies Aid Society think of that?
But Lexie was working herself into a fulminating fury. “Is he responsible for this? The black-hearted scoundrel! If I find out he’s purposely made Harrison late for his own wedding, I swear I’ll make the rest of his days a living hell!” She stalked to the door, twisted the handle, then pulled herself up short. “You don’t think he’s hurt, do you?” she asked in a sudden change of voice.
“No. Jace would never hurt him!”
“Wouldn’t he?” Lexie slid a cool look at her future sister-in-law. “You certainly have more faith in him than I do.”
“He almost likes Harrison.”
Lexie laughed, a sound so vital that Kelsey smiled. “Jace can’t abide any of us. Just don’t tell Tremaine our suspicions. If he believed Jace had something to do with Harrison’s disappearance…”
She left the thought unfinished as she swept out the door, but Kelsey knew what she meant. Lexie’s husband, Tremaine, would find a way to get the truth out of Jace by fair means or foul. Fo
r the moment, neither Lexie nor Kelsey wanted to resort to such drastic measures.
Where was Harrison? Kelsey wondered, rubbing her perspiring palms together. She thought of the barn that had burned during the night. Several people had died. Fear tightened in her chest. She hoped one of them hadn’t been Harrison.
Swallowing, she closed her eyes. In her heart of hearts she knew she didn’t love him. Not with the grand passion she should have. But she liked him, and wasn’t that enough for a marriage?
Though there was no clock in the dimly lit room, she heard the ticking of time passing within her head. Kelsey knew Harrison wasn’t going to show. She waited in silence while her bridesmaids, girls Kelsey had known from school, fluttered in and out, their expressions doleful. In her mind she heard the future whispers.
“Kelsey Garrett was left at the altar!”
“Harrison never even showed! Think he ran off with someone else?”
“He probably wanted a real woman. Someone with breeding and style.”
Kelsey shook the thought the way. She should have never agreed to marry him.
Jace suddenly thrust open the door to the room, slamming it against the wall with the force of his fury. “Come on,” he bit out through his teeth. “I’m taking you home. The Danners will pay for this, one and all!”
¤ ¤ ¤
Miracle fed the horses and swept out the back of the wagon. It was twilight, and she could scarcely see the broken glass and tumbled tins of food. She worked carefully, but by the time she was finished it was fully dark.
Stepping outside the wagon, she stared at the listing wheel, and with a snort of anger kicked the rim. Pain shot through her toe, but she bit back a cry of anger. Her fears and worries had been replaced by a wild fury. She wanted to howl with rage and stomp her feet and shake her fist at the heavens, making sure the Creator knew she, Miracle Jones, was not going to be set down for long!
It was time for action. Now!
Muttering to herself, she swept through the tangled grasses and shrubbery back to her camp. She was so immersed in her anger with God that she spoke to Him without censorship.