by Nancy Bush
I know, my Lord, that there is a cause for everything right and just in the world. But what have I done to deserve this? It is unfair and uncalled for and–
Stumbling over a root, Miracle interrupted her mental dialogue to swear a blue streak at the offending gnarled oak that had dared to trip her. Then, inhaling deeply, she lifted her chin along with the hem of her skirt, daintily stepped over the root, and continued on her way.
I have been a good and true believer. I want only to live my life heeding Your word. I have had my share of misery. I have shouldered every burden, accepted every challenge You have put to me. Now, Lord, is it blasphemy to ask You for something in return? Is there not something that I deserve? Some joy? Some reward? Some bit of heaven here on earth?
The hand that grabbed her shot from the deepest shadows surrounding her camp. Miracle gasped.
“What are you doing here?” Harrison’s voice rasped.
She nearly collapsed from shock. “You scared the tar out of me!” she yelled at him, indignant. He was standing in front of her now, his body blocking the moonlight. She hadn’t realized how tall he was, nearly a head taller than herself.
Her heart lifted. He was feeling better. He must be. He couldn’t be on his feet otherwise. The marshmallow root must have worked its wonders.
“I’m glad to see you –” She sucked in a startled breath. The fingers that held her wrist dug in tighter.
“Whad do you want? Where’s s’everyone?” he demanded.
With that he glanced around. She could tell his eyes were open, but his voice was slurred, as if his tongue weren’t working properly. She didn’t remember him enunciating so poorly before. Peering into his face, she tried to read his thoughts.
“We’re alone. You don’t remember?”
“A drink,” he muttered, licking his lips. “I want a drink. Where’s Lexie?”
“Lexie?”
“Damn it, I want a drink!”
“All right. I’ll get you one,” Miracle snapped, trying to ease herself from his grip. She was slightly alarmed. He was still out of his head.
“What are you trying to do to me?” he suddenly demanded. He grabbed her and held her close to his body. She was conscious of the hard muscles of his chest and the dangerous heat of his skin. The marshmallow root hadn’t helped after all, she realized with sinking hopes. He was being consumed by suppuration.
“I want you,” he murmured, one hand sliding into her hair. Miracle’s pulse leapt. His fingers dug into her scalp, tipping up her face.
“Let me get you that drink,” she said in a strangled voice, seeking to escape his arms. “Release me this instant!”
“No,” he muttered, and he crushed his face into the silky curtain of her hair. “So soft. So soft.”
Miracle said unsteadily, “You need to lie back down. I’ll get you some water.”
But he only pulled her closer, fixing her between his legs and pressing her against him in a way that stole her breath. She could feel that part of him, and it was hard and insistent.
She squirmed in protest, shocked, which only seemed to agitate him further. His hands slid beneath the curve of her buttocks, and he pulled her up, nearly off her feet, to seek a further intimacy.
God’s truth, without clothes on he’d be inside her! Miracle choked out indistinguishable sounds. A thrill shot through her. She suddenly wanted to wrap her legs around him and promote this incredible feeling.
“Stop!” she cried out in fear.
She thrust her palms against the hot skin of his chest. But his mouth sought hers, melding her lips in a truly demanding kiss. His tongue stabbed into her mouth, moist, insistent and seeking. Miracle made a strangled sound that succeeded in sounding like a moan. She twisted in his arms, fighting to wrench her mouth from his. She succeeded in breaking contact only because he was still weak. Stumbling backward, she held the back of her hand to her now pulsing lips.
“You’ve got to lie down,” she told him again, from a safe distance away. Her chest heaved as if she’d run ten miles, and her blood surged through her veins.
He stumbled after her, and Miracle backed toward the camp. The last few feet she turned and fled, running right to the water’s edge. It was unnecessary. Harrison’s knees buckled, and he collapsed with a thud against the dry, hard ground.
With a cry of fury directed totally at herself, Miracle rushed to his side. Gently she turned him on his back. There was a gash on his chin from a sharp stick. Curse and rot him! He deserved to be hurt. How could he do that to her?
Muttering, Miracle dabbed at the cut with the remains of her torn petticoat. She tried to move him to the blanket, but it was no use. He was too heavy.
Snatching up one of the blankets, she curled it into a pillow, then she gently lifted Harrison’s head and laid it on the blanket, shaking out another blanket to spread atop him.
“…won’t let you, you bastard…” he muttered, flinging an arm out. “…stop… Lexie…”
Miracle ripped off another strip of petticoat and dipped it in the lake water. When she tried to lay it on his forehead he batted it away with surprising strength.
“…kill you first…” he bit out savagely.
Well, at least his thoughts had turned from lust to fury, she thought wryly. Unfolding her own blanket, she spread it on the ground a safe distance away from her troublesome patient. No use tempting fate. Lord, but he was persistent!
Harrison’s feverish muttering went on as Miracle focused her gaze at the heavens, blocking out his voice. Just the sound of it made her limbs go weak, her brain turn to mush. She couldn’t help thinking about his mouth and chest, and that hard part of him that made her insides quiver.
Gritting her teeth, she counted the stars. They weren’t as bright tonight. A cloud cover was coming in.
Harrison moaned. Blast! Miracle clapped her hands to her ears and doused the flames of desire burning through her. She concentrated on a vision of Aunt Emily’s pious and judgmental face. That ought to cure her if nothing else would.
He murmured something else, reaching outward. “Want you…” he muttered.
“Hellfire,” Miracle bit out in disgust. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter Four
“How is she?” Lexington Danner asked softly, touching Tremaine’s hand.
He was staring down at the woman lying inordinately still in the cold blackness of early morning, her skin nearly as white as the starched linen pillow beneath her head. Feeling Lexie’s fingers slide into his, Tremaine turned to her. Her green eyes stared up at him, demanding the truth, hoping for a miracle.
“It’s diphtheria,” he stated quietly.
Lexie’s lips trembled and her eyes brightened with unshed tears. “How bad?”
“Too early to tell.”
In her husband’s cautious voice Lexie heard the death knell. She knew Tremaine too well to misunderstand. Her mother was sick with a disease that wiped out entire families. Children were the most susceptible, but adults could succumb sometimes just as easily.
Tremaine drew her into his arms, pressing her face against his chest. Lexie squeezed her eyes tightly closed. Tremaine had always been there for her, even when she’d thought she hated him, even when she’d thought he was her blood brother. Then the truth had finally come out: Eliza had been married before and conceived Lexie long before she ever met Joseph Danner and his young son, Tremaine. But Eliza believed she’d murdered her first husband, Ramsey Gainsborough, and the scandal had been hushed up by both Eliza and Joseph to keep Lexie safe from the wrath of Gainsborough’s contemporaries.
Except that Ramsey Gainsborough had showed up in Rock Springs, very much alive. He’d made life miserable for all the Danners until his death from a fall. Only then could Tremaine and Lexie admit their feelings for each other and finally marry. Now Lexie drew strength from her husband’s love.
“Where’s Harrison?” she asked in the suffocated voice.
Tremaine’s expression was grim. �
�God only knows,” he grated, but since Jace Garrett had been the last one to see him, Tremaine was going to journey over to the Garretts’ this evening and flay the truth out of him if he had to.
¤ ¤ ¤
Miracle’s lashes lifted slowly, as if weights had been applied. Her prediction about the weather change was completely accurate. The heat of yesterday was a memory with fall’s chilly breath flowing down her neck, seeping through her skin and into her bones. The paltry cover of one blanket was no proof against the breeze now gusting steadily from the mountain peaks.
It was early. Barely five o’clock, by Miracle’s guess. Shivering slightly, she dragged on her boots, rinsed her face in the freezing lake water, then went in search of more firewood.
An hour later the fire was crackling and throwing off some heat. Setting a pan directly onto the flames, she boiled water and made herbal tea, then poured some of the light brown fluid past Harrison’s unwilling lips. He fought her, as usual, but she won. He was not the easiest patient by a long shot, Miracle thought with a faint smile.
Throughout the rest of that long day she tried to force more liquids into his system, knowing he would soon be dehydrated. But for all her worries, he seemed as sturdy as an ox, lashing out at her with harsh words and surprisingly strong limbs. Even so, his fever rose alarmingly and his skin grew hot and flushed. Physical strength wasn’t necessarily a shield from the ravages of inflammation.
So thinking, Miracle made another decoction of willow bark and forced it down his throat. He managed to knock the cup from her hand and send it spinning in the process, but the fluid went down.
Then she sat down on a broken fir trunk which lay at the corner of her camp, considering Harrison thoughtfully as she waited for him to recover. She knew he was a horse doctor and had a partner named Lexington Danner, but it wasn’t enough information, by far. Why had he been at the barn that night? Had he been alone or with someone? If so, where had that someone gone? And if not, what possible purpose had he had for being at that den of hooligans and criminals?
She’d been staring at his face intently for some time, memorizing each angle and line, she realized with a start. Annoyed, she dragged her gaze away from his handsome, beard-shadowed countenance – a beard which, from Miracle’s reluctant point of view, only added to his raffish attraction. Instead she concentrated on what she knew of him. He was from Rock Springs, the town where she was headed. Her skin prickling, she wondered for the first time if he might know something about her father. Maybe he even shared his acquaintance!
It had been an elderly Clatsop squaw who’d given Miracle that one piece of information that had set her on her course, the Clatsops being one of the few remaining offshoots of the once powerful Chinook tribe. Miracle and Uncle Horace had run across Little Rain quite by accident while they were selling her grandson some roots and herbs not generally found in the Northwest. The grandson, White Rapids, spoke some English, and Uncle Horace engaged him in conversation, telling him Miracle was half Chinook. White Rapids then passed on the knowledge of Miracle’s heritage to other members of the tribe, and eventually the news got back to Little Rain, who had once been slave-traded to the tribe of lower Chinook from which Miracle’s mother had come.
Little Rain was a “flathead,” the name whites had given Chinooks who used to flatten their children’s heads at infancy by pressing a heavy rock against their unformed skulls, and she spoke Nehalim, the Clatsop’s tribe adopted language. Chinook jargon had disappeared a generation back, and Miracle, brought up by Uncle Horace and Aunt Emily, knew neither Chinook nor Nehalim except for a few scattered phrases.
White Rapids knew enough English to interpret, however, and Miracle, heart pumping with excitement, learned more about her mother in that afternoon than Uncle Horace or Aunt Emily had known combined.
“Sitkum siwash,” Little Rain declared, pointing a finger at Miracle.
“Half-breed,” White Rapids explained to Miracle’s look of bewilderment.
“Does she know who my father is?” Miracle asked, her throat dry
White Rapids translated, and Little Rain, who was as old and dried up as parched earth, sat silent and still so long that Miracle lost hope of her ever remembering. But then she spoke to her grandson. Miracle sat by, hands clenched together, afraid to hope for too much. When Little Rain finished, White Rapids turned to Miracle and shrugged somewhat apologetically.
“She say he got many money. He from southern.” Here he swept his arm to encompass all the land south of them. “Dark hair, blue eyes like the sky.”
“She met him? She saw him?” Miracle asked eagerly.
The elderly woman spoke again, interrupting her grandson. “Hiyu stone mitlite tenas waum illahee.” She nodded regally, as if she’d imparted news of great import.
White Rapids looked perplexed.
“What did she say?” Miracle demanded.
“Rocky springs,” was his answer.
Miracle had searched her mind ever since for an explanation of that strange message, and then she’d learned of the town of Rock Springs. Twenty years ago, when Miracle’s mother had known her father, Rock Springs was a fledgling community. If Miracle’s father lived there, surely someone would remember a man with his apparent wealth, a man who’d made long trips from the Cascade foothills to the Columbia River, a man with dark hair and blue eyes who’d stolen a young Chinook woman’s heart.
¤ ¤ ¤
The tension in the Garrett parlor was so thick that even Kelsey’s rangy mutt, Maggie, ceased wagging her tail and letting her pink tongue loll from her mouth. She laid her head on her mistress’s lap, turning dark, anxious eyes up to Kelsey. Kelsey absently patted her, while Emerald’s lips turned downward at the thought that the dog should be allowed in the parlor at all.
“If I knew where Harrison was, don’t you think I’d tell you?” Jace bit out, glaring into his sworn enemy’s set face.
Tremaine Danner was unmoved. “He was with you last.”
“He stood up my sister!” Jace raged. “If you find him, I want first crack at him!”
The tail of Jace’s elegant suit coat started quivering. Kelsey recognized how nervous he was. Her eyes narrowed. Did he know something of Harrison’s disappearance?
She turned her gaze to Sheriff Raynor, who was uncomfortably twisting the brim of his hat as he stood in the archway that led from the Garretts’ parlor to the entry hall. He’d been asking Jace similar questions all evening, based on his apparently finding Jace in a fury that two outlaws had robbed the Half Moon’s safe on the night in question.
“Who were the men who robbed you?” Tremaine asked quietly and firmly.
Jace shot the sheriff a furious look, angry that he told Tremaine about the doings at the Half Moon. “None of your business.”
Tremaine’s lips tightened impatiently. “Eliza has diphtheria, Jace. She’s very ill. She may die. If you don’t tell me what you know about Harrison, and I find out you kept him from seeing her…” He left the thought unfinished, but the set of his jaw, the clench of his white-knuckled hands on the back of the chair, and the velvet softness of his tone were an adequate threat.
“Were you at the barn, Jace?” the sheriff asked reluctantly. He hated getting mixed up with the Danners and the Garretts. Bad blood, that’s what it was.
Jace, for all his faults, generally knew when the cards were stacked against him. “Yes,” he said through his teeth.
“With Harrison?” Tremaine asked swiftly.
“Yes.”
Kelsey gasped in outrage. “They pulled charred bodies from the barn fire! Are you saying Harrison’s dead?”
A flicker of remorse crossed Jace’s features, and he sank down on the couch next to his wife. Emerald’s face was washed of all motion. She could have been a statue. “I don’t know. I was dragged away from the place before they set fire to it by those dirty criminals who claimed I owed them money. Harrison was still there when I left.”
“Why didn’t he leave with yo
u?” Kelsey demanded.
Jace’s eyes flashed fire. “Because he was bedding a virgin he’d paid over a hundred dollars for!”
Tremaine moved so swiftly that he was a blur before Kelsey’s eyes. His hand clamped around Jace’s throat, and he pulled him off the couch in one smooth movement. Emerald screamed, a high, piercing shriek, and Sheriff Raynor lurched into the fray, yelling at Tremaine and trying to peel his fingers from Jace’s neck.
“You’ll kill him, you fool!” Raynor roared.
Without a word, Tremaine released Jace, who crumpled to a gasping heap upon the floor. Booted heels ringing, Tremaine strode out of the parlor and through the front door, the screen banging shut behind him.
“We’ll have to go back to the burned rubble tomorrow,” the sheriff told Jace wearily, “and see what we can find.”
¤ ¤ ¤
Shivering, Miracle flung off her blankets in disgust. Lord, but the nights were cold! Frowning, she hurried to where Harrison lay facedown on one of the blankets, the other covering his bare shoulders. Her teeth started chattering, and after only a moment of indecision she lay down beside him and snuggled beneath the covers, instantly feeling the heat radiating from his body. Pressing her hand to his skin, she was relieved to realize it wasn’t as hot as before.
She’d given him more of Uncle Horace’s elixir, this time adding a healthy shot of rotgut liquor for good measure. If it would take the pain away, why not? She was already racked with guilt for stabbing him. She might as well make his recovery as painless as possible.
“…he’s gotta be put down,” Harrison muttered. “No choice… best thing…”
His heat was like an enveloping cloak. Miracle’s eyelids lowered, and she heaved a sigh of utter relaxation. So she was sleeping next to a man, she thought, her mind slipping into fragments as exhaustion overtook her. She wanted to sleep next to this one.
¤ ¤ ¤
Harrison fought his way upward from the clinging vestiges of sleep. Images, as sharp and brilliant as prisms caught by the sun, flickered before his eyes. He hurt all over, but it was a numb kind of pain that seem to be more part of his body makeup than an ailment to be recovered from.