by Nancy Bush
The tiny digging sticks of the marshmallow root scratched against his skin. Harrison turned over Miracle’s claim to be an herbalist in his mind. She had known what to do to make certain his blood stayed pure; he had to credit her with that. But he distrusted the wily peddlers who drove through rural towns, hocking their expertise alongside their tinware, squeezing pennies and nickels from those who could ill afford to lose them, making a living at other people’s expense.
He sighed. His mother had taken to listening to Belinda, a would-be healer, after the accident that had nearly cost her her life, completely forgetting that it was Tremaine who had saved her, Tremaine who had brought her back to health, Tremaine who had stitched Harrison’s arm back on as well.
But Eliza hadn’t been quite the same after the fall. Bent on revenge, her first husband, Ramsey Gainsborough, had fought with her on the widow’s walk, causing them both to fall two stories to the ground below. Gainsborough had died almost instantly, and Eliza had been left critically injured.
Eliza had recovered slowly, and finally she was completely healed – at least physically. However, even though her body mended, a lifetime of values seemed to have been lost. The kind of mysticism and superstition she’d sniffed at all her life suddenly appealed to her. It didn’t matter that her husband had once been a physician, or that her stepson was an excellent surgeon, or that one of her sons and her only daughter were horse doctors. She wanted a miracle cure. She wanted something to believe in.
The faith healer had offered strange tisanes and tinctures, potions and spells and incantations. Subsequently, Eliza’s recovery had been fraught with peaks and valleys such as Harrison had never seen before. Tremaine, in his own inimitable way, had told her point-blank to ignore Belinda’s advice. Harrison had said much the same. Eliza had refused to listen to them, and to this day she believed Belinda had been as important to her return to health as her own stepson, Tremaine.
Harrison’s thoughts restlessly turned to his mother. She’d been unwell the day before his scheduled wedding. A cold, she’d assured them all, but the shuttered look on Tremaine’s face had struck fear in Harrison’s heart.
He hoped his mother had been right: a cold, nothing more. He had to get back to Rock Springs and find out. Chafing at his own incapacitation, Harrison’s expression grew darker and stormier. It was bad enough that Kelsey had been humiliated. What about his mother? Had his disappearance created a setback? He would never forgive himself if that were the case.
It was time for action.
He pulled his heels beneath him against the bole of a tree, then pushed with all his strength to bring himself upright once again. Sweat broke out on his forehead and upper lip. The muscles of his thighs burned. The poultice scraped across his skin as he slid his back upward against the bark of the tree. Gritting his teeth and panting from the exertion, Harrison finally managed to stand on maddeningly shaky knees.
Miracle had been studiously ignoring him, but now she glanced his way. With a gasp she dropped her cup to the ground and came running toward him, skirts flying. “You’ll give yourself a setback for certain!”
“I’m leaving,” he said flatly, hiding the effort those few words cost him with what he felt was remarkable fortitude.
“Your face has gone completely white,” Miracle observed.
“I have duties and people to see in Rock Springs.”
“You’ll never make it.”
He eyed her impatiently. “Didn’t you say you have a wagon? You can drive me.”
“The wheel’s broken.”
Harrison closed his eyes, his mouth forming a single, distinct swearword. He was well and truly trapped until this damned knife wound decided to give up its grip on his weakened system.
“Rest,” Miracle suggested, reaching forward to help him back down. Intending to catch his arms, she was distracted by the feel of his hard bicep and the muscular strength of his chest. Too many memories of his kisses and potent masculinity crowded into her mind. Biting her lip, she forced them away while she aided him unwillingly back to the ground.
The look on his face was one of impotent fury. He hated being so helpless.
“All right,” he said in a tight, tense voice. “But tomorrow I’m leaving, even if you have to carry me out in a coffin!”
“You’d better hope your wish doesn’t come true.”
He glared at her. Lord, but she possessed a sharp tongue. “Just make sure you’re not the one to put me in it,” he growled.
Chapter Six
Miracle awoke to a gray and cloud-shrouded dawn. Almost overnight, it seemed, summer had disappeared and fall had settled in. The air that filled her lungs had a bite of winter.
She calculated the time to be around five thirty. Wrapped in several blankets – away from Harrison – she felt a bit cold in her limbs. Rubbing her legs briskly, she longingly glanced his way.
He wasn’t there.
Miracle threw off her blanket and scrambled to her feet, shaking in the cool morning air even though she was fully dressed. Her heart thumped. Where was he? He hadn’t succumbed to the wound’s poisons again and wandered off in a fever, had he?
Her boots lay beside her, and she hurriedly yanked them on, her gaze anxiously raking the camp on all sides. She should have lain beside him, she realized with sinking despair. But no, that wouldn’t have helped, now, would it? It hadn’t the other night!
Muttering invectives directed solely at herself, Miracle ran down the trampled grass pathway toward the wagon.
“Whoa.” A drawling masculine voice greeted her as she charged pell-mell into the clearing.
“What do you think you’re doing?!” Miracle demanded in a rage. “You shouldn’t be up. For all I knew you could have wandered off sick and helpless.”
“Would you have cared?”
“Of course I would have cared!” Was that a grin stealing across his face? Curse and rot him, he was laughing at her! “I want to make sure you arrive home healthy. I don’t fancy a jail cell, Mr. Danner.”
He was leaning against the side of the wagon, one hand resting on the spokeless wheel. He was still bare-chested, rays of weak sunlight striping across the hard muscles in the dark gold strands of his mussed hair. The poultice had been discarded, tossed onto the ground beside him like so much garbage, and the slit of the knife wound now looked like an innocuous scratch.
He arched a brow. “I thought I’d see what I could do to get us going.” Inclining his head toward the north, he added, “I met your horses. I figured if we could get this wheel put together, we could hitch them up and you could give me that ride to Rock Springs.”
“How can we fix the wheel?” Miracle’s gaze slid from his. She hadn’t realized he was so tall, nor so lean. She had never met a man who could affect her this powerfully, least of all a white man. With disgust, she understood for the first time what her mother must have felt upon encountering her father. She winced, stricken to think she was following the same path.
“Have you got an axe?” Harrison asked. “Or a heavy knife?” His mouth quirked. “Heavier than the one I was already introduced to, that is.”
“I’ve got a deer-gutting knife inside the wagon.”
“Maybe I could whittle a few spokes from these for branches. The wheel rim’s in fair shape. I could put something together that might just last until we get to Rock Springs.”
Miracle absorbed this with mixed feelings. She, too, wanted to get to Rock Springs and find out about Uncle Horace, but part of her wanted to stay. As soon as they reached the town she and Harrison would part ways.
And he would never know what they’d shared.
“Miracle?”
“I’ll – I’ll take the knife and cut off the branches and bring them to you.” It was better that he never knew. It was the only way, in fact. She was a fool even to wish things might be different.
As soon as Miracle was gone Harrison sank down on the back step of the wagon, cursing his weakness. A sense of urgency drove
him. Though he’d only been missing a matter of days, he felt tense and anxious, as if events were happening beyond his control.
He thought back to the night before his planned wedding and realized with increasing soberness that he was lucky to be alive. The men who’d kidnapped Miracle were more than likely of the same group who’d been hunting that stretch of road between Malone and Rock Springs, abducting young women for their own pleasures or for money, or both, then later disposing of them. Harrison now knew why someone had slipped something into his drink; it wasn’t only for the pile of money he and Jace had been gambling with, it was also to make certain the highwaymen weren’t remembered by either Harrison or Jace, who were both well-known faces themselves and of considerable influence in Rock Springs.
Thinking of Jace, he grimaced. He hoped Garrett had managed to stay alive, although if he were, then why hadn’t someone come hunting for him? Jace could tell them where they’d both been. Did he think Harrison had perished in the fire? Did they all think that?
Miracle returned, her arms laden with fir boughs already stripped bare of needles. The scent of freshly cut fir filled his head. Coupled with the sharp, damp scent of the air, it made Harrison realize anew that time was passing, the seasons were changing.
“Thanks,” he said gruffly as he climbed to his feet. It was an effort to disguise how difficult it was to move, but he’d be damned if he’d show any further weakness in front of this lady.
“I’ve trimmed the needles and some of the smaller limbs. These branches looked to be about the right size.”
He had to admire her choice. He couldn’t have done better himself. The fir branches were about an inch in diameter, straight and tough and near enough to the right length that he knew Miracle had cut them with care. He thought of Isabella: soft, full breasted, with the airs of a society lady and the morals of an alley cat. She would not have known how to survive out here. He still couldn’t believe how much he’d let her hurt him.
Thank God for Kelsey, he thought, his gaze turning to Miracle. And even this little savage was more of a woman than Isabella could ever hope to be.
He settled back on the step and began hewing off the rough bark with her hunting knife.
“I know you’re a horse doctor,” she said, watching him work.
“How do you know that?”
“I found a card in your pocket. It’s back at the camp, with your money and pocketknife.”
He slid a glance her way. “You went through my pockets?”
“I didn’t know who you were. You just told me your name, and I was afraid that if you…”
“Died?” he inserted, his lips twisting.
“Yes, died. I wouldn’t know who to tell. I figured someone would be waiting for you.”
Harrison set down the first “spoke” and picked up another fir branch. He didn’t answer. Thinking about Kelsey made him feel guilty and angry. His expression changed accordingly, and Miracle, watching, felt her heart wrench at the look of cold cordiality that swept across his face.
She crossed her arms. “Who’s Lexington?” she asked, seeking to change the subject and bring it back to neutral ground.
“My sister.”
“Sister!” Miracle was astounded. “But isn’t she your business partner? Your card said –”
“Lexie’s an unusual woman,” he interrupted. “She’s always known what she wanted and gone after it, come hell or high water. Quite often it turned out to be hell.”
She could hardly credit the kind of man who would be in a partnership with his sister. It was unheard of. Unfathomable. Her lips parted in amazement. “She’s a horse doctor!” Miracle exclaimed. “Impossible!”
“Why?” He stopped what he was doing to frown at her.
Throughout his and Lexie’s business career he’d grown tired of defending her to thick-skulled males who couldn’t see her finesse and tender care. The last thing he expected was to have a woman as clearly independent and savage as Miracle criticize her.
“The farmers would never trust her,” Miracle pointed out quite accurately. “And a man would never have a woman as a business partner.”
“You and your uncle seem to be in business together,” he pointed out dryly.
“But not in a trade profession. A man’s trade profession.”
Harrison stared at her. She really was quite intelligent. Behind those incredible eyes lay an intellect he would have never guessed at, considering her own “profession.”
“Well, Lexie and I are partners,” Harrison stated, settling to his task.
Miracle turned her attention to the dusky gray-blue sky above their heads. “Is she married?” she asked, intrigued by the idea of a man who could accept his sister as a horse doctor.
“Uh-huh. To my half-brother, Tremaine.” At Miracle’s look of utter confusion, he added helpfully, “The doctor.”
“Your sister is married to your half-brother?” she repeated slowly.
“My half-sister is married to my half-brother,” he corrected. “They are not related to each other except by marriage. I’m related to both of them, however, since Tremaine’s father is my father, and Lexie’s mother is my mother.”
Miracle frowned in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
He laughed shortly. “I’d be surprised if you did. My father, Joseph Danner, was first married to a woman in Boston. She died, and he was devastated. He started drifting from town to town, taking Tremaine, who was about eight then, along with him. Then he met Eliza and married her. Only Eliza was already pregnant from her first marriage. She had a daughter about seven months after she married my father.”
“Lexie,” Miracle put in.
Harrison nodded. “So Tremaine and Lexie aren’t related, except by marriage. Then my mother and father had three more children – me and my two brothers – so we’re related to both Lexie and Tremaine.”
Miracle absorbed this in silence. “What happened to Eliza’s first husband?”
“Ramsey Gainsborough.” Harrison spoke the name as if it tasted bad. “Dead.”
“How?” she asked, sensing there was far more of the story to be told.
“Gainsborough was a powerful man with powerful friends. He came for his daughter, Lexie, to use as a pawn to torture Eliza, my mother who had struck him down in self-defense years before and left him for dead. She was afraid no one would believe her, so she ran away and married my father.”
“Joseph…”
Harrison nodded. “Then Gainsborough showed up in Rock Springs. He threatened my mother and my family and he lured my mother onto the widow’s walk. They argued and fought, and Gainsborough fell to his death. My mother was injured, but she survived.” His lips twisted at Miracle’s look of horror and disbelief, and he added dryly, “Ask anyone in Rock Springs all about it. It’s one of the town’s two most infamous stories.”
“What’s the other infamous story?”
His expression changed quite abruptly. He hesitated so long Miracle wasn’t certain he would answer. But then he muttered, “My brother Jesse,” and bent to his task with a purposefulness that effectively shut Miracle out and stopped further questions.
Miracle’s brows lifted. And she’d thought she had an unusual family history. Sensing his desire to close the subject, she climbed into the back of the wagon and began sorting through the remaining intact bottles and jars, making a mental inventory of what she would need to replace.
Harrison chopped at the spokes with suppressed violence. Jesse had left Rock Springs under a cloud of suspicion and had never returned. At first the rumors were he’d left because Alice McIntyre was pregnant, but when the lady in question never blossomed into motherhood, that rumor had been reluctantly given up by the Rock Springs busybodies. But other rumors had taken its place, rumors less able to be proved false. Jesse was accused of everything from theft to rape to murder. In some ways it was just as well he was gone, Harrison reminded himself. Jesse, a rake and a libertine, would have probably been suspected in
the rapes and murders of those women the highwaymen had abducted and killed.
He heard the rattle of bottles and glanced behind him to the wagon’s dusky interior. Miracle was taking inventory, he realized, getting ready to hawk her herbal remedies at the nearest town.
He grunted in disgust. The unsuspecting residents of Rock Springs were undoubtedly next.
The sun rose higher, and while Harrison attempted to fit his newly made spokes into the rim, Miracle, who’d gone back to the camp to gather their belongings together, returned with another bowl of soup cradled in her smooth palms. “It’s all I have,” she apologized, her nose wrinkling in a thoroughly enticing way.
“Thanks,” he said as she set the bowl down on a smooth stone near the wagon.
“Can I do something else to help?” she asked, eyeing his handiwork with something like criticism.
“I’m almost done,” Harrison said shortly.
“Ah.”
Now what did that mean? He forced his gaze on his rough-hewn spokes, but his eyes seemed to have a will of their own, turning to where Miracle had settled herself on the step he’d vacated. Her skirts were tumbled around her, her knees slightly apart. The lacy edge of her petticoat peeked out, white against her tanned skin. For the barest of moments he caught a glimpse of lightly bronzed, smooth skin – Miracle’s thigh – before she switched her skirts back in place.
Memories crowded inside his head. He could almost feel his hand on that luscious thigh.
Harrison drew a sharp breath.
“What’s wrong?” Miracle asked, looking up.
He had to turn away swiftly. He could remember her beneath him, her legs wrapped around him. For Chrissake, he could feel it as if it had really happened! Shaking his head, he ran a hand over his eyes, shocked at himself. He wasn’t Jesse, by God! He had more self-control than to fantasize about this woman like that.