Rand pulled her tight against him, his mouth pressed to her temple. “God, Freddy! What made you do something so impossibly stupid? You could have been killed!”
“I … I don’t know what came over me, Rand. I only know I wouldn’t have wanted to live myself if anything had happened to you.”
Rand looked into her green eyes and saw the confusion there. She might not know it yet, but she did care for him. And not just a little.
“Who fired those shots?” Freddy asked. “They saved our lives.”
“I don’t know,” Rand said. “But I’m going to shake the hand of whoever it was.”
Then he saw two Indians galloping directly toward them.
“Oh, hell,” he muttered. “Bloody, bloody hell.”
9
Miles had planned to take vengeance on Verity for her betrayal of him by using her body for his own pleasure. For years he had imagined having her under him, no matter what it took to get her there. When the moment came—to his surprise and consternation—he had drawn back from using force to have her.
Her behavior was even more confusing than his.
Despite what Verity had threatened, if she found his face frightening or awful, if she found his touch distasteful, she had given no sign of it. She had opened herself to him, responded wholeheartedly to him, and when he had found satisfaction, she had circled her arms around him and held him close.
Could she possibly have been telling the truth? Could a naive and gullible Verity have been forced by Chester’s threats into a marriage she hadn’t wanted? Had she really loved him enough to make such a sacrifice for him? Still, she had shown very little trust in a man she supposedly loved. She had married Chester without even giving Miles a chance to help her out of her dilemma.
“Miles?”
He had been so deep in thought, her voice startled him. He glanced up from under the brim of his Stetson at the blinding sun and realized half the morning was gone. They had been riding steadily north along the Platte River on a line parallel to the trail they would have taken to the Hanrahan ranch. But they had not seen hide nor hair of Tom or the Indians.
“Shouldn’t we have caught up to Tom by now?” Verity asked.
“We lost a lot of time tracking down your horse.”
“I could have ridden pillion behind you.”
“Riding double would have been dangerous if we ran into the Sioux and had to light out.” He heard the anger in his voice and realized it wasn’t caused by their delay in following Tom so much as by his confusion about their relationship. He sighed.
He might be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt regarding her marriage to Chester. But he wasn’t going to apologize for ruining Talbot. And he wasn’t going to let her out of the marriage to him.
“I’m sorry, Miles,” she said.
“For what?”
“For everything.”
His gaze met hers across the small distance that separated them on horseback. “That covers a lot of territory. Anything specific you have in mind?”
He watched her gnaw on her lower lip, leaving it pink and swollen. She opened her mouth to speak and closed it again. Finally she said, “I never meant the things I said about your face—the scar, I mean. It never mattered to me.”
“That’s not what you said twenty-two years ago,” he reminded her.
“Twenty-two years ago I told you what I thought would make you hate me enough to let me go without an argument.” She shook her head sadly. “I guess I was convincing.”
“I believed you.”
“Do you believe me now?”
He ran the reins through his hands in agitation. “Does it matter?”
“It does if we’re going to have a life together.”
“Is that what you want?”
She angled her body in the saddle to face him squarely. “I thought it was what you wanted.”
He shook his head. “I wanted revenge.”
“Chester is dead. You’ve gotten me back. I’d say you’ve accomplished what you set out to do.”
“Not quite.” He had planned to hurt and humiliate her the way he had been hurt and humiliated. He had not, he realized now, made any plans at all beyond that. He eyed her coolly.
“You have some further vengeance planned?” she asked. When he didn’t answer she prodded, “What’s stopping you?”
“Let’s just say I’m reconsidering the situation.”
She met his gaze warily. “Then you’ve forgiven me for what happened?”
He reined his horse around a fallen log and noted absently where a bear had been digging there recently.
“I’m not sure that’s possible.”
“Then how can we hope to have any sort of life together?”
He brushed his fingers over the worn design tooled in the saddle leather. “I need some time, Verity. I’m going to have to learn to trust you all over again. You can understand why I might have some trouble doing that.”
He saw the worry in her eyes. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again without speaking. Suddenly, she pointed to a spot behind him, over his left shoulder.
“Miles, look!”
He swiveled his horse around to see what had caught her attention. Black smoke billowed to the west.
“What is it?” she asked.
Miles felt the bile come up from his stomach to burn his throat as he realized what he was seeing. “The Hanrahan place,” he said. “The Sioux must have circled around and gone back to do what they had planned in the first place. Come on. Let’s go.”
“Wait! What about Rand and Freddy?”
“Sophie and Earl Hanrahan have a new baby. That’s also where Frog and Red were headed. There may be a chance I can get there in time to help.”
Five years ago Miles had seen smoke and followed it to a poor dirt farm. When he got there, he could hear the screams of several victims trapped inside a burning line shack. The single door to the windowless shack had been blocked from the outside. Apparently some cattleman had decided to rid himself of a nester family squatting on his government rangeland by burning them out.
Miles had dragged away the heavy iron plow blocking the door, but by then the screams had stopped. Once he got the door open, he could see that, between the raging fire and the dense smoke, he probably wasn’t going to find anyone alive inside. But he couldn’t stand there doing nothing, so he had wrapped himself in a sopping wet blanket, taken a deep breath, and crawled inside.
Just inside the door he had encountered a body in flames. He had grabbed a thick-soled working-man’s shoe and dragged the body out of the fire. He had covered the burning body with the wet blanket he had been using to protect himself, then picked up the thin, charred body of the gangly farm boy in his arms and stumbled outside with it.
He would never forget the sickly sweet odor of burned flesh, or his horror as the boy’s skin sloughed off on his hands when he lowered the kid to the ground.
The smoke was too thick, the fire too hot, for him to go back inside. Or that was what he told himself on the nights when he awoke trembling with nausea and fear, his body bathed in sweat, his hands pressed to his ears to quiet the screams of the man and woman—the boy’s parents—who had burned to death that day. He would always wonder whether a second effort by him could have saved them.
He had stayed at the ramshackle farm and nursed the boy, protecting him from the rancher who had come to see the results of his handiwork, then holding vigil while he waited for the fourteen-year-old to die of his horrible burns. Somehow, the kid had survived.
Sully had been with him ever since. He was a constant reminder to Miles of the damage fire could do to the human body.
If the Hanrahans had stayed in the house after it had caught fire … He gagged as the remembered odor of burning flesh rose in his nostrils but managed to swallow down his gorge.
He was stunned by the fear that rose within him. I can’t help anyone who’s caught in that fire. I can’t.
“Miles—” Verity cried to stop him. She had something important to tell him, only she was still searching for the right words.
But he was already gone.
She kicked her exhausted horse into as close to a gallop as it could manage, terrified of being left behind.
When Miles had admitted he was reconsidering his vengeance and started talking about learning to trust her again, Verity had realized the predicament she was in.
On the one hand, confessing to Miles that Rand was his son would clear the slate and allow them to go on with their lives together with honesty between them.
On the other hand, she had no doubt Miles was going to be livid with anger when he learned he had a son she had kept secret from him all these years.
On the other, other hand, she had very little hope he would believe she hadn’t known she was pregnant when she married Chester.
She had to figure out a way to tell him the truth—before they found Rand—that didn’t paint her as a villainess. Or he was going to forget all about learning to trust again and return to his plan of vengeance.
Long before he reached the ranch house Miles realized whatever had happened there was over and done. Nothing was left of the house but a smoking ruin of blackened timbers. He felt an intense sense of relief.
Giant flames still licked at the barn, devouring the wood and spitting out billows of smoke that partially obliterated the figures moving around the barnyard.
He watched two men frantically racing back and forth dumping buckets of water on the chicken house and a tool storage shed, trying to keep them from catching fire as well. A third man pulled furiously on a pump handle. A constant stream of water splashed onto the muddy ground between bucket refills.
Miles was glad to see that Earl Hanrahan was the man at the pump and breathed a sigh of relief when he recognized Red and Frog as the two men carrying buckets. His breath caught in his throat when a quick search revealed no sign of Mrs. Hanrahan or the baby.
He rode as close as he could to the fire without spooking his horse—or himself—then dismounted and ran the rest of the way to Hanrahan on foot. “Everybody all right?” he called out when he was close enough to be heard over the roar of the fire and the crash of burning timbers.
Earl Hanrahan paused for a moment with the pump lever upraised and stared at him. His red-rimmed eyes looked ghastly in a face blackened by smoke. “Sophie’s dead,” he said flatly. He glanced over his shoulder at the blackened ashes. “She was in the house when they attacked.” Earl turned back to stare blankly at Miles. “She never got out.”
Earl started pumping again, yanking on the iron handle so hard it squealed in rebellion before water began gushing out.
Miles didn’t ask about the baby. Earl would have said if the baby was all right. Which he hadn’t. So probably the little girl was gone, too. Miles breathed through his mouth, afraid of what his nose might detect in the devastation. A second look at the house convinced him there was nothing more left of Earl’s wife and baby than charred bones. Flesh had burned, but he would no longer be able to smell it. He pressed his lips flat and let himself breathe normally again.
He clapped a hand on Earl’s shoulder, which was all the comfort he could offer. “What can I do? How can I help?”
Earl stopped pumping abruptly to survey the damage. The roof of the henhouse was on fire, and one side of the tool shed was engulfed. His hands fell away from the pump and hung at his sides. “Nothing,” he said, his voice raw from breathing smoke. “There’s nothing to be done now.”
When Frog arrived with his bucket, there was no water to fill it. He looked at Earl, then back toward the burning roof of the chicken house. “Can’t stop it now,” Frog said.
A moment later Red joined Frog at the pump. “You quittin’, Earl?”
Earl took a step back from the pump. “Let ’em burn.”
Miles had forgotten about Verity and was surprised when she clasped her hand in his. He turned and saw she was staring aghast at the remains of the house.
“Was it Indians?” she asked.
“What else?” Earl replied bitterly.
“We made them pay,” Red said, gesturing toward a body crumpled near the corral and another near the house.
“Was it Hawk?” Miles asked.
“Don’t know,” Red said. “Where’s Shorty and Tom?”
“We found Hawk and a few of his braves camped not far from here and attacked them just before dawn. Shorty didn’t make it. Tom chased off after a couple of bucks who escaped. I was hunting him when Verity spotted the smoke.”
“Where’s your wife?” Verity asked Earl.
Miles squeezed Verity’s hand to cut her off, but he was too late. Earl had heard her.
“Sophie’s dead,” he said. “And the baby. They got trapped in the house.”
“I’m so sorry,” Verity said.
Miles saw the tears well in her eyes and wondered if she was crying because of the senseless deaths, or because it was so obvious Earl couldn’t.
“Why don’t you come back to my place with me?” Miles said to Earl. “Red and Frog can stay here and—”
“Thanks, Miles. I’d rather bury them myself. And I won’t be leaving. I’m staying here with them.”
“But—”
Earl raised his head from slumped shoulders. Tears glittered in his eyes. “I can’t leave them here all alone. You understand, don’t you, Miles?”
Miles put a hand on the other man’s shoulder and felt his body trembling. “Sure, Earl. We’ll stay and help, if that’s all right.”
Earl nodded, then turned and headed for the ruins of the house.
Verity pressed herself against Miles, and his arms closed around her, as much to comfort himself as to comfort her.
“Oh, Miles,” she murmured. “That poor, poor man.”
He felt her trembling, too, and realized she was imagining her son dead, and Freddy. And not without good reason.
“Hey, boss. I think you better come here and look at this … without the lady,” Red said.
He felt Verity quiver in his embrace. “Wait here,” he ordered. He freed himself and started toward where Red knelt by one of the dead Sioux.
Verity quickly caught up to him.
He stopped and took her shoulders in his hands. “You should wait here.”
She looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Whatever it is, Miles, I have to know.”
“All right. But hold on to my hand. I don’t want you landing on the ground if you faint.”
“I won’t faint,” she promised him.
He had his doubts. But he took her hand and dragged her after him toward where Red waited.
Red had turned the Indian onto his back.
Miles saw right away what had garnered Red’s attention. The Indian was wearing a signet ring. And he had a pocket watch tied on a rawhide string around his neck.
“Recognize these?” Miles said to Verity as Red handed him the two pieces of jewelry.
Verity’s face felt stiff. She nodded jerkily. “They belong to Rand.” She glanced up at Miles, whose solemn features frightened her. “It doesn’t mean he’s dead.”
“There’s something else I didn’t mention, because I didn’t want to worry you,” Miles said.
“What?” Verity asked.
“Rand’s and Freddy’s horses … They were Thoroughbreds, weren’t they?”
She nodded, because she couldn’t get any sound past the thickness in her throat.
“Two Thoroughbreds were picketed at the Indian camp we attacked.”
Verity made a sound of denial in her throat.
“I never had the chance to ask Hawk whether his captives were alive or dead, but the odds are overwhelmingly against their being alive. They should have been with those Sioux we saw camped back there … but they weren
’t. I think you have to face the fact that Rand may be dead. And Freddy … Freddy may not survive even a brief captivity.”
“There’s something else here I think you ought to see,” Red said. He pulled back a beaded buckskin vest to reveal a white lawn shirt. There was a hole in the shoulder, and a stain where blood had obviously been rinsed from the garment.
Miles felt a shiver run down his spine. He glanced at Verity.
She took the two steps to close the distance between her and the dead Indian, then knelt beside him. She fingered the seams, the cuffs, the buttons she had sewn with her own hand. She rose and turned to Miles.
“That shirt belongs … belonged … to Rand,” she said. “I made it for him myself.”
Miles caught her as she swayed.
“It’s time to go home, Verity. It’s time to give up the search.”
“No, Miles, please!”
“There’s no use in going any farther. We aren’t going to find them alive.”
“Oh, God.” Rand is not dead. I won’t believe he’s dead. If I don’t grieve, he can’t be dead.
As Verity’s knees buckled, Miles’s good arm slipped around her, and he pulled her close against his chest.
Verity heard the blood thudding beneath her ears, heard the breath rasp in and out of her open mouth, heard Miles and Red exchange words but understood nothing of what they said. Her head lolled back across Miles’s arm, and she saw sky—blue, cloudless, immense.
Tell him Rand is his son. That will make him keep looking.
It would also make him hate her forever, if Rand was never found.
But if they continued searching, they might find Rand’s body. Then she would have to accept his death. If they stopped looking now, she could continue to believe Rand would turn up alive.
What should she do?
She knew what she ought to do. She ought to tell Miles the truth. Let him make the decision whether to continue searching with the knowledge it was his son who was lost. But she couldn’t do it. She was too afraid of losing everything. She had to hold on to her hope.
“I’m going to take my wife home, Red,” Miles said. “You and Frog follow after me as soon as you help bury Mrs. Hanrahan and the baby.” He gave Red directions how to find Shorty, so he could be brought back to the Muleshoe and buried in the small cemetery behind the house.
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