“Don’t think that’s a good idea, ma’am. The boss said stay here. You better do what he says. I …” He swallowed hard. “A fire … it can get outta control quicker’n that.” He snapped two burn-scarred fingers.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
When she took a determined step in the direction of the fire, Sully reached out a hand to stop her. As soon as she paused, his hand came away. “Did you want something else, Sully?”
“Take a good look at me, ma’am.”
She met his eyes squarely and tried not to let her gaze stray beyond the normal skin on his face. She lost the battle, her eyes drawn against her will to the gruesome scars on the sides of his head where his ears used to be. She kept her face blank, but her stomach revolted at the sight of his deformity. He kept staring at her until her gaze dropped.
“You think twice before you go rushing off,” he said. “This is what fire can do. I know from the way folks try not to look at me that it ain’t a pretty sight. It’d be a shame if anything like this happened to you.” He ducked his head, his forefinger on the brim of his hat. “That’s all I got to say, ma’am.”
Verity had some idea what it must have cost the young man to share even that much of his feelings. His warning kept her where she was a little longer.
She watched the men widening the trench with shovels. She didn’t have the strength to do what they were doing. But the fire curved in on one side where the men were burning it between the furrows, and several men batted at the flames with blankets to keep them from spreading too fast. She could certainly help do that.
She watched, fidgeting, frustrated, feeling useless, until finally she decided that no matter what the danger, she could no longer stand by doing nothing. She had spent a lifetime on the sidelines. Here, in this new land, she had a chance to help determine the course of events, rather than to wait for things to happen around her. It was a heady feeling. And one that gave her the impetus to act.
She grabbed a blanket from the back of the wagon and headed toward the firebreak.
“Ma’am!” Sully called after her.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be careful!” she shouted back over her shoulder.
It didn’t take her long to realize why the men had pulled their bandannas up to cover their faces. The smoke was stifling. She reached into the pocket of her riding skirt for her lace-trimmed handkerchief, which she tied around her nose and mouth. Now she looked as much like a bandit as the rest of them. She aimed herself perpendicular to the plowed furrow and began beating at the fire along the short edge of the firebreak to put it out.
It seemed like they worked for hours, plowing, shoveling, and then beating back the flames on the grass burning between the furrows. Smoke made her eyes water. Soot gathered on her eyelashes, on her hands, her face, her hair, her clothes. Her arms and back and shoulders ached from the constant slap, slap, slap as she beat at the fire with the heavy wool blanket.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Verity started as Miles suddenly appeared beside her on horseback. “I’m helping.”
“You’re quitting.” He yanked the handkerchief down to expose her nose and mouth. Immediately she felt the effects of the smoke.
“You’ve done enough,” he said. “Get back to the wagon.”
“No one else is quitting.”
Her blanket had lain too long in one spot, and the fire caught hold of it. Miles reached down and jerked it out of her hands and threw it aside before she could get burned.
“This isn’t your fight,” he snarled.
“It’s my land as much as yours,” she retorted. “That makes it my fight.”
“Boss!” Red shouted. “The wind is picking up!”
Miles lifted his Stetson, shoved a sooty hand through hair so dark the soot didn’t show, and tugged the hat back down over his brow. “I’m coming!” He turned a fierce look on Verity.
“Get back to the wagon,” he ordered.
“I’m going,” she said. “But only to get another blanket.”
She had marched two steps before Miles yanked her up into his lap and spurred his horse back to the wagon.
“Sully!” he barked.
“Yes, boss.”
“I thought I told you to watch Mrs. Broderick.”
Sully gulped. “I—”
“This time keep her here!” he said curtly as he let Verity drop. She staggered, then caught her balance and stood glaring at him.
“Miles!” Red shouted again.
“I’m coming!” he shouted back. He turned a fierce look back on Verity. “I find you in trouble again, I swear I’ll let you burn!”
He turned and rode away without looking back.
“You look plumb wore out, ma’am,” Sully said, handing Verity a dipperful of water.
“I am,” Verity admitted with a wan smile. She greedily gulped the water, then wiped her mouth and cheeks with her sleeve. It came away black with soot. She walked around to the open bed of the wagon and grabbed another blanket.
“What are you doin’, ma’am?” Sully asked.
“Don’t worry about me, Sully.”
“The boss said to keep you here.”
“I don’t think you’d use force on a lady, would you, Sully?”
Sully gulped. “No, ma’am.”
She patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about Mr. Broderick. I’ll take care of him. And don’t worry about me. I promise to be careful.”
She pulled up her handkerchief and headed for a spot where the wind had carried the fire over the break.
Miles stared grimly across the burning landscape. They were losing the battle. Gusts of wind carried glowing ashes high into the air, where they eddied gracefully toward the dry yellow grass on the other side of the blackened furrow. At the moment, there were few enough that his men could beat them out as soon as they landed.
But he wasn’t sure, with the increasing wind, how long they could expect to beat the odds. He glanced at the sky, wondering whether they could hope for respite from above. The dark storm clouds held gallons of water. The question was whether the sky would open and let it fall in time.
He kneed his horse toward Red. Maybe it was time to admit defeat and get the hell out of here while they still could.
The scrape with Miles had sparked Verity’s adrenaline. It gave her the energy to spread the wool blanket and begin the backbreaking labor of slapping at the crackling grass again. She kept her distance from the others so that Miles wouldn’t notice her.
Verity never saw the fire sneak around behind her, never realized she was beating herself into the center of a circle of flame. She was completely focused on the fire in front of her, too exhausted to lift her head to see what was happening around her.
“Verity!”
Slowly, painfully, she straightened when she heard Miles call her name. Damn. He had caught her again.
It took her only seconds to realize her peril and to panic. She was completely surrounded by fire. The heat was suddenly unbearable, and smoke burned her eyes and choked her throat.
“Miles! Miles, help me!”
Miles felt terror punch him in the gut. He had told her he would let her burn. How could he have said such a thing? How could he have tempted the fates like that?
“Don’t move! Stay where you are!” He was afraid she would try to run through the fire, or leap it, and get caught by the blaze. The wind whipped the flames almost as high as her waist.
He grabbed a blanket out of Pickles’s hands and another one from Cookie and headed his horse toward Verity on the run. He heard the men shouting and running behind him, but he feared they would all be too late.
When he reached the edge of the fire that surrounded Verity, he flung himself off his horse. And froze. The only way to get to her was to go through the fire himself. He could see her terrified face, hear her terrified screams. Yet he was unable to make his feet move. He brushed frantically at an ember that landed on his sl
eeve.
“Miles!” Verity shrieked. “Help me!”
Something broke loose inside him. A fear even greater that the fear of his own death or mutilation. The fear of losing Verity for a second, and final, time. She was everything he had ever wanted in this life. He could not live in a world without her.
He smelled scorched corduroy and knew it was only a matter of seconds before the fire reached Verity’s stockings and then her flesh. He wrapped himself in one blanket and charged through the fire carrying the other. Charred grass crackled underfoot. The instant he reached Verity, he wrapped her in a blanket to protect her face and hair and picked her up to make the trip back through the fire.
The flames seemed higher, hotter. He took a deep breath, and his lungs protested the smoke. His eyebrows and eyelashes were already singed off.
“Hold on to me, Verity,” he said.
He ran, screaming a savage cry of defiance as he charged the fire. Moments later they were safe, and a dozen hands were beating out the fire on his shirt and helping him lower Verity to the ground.
He sank to his knees beside her. “Verity?”
She didn’t answer.
The adrenaline that had carried Miles into the fire was wearing off, and the knowledge of what he had done made him violently ill. He crawled a short distance away and vomited into the grass. Sully was at his shoulder a moment later, handing him a bandanna to wipe his mouth.
“Is she all right?” Miles rasped.
“Her legs are burned,” Sully said.
“Oh, God, no.” All Miles could think of was the pain Sully had endured, the weeks and months it had taken for him to heal.
“It’s not bad,” Sully said.
Miles stumbled to his feet and made his way back to where Verity lay. At least she was alive. At least they had a chance for a future together.
How could he have refused to forgive her for what had happened in the past? How could he have been so stupid, so stubborn, so blind to what was really important? A life with her. A chance to grow old with her. He would forgive her a thousand times for marrying Chester Talbot, if only she was all right.
Verity could hardly breathe, she was so smothered in blankets. She struggled to free her face. When she did, she found herself surrounded by a circle of worried white eyes in sooty faces.
Miles knelt beside her. “How are you?”
She wanted to say “I’m fine” but her lungs were choked with smoke. She writhed in breathless frustration as his hand skimmed intimately across her fanny and legs.
“Don’t fight me,” he snarled. “I’m trying to find out how badly you’re burned.”
She grabbed at his hand to stop its wandering. “I’m okay,” she rasped.
He lifted her into his lap and held her close. “I’m going to take you home,” he muttered. “The fire can burn up the whole damned county for all I care.”
“Miles—” Rain fell in two giant drops on Verity’s cheek and nose.
“I’ll be damned,” Pickles said.
A few drops quickly turned into a deluge, and they could hear the fire hissing around them as the cold water met the hot fire.
“Thank God,” Sully muttered.
Miles held Verity tight.
“I can walk, Miles,” she said.
“The hell you can.” He picked her up and headed for the wagon. “Hitch up the mules to one of the wagons,” he ordered Sully. “I’m going to take Mrs. Broderick back to the house.” He turned to the men and said, “Stay here and make sure that fire goes out. Sully’ll bring the wagon back for the equipment.”
Miles pulled the handkerchief free of Verity’s neck where it had fallen and used it to wipe the worst of the soot from her face. “You’re damned lucky. You could have been burned to death.”
“Would you have cared, Miles?”
He answered by kissing her.
Oh, yes. Yes, I would have cared, Miles thought, as his tongue drove deep in her mouth. More than I should. More than it’s safe to care.
When Miles set Verity carefully on her feet beside the wagon, she examined the ragged remnants of scorched material. Her stockings had holes singed into them, revealing pinkened skin. She touched the flesh gently with her fingertips and gasped.
Miles could see the burns on the backs of Verity’s legs better than she could. In one or two spots blisters had popped up. He shivered. It had been close. What if he hadn’t gotten to her when he had? What if her hair had caught fire? What if the fire had swallowed her whole?
Miles helped Verity step up into the wagon seat and saw her quail as the scorched corduroy made contact with her blistered skin in several places. But she didn’t make a sound of complaint.
His hands were trembling, he suddenly realized. He balled them into fists, but that didn’t help. It was a delayed reaction, he realized, to the horror of what had almost happened.
He kept the team at a walk during the ride back to the house because anything more caused Verity too much pain. It was nearly dusk before they saw the outline of the ranch buildings.
“Who’s that standing on the porch?” Verity asked. “I can’t see them in the shadows.”
“Good Lord. It’s Tom. And there’s a woman with him.”
“That’s Freddy!” Verity said, recognizing her green riding habit.
Rand wasn’t with them.
“Sully, catch the reins.” Miles threw the reins toward the boy in the back of the wagon as they reached the front of the house. He stepped over Verity and off the wagon, ready to help her down. She stood gingerly, and he saw from the way the blood drained from her face that the shock must have worn off. She was in a great deal more pain now than she had been when the burns were new. A quick glance revealed the blisters on the backs of her legs had grown larger.
“Lady Talbot! Lady Talbot!” Freddy cried as she raced toward Verity. “It’s Rand … He … He … She burst into tears as Verity’s arms closed around her.
Miles met Verity’s eyes and found them liquid with tears.
“He’s dead,” Verity said dully. “He’s really dead.”
Freddy jerked herself out of Verity’s embrace. “Oh, no, ma’am. He’s not! But his wound is infected and he has a fever and I don’t know what to do to make him better.”
What neither pain, nor fear, nor foreboding had accomplished, relief did.
Verity fainted dead away.
12
Miles laid Verity carefully on his bed beside the fevered young man who was already occupying it, then eased her onto her stomach to keep her blistered calves from coming into contact with the bedding.
The white-faced young lady who had followed him inside hovered anxiously nearby.
“Fred—Lady Winnifred?” Miles said.
She nodded jerkily. “Who are you?”
“Miles Broderick. I’m … a friend of Lady Talbot’s.”
“Tom—Mr. Grimes said the two of you got married,” Freddy countered, eyeing him curiously.
Miles flushed, caught in the lie. “We did.”
“I can hardly believe it. Why—”
“I’m sure Verity can explain everything to you later. Right now I need to tend to her burns.”
Freddy looked anxiously at Verity’s unconscious form. “Will Lady Tal—Mrs. Broderick—be all right?”
“We’ve been fighting a brush fire all day. She’s just exhausted, and she has some burns on her legs.”
“They look painful,” Freddy said, moving aside the charred corduroy and exposing Verity’s ruined stockings and the blistered skin above her half-boots.
“I’ve got a salve I can put on them that should make her feel better and help her heal.”
“Can you help Rand, too?” Freddy asked.
For the first time, Miles took a good look at Verity’s son. He was a handsome young man who—
The hair stood up on Miles’s arms. His gaze shot from Verity to Rand. From her blond hair lying on one pillow … to his black hair on the other. The bottom fell out o
f his stomach.
Miles bit back a gasp.
“Is something wrong?” Freddy asked.
“That’s Verity’s son?” Miles queried in a cautious voice.
“Yes, sir. That’s Rushland.”
Miles tensed. “What color are his eyes?”
“Why, they’re gray, sir. Why do you ask?”
Miles stared at the young man and felt a shock of recognition. It was like looking at himself as a younger man.
No! It can’t be. She would have told me. She never would have married Talbot if she had been pregnant with my child.
But the irrefutable evidence that this was not—could not possibly be—Chester Talbot’s son lay there on the bed in front of him. He felt dizzy.
He had a son. He and Verity had a son.
Unless she had lain with some other man after her marriage to Chester. Not probable, knowing her—and Chester. But possible.
“How old is Rushland?” Miles asked.
“Twenty-one. He’ll be twenty-two next month.”
Oh, God. He had been born within a year of Verity’s marriage. Rand had to be his son! He catalogued the young man’s features. The nose was the same as his own, and the chin. The black hair, of course. And Rand’s eyes were gray … like his own.
Verity, what happened? Why didn’t you tell me I had a son? Why did you keep him from me?
Why hadn’t he gone back to England? Why hadn’t his parents told him about Rand in one of their infrequent letters? They must have seen the boy. They must have guessed.
Chester must have known, too.
That realization froze Miles where he stood.
He understood so much now. Why Chester had not come to Verity’s bed after Rand was born. Why she had sent her son away to school at so young an age. Why she had told him he would like Rand, because Rand was nothing like Chester. Of course not. Rand was not Chester’s son.
Miles examined the terrible wound on his son’s shoulder and the four distinct claw marks on his belly. He had come impossibly close to losing a son he had never known he had.
“How long has he been unconscious?” he asked Freddy.
“Most of the day. For a long time his wound wouldn’t stop bleeding.” She swallowed hard. “He’s been feverish, too, but surely now that he’s in a warm bed and can have good food and hot tea, he’ll get well, won’t he?”
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