Maverick Heart

by Joan Johnston

  “Freddy, it’s me.” He yanked his woolen scarf away from his nose and mouth, where he had wrapped it to keep the wind from biting at him.

  “Rand?” She dropped the gun and lunged toward him through the snow. “Rand! Oh, God, Rand!”

  He opened his arms, and she fell into them sobbing. He closed his arms around her. The days and nights without food or sleep, the hours spent fighting the bitter cold, all seemed worthwhile. He was holding her, and she was blessedly, beautifully alive.

  Abruptly he caught her shoulders and pushed her away so he could look at her face, into her eyes. He pulled the blanket askew so he could see her better. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. But she wouldn’t meet his gaze. She kept her chin tucked close to her chest.

  “Did Tom—”

  “He’s dead,” she said. “Tom is dead.” She looked up at him at last. Her skin was bleached of color. Her lips had thinned to a narrow line. Her eyes possessed a melancholy that made him want to howl with agony.

  Tom had hurt her. He had hurt her.

  That was as close as Rand could come to making himself accept what must have happened. Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe the worst hadn’t happened.

  “Did he—Did Tom—” He couldn’t get the words out.

  Her face crumpled, like dead leaves thrown on a fire. “Oh, Rand,” she sobbed. “Oh, Rand.”

  He gathered her in his embrace and held her close, felt her quivering, shaking, and knew it wasn’t from the cold. He wanted to shake Tom Grimes like a terrier shakes a rat. He wanted the man alive again so he could strangle him with his bare hands. He wanted to castrate him and watch his lifeblood ebb away. There was no punishment terrible enough for a man who had stolen a young woman’s innocence and replaced it with ugliness.

  Freddy has been brutalized.

  As horrible as that sounded, it was yet another euphemism. Rand made himself think it.

  Freddy has been raped.

  His body shuddered with the force of what he was feeling. He did what primitive man must have done a million years ago when he felt battered by merciless fates. He raised his face to the leaden sky, opened his mouth, and let forth a ululating wail of anguish, a cry of helpless rage.

  The wind swept it up and carried it away and left them cold and alone in the quiet that followed.

  A sudden gust of frigid wind snatched at Rand’s hat, reminding him where he was. Night was falling. The end of day had snuck up on them, and Rand was faced with the awesome knowledge that he had found Freddy but was in no position to rescue her. He had no idea where they were, they had no shelter, and with the coming of night, the temperatures were likely to drop far below zero. They would probably freeze to death during the long hours of darkness.

  But he refused to concede defeat.

  “Freddy,” he said. “We have to get on the horses and get moving.”

  “What about Hawk?” she asked, glancing toward where the Indian had finally fallen in the snow. “Is he dead?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Rand was learning fast in this brutal land. He had killed a man for the first time. He had seen the haunted eyes of the woman he loved and known a rage he had never imagined himself capable of feeling. And he had realized he couldn’t leave a man—even an Indian who had caused them endless trouble in their lives—to die in the cold.

  “I’ll see if he’s still alive,” he said. “You wait here.”

  “Rand, I—”

  “Freddy, don’t argue with me,” he snapped. “I’m not sure how dangerous he is, and I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  She stood, head down, hands clasped in front of her and said, “Yes, Rand.”

  It was then he realized what Tom had really stolen when he had taken her virginity. Her confidence. Her spirit. He had mangled the complex and delicate nature that made her the person she was. Rand wanted the old Freddy back. He wanted her to fight him. He wanted her to demand her own way.

  He stood watching her for a moment, but she made no move to contradict him again. He left her and walked to where the Sioux had fallen in the snow.

  Rand had Tom’s revolver in his hand when he slowly turned Hawk over. The Indian’s eyes were open and wary.

  “How bad are you hit?” Rand asked.

  “Bad enough,” Hawk answered.

  “I’d help you if I could,” Rand said as he knelt beside the Indian. “But I don’t know a thing about doctoring, and I haven’t the vaguest idea which way to go to find someone who does.” He helped Hawk sit up, but it was plain the Indian was sorely wounded.

  “Perhaps we may help each other,” Hawk said.

  “How’s that?”

  “If you will bring me my horse, I will lead you to my village.”

  Rand’s eyes narrowed. “I won’t be made your prisoner again.”

  “I owe my life to you,” Hawk said. “That is a debt I would not dishonor.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “You will be my guest so long as you wish it.”

  “What about the woman?” Rand asked, unwilling to trust the Indian.

  “The woman is mine.”

  Rand pressed the revolver to Hawk’s chest and cocked it. “Not if I kill you first.”

  Hawk’s dark eyes remained steady on his. “Then you will both die in this storm.”

  Rand knew he was right, but even that fate might be preferable to what Hawk intended for Freddy. “The woman is mine,” he said. “I want that understood before any of us moves an inch from here.” He would rather kill Freddy himself, or die with her in the cold, than give her to another man to be brutalized.

  Hawk stared at him for another moment before he said, “Perhaps we should let the woman choose between us.”

  Of course Freddy would choose him. But if Hawk needed to hear the words to end this farce, he was willing to let Freddy speak them. “Freddy. Will you come over here?”

  Rand uncocked the revolver but kept it in his hand.

  Freddy had spent the past few minutes alone wondering whether Rand had done her a favor by saving her life. Tom had promised to kill her long before they reached civilization. It would have been a blessing, she decided. She felt used. Dirty. Guilty. Even though she was the victim. She could never become anyone’s wife now. She was no longer worthy of the honor.

  Besides, no man would want her. She had seen the revulsion in Rand’s eyes when he looked at her. And the pity. Nor could she face her parents again. Or anyone she knew. She wanted to hide somewhere. Even better, she wanted time to go backward so she could obey her parents. She had been wrong to fight against them. She had wanted adventure. She had never dreamed it would all turn out like this.

  “Freddy?” Rand called for the second time.

  She crossed obediently to Rand and stood beside him.

  “Is this your man?” Hawk asked Freddy.

  Oh, she had wanted him to be. She loved him so much—had only just realized how much. But she could never marry him now. Her body had been despoiled. And she could never bear to have another man do that horrible thing to her. Not even Rand. She could not be any man’s wife.

  When she didn’t speak, Rand answered for her.

  “Yes,” he said irritably, “she’s mine.”

  “No,” Freddy countered in a hushed, unFreddylike voice. “I don’t belong to anyone.”

  It was something she had said many times before, but Rand had never heard it said like this—woefully, sadly, not the least bit defiantly. He felt like crying.

  “Do you wish to be this man’s woman?” Hawk asked.

  Freddy glanced quickly at Rand and lowered her eyes again. “No.”

  “She has spoken,” Hawk said.

  “What the hell is going on here, Freddy?”

  Freddy could see Rand was furious. She should have been frightened. But how could mere anger frighten her when she had lived through much worse? “I’m sorry, Rand.”

  For not fighting harder when he tore my cloth
es off. For fighting to live when he threatened to strangle me. I should have let him kill me. But I didn’t want to die. I was so afraid to die! So I clawed his face and made him mad, and instead of killing me he kept me alive and did awful, terrible things to me.

  “Since she does not claim you, I will take her,” Hawk said.

  Freddy only belatedly realized the situation she had created. “Rand?” She looked at him with terrified eyes.

  “I don’t give a damn what she said,” Rand snarled. “She’s mine. You can’t have her.” He cocked the gun and pressed the icy barrel against Hawk’s temple.

  “Rand, don’t!” Freddy cried.

  Hawk didn’t move a muscle.

  “I’ll kill you before I’ll let you have her,” Rand said.

  “Then we will all die.”

  Rand swore low and viciously. But he didn’t remove the gun.

  “Very well,” Hawk conceded. “You will be free to go whenever you wish.”

  Rand pondered that for a moment. He didn’t trust Hawk not to try and claim Freddy once they were in the village and surrounded by Sioux, but there were more options that could be pursued if they were alive, than if they were dead. “She stays with me in the village,” Rand said.

  Hawk nodded.

  “And you’ll guarantee our safety from the other Indians?”

  “You will be safe as my guest,” Hawk promised.

  Rand had no other choice but to accept Hawk at his word. He uncocked the gun. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go. Can you get up by yourself?” he asked Hawk. “Or do you need help?”

  Hawk tried to get up, but hadn’t the strength. Rand didn’t ask again, simply reached down and helped the Indian to his feet. The Sioux tried to take a step by himself, stumbled, and would have fallen except Rand caught him. He put Hawk’s arm around his shoulder to support him. “Bring Hawk’s horse, Freddy,” he ordered.

  “I don’t want to go, Rand.” She would rather he left her there to die. She suspected it wouldn’t take long to freeze to death. If she turned chicken-hearted, if the fear of death rose to make her struggle once more to survive, it would be too late once Rand and Hawk were gone to do anything to save herself.

  “Damn it, Freddy,” Rand bellowed. “This is no time to act like a spoiled brat. Get the bloody horses, now!”

  Freddy headed for the horses, but she walked. She was in no hurry. Living wasn’t the great prize Rand apparently thought it was. She wouldn’t thank him for making her go on when she wanted life to stop here.

  She led Hawk’s horse to where Rand stood supporting the Sioux. Rand helped Hawk onto his pony, then helped Freddy mount and took Tom’s horse for himself.

  “We’ll follow you,” Rand said.

  Hawk grunted and headed his horse into the wind.

  They were riding north again.

  Verity had never been so enraged in her life. It had taken them half a day to reach the Muleshoe. She hadn’t realized until they dismounted from their horses at the ranch and she looked around for Rand that he wasn’t with them. It was only then Miles admitted that Rand had decided to continue searching for Freddy.

  She paced, prowling the too-small cabin like a she-wolf in a cage. “How could you! You knew I wouldn’t have come back if Rand wasn’t coming, too! How could you leave my son behind to die!”

  “He’s a man, with a mind of his own. He knew the danger. He made his choice, and I respected it. I understand what you’re feeling, Verity. He’s my son, too.”

  She hissed in a sharp breath. Her eyes glowed with fury. “No. No, he’s not yours. Not in any way except that you planted the seed. You were never there when he was a baby who needed coddling, or a youth who needed comfort for a skinned knee, or a young man who ached with hurt because the other boys taunted him about his—”

  She cut herself off.

  “Taunted him about what?”

  She turned her back, heading for the bedroom, but Miles caught her arm and swung her around to face him.

  “Taunted him about what?”

  “About you,” she snarled.

  He was so shocked he let her go. “What?”

  “Oh, not you, precisely,” she said, shoving a hand through her hair and making pins fall helter-skelter. She began pacing again, back and forth, back and forth, as though she could find some escape from the nightmares of the past, the pain of the present. But there was no escape.

  She stopped abruptly and rubbed the heels of her hands against her eyes. “I don’t know how many fights Rand fought. I only saw the results. He would arrive home for holidays with black eyes, cut lips, bruised jaws. And always some rousing tale of why he had fought the battle. And I believed him.” She rubbed her forehead. “I think I must not have wanted to know the truth, so I didn’t press him for it.

  “The fights stopped after a while, I think because the word had spread that Rand was the very devil with his fists. But as he got older, things weren’t settled with fists any longer. Three years ago he threw down a glove to a young man who impugned my honor and challenged him to a duel.”

  “Good God.”

  “Of course the young man’s mother came to me and begged me to get my son to apologize and release her son from the obligation. Naturally, Rand should be the one to back down, because everyone knew he wasn’t Chester’s son. Everyone knew he was another man’s bastard.

  “You may imagine my shock.” She smiled bitterly. “I had imagined myself so clever to have hidden the truth. And all the time everyone had been snickering behind my back.”

  “What did you tell her?” Miles asked.

  “I told her that if Rand had issued the challenge, he must have believed the insult. I was full of pride in my son for defending me, and I sent the woman from my house in righteous indignation.”

  She turned to Miles. “You see, I was sure no one could really know the truth. Who was there to tell? You were gone to America. I had said a word to no one. And Chester, why he had the most to lose from such a rumor. He never would have confirmed it. I felt justified in denying the story, certain I could never be proven wrong.

  “But I spent the rest of the morning remembering all the times Rand had fought over the years. And wondering how such a rumor could have gained such credence.

  “And I remembered all the times Chester had sat in the library with an empty bottle of port at his elbow, ranting at me for giving him another man’s son for his heir.

  “And I knew. He must have done the same thing once upon a time … perhaps even more than once … at his club. The men who heard him must have gone home to their wives with the story. Children must have heard their parents discussing it at the supper table. That explained why Rand had been in so many fights as a boy. And I knew I had to stop him from fighting that duel.”

  She paused and looked Miles in the eye. “I didn’t believe my honor was worth my son’s life.” She smiled ruefully. “Of course, I had missed the point entirely, which Rand was quick to inform me when I confronted him.”

  “You tried to stop the duel?”

  She nodded. “I pointed out to Rand that the rumor had no power to hurt me. Do you know what he said? ‘It hurts me, Mother.’

  “I realized then he was fighting for his honor, as well as mine. If he was not acknowledged as Randal Talbot, what right did he have to become the Earl of Rushland?”

  “Did he fight the duel?”

  She shook her head. “I asked him to do one thing for me before he proceeded further with his plans. I asked him to speak with his father—with Chester—about the subject.”

  “Why would you do something like that when you believed Chester was guilty of starting the rumor in the first place?”

  Her face was ashen as she admitted, “I thought Chester would lie.”

  “Oh, no.”

  Her eyes brimmed with tears. “He told Rand the truth. Oh, not the name of his father. He refused to give Rand even that much of you. But he took great relish in divulging to me that he had told my son I
was a slut and a whore and that I had tricked him into marriage while I was carrying another man’s brat.”

  Miles started toward her, but she stopped him with an outstretched palm. “Please, don’t touch me, or I won’t be able to finish. And I want to finish this.”

  Miles stood frozen like a marble statue, his face implacable. “Go on, then. Tell me the rest.”

  “When Rand came out of the library, I knew something had gone awfully, terribly wrong. He looked at me with … It wasn’t loathing, although after the garbled truth his father had told him, it should have been. Perhaps disappointment. And of course, disillusionment. I was not as perfect as he had always given me credit for being.

  “He said, ‘I will apologize to Griffith Wilkerson at my earliest opportunity, madam.’ And he left the house.”

  “So there was no duel,” Miles said, “because he apologized for throwing down the glove, thereby admitting to the world—to all of London society—that he was a bastard, after all.”

  “Yes. And he has never once, in the years since, mentioned the subject to me again, not even to ask your name. Until today.”

  “Bloody hell!” Miles shoved all ten fingers through his hair. “What a mess we’ve made of it, Verity.”

  “I can’t argue with you about that. All I’m concerned about now is getting him back alive.”

  “There’s nothing we can do until this storm ends. We can go after him then, if that’s what you really want. But he’s not a boy any longer, he’s a man. He deserves the chance to be treated like one.”

  Verity moaned. “He’s a babe in the woods in a place like this.”

  Miles thought of the incidents with the rattlesnake and the bucking bronc when the Muleshoe cowboys had tested Rand’s mettle. And all the fights he had endured as a boy. And the twisted lies about Verity he had heard from Chester years ago and accepted. His son could handle adversity better than most men he knew.

  “We have to trust Rand to come back when he’s ready—when he’s found Freddy, or given up trying.”

  “What if he’s lying somewhere hurt?”

  “If he is, he’ll be dead long before we can get to him,” Miles said, giving her the brutal, unvarnished truth.