by Lori Austin
Cora narrowed her eyes. “Have you?”
“I’m not throwing crockery.”
“He says your name in his sleep. Never mine. Not once.” Cora let out a long breath. “Why couldn’t you stay dead?”
Annabeth wasn’t sure what to say. She probably should have.
“Did someone hack your hair off with a knife?” Cora eyed Annabeth’s attire, and her lip curled. “I suppose it doesn’t matter, considering.”
She was right. Annabeth had bigger concerns than the state of her hair and clothes.
“I didn’t come to argue with you.” Annabeth set the stack of dishes on a low table, well out of Cora’s reach. “Or to discuss my toilet, or to get my head smashed by a plate.” Although the way Cora threw them, that hadn’t been likely.
“Why did you come?” Cora gasped, setting a dainty, white hand against a perfectly corseted and laced breast. “Is Ethan—?”
“He’s fine.” Annabeth swallowed an impatient huff—although she wasn’t certain if her annoyance was for her own lie, or Cora’s dramatics.
“If he’s fine, then why can’t I see him?”
Annabeth was usually good at reading people; she had to be. But she couldn’t quite read Cora. Was the seamstress pretending to be foolish, childish, and needy when, in fact, she wasn’t? Or did Annabeth just want her to be a treacherous, manipulative—
“What’s wrong?” Cora must have seen something in Annabeth’s expression that frightened her. Probably the nearly overwhelming temptation to throttle the woman.
“Stop that,” Annabeth repeated, this time because Cora was breathing too fast and shallow. “You’ll get the vapors.”
“But—” Pant. Pant. “But—”
Annabeth lost patience. She came around the counter, and before the woman could even cringe, shoved her into a chair. “Breathe,” she snapped. “Deeply. Slowly.”
Breathing deeply was damn near impossible in a corset, but Cora did her best. Eventually, her color returned, her breathing evened out, and Annabeth stepped back, though she remained close enough to rescue the woman if she fainted. Annabeth didn’t want Cora to land on her face. All she needed was for Mrs. Lewis to walk out of here with a broken nose or a black eye. Too many people had seen Annabeth walk in.
“Someone shot at Ethan,” Annabeth began.
A sneer marred Cora’s pretty face. “The entire town knows that. What we don’t know is why.”
“Neither do I.”
“He needs me.” Cora stood. “I’ll nurse him.”
“No.”
The woman’s huge blue eyes widened, then blinked. Her mouth opened; nothing came out.
Annabeth had known women like Cora before, during, and after the war. Their beauty ensured that they rarely heard the word no. Whenever they did, it seemed to only confuse them.
“He doesn’t remember you.”
Cora blinked again; then laughter spilled from her still-open mouth. “Of course he does.” She set her hands over her stomach. “I’m the mother of his child.”
Annabeth gulped as her own stomach rebelled. “The bullet creased his temple. I sewed the wound. He’ll have a nice scar.”
Cora gasped and lifted her hands to her mouth. Annabeth ignored her. A scar was the least of Ethan’s worries.
“When he awoke, he thought we were still . . .” Annabeth paused. They were still married. “He thinks it’s 1865, and the war just ended.”
“That’s silly.”
Annabeth thought it was a lot of things. Silly wasn’t one of them.
“The brain is a mystery,” she said. “Ethan could remember everything tomorrow.” Or not. “The best way for him to heal is for him to remain calm. If he’s upset, he might get worse.”
“Might?” Cora tilted her head. “You don’t know that for sure. You’re not a doctor.”
“Right now, I’m the closest thing to a doctor Freedom has.”
Fury sparked in the other woman’s eyes. “You’re just being mean.”
“Mrs. Lewis, you have no idea how mean I can be.” Or how mean she would like to be.
“You don’t want me to see him.”
“He doesn’t remember you.”
“He would if he saw me.” Her eyes filled with large, limpid tears. She put her hands over her face and sobbed.
Annabeth wasn’t sure what to do. Leave Cora alone? Pat her on the back? Stuff a wad of cloth in her mouth and shove her in the closet? She clenched her hands to keep herself from doing just that.
The woman spun and raced from the room. Annabeth listened for the tap of tiny feet on the stairs to the living quarters. When she didn’t hear any, she assumed Mrs. Lewis was composing herself in private and wandered around the store.
She found her dress—or rather, the dress of whoever had left town in too big a hurry to retrieve it—thrust beneath the counter. Cora hadn’t adjusted the hem or added new cuffs. Annabeth didn’t think she was going to. Nevertheless, Annabeth needed something to wear besides trousers or a garment with a gaping bodice. She tucked the light green gown beneath her arm. She’d deliver the money later.
Releasing an impatient huff, she glanced at the empty doorway. If Cora got herself under control and came back with questions, Annabeth should be here to answer. But how long must she wait?
Maybe she should fetch Sadie. The older woman would be better at calming a hysterical Cora Lewis than Annabeth could ever be.
She opened the front door, glanced up the street toward the sign that read DOCTER—obviously fashioned by the same hand that had lettered SHERRIF—and caught a flash of blue silk as it disappeared inside the doorway underneath it.
CHAPTER 16
You shouldn’t be out here alone.
I’m not alone. I have you.
“Ethan!”
He’d been dreaming of the night he first kissed Annabeth, beneath the moon at Chimborazo, when a woman’s voice, followed by the staccato beat of footsteps, pulled him away.
The sharp, panicked panting didn’t sound at all like Annabeth. His wife never panicked. At least not until—
The agony in his head yanked him awake so quickly, he was left gasping, blinking into the sun that was so different from the moon he’d left behind. As much as the woman in front of him now was different from the one who’d been in front of him then.
“Hello,” he began, then realized he was naked beneath the sheet, which had fallen to his waist. Completely inappropriate to appear so in front of a lady, though what “lady” would burst into a man’s room?
However, his chest wasn’t the largest issue. No, that would be the area below his waist, where his member stood at attention, no doubt brought there by the recollection of that kiss. The sheet fell away from it like the canvas flaps of a revival tent from a pole.
The woman’s gaze lowered and stuck there. Ethan lifted a hand, thinking to cover it, then paused. If he did that, he’d only appear to be pleasuring himself. She’d probably scream. He couldn’t believe she hadn’t already. Instead, he tugged a pillow into his lap and tried not to groan as he laid his arms over the snow-white material and pressed. Her gaze lifted. Memory shimmied. There was something about her that—
“I knew that you loved me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She pointed at his erection. “You were thinking of me.”
He had no idea what to say to that beyond, “Who are you?”
At that, the woman began to scream.
Annabeth appeared in the doorway, red-faced and sweating. Exasperation flashed in her dark blue eyes. The same tightened her delectable lips. She slapped the visitor across the cheek. The resultant crack echoed loudly in the sudden silence. Ethan discovered his mouth hung open and closed it.
“Annabeth,” he began.
“You snuck out the back?” she demanded. “You kicked the guard in the balls?”
The woman—a pretty little thing, blond, petite, so pale, the imprint of Annabeth’s hand shone livid on her skin—gasped. Whethe
r from Annabeth’s use of the word balls or from a return of breath to her lungs, Ethan wasn’t sure. He had no idea what was going on, but he was transfixed.
“Then you come into my husband’s sickroom—” The stranger opened impossibly pink lips, and Annabeth lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “Speak and I will make you stop.”
Those lips closed.
“The doctor is unwell,” Annabeth continued. “He is not to be disturbed. What is there about that you don’t understand, Mrs. Lewis?”
Mrs. Lewis? That seemed familiar. Was she a patient? Why couldn’t he recall?
She blinked a few times, confusion flowing over her face.
“You told her not to speak,” Ethan pointed out. Gratitude replaced confusion, and Mrs. Lewis gifted Ethan with a smile that would have dazzled, if he were a man to be dazzled by such things.
Annabeth sidestepped, blocking the lady from his view. “Get out,” she said.
“If Mrs. Lewis needs medical attention, I can—”
“You’ve done enough for Mrs. Lewis.” Her voice was choked—was it anger or anguish?—he wasn’t sure. Why would she feel either? He couldn’t remember that any more than he could remember Mrs. Lewis.
Ethan lifted his hand toward the pain in his temple. Annabeth snapped, “If you touch those sutures, I will break your fingers.”
She still wasn’t looking at him. How did she know what he was doing? Ethan lowered his arm. She was going to make an incredible mother.
The thought made his head ache so badly, he almost threw up.
“You can’t talk to him like that,” Mrs. Lewis said.
“I just did.” Annabeth grasped the smaller woman’s elbow and headed for the door. “Remember, I’m his wife.”
As the two of them descended the stairs, he could have sworn he heard Mrs. Lewis mutter, “Not for long.”
• • •
How dare she?
Annabeth was tempted to send Cora Lewis down the steps the hard way.
Not for long? Although she was probably right.
In the wake of the despair that followed the thought, Annabeth tightened her grip on the woman’s arm. Cora gasped and tried to pull away, which only made Annabeth increase the pressure. “You will not tumble down the stairs and lose that baby.”
Cora stilled. “I’d think you’d want me to.”
They began to descend—slowly, carefully. Annabeth did not let go of Cora’s arm, though she did loosen her fingers a bit. “Then you don’t know anything about me at all.”
They reached the ground floor, and Annabeth glanced through the front window, where Jeb Cantrell now stood in place of the guard Cora had assaulted. If she hadn’t wanted to throttle the woman, she might be impressed by her ingenuity.
“I know you ran out on him as if he didn’t matter at all.”
Annabeth returned her gaze to Cora. “Is that what he told you?”
The woman peered up the stairs, obviously weighing her chances of being caught in a lie. Then her shoulders sagged. “I asked folks about you.”
Of course she had. What woman wouldn’t?
“Then you know I didn’t leave because I didn’t care.” She’d left because she cared too much.
“How could you do it? When he needed you the most, you rode away, and you didn’t come back.”
“But I did come back,” Annabeth murmured.
“Too late. He loves me now.” The words were said with a tinge of desperation. Perhaps if Cora said them enough, they would come true. Had she learned that from Ethan?
My wife is dead. Say it enough times, and maybe it’ll be true.
“He doesn’t know you,” Annabeth pointed out.
“He will.”
“Until he does, you’ll stay away.” Cora’s chest shook with outrage, which Annabeth didn’t give her a chance to voice. “If I catch you upsetting him again, you’ll be sorry I’m not dead.”
“I’m already sorry.”
Annabeth narrowed her eyes, and the woman lowered hers. Again, Annabeth wondered if Cora was smarter than she let on. Or perhaps she just possessed an animal instinct. One that prompted submission to a bigger, meaner bear.
“I won’t be leaving until I’m certain he’s in his right mind,” Annabeth continued. “So it’s in your best interest to do as I say.”
Cora pouted. “How do I know that what you’re saying is true?”
“You don’t. But as he still thinks I’m his wife—hell, I am his wife—you don’t have much choice.”
“I could tell him the truth.”
“That isn’t going to change the facts. I’m married to him; you are not.”
Cora’s eyes flicked to Annabeth’s. “I—”
“I know,” Annabeth interrupted. “You’re pregnant.”
Cora’s mouth pinched at the crass term. “With child.”
“Which puts you in a bad position.”
“Bad?” she repeated.
“What if Ethan never remembers you? He’ll deny the child is his. In his mind, he’s never met you.”
“But everyone knows—” She paused, and Annabeth pounced.
“They know you were keeping company. If you’d gotten married, and the baby arrived early . . .” Annabeth shrugged. It happened all the time. It had happened to her—or would have. “But to be the unmarried seamstress whose belly is slowly expanding . . .”
Cora lifted her chin. “He’s as much to blame as me.”
“More so,” Annabeth agreed. “You thought I was dead; he only hoped I was. Unfortunately, no one will see it that way.”
Confusion crinkled Cora’s face. “Why?
“The woman always pays the price for these things.” Annabeth certainly had.
“You’re just trying to get me to leave.”
She hadn’t even thought of that. What an appealing idea. However, Annabeth didn’t want Ethan alone again when she departed; she would not deprive him of his child. She’d done that enough for one lifetime.
“Give him the opportunity to remember on his own. In the meantime, I’ll see what I can do about the marriage. Is there a lawyer in town?”
“Pryce Mortimer. But . . .” The woman nibbled on her dewy pink lips. “The more I think about it, the less I want to be married to a divorced man.”
Annabeth sighed and rubbed her forehead. “You can’t be married to him at all unless he is.”
“If you hadn’t barged back into town, we would have been.”
“If I’m not really dead, you’re not really married.”
Somehow the two of them had leaned in to each other until they were toe-to-toe, nearly nose-to-nose. Considering Annabeth was a good eight inches taller, she had to bend over a mite to get there. At least they’d kept their voices lowered to a vicious, nasty whisper.
Cora Lewis appeared as if she wanted to kick Annabeth in the knee. Considering what she’d done to the guard, she might. Annabeth stepped back, straightening just as Marshal Eversleigh opened the door.
He glanced between them and lifted a brow. “Problem?”
“No,” they both answered at once, though anyone who knew anything about women would have been able to tell that such a no really meant yes.
The marshal snorted. “You don’t wanna tell me, that’s fine.” He pointed a finger at Annabeth. “I need to talk to you.” He flicked his ice-blue glaze at Cora. “Alone. Now.”
“I was just leaving.” Cora went to the door.
“Remember what I said,” Annabeth murmured. Her answer was a resounding slam.
“She’s awful little to have kicked my guard’s privates up near his throat.” The marshal watched as Cora stomped across the street, sending up puffs of dust that billowed and dirtied her skirt. She didn’t seem to notice.
“She was riled,” Annabeth said.
He returned his attention to her. “She got reason to be?”
“Being riled isn’t going to change anything.”
The marshal lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “He�
�s still confused?” Annabeth nodded. “Doesn’t remember . . . ?”
“Much,” Annabeth finished.
“Apparently, he doesn’t remember her.”
Annabeth let out an exasperated huff. “If you know who she is and why she’s riled, why are you fishing around?”
His lips quirked. “I could say for my own amusement, but that might get me kicked like my guard.”
“Might,” Annabeth agreed. “When did they become your guards?”
“When I asked them to watch your door and they agreed.”
Annabeth thought the townsfolk had agreed more on Ethan’s behalf than the marshal’s, but she kept that to herself. “What did you want?”
He glanced upward again. “Should we—?”
“No.” His gaze lowered. “First you tell me. Then, if I think he needs to know, I’ll tell him.”
“When did you become his keeper?”
“When I said I do.”
He lifted a brow. “Mrs. Lewis isn’t going to like that.”
“From what I’ve seen, she doesn’t like much.” Except my husband. “Until he remembers that it isn’t 1865, he needs to be kept calm. Upsetting him might just . . .” She paused.
“Might just what?”
“Tell him too many things that make his head ache, and something in there could snap. I can’t sew up a hole in his brain.”
Even if she could, Annabeth doubted it would do any good. Ethan had tried with Mikey. But like Humpty Dumpty, there was no putting his brother back together again.
“Why does he think it’s 1865?” the marshal asked.
Annabeth spread her hands and shrugged. “Happier times?”
“Not for me.” Sadness flickered across his face before Eversleigh noticed her noticing and straightened. “We all have our crosses to bear. I suspect some are heavier than others.”
Annabeth suspected the crosses weren’t heavier, but rather, some folks were better able to heft them and keep walking.
“I rode out to the edge of town, where you said you saw the flash of the sun off a barrel.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
“No tracks?”
“Plenty. Horse tracks, dog tracks, boot prints. Headed both into and out of Freedom.” Annabeth cursed. “Maybe if I had an experienced scout. Know anyone?”