Megan Chance
Page 28
It was all the urging Michael needed. He aimed the gun, his finger tensed on the trigger—
Conor dove. He aimed for Michael's knees, skidded across the snow into the bigger man's body. Pain exploded in his shoulder, taking his breath away. Michael gasped and went down, the gun flying through the air, skidding across the snow.
From the corner of his eye Conor saw the others— Timmy and Sean—bursting from the cabin. He had moments, if that. Timmy was waving that blasted rifle. Just moments. Conor's head was spinning, his shoulder was going numb. It took nearly all his strength to roll away from Michael's grasp, but he did it. He did it and lunged across the snow for the gun, wrapping his hand around the hilt. He was belly-down in the ice and looking up just as Timmy Boyd yelled out his curses.
Conor aimed instinctively, pulled the trigger almost before he knew it. He heard the crack of gunfire, saw the smoke, and then Timmy's face crumpled before him, just crumpled in an expression of surprise and pain, and Conor saw the blood spurt from his chest as he went down, dead before he hit the snow.
"You bastard—" Sean O'Mallory skidded to a stop. "You've killed him."
"And I'll... kill you ... too." The pain in Conor's shoulder was blinding. He fought the urge to close his eyes, to give in to it.
Sean smiled meanly. He lifted his rifle, trained it on Conor. "Let's see who's the quicker shot, laddie, shall we?"
"No!" Michael screamed.
Conor pulled the trigger. Sean dropped the rifle, his expression confused, and then he pitched forward, falling onto Timmy's body with a sickening thud. Conor rolled to his side. Blood was dripping from his shoulder, forming dark red-brown ice where it hit the snow. He looked up to see Michael squatting by the bodies, his face distorted by anger and pain. He looked at Conor, his eyes dark with hatred as he reached into Timmy Doyle's belt and pulled out a knife.
"You going to shoot me, Roarke?" he asked. "Or will you fight like a man?"
Conor laughed. The motion sent pain radiating into his chest. "I doubt you'd be saying that if you were the one holding the gun." He tightened his hand around the hilt, got slowly to his feet. The ground wavered before him; he staggered as it seemed to tilt beneath his feet.
Michael laughed. His white teeth flashed in the darkness of his beard. He rose slowly, twisting the knife in his hand, never taking his gaze from Conor. "I've killed lesser men than you," he said quietly.
"And better ones too," Conor said steadily. He blinked, trying to right the crazy spinning of the snow before his eyes. He motioned with the gun. "Give it up, Michael. You can't win this time."
Michael lifted a brow. "Can't I?"
The earth lurched beneath Conor's feet. He staggered, trying to regain his balance, but it was too late. Michael attacked. Conor heard a scream—his own—and the gun went flying. He saw the knife— a flash of reflection, a sharp light—coming toward him. Reflexively he jerked, bringing his knee up into Michael's chest. He heard Michael's whoosh of breath, saw him fall back.
It was the opportunity Conor needed. He lunged up, twisting around, groaning with the effort it took. Michael fell to the ground, and Conor was on top of him in a moment, bringing his boot down on Michael's arm, grinding his foot into the flesh. Bones cracked, splintered. Michael's scream of pain pierced the air. The knife fell from his nerveless fingers.
Frantically Conor reached for it. He couldn't feel the handle when his fingers gripped it, was surprised when he drew it from the snow. He looked at Michael, was stunned by the degree of hatred he saw in the man's eyes.
"Kill me, then," Doyle gasped. "Kill me, like you did the others." He laughed—the obscene sound rang in Conor's ears. "Twenty of us for one preacher. Which is the better deal?" His laughter split the air, the high, tinny sound was almost painful. "Which is the better deal?"
Conor stopped. "The better deal." One for twenty. And it would just keep going. Over and over, never stopping until everyone was dead. Never stopping.
Sean Roarke would never have wanted it this way, and now Conor knew why.
Conor backed away, clutching the knife in his fist. He stumbled away from Michael's convulsing body, feeling sick at heart and tired. And hurt. God, he hurt. "You're not worth killing, Doyle," he said softly. "You're not worth one tenth of him, and I won't dirty my hands with you."
He turned away, and as he did so, he heard hoofbeats, muffled in the snow. Two men were riding in at a fast pace. Conor recognized Peter Devlin instantly and felt a rush of relief so intense, it made him dizzy. He staggered, nearly falling to his knees.
Then everything seemed to happen in the same moment. Conor heard the cocking of a gun, Michael's scream: "You coward, Roarke! You were always a coward! Well, you won't run this time. Not this time!" From his horse Devlin reached for his rifle, and Conor twisted around in time to see Michael aiming the revolver that had been lost in the snow, laughing as he pointed it at Conor, his white teeth flashing. Conor threw himself to the ground— too late. The gun fired; he heard the rush of the bullet, waited to feel the pain.
And instead saw Michael Doyle lurch back, clutching his chest. The revolver fell from his hand. He collapsed onto the snow and laid there, unmoving.
Then there was no sound but the wind.
Clumsily, painfully, Conor got to his feet.
"You all right, Roarke?" Devlin's voice was eerily muffled by the wind and snow. He lowered his rifle.
"I'm fine," Conor said, and then wondered if Devlin even heard the quiet words.
He saw Devlin's nod. Saw the other man urge his horse across the snow, past Conor, to Michael's still body. Conor brushed the snow from his coat and dropped the knife he still held, watched it fall into the snow. It disappeared from sight. Disappeared as thoroughly as his hatred had done. Conor stumbled to his horse. Awkwardly he mounted; the pain of the motion nauseated him.
"He's dead!" The man called back. Conor looked over his shoulder to see him leaning over Michael. "Good work, Devlin!"
Good work.
Conor's shoulders sagged; he urged the gelding forward. It was over, he thought, falling over the animal's neck. He could go home. Sari was waiting.
Blackness engulfed him.
Chapter 25
The snow was coming down faster now. Sari stared out the soddy window, staring at the near twilight. John and Miriam had left over an hour ago, and she had urged them to go, telling them she wanted to be alone.
But she had not imagined this kind of alone.
The house was so quiet—even the howl of the wind didn't ease the stillness of it, and the snow muffled every other outside noise. She had put the coffee on to boil simply because she wanted the sound to keep her company, but she had long since ceased to hear it. The silence inside her was too loud.
The snow swirled around the window, creating shifting shadows, soft light. She stared out at it. Her uncle had once told her that no two snowflakes were alike, and she wondered if that was true, wished there was someone here to ask. In her mind she imagined it. Imagined turning to someone—a man— who sat in the rocker by the stove. Imagined asking the question "Did you know every snowflake is different?" and having him smile and rise and take her hand. "Let's test that theory, shall we?"
The scene was so real it made her smile and then her smile faded just as quickly when she realized she was here, and she was alone, and there was no man sitting by the fire. There would never be a man sitting by the fire.
This was what made women mad, she thought. Listening for voices in the wind. Hearing them.
Sari turned from the window. The gown, the cream silk, lay spread across a chair, its stripes and gold thread glittering in the lamplight. On the table beside it lay a book, its place marked with a piece of buffalo grass. Marked at Christabel, she knew, and the words came into her mind, sharp and poignant with meaning. "They parted—ne'er to meet again! But never either found another to free the hollow heart from paining—"
The memory came back to her, flooding over her with painful intensity
. Conor, bent over the book, his raspy voice never faltering as he read the words, his low whispers caressing, his glances full of meaning and promise. Conor, smiling at something her uncle said, throwing her such a beguiling grin, she couldn't help but smile in response.
The thought hurt her heart. She wondered if she'd ever see that beguiling grin again. There were so many mistakes between them, so many lies. She had accused Conor of being unable to love, unable to trust, but she herself was just as guilty of that. She had not trusted him with her own heart. She had not loved him enough to be honest with him.
Sari looked again at the cream silk, and she wanted to cry for her own stupidity, her own blindness. For her willingness to sacrifice everything for a brother who cared for nothing and no one. She had lost everything because of it. Her uncle, her lover.
Her brother too.
The thought made her feel tight and sad. Because she couldn't grieve over losing Michael—at least not the Michael of today. But for the little boy she'd loved, the boy who had cared for her once, loved her once—yes, she could grieve for him, she would grieve for him. That little boy had been dead to her for a long time. He'd been killed in the mines with their father, buried with their mother. The Michael Doyle who existed now was not the brother she had known. She had just never said good-bye.
But she was saying good-bye now. She had come to Colorado to heal, and it was time now to do that. It was time to put all the past hurts behind her, to go forward without anger. To farm this land the way Charles would have wanted it farmed. To live her life without fear.
And without love too. Unless ...
Sari looked back at the window, at the growing darkness, and wondered where Conor was, wondered if the Pinkerton men had found him, and if they'd given him her message. "Ask him to come back. There's something I have to tell him."
Something, yes. So many things. She wanted to apologize, she wanted to tell him she understood. She wanted to start over, and she hoped—she prayed—he could forget her last words. They had been said in anger and in grief, and always ...
Always she had loved him.
Sari closed her eyes, wishing.
It was then she heard the tap on the door. It was soft, muted in the sound of the snow. Sari opened her eyes, staring out the window. There were no shadows outside, nothing but the snow and the falling darkness, and she wondered if she was imagining it, if maybe she wanted so badly to hear a knock that she'd made it happen.
Then she heard it again.
Her hands were trembling. Sari swallowed and got to her feet. She grabbed the rifle leaning by the door and put it to her shoulder, and then she opened the door, yanking it so that it wobbled on its torn hinges, facing down whatever enemy was out there in the snow.
"Conor. Not another gun," he said.
She lowered the rifle. Conor, leaning against the doorjamb, looking exhausted and hurting. But alive. Alive and back. Just as he'd promised. She wanted to laugh with the intensity of her relief.
He inclined his head toward the field. "Devlin and Roberts are in the barn. I told them they could sleep there. I hope you don't mind."
She shook her head. "I don't mind."
"They found me at Kiowa Creek. Your brother..." He took a deep breath. "He's dead,
Sari." When she opened her mouth to speak, he quieted her with a shake of his head. "I didn't shoot him," he said. "I—you were right. You were right about everything. I'm no judge. I'm no executioner. Michael can make his excuses to God—when he gets there. But I wasn't the one to send him. He was ... he was going to kill me. Devlin rode up...."
She closed her eyes briefly. "It was just a matter of time," she whispered.
"I don't want him to come between us," he said. "Not anymore."
"No."
"I don't want any more secrets."
She smiled. "No more secrets."
"I want..." He took a deep breath. "I want to love you, Sari. If that means I have to stay on these plains and learn to be a farmer, then I'll do it. I'll do whatever it takes. Just tell me you love me. Tell me that and I'll walk through hell to be with you."
She held out her arms. "I love you," she said.
He stumbled to her. She felt the warm stickiness of blood at his shoulder, the heat of his body. But mostly she felt the way his arms tightened around her as if she were his anchor, his lifeline. The way he squeezed her with all the strength he had and then groaned with the pain of it.
"I love you," he said quietly in her ear.
They stood there while the snow came down around them, and Sari tasted it on her lips, felt it on her cheeks and her eyelashes, saw it melting in his hair, and she looked up at all that whiteness and closed her eyes because of the pain of it. The pain of so much joy.
"Do you know," she said, "that no two snowflakes are the same?"
The loneliness was gone. Forever, she thought, and smiled into the snow.
About the Author
Megan Chance is the critically acclaimed author of several novels. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two daughters. A Heart Divided was a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart finalist (for unpublished authors) in 1991, and was first published in 1996.
Table of Contents
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25