Banner O'Brien

by Linda Lael Miller

  Something moved in the ink-blue eyes. Recognition? Pain? Sean couldn’t tell.

  And Corbin still didn’t speak.

  “She might be usin’ her grandmother’s name—O’Brien,” prompted Sean, feeling his way, still sensing an unusual need for caution.

  Corbin’s neck corded, and his mouth looked hard. “If Banner is your sister, it seems to me that you would know what name she goes by.”

  Triumph and hatred met within Sean in a surging rush. His fingers and palms ached and sweat prickled between his shoulder blades, but he smiled. “Aye and that I should. But we had a tiff, me sister and I, and we didn’t part friends. It’s makin’ that up to her I’ll be, once I find her.”

  “Good luck,” allowed the captain.

  “Is she well, then?” Sean blurted quickly. If the blue-eyed giant decided to walk away, there wouldn’t be much he could do to stop him.

  The answer was a terse nod and, “She’s well.”

  And she’s done a jig on your innards, mate. That she has, Sean realized. “She’s a pretty bit, me sister. Please—tell me where to find her.”

  The captain considered. “How do I know you’re really Banner’s brother? And even if you are, how do I know she would want to see you?”

  “You’ll have to take me word, I guess.”

  “Give me your name,” Corbin parried. “And when I see Banner again, I’ll tell her you’re here.”

  Christ. If she heard his name, she’d run like a rabbit and he’d never find her. It had only been luck that he’d come this close. “Will you see her soon then?”

  “Probably not.”

  Sean’s smile threatened to come unfixed. He was getting nowhere with this one, and chances were he was not only wasting his time but risking a broken bone or two. “Tell Banner that Robert sends his love,” he said, and then he turned away and went back inside the saloon.

  The old sailor was still at the bar—the one who’d said he’d met Banner. The bloke looked thirsty.

  Sean worked up another smile and approached him.

  * * *

  Day by day, as December became January, the ragged snow melted, seeping into the ground. The resultant mud tugged at Banner’s shoes and made buggy travel a horror.

  The weather was deceptively mild; gentle winds blew up the strait from the sea, warm and springlike, and the sky was a polished, tender blue. Whenever Banner looked up at it, she felt a bittersweet tug in her heart.

  She was happier than she’d ever been, though being married to Adam Corbin was an arduous thing. In the daytime he was a taskmaster, dragging Banner from one house call to another, lecturing her when she made a mistake. But at night he was a tender and inventive lover, and it was this that made the rest bearable.

  Often, of course, Banner and Adam were called out at night—more babies deigned to be born then, and there were always brawls on Water Street to generate business.

  If life had gone on at this even, if hectic, keel, Banner would never have complained. But of course, it did not.

  Three weeks after Christmas, Adam disappeared again.

  When he returned, after one full day and night, he was not contrite, but surly and uncommunicative.

  “He has a woman,” mourned Banner, who stood before the kitchen fireplace, staring into the flames.

  “Maybe,” said Maggie, paring vegetables for a stew. “If he were my man, I’d be about finding out.”

  Banner turned from the fire, her fingers intertwined. There was a lace of frost at the windows, an eiderdown tracery of fans and curliques, and the sky was gray with a burden of snow.

  “I’ve asked him.”

  “Asked him!” scoffed Maggie. “Ain’t we all?”

  Banner’s throat ached. “What do you suggest?”

  “Follow him. He’ll take off again, in three weeks, sure as summer comes after spring. When he does, you get yourself a horse and—”

  “I couldn’t! Maggie, he would be furious.”

  “Are you scared of him?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Well, then?”

  Banner was saved from answering by the clatter of boots on the back stairway.

  “O’Brien!”

  Banner sighed, met Maggie’s angry gaze momentarily, looked away. “What?”

  Adam came into the kitchen blithely, as though he hadn’t been away for twenty-four hours, as though he hadn’t betrayed his wife. His clothes were fresh, his hair was still damp from a very recent bath, and his smile was mischievous, if weary. “Did I miss breakfast?”

  Banner wanted to slap him, but somehow she restrained herself. As she sidestepped a kiss aimed at her forehead, Maggie left the room.

  Adam visibly braced himself for a confrontation, but his words belied the action. “Did you miss me, O’Brien?”

  “No more than I would miss the grippe.”

  He laughed, but it was a broken, weary sound. “There is no woman, O’Brien.”

  Tears brimmed in Banner’s eyes, she turned away to hide them. “Tell me where you’ve been, then,” she said, with a lift of her chin.

  “Tell me who had you before I did,” he replied.

  Banner whirled and slapped his face with all her might, restraint be damned.

  He smiled at her with an insolence that made her want to shriek and stomp her feet. “There, you see, we both have our little secrets, don’t we, O’Brien?”

  “Only I told you mine!” Banner cried. “You were just too drunk to listen!”

  “So tell me again. Believe me, I’m sober.”

  “I’ll be damned if I will, you bastard!”

  Adam’s hands were at her waist now, easily working their accursed magic. They traveled up her rib cage, to the rounding of her breasts, and she trembled, hating herself for needing this man.

  “Take your hands off me!”

  Slowly, maddeningly, Adam shook his head. “We’ve discussed this before, haven’t we, O’Brien? Whenever. Wherever. Remember?”

  His palms moved full on her breasts now, brazen and strong, causing traitorous nipples to strain beneath her clothing. Damn him, damn him, she hated him, she loved him, she could have killed him but would have given her own life to protect him. What spell had he cast over her?

  “I missed you, O’Brien.”

  The skirt of her dress was riding up now, inch by scandalous inch. “Stop—Maggie might—”

  The hem reached her calves, her knees, the firm flesh of her bare thighs. Why hadn’t she worn drawers? Now he would laugh at her again. Now he would know that he had won long before the battle had even begun.

  “I h-hate you!”

  Adam’s hand had found its mark; he was stroking her, igniting a fierce and savage flame. “Um-hmm,” he answered.

  “Wasn’t your woman e-enough?”

  He was plundering her shamelessly now; she couldn’t breathe or think. Dear Lord, he was going to take her here, in the kitchen, and she couldn’t seem to muster the internal forces to stop him!

  “I never get enough—of you.” He sank to the bench in front of the fireplace, but his hold on Banner was unbroken. “Come here.”

  Banner’s heart was pounding and her vision was blurred and she moved with him only because he drew her. “Why?”

  “Because I want you.”

  “Here?!”

  “Here.” He had been preparing himself; he drew Banner to him, pressed her downward, so that she sat astraddle of his lap and of the bench. His entry was swift and searing.

  With his hands, Adam lifted her, lowered her, lifted her again. It was a delicious torment, savage in its ancient meter, and Banner soon took over the process herself.

  When she did, her husband fell back along the length of the bench, groaning, the powerful thrusts of his hips almost unseating her. But Banner clung to him, impaled on a pillar of fire, and thrust her legs out wide when the moment of spinning insanity came.

  Only seconds later, Adam stiffened beneath her, then arched his back with such force tha
t she clasped his sides with both hands to keep from being flung to the ceiling.

  And inside her, Banner could feel Adam’s flesh rippling against her own, filling her with his seed, claiming and conquering and worshiping, all at once.

  Banner cried out with the shock of a second, unexpected release.

  After a long time, Adam sat up. He was still a part of her, a soft part that was slowly growing hard again.

  “Dessert,” he said, opening the first button of her dress.

  Flushed with satisfaction and scandal, Banner flailed at his hands. “No—oh, no—Maggie might come in—”

  “She wouldn’t dare,” he said, opening another button.

  “Adam, please.”

  He chuckled and finished the task of baring her. “You needn’t beg, O’Brien. I promise full satisfaction.”

  “Why, you—”

  Adam’s mouth closed suddenly over one waiting nipple; his hands came to Banner’s hip, turned her from side to side, like a wheel mounted on a hub.

  And all the things she’d meant to say wafted away on a soft moan.

  * * *

  Discreetly, Maggie McQuire turned away from the kitchen door. Time enough to set the stew boiling later, she thought with a smile, for there was something else boiling now.

  And wouldn’t it be a fine thing if there was a brand new Corbin baby to look after one of these days?

  Maggie’s smile spread to a grin. From what she’d heard through that door, things were off to a promising start.

  * * *

  It was sheer luxury, soaking in that hot, scented water. With a sigh, Banner Corbin sank to her chin.

  The thought of Adam and what he’d done to her—what they’d done together—brought fierce color to her cheeks. Good Lord, he’d taken her in a kitchen, and in broad daylight!

  A small smile curved her lips. She supposed the kitchen was tame compared to some of the other places where he’d chosen to enjoy her—in his buggy, for example. Over an examining table in the middle of a busy workday. And once, the night before he went away this last time, behind a screen in the parlor.

  Her smile faded, though, as she imagined Adam with his woman. Could she make him groan and cry out, in beautiful vulnerability, the way Banner could? Did she fight with him and nurse him at her breasts?

  Tenderness and rage mingled within Banner, and one tear slid down her face to lose itself in the bathwater. She loved Adam fiercely, hopelessly, but sharing him was a brutal blow to her pride.

  A soft, ragged sob tore itself from her throat.

  The door of the bathing room creaked. “Shamrock?”

  She tried to stop crying, but another sob followed the first and then the torrent was unstoppable.

  Adam came to the side of the tub, knelt. “Banner—please—don’t cry.”

  She looked at him and thought how she was trapped inside her love for him like a bird inside a jar, and she howled at the agony and the injustice of it.

  Tenderly, Adam drew her up out of the water, dried her with one towel, wrapped her in another. Speaking softly, he carried her to their bed and placed her there, covering her, making no demands.

  “Sleep,” he whispered, brushing her hair back from her face, smoothing the grief from her lips with an index finger. “You’re exhausted.”

  Banner was not sobbing now—she was too tired—but humiliating little hiccoughs and sniffles still plagued her. “The patients—”

  “It’s my turn to take care of them, O’Brien. Sleep now. And sweetheart?”

  She sniffled again. “What?”

  “There isn’t anybody—anybody—besides you.”

  Because she was so tired, because she loved this man and needed him, because even now his child might be growing within her, she believed him.

  And believing him, she slept.

  * * *

  When Adam came downstairs, Maggie was in the kitchen, rolling out biscuit dough. The stew simmered on the stove.

  “You’re a lot like your papa.” the housekeeper teased.

  For the first time in his memory, Adam blushed. Too late, he orchestrated a shrug. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “The hell you don’t. Where is Banner, by the way?”

  “Sleeping. I’ll be on rounds for the rest of the morning. Don’t bother my wife unless there’s an emergency.”

  Maggie executed a brisk salute, and Adam laughed.

  It was going to be a very good day.

  * * *

  The rap at the bedroom door was not Adam’s; it was too tentative, too soft.

  Banner snuggled under the covers and yawned, sleepily observing to herself that Adam wouldn’t have knocked at all. “Come in.”

  The door opened and the scent of a familiar perfume wafted into the room. “I’ve brought your dinner,” said Katherine.

  Banner turned quickly and sat up, the blankets under her chin. For a moment she was wildly embarrassed to be found in Adam’s bed, but the feeling passed when she remembered that she had the right. “You’re home!”

  Katherine smiled at this weighty observation and set a tray across Banner’s lap. “I am, indeed. And I have wonderful news.”

  Banner yawned again and then began eating from the bowl of stew on her tray. There were biscuits, too, fragrant and dripping with butter. “What news? I thought you were going to lecture about suffrage—”

  Katherine sat down on the foot of the bed, beaming “Today the legislature passed a bill making it legal for women to vote, Banner.”

  Banner’s eyes widened and her heart leaped inside her. She had not dared to hope, despite the promises of Francelle’s father and others like him. “That is wonderful news!”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Have you told Adam?”

  Katherine nodded. “I think he was pleased, but he did warn me to be prepared for a fight.”

  “A fight? Could they overturn the decision?”

  “Oh, yes,” Katherine sighed, smoothing her crisp skirts, studying the fire crackling on the hearth. “He could well be right. We had the vote once before and it was taken away. Men are frightened of surrendering any sort of control, Banner—I think they’re afraid we’ll legislate them right out of their beloved supremacy.”

  “No more brothels, no more whiskey.”

  “Their worst phobia, couched in six simple words,” agreed Katherine. “And how have you been, Banner? Are you happy?”

  Banner’s throat ached; she was happy—she was. But now, in wakefulness, in the presence of this sensible woman, she felt foolish for accepting Adam’s vow of fidelity so readily. After all, if he didn’t have a mistress somewhere, why did he disappear every three weeks? Why did he refuse to explain the absences? And why was he always in such a wretched temper when he got back?

  “Banner? What is it?”

  Banner lowered her eyes to the stew. Suddenly, it didn’t seem so savory anymore. “Nothing,” she lied.

  * * *

  The marshal flung back the tarp, revealing the small, battered body to Adam’s gaze.

  “Jesus,” he breathed. “What happened?”

  Peters shrugged. “You know how it is. She probably tried to steal some sailor’s purse. . . .”

  Adam turned away, sickened. After drawing a few deep breaths, though, he turned back again. “She was a prostitute?”

  Marshal Peters nodded. “Yeah. She was working on Water Street, as far as I know. That’s where they found her anyway.”

  Adam assessed the flowing red hair, closed the staring green eyes that still reflected bewilderment and horror. “What was her name?”

  “Dunno.”

  Adam’s heart constricted within him; he covered the girl again. She’d been sixteen years old, at the most—not even as old as Melissa—and something about her made him feel a primitive, stalking sort of fear.

  He went into the little room behind the marshal’s office and scoured his hands until the flesh between his fingers burned like fire. Red hair—green eyes—Ban
ner.

  Adam straightened, dried his hands with a rough towel. She’d looked a little like Banner, that girl—that was what was bothering him. But there was no connection—how could there be?

  An inspiration overtook him; he drew out his watch and frowned. If he hurried, there might be time.

  * * *

  Banner stared at the gold band; it glistened in the light of the lamp and the fire. Adam let it fall from his fingers to his palm and reached for his wife’s hand.

  He put the ring in its proper place and sanctioned it with a soft kiss. “O’Brien,” he said, “I love you.”

  Banner flung her arms around him, and he held her fiercely, almost as though he expected her to disintegrate within his embrace.

  “I love you,” he said again, in a low, desperate rasp. “I love you.”

  She drew back, watching his wan, ravaged face tenderly. “Adam, what is it?” she whispered.

  But he only drew her close, and it was a very long time before he let her go again.

  * * *

  In the morning, the telegraph message was delivered. Francelle brought it grudgingly into the office that Adam and Banner now shared and snapped, “Here!”

  The missive was brief: “Banner. I saw Robert in Portland a few weeks ago. He sends his love. Jeff.”

  Banner frowned. Robert? She didn’t know anyone named Robert—did she?

  She read the message again, and a spark of fear danced up and down her spine and then pirouetted in her throat. Banner swallowed it, only to have it sniggle under the lining of her stomach and lodge there.

  Briskly, Banner crumpled the message and discarded it. She had no time for vague and fanciful fears.

  * * *

  That night, she dreamed that Sean was standing at the foot of the bed, watching her, hating her.

  Banner awakened with a brutal start and a cry that left her throat raw.

  Adam stirred beside her, sat up. “Banner?”

  “Hold me,” she whispered.

  He drew her into his arms. She was safe there, warm. There was no Sean, no woman on the mountain, no monster crouching in the shadows at the foot of the bed.

  “Adam?”

  Her husband’s hand came to entangle itself in her hair. “Ummmm?”