“Banner.”
The Indians were waiting, their dark eyes avid, their faces full of grim satisfaction. Suddenly, Banner found it very easy to lower her head and look as though she’d just been soundly disciplined by her husband’s brother.
In a way, she had.
* * *
Adam had prevailed upon the stable hands to move him, board and all, to his own bed, according to Maggie, and he was looking wan and impatient and very angry when Banner reached him.
“O’Brien,” he began in a low, ominous rumble.
Banner sighed and tried to rub away the headache that was pulsing beneath her wind-chapped temples. “Not now, Adam. Please.”
He subsided slightly, intertwined his fingers on top of his neatly bound rib cage. The bruise on his eye was an angry purple, and the stitches in his lip and on the side of his head looked garish against his paper-white flesh. “What happened?”
“I tried to stop the Klallum from using the steam hut.”
“And?”
“And they wouldn’t listen to me. They listened to Jeff, though—of course.” Banner put down her bag and began untying the ribbons that held her cloak closed. “As for the patients, I wasn’t allowed to go near them. Jeff and I had to go through this whole charade in the lodge—” She paused, blushed profusely. “We had to pretend that he was beating me.”
Adam chuckled.
“It isn’t funny!” cried Banner, incensed. “Adam, there are sick children in that village!”
“Don’t worry, O’Brien. I had Jenny wire a friend of mine, in Providence. He’s coming over as soon as he can make steamer connections.”
“A doctor, I presume?” Banner retorted dryly. “And a man, no doubt.”
“Oh, Griffin is both,” said Adam. “I can depend on him to set things right in the camp.”
Banner hurt, inside and out. “As you can’t depend on me, I suppose?”
Adam looked annoyed. “Oh, I can depend on you, all right, O’Brien. If anything is going well, you’ll botch it for sure. What the hell were you thinking about, running off in the middle of the night like that? What if you’d found yourself face to face with Sean Malloy?”
“I didn’t, so why make such a fuss now?”
“Because I love you, O’Brien,” he snapped. “Because I need you. Because if Malloy or anybody else hurt you, I don’t know what I’d do!”
She came to the side of the bed, knelt, touched Adam’s battered and fervent face tenderly. “You’re the one who has been hurt,” she said, and tears smarted in her eyes because she could not take his pain and bear it herself.
With great effort, Adam brought one hand to her cheek, smoothed it with a gentle thumb. “Get some sleep, Shamrock. You look exhausted.”
Obediently, Banner rose, undressed to her camisole and drawers, and started to curl up in a big chair, meaning to cover herself with a knitted blanket and sleep there.
“Here,” Adam argued softly, sternly. “Beside me.”
Banner came to the bed, crawled in beside her husband, careful not to jar him. Within minutes, she was sound asleep.
The room was shadowy and still when she awakened, shooting upright, her breath hot and raw in her throat, her forehead beaded with perspiration. Sean had been there, standing at the foot of the bed, mocking her, threatening.
Adam groaned beside her, and the sound brought a rush of bittersweet reality. She fell back to her pillows, dizzy with relief: she’d been dreaming. Only dreaming.
“O’Brien?”
“My name is Corbin,” Banner argued, only half teasing.
“Yes,” grumbled Adam, “But if I called out ‘Corbin’ every time I wanted you, forty-three people would answer.”
Banner giggled. “I suppose you’re right. How do you feel, by the way?”
“Terrible. How about you, Shamrock?”
“Scared—I feel scared.”
“Don’t. Nobody is going to hurt you.”
“It isn’t myself I’m worried about, Adam. Sean is a brutal, ruthless man.”
“Do tell.”
Banner giggled again, but this time there were tears in the sound. “What were you thinking about, to let Sean take you by surprise that way?”
Adam laughed. “All the things I meant to do to you when I got back to our bed. The next thing I knew, the side of his boot was in my face.”
“That’s Sean. He’d probably be afraid to fight you in a straightforward fashion.”
“Salving my wounded ego, are you, O’Brien?”
“Does it need salving?”
“Yes. I feel like a damned fool, and a weakling in the bargain.”
Banner raised herself on one elbow, carefully, so that she would not cause Adam pain by the motion. “You’re neither a fool nor a weakling, Adam Corbin,” she said.
“No?”
“No.”
“And you don’t regret marrying me?”
Banner kissed his cheek. “Only when you order me about and tell me that I can’t practice medicine after our baby is born.”
“Ah, yes. Well, I’ve had second thoughts about that, as it happens.”
“What? Ordering me about?”
“Never. That’s fun and I won’t give it up. Spanking you was fun, too, but alas, that’s a thing of the past, isn’t it?” He paused, chuckled at the blush in her cheeks. “All those ruffles. I did like pulling down your drawers, O’Brien. What I’ve had second thoughts about is your practice.”
Banner stared at him, trying to read his face. “And?”
“You’re a good doctor, O’Brien—you proved that the day the sawmill blew up. I couldn’t have gotten through that particular crisis without you.”
When she started to speak, Adam laid one finger to her lips, silencing her, and went on.
“I still want you to be a mother to our child, Shamrock. That’s your job—not Maggie’s or anyone else’s. By the same token, you don’t have to hover around the little character every moment of the day, either.”
“It wouldn’t be good if I did, Adam—not for the baby or for me.”
“I know. I’ll help where I can”—Adam reached out, circled the nipple of one muslin-covered breast with a teasing finger—“but there are some things I’m just not equipped to do, O’Brien.”
“And there are some things you are in no condition to do,” she reminded him, gently pushing his hand away. “Is it true that you wouldn’t take the breast when you were a baby and had to be nurtured on clam broth?”
He chuckled and the hand returned unerringly. “Amazing but true. Have you no mercy, Shamrock? No compassion? You could make me forget my ceaseless pain, you know.”
“Poor Adam.”
He pulled a wretched face. “O’Brien, I’m trying to appeal to your better nature.”
“My better nature says that you need another injection and lots of sleep—not passion.”
“Damn your better nature then. Pleasure me.”
Banner climbed cautiously out of bed, found her bag. “Some people enjoy morphine, I’ve heard.”
“Malloy broke my ribs, damn it, not my—”
Banner lit a lamp and filled a syringe in the light. “Stop cajoling; it doesn’t become you.”
“Neither does—”
“Adam.” Banner dabbed his upper arm with alcohol soaked cotton, pumped the air bubbles out of the syringe, and administered the injection.
“Woman, you have no heart.”
“No conscience, in the bargain,” rejoined Banner.
“And you call yourself a doctor!”
She patted the fading evidence of his desire. “Sleep well,” she said, to the both of them.
“Wench.”
Banner bent, tenderly kissed Adam’s swollen mouth. “I may be a wench, but I love you.”
“Prove . . . it.”
“I just did. Good night, darling.” The reply was an inelegant snore.
* * *
Adam’s friend from Providence arrived the next morni
ng; he was a very handsome, serious-looking man, and Banner liked him, despite his brusque manner. In the space of only two days, he had the smallpox situation in the Klallum camp under some control, though he agreed with Adam that the most that could be hoped for was that the malady wouldn’t spread through the entire tribe.
To prevent this, he had the infected patients moved to a hastily constructed lodge well away from the rest of the village, where they were attended by the few members of the tribe who had had the disease and survived it.
It seemed very unfair, to Banner, that the Klallum would accept such sweeping dictums from Dr. Fletcher but not from herself, and she said so, fervently, after Adam’s friend had returned to his own town and practice.
Adam was grumpy, already tired of being confined to the house. “Don’t harp, O’Brien,” he snapped. “The central issue here is that the problem has been dealt with, for the time being. I don’t see that it matters whether you settled the matter or Griffin did.”
Banner had no argument to offer, so she forced a smile to her face and bent to kiss Adam’s forehead. “Is Jeff still out looking for Sean? I haven’t seen him since before Dr. Fletcher arrived.”
A storm was gathering in Adam’s arrogant features. “How the hell would I know?” he bellowed.
Banner’s heart crumbled within her; she’d been more emotional lately, more prone to hurt and anger and all manner of inadvisable feelings. She gave one great, blubbering sob and made to leave the bedroom.
But Adam caught her hand in his and held on tight. “I’m sorry, O’Brien. I’m sorry.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed; now that Adam couldn’t hold her close, due to his injured ribs, she felt bereft and broken much of the time. “It’s all right.”
“No, it isn’t. The truth is, O’Brien, that I’m scared. You’re in danger and God knows where Jeff is—”
Banner touched his lips with a soothing finger. “Nothing has happened to him. Jeff is strong, and he’d make short work of Sean Malloy if the need arose.”
Pain surged in the weary indigo eyes. “The way I did?” he barked.
“Jeff will be careful, Adam,” Banner said quickly. “And he has his crew with him—the men from the Sea Mistress.”
Adam made an impatient, exasperated sound and turned his head away toward the wall.
* * *
“Adam?”
He opened his eyes, squinted. O’Brien was asleep beside him and the room was dark. “Jeff?”
His brother fell to sit on his heels at the bedside, keeping his voice low. “I found Malloy—or, at least, I know where he is.”
“And?”
“According to the scuttlebutt on Water Street, he’s in Seattle, hiding out in some roominghouse on the Skid Road.”
“Water Street?” Adam drew a deep breath. “That’s Royce’s turf. Has it ever occurred to you that this might be a trick of some kind?”
Jeff’s shoulders moved in an easy shrug. “I’m not afraid of Royce.”
“Maybe you should be. He hates your guts, little brother. Remember?”
“I’m not very fond of him either, as it happens. Right now, I’m only interested in Malloy, and I know my way around the Skid Road.”
“Yeah. I’m the one who had to dip you in kerosene after your last visit. Be careful, Jeff—please.”
Jeff grinned, tilted his head to one side. “When am I anything but?”
“Too often. And Jeff?”
His brother was standing up again, his face in shadows. “What?”
“We can’t spare you, so keep your eyes open.”
“I will,” Jeff promised, and then he was gone.
Adam closed his eyes, but sleep was elusive. He kept thinking of Malloy and Temple Royce and how they might be in league with each other, drawing Jeff into some kind of snare. After all, both of them had their grudges—Malloy because he’d been shanghaied, Royce because he’d been feuding with Jeff long enough that it was an ingrained habit.
He awakened Banner.
She curled close to him, like a sleepy kitten. “What is it, Adam?” she yawned. “Are your ribs hurting?”
“No.”
“Your stitches?”
“No.”
“If nothing hurts, why did you wake me up?”
Adam laughed and sought her hand, guiding it. “I didn’t say nothing hurt, O’Brien.”
She laughed, tugged at him gently, reveled in the rumbling groan the motion elicited. “You are very wicked, Adam Corbin.”
“And desperate, too. Please, O’Brien.”
“I’ll go downstairs and brew some clam broth,” she teased. “Would you like that?”
“You know what I’d like, you little wretch.”
Banner giggled, but then she sat up and drew back the blankets that covered them both. Cool air washed over Adam, doing nothing to quell the fierce heat rising within him.
“I love you,” she said, and one kiss fell upon him, to be absorbed like rain falling on parched ground.
Adam gasped and instinctively arched his back. The resulting pain in his rib cage brought a sheen of sweat to his upper lip, his chest, his forehead.
Banner instantly drew back, hesitating.
“Oh, God, O’Brien—I need you.”
“You mustn’t move,” she said. And then there was another kiss.
“I promise I won’t—oh, God—move a muscle.”
It was a hard promise to keep, for lying still, under the circumstances, was a blissful, blinding sort of hell. Banner’s hair tumbled over Adam, like coppery silk, and the scent of it made him crazy. “O’Brien,” he said, unable even to entangle his hands in that rich cinnamon mane. “O’Brien . . .”
The name was a chant, conjuring magic of a brutal sort, and Banner rewarded it with fire.
Adam dared not move, though the ancient instincts commanded it, and his resistance made the pleasure keener. His voice became a senseless, growllike sob.
Banner laughed and bit him softly, and suddenly his mind and soul splintered, their fragments flung in diverse directions, as sweet release came. It was a very long time before he drifted down from the arch of the rainbow to settle in and sleep.
Adam’s dreams were pleasant ones, fraught with blue-eyed, redheaded children and the ring of O’Brien’s voice. Toward morning, he felt a velvety nipple brush his lips, seeking sanction.
He took suckle greedily, even in his half-sleep, wondering what it was exactly, this intangible nectar that he drew from Banner’s full, sleep-warmed breasts.
Inwardly, as O’Brien whimpered in her giving, Adam shrugged. Whatever it was, it sure beat clam broth.
Chapter Fourteen
THE FIGURE MOVED, SLENDER AND FLEETING, AT THE edge of the woods. Banner left the task of unhitching the horse and buggy she’d taken on her rounds to a stable hand and walked briskly toward the line of trees.
The soggy ground was soft beneath the soles of her shoes, and the grass was wet with the rains of May. It had been a month now since Sean’s attack on Adam, and her husband was almost fully recovered.
Today he had even seen patients in his surgery, though his ribs were still bound and his movements were slow and cautious.
Best of all, as far as Banner was concerned, there had been no more trouble from Sean.
She paused near a fallen log populated by small creatures and busy insects and raised her hands to her hips. “Lulani?” she called.
There was no answer, but for the call of an annoyed bird.
“Lulani! Come out here!”
The boughs of a small pine tree shifted, filling the fresh spring air with the scent of Christmas. Wisely, Banner kept her distance.
“Lulani?” she ventured again.
The woman did not show herself, and her voice was tentative. “Where is Adam? He is well?”
Banner closed her eyes for a moment; she was past jealousy now, loving Adam as she did, and though she was not resigned to sharing him, she had pity for this woman who must have b
een waiting and worrying all these weeks.
“He was hurt very badly, but he’s recovering.”
“Hurt? How?”
Banner sighed. “Adam was beaten, Lulani.”
There was a silence. “This is true? Adam lives?”
“Yes. Lulani, is there anything you need?”
“Need Adam,” came the steady reply.
Banner suppressed a sudden and unladylike need to delve into that bristly pine tree and throttle her husband’s mistress with her bare hands. Perhaps she wasn’t past jealousy, after all. “He is my husband, Lulani!”
“Adam has said this. You will send him soon up the mountain, please?”
“I’m sure I won’t need to send him,” lamented Banner. Adam had been casting anxious looks in the direction of that mountain for days now, and his mood, of late, had hardly been conducive to marital bliss. “Doesn’t it bother you, Lulani, to share him with me?”
The question hung, unanswered, in the air, which was well because Banner instantly regretted asking it. After almost a minute, she realized that Lulani had gone and gave up her vigil.
Banner found Adam standing stiffly beside his desk, trying to comprehend the system of organization his wife had engineered.
Banner interlaced her fingers. “I just saw Lulani,” she said.
The papers in Adam’s hands wafted down to the surface of his desk, and his jaw took on a formidable angle. “What did she say?”
It was hard, so hard, not to shout and cry and demand fidelity from a man who was not prepared to give it. “She has been waiting for you to come to her,” Banner said evenly.
“I’m not surprised,” said Adam distractedly. “It’s been weeks.”
Banner blushed and lowered her eyes, struggling with the rage and pain that rioted within her. “Yes. Weeks.”
“O’Brien.”
She kept her gaze fixed on the floor. “What?”
“Look at me, please.”
She couldn’t, not now. Didn’t Adam understand that? It was all she could do to stand there, the way she was, with her broken pride all spiky and swollen in her throat. “I don’t want to,” she replied.
“Very well. I’m not sure I’d care for the expression I would see in your eyes anyway, Shamrock.”
Banner’s gaze lifted swiftly, of its own accord. “I have not complained,” she reminded him, and her tones were calm, even though there was color flaring in her face.
Banner O'Brien Page 25