Banner O'Brien

by Linda Lael Miller

  He turned to her, smiling suddenly, his eyes bright with the evidence of his pain and his love for a woman he could not have. “My son—my son has a fine wife now, doesn’t he, Lulani?”

  Lulani returned his smile, but she would wait to touch him; when he was ready for that, she would know. “Yes. Banner is brave and good, like Adam, I think.”

  “And strong,” said Daniel. “And Adam—Adam was always strong, Lulani. Even as a baby. By the time he was four—four, mind you, he was telling Katie and I that he’d be a doctor one day.”

  There were times when Daniel needed to speak of his children; Lulani knew that and respected it. “The others?” she prompted gently.

  Daniel was laughing and weeping, both at once. “Jeff is as tough as Adam, though he never had the need to hide his feelings the way his brother does. And Keith. Keith is funny and gentle and yet I’ve seen him get the best of his brothers time and time again. He was the youngest, and they were always surprised when he prevailed against them—a little David felling two Goliaths.”

  “And the girl,” urged Lulani, loving this man of hers, ignoring, as best she could, the unrelated pain that made fire in her middle. “Tell me again of your small princess, Daniel.”

  Daniel lowered his head. “I miss her the most, I think,” he breathed. “I miss my baby most.”

  “Yes.”

  The light blue eyes seared her face suddenly, their vision clear even in the dimness of that shed. “You’re hurting again, Lulani,” he scolded with tenderness. “Come. I’ll give you some of the medicine that Adam brought.”

  Daniel’s arm felt heavy and warm and good around Lulani’s shoulders. “I have loved you, Daniel Corbin,” she said again, as they left the shed for the bold spring sunshine outside. “When I am gone—”

  Daniel held her very close as they walked. “Where do you plan to go, Lulani?” he teased, falling back on the game that kept them both sane. “Down the mountain to find yourself a man as handsome as me?”

  “There is no man as handsome as you,” replied Lulani with merry resignation. “So I must stay here.”

  But they both knew that Lulani could not stay. One day soon, she would die—the meter of her pain told her so, as Adam had—and Daniel would be alone.

  * * *

  They entered the house through the kitchen, Banner and Adam, weary and love-sated and grim over their shared secret.

  “There is no hope for Lulani?” Banner whispered as Adam touched the coffee pot with the fingertips of his right hand. “None at all?”

  Adam flinched, reached up over the stove for two cups. “None. She has a cancer, Banner, and it’s a miracle that she’s lived this long.”

  Banner watched with aching eyes as her husband filled the cups, brought them to the table where she sat. “What will your—what will he do, without her?”

  “I don’t know, Shamrock.”

  “He loves her, doesn’t he?”

  Grimly, Adam nodded. “She’s all he has.”

  Banner lowered her eyes, as well as her voice. If anyone overheard their conversation, the results would be disastrous. “Didn’t he love your mother?”

  “I was waiting for that question,” replied Adam, without anger, as he stirred sugar into his coffee. “You’re wondering why he ever got to know Lulani in the first place, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Rest assured, O’Brien, adultery doesn’t run in my family, like quick tempers and blue eyes.”

  Banner lifted her cup, welcomed the warmth of it against her trembling hands. “I’m sorry for thinking that you were unfaithful, Adam,” she said distractedly. “But—”

  “But things looked pretty bad, didn’t they? Let me tell you something, O’Brien. I did go to the Silver Shadow one night, with every intention of betraying you.”

  Banner stiffened. “And?”

  “And I couldn’t bring myself to touch the woman. All I could think about was you.”

  Banner saw that he was telling the truth. “I thought . . . all those nights—”

  “All those nights, O’Brien, I was either in my office or tossing on my lonely bed, fighting an urge to crawl to your door on my hands and knees.”

  The image made Banner chuckle. “That will be the day. No one could bring you to your knees, Adam Corbin.”

  His eyes were serious, faraway. “You could,” he muttered.

  Banner swallowed, discomforted by the very vision that had amused her a moment ago. “Tell me about Lulani.”

  Twilight was gathering at the windows, darkening the room, making the great house feel empty and cavernous. Where was everyone, anyway? This was the dinner hour, and the place was usually full of activity then.

  “I don’t know much about her,” Adam said with a shrug. “The voyage to Hawaii is a long one, and Papa was never the sort to go without a woman for months at a time. He was always faithful to my mother before that, as far as I know, but Lulani was close by and Mama was far away.”

  “Would you do that, Adam? Would you find someone else if we were apart for some reason?”

  “Academic, O’Brien. We’re not going to be apart.”

  “We could be. One never knows what the future holds. Would you take a mistress, Adam?”

  He looked down at his cup, running an idle finger around its rim. “I’d like to say no, O’Brien, but the truth is that I’m not sure.”

  Banner was indignant, but she did respect Adam for the honesty of his answer. Who knew better than she did how very deep this man’s needs ran, and how fierce they were? She would go on loving him, with all the power and fire in her, and hope that he never had to seek solace with another woman.

  “When the baby makes me big—” she mumbled miserably.

  “You will be even more beautiful than you are now,” Adam finished. “I’ll want you, O’Brien. Believe me.”

  Before Banner could overcome the lump in her throat and respond, a loud cry from the other side of the house shattered the mood.

  “Adam!” screamed Maggie. “Adam, come quick!”

  Adam’s chair overturned as he bolted from it, and neither he nor Banner paused to right it again.

  “Thank God you’re home—I didn’t know.” Maggie was sobbing and wringing her hands before the gaping front door. “Thank God—”

  Adam pushed past the housekeeper, drew in a sharp breath, fell to his haunches on the porch. “Get my bag, Maggie,” he breathed.

  As Maggie hurried off to obey, Banner stepped forward, looked through the doorway, and cried out softly.

  Jeff lay crumpled on the porch, his face bruised almost beyond recognition, one of his arms at an impossible angle beside him. He was breathing, but unconscious.

  “Sean?” Banner wondered aloud, her heart breaking for this cherished new brother.

  “Maybe,” Adam bit out, his fingers gentle at the pulse point beneath his brother’s right ear.

  “Who else would do a thing like this?”

  Adam didn’t bother with an answer; Banner had not really expected him to. When Maggie came back with the bag, she was immediately sent away again to get one of the men from the stables to help carry Jeff.

  Jeff had been beaten savagely, and he groaned in delirium as Adam and Banner set his broken arm and cleaned the cuts on his face. Lying on that hospital examining table, he looked more like a small boy than the widely known captain of a clipper ship.

  “Who did this to you?” Adam demanded, his hands busy, the moment his brother’s eyes flickered open.

  Jeff tried to speak and couldn’t.

  “Where did it happen?” Adam persisted.

  “Water Street—I was on W-Water Street—”

  “Don’t make him talk now!” Banner hissed, pushing a lock of Jeff’s sweat-dampened, blood-crusted hair back from his forehead.

  “Royce,” Jeff managed, smiling weakly up at his concerned sister-in-law. “The chicken egg—he’s still mad—about the—goddamned egg.”

  “What egg?” Banner
demanded, her eyes on Adam now.

  Adam was turning away, washing his hands at the basin, drying them with a towel. “When we were kids, Temple Royce was Jeff’s best friend. One day, we got into the henhouse and an egg fight ensued.”

  Even in his pain, Jeff chortled. “God, Papa was furious.”

  Adam surveyed his brother with a sort of grim amusement. “I remember. He dragged you off to the woodshed, and we could hear you howling from inside the house.”

  Jeff grinned. “Yeah. And when he was—done with me—he came after you. You didn’t yell.” He paused, frowned. “How come you didn’t yell?”

  Adam was bringing laudenum from a glass-fronted cupboard. “I didn’t want you or Papa or anybody else to know I was hurting, that’s why.”

  “All this started over an egg?” marveled Banner.

  “The one Jeff threw happened to have a dead chicken inside it. It struck Royce in the forehead.”

  Banner grimaced to imagine the stench, the disgust. “Still—”

  “Temple started throwing up,” Jeff recalled, with a slow grin. “And we—laughed at him.”

  “You’ve been feuding all these years over something as silly as that?”

  “That’s right,” confirmed Jeff after swallowing the laudenum Adam had spooned into his mouth.

  “I don’t believe it!” Banner hissed, appalled.

  “Believe it,” said Adam, running his hands over his brother’s rib cage one last time to make absolutely sure that it was sound. “Royce retaliated—I forget how—and then Jeff paid him back. They’ve been enemies since that summer.”

  “That’s childish!”

  Adam shrugged. “All feuds are, O’Brien, and most of them start over something small and stupid.”

  Jeff’s eyes closed, rolled open again, dazed and unseeing. “I c-couldn’t find Malloy.”

  The tautness in Adam’s features made Banner fear that he’d forgotten that feuds were childish and stupid. “Was Royce actually there when this happened, Jeff?”

  “Yes.” Jeff’s voice was a gurgling rasp now; he was incoherent and the laudenum was taking effect. “W-Warning—he said it was—a warning—d-don’t go after him, Adam—it’s a trap—”

  “I don’t give a damn,” replied Adam, and then he was turning away, leaving his brother to Banner’s care, knowing, damn him, that as a doctor she could not leave a patient to follow.

  “Adam!” she pleaded. “Adam, wait!”

  The door of the examining room slammed, and then the door of the outer office.

  “Fool,” Banner sobbed, covering Jeff with a blanket. “That stubborn, stupid, arrogant fool!”

  Just then, Katherine burst into the room, still wearing a hat and her traveling clothes, her face pale and pinched. “Maggie said that—” Blue eyes fell to Jeff’s inert frame, filled with tears. “Oh, no—”

  Jeff began to writhe on the narrow table; it was clear that he would have to be moved into the ward and placed in a railed bed. “Adam—” he said.

  “Hush,” whispered Banner, trying to soothe him.

  Katherine was at her son’s side, pulling off her gloves, searching Banner’s face. “What happened?”

  Briefly, Banner explained.

  “And Adam has gone to find Temple, hasn’t he?” asked Katherine when the story had ended, closing her eyes. “That idiot! Doesn’t he know that that’s exactly what Temple wants him to do?”

  “Sean had some part in this,” muttered Banner. “It’s my fault—all of it. It’s my fault!”

  Katherine fixed her daughter-in-law in a gaze that left no doubt of her authority. “Don’t let me hear you say such a thing again, Banner Corbin. It’s nonsense and I won’t listen to it.

  “Now, go out to the stables and get Walter and that boy that helps him. We’ve got to move Jeff.”

  Drying her eyes as she went, Banner hurried off to obey.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “BANNER?”

  She sat up in bed with a start, opened her eyes. Adam was standing over her, his face gaunt in the pinkishgray light of dawn.

  “Is Jeff—”

  Adam shook his head. “Jeff is fine. He’ll be as obnoxious as ever, in a day or so.”

  “I wanted to stay with him, but Katherine—”

  Adam sank to the edge of the bed, couched his head in his hands in a weary gesture. “I know. Don’t worry—she took good care of him.”

  Banner reached out to massage taut, tension-corded shoulders, knew a quiet joy as Adam began to relax. “Did you find Mr. Royce?”

  “No. But I will.”

  “Adam . . .”

  He made a groaning sound as Banner worked more of the fierce hardness from his muscles. “If you’re going to tell me that I should overlook what happened to Jeff,” he muttered, “don’t bother. I can live with the beating I took, but what they did to my brother is another matter.”

  “They? So you do think that Sean was involved, as well as Temple Royce?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you suppose they brought Jeff back here the way they did, instead of just killing him?”

  Banner’s fingers were moving on the sides of Adam’s neck, kneading away some of the fury that was knotted there. He moaned and rolled his head.

  “They worked him over—left a lot of marks—but they obviously didn’t want Jeff laid up for long. It was, as he said, a warning.”

  Banner lowered her hands and shifted until she was sitting beside her husband. Her throat ached and she lowered her eyes to hide the tears glistening there. “If it hadn’t been for me, none of this would be happening. I should have known that Sean would find me—”

  Adam caught her face in both hands and forced her to look at him. “Stop it, O’Brien. You’re the best thing that’s happened to this family in years, and I, for one, would rather take a thousand beatings than lose you.”

  “Jeff and the others might not feel the same way,” replied Banner, her lower lip quivering. “I wish I’d never come here, never brought all this trouble—”

  Adam broke off her anguished ramblings with a fierce kiss; even as he manuvered her onto his lap, his tongue invaded her mouth, heralding the thorough possession to come.

  Banner’s nipples became hard buttons beneath the thin, gauzy cloth of her camisole. And as Adam had no doubt intended, all thoughts of their problems fled her mind.

  After a time, Adam positioned her on the bed, her hips at its edge, her legs dangling over the side. Deftly, he stripped her of her drawers and her camisole. She moaned and flung her head back and forth in a pagan fever as he knelt at the silken altar to worship.

  “The gossips say you howl for me,” he said, his voice muffled in the quivering softness that awaited him so eagerly.

  Half-wild, Banner gasped, “You aren’t exactly—impassive—yourself!”

  The punishment for this small defiance was one tormenting kiss. “Some rumors are true, aren’t they, O’Brien?”

  Heat surged through Banner; her knees did not need the tender pressure of his hands to part them further. Still, though, she denied him the answer he wanted.

  Idly, he tongued her. “Admit it, O’Brien. This time the gossipmongers know what they’re talking about—don’t they?”

  Banner’s back arched in a spasm of pleasure. “Yes,” she conceded, breathless. “Yes!”

  Adam’s throaty chortle was triumphant, and his fingers came up to ply Banner’s aching nipples as he enjoyed her.

  Frantic, hands clawing at the bedclothes, Banner allowed her fierce pride to give way to a fiercer passion, and she relinquished the raspy cry of triumph and surrender that she had tried so hard to stifle. And as she drifted back down, onto the piercing pleasure that waited to hurl her into the skies again, she smiled.

  There was no denying it; the gossips were right. She had howled for Adam Corbin, and she wasn’t ashamed.

  * * *

  Jeff was fully dressed and pacing the ward when Banner arrived, summoned by a worried Maggie.r />
  “Get back into that bed this instant!”

  Jeff faced her and brought his imperious, aristocratic nose to within inches of Banner’s. “No!” he yelled.

  “Yes!” Banner shouted back, noting the white strain in his face and the way he held his splinted arm close to his body in an unconscious attempt to shield it.

  “It’s been three days, Banner!”

  Banner lifted her hands to her hips, as immovable as her brother-in-law. “I don’t care,” she said firmly. “Get back into that bed.”

  Jeff turned away, sat down on the edge of the bed in question. “Bring me a woman and I will.”

  “Jeff Corbin!”

  He smiled thinly, and with heart-wrenching effort. “Just one woman?” he wheedled.

  Banner blushed. “You are completely impossible.”

  He laughed and fell back onto the mattress, clearly spent by the brief and fiery exchange. “I’m glad you think so,” he said, and two seconds later he was asleep again.

  Banner smiled and shook her head and, on impulse, bent to kiss her brother-in-law’s bruised forehead. “Idiot,” she said fondly, just before she went off to search the examining rooms for Adam.

  She did not find him, but standing at the windows and worrying about where he might be, she caught sight of a familiar, brawny frame at the edge of the woods. Daniel?

  Quickly, her heart in her throat, Banner found her cloak and draped it across her shoulders as she ran outside, across the backyard, toward the woods.

  “Daniel?” she cried, coming to a stop when she reached the line of thick trees. “Daniel!”

  He came out of the foliage, his wonderful, hideous face contorted, frantic. “I didn’t want to come here—I couldn’t—”

  Banner went to her father-in-law without fear, caught his thick arms in her hands. “What is it, Daniel? Tell me what’s the matter.”

  “Lulani,” he managed, in a choking voice, his anguish rising up around them both like a separate entity. “She’s—she’s hurting so much—”

  Banner was already turning away, her mind racing. “Wait here, Daniel,” she called to him. “I’ll get some horses and my bag.”