For the Brave (The Gentrys of Paradise Book 2)

by Holly Bush

  He held her close and kissed the top of her head. “You’re safe, Annie. Thurman will never bother you or anyone else again.”

  She sat up in his arms and turned as much as she could to face him. “Why are you here?”

  “I can’t stop thinking about you, Annie.” She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “You’re even in my dreams. I was worried about you and knew there was more to this story than you’d told me. Then I up and left you to face it alone.”

  She leaned back against his chest, solid and wide and warm. “He was raping Gilly, Jeremiah was, when I found them. I’d thought I’d heard cries out past my garden and went to see where they were coming from. I couldn’t shoot him, he was on top of her, and she’d been beaten badly. I walked up behind them and stabbed him in the back. Over and over again.”

  She was crying then and shaking and feeling as if might vomit or faint again. He was holding her tight in his arms and shushing her and telling her she was safe and he was there. She just wanted to rest, the sudden ending to too many years of tension having taken its toll. She closed her eyes and breathed in his scent. He was here.

  Chapter 13

  “You’re the man that pulled me up on your horse. You’re his brother, Adam, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  Annie was sitting on Chester, having recovered herself sufficiently to do so. Adam was on a huge black horse beside her. He was watching the streets warily. Matt was in the sheriff’s office, telling them what, she couldn’t imagine. Matt came out of the office and stood beside Chester, watching Hadlon the barber walking to them at a fast clip.

  “Where’s Bertram? Where’s Mr. Thurman and his son? What have you done?” he said looking at her and then Matt. “We won’t stand for this lawlessness here in Bridgewater, I tell you.”

  “I think your friend Bertram left town this morning. Abraham Thurman is lying dead in a field out near Cartwright’s farm. He kidnapped Gilly and Annie Campbell. He and his henchmen beat both women and held them against their will in a springhouse.”

  “She had something to do with his son’s murder. He just wanted to ask her some questions,” Hadlon said.

  “How do you explain her cuts and bruises and that split lip if he just wanted to talk? How do you explain him shooting at her as she ran across an open field?”

  Adam got down from his horse and walked up to Hadlon with a smile on his face. “Did you know that kidnapping is a state offense, not just a local matter? You may not know that because it’s not always been that way. I have a friend from my days at the Virginia Academy who now works in Richmond in state government. Would you like me to get in touch with him to get investigators here to get to the bottom of who was involved in this terrible crime?”

  Hadlon’s face crumbled and turned white. “No. No. Don’t bother.”

  Adam patted him on the back. “I’m sure the good sheriff will take care of everything. I don’t think you need to worry.”

  “Sheriff Watterby just told me he’s thinking about retiring and moving to Maryland where his sister lives. He thinks it just might be time to hang up his star,” Matt said. “I suggest the town elders start looking for a replacement. Doesn’t seem like the deputy will be up to it. I’ll speak to Tom Cartwright, Ezra Dinson, and the hotel owner to get up a committee. Maybe you’d like to join them.”

  Hadlon shook his head. “Don’t think so. I prefer to mind my own business.”

  “Really?” Matt said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe these decisions need to be left to others.”

  Annie watched Hadlon walk away, his hands in his pockets and his head down. “You know how to make somebody do what you want without ever asking them to.”

  Adam laughed. “I always hope they’ll think it’s their idea.”

  “You sure you know your way back to Annie’s cabin?” Matt asked him.

  “I do. I’ll try and get those pigs back in their pen,” he said.

  “I can get them back in their pen easy. I want to go home anyway. I want to change clothes and bathe. Take me home, please,” Annie said, blinking away the sudden tears in her eyes. Home. The word wrapped around her and made her long for her yellow tablecloth, her barn and her garden, her fence line, and her mother’s leather satchel. Home was safe behind that barred door. She could curl up on her new mattress and cry her eyes out or sleep. She could hoe the late beans she’d just planted and pick the last of the corn. She would be home.

  “Adam’s going to your cabin and staying overnight. You’re going to the doctor in Harrisonburg. Gilly told me you need to see one and that your doc here in Bridgewater’s a hack.”

  “I want to go home. I want to see to my hogs myself.”

  Matt shook his head. “You’ve been through some real danger and lived to talk about it, and you may need to speak to the doctor about . . . other matters. You’re exhausted, your eyes are sunk in, and I’ll bet you haven’t had a decent meal in days.”

  “Why are you being this way?” she said and swiped at her eyes.

  “Maybe because I’m dealing with a cranky patient.” He pushed his hat back on his head. “Do you remember calling me one?”

  “Miss Annie,” his brother said, “may I call you that? Good. As boneheaded and stubborn as my baby brother can be, all six foot and some of him, he’s right. You need rest and some new surroundings for a few hours, and we’re concerned when the deputy and those other two actors are untied, they may decide to visit your property. I’m going to see to it that they understand that you have some champions who won’t tolerate their mischief. I doubt any of them will try anything since their leader is dead and some of their group is dispersed, but I never underestimate the level of foolishness in a young man.”

  “I just wanted to get clean,” she said and looked away. “But if Gilly thinks I need to see a doctor, and your brother will watch my cabin, then I suppose I can wait one more day with these clothes and this dirt.”

  Matt pulled himself up behind her and turned Chester’s head. “Keep your pistol handy, Adam.”

  “My gold is all back at the cabin. I have a few coins in my boot, but not enough for in here,” Annie said as they walked into a dressmaker’s store in Harrisonburg and the bell tinkled overhead.

  “I’ll be paying for everything you need. Pick out whatever you want. Look at that little hat,” Matt said and barked a laugh as he pointed to a nearby shelf. “That wouldn’t keep the sun out of your eyes, that’s for sure.”

  An older woman walked over to them, eyeing Annie up one side and down the other. She smiled. “What can I help you with, miss?”

  “Nothing,” Annie said. “I don’t have much cash money with me. I’m just looking for next time.”

  Matt shook his head. “She needs everything. Help her pick it all out. Dresses, skirts, shirts, shoes, and anything else she may need. I’m paying.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” Annie said and went out the door, waiting until Matt followed her onto the street.

  “What are you doing? You need some new clothes, Annie. I’ll buy them for you.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not your sister. I’m not your wife. I’m not your intended, or your mother. You’ll not be buying me clothes. I’ll buy them when I need them with my own money.”

  Matt pulled his hat from his head and hit his leg with it. “Your dress is torn and too filthy to be cleaned. Do you want to take a bath at the hotel and put it back on? Just buy yourself a damn dress.”

  “A bath? At the hotel?”

  He nodded. “A bath, a decent meal, and a clean bed. During the war, after a battle, I’d have given my arm for any of it. You’ve been through a war, Annie. You’re the victor. It’s over. I guarantee you, you will feel one hundred times better afterwards.”

  He could see she was torn, and she was right, she wasn’t his intended or his wife. But she might be carrying his child and until he knew otherwise, and maybe forever if he was lucky, it was his privilege to see to her comfort. She was exhausted, a
nd she still needed to visit the doctor.

  “I want to get you some clean clothes. I want you to be comfortable. Won’t you let me, Annie, please?” he asked.

  She was staring at him with tears in her eyes. She opened the door to the dressmaker’s and went inside. Matt went into the store a half hour later and found Annie at the counter with several packages, all tied together with ribbon. Matt asked the clerk if Annie had chosen a nightgown and new underthings, and if not, please add whatever was necessary, paid the bill, took the packages, and followed Annie out the door, guiding her to the Harrisonburg Hotel door.

  “Yes, Mr. Gentry. I have two rooms beside each other. I’ll have the lady’s bath brought to her room right away,” the clerk said to him. Annie was seated on the edge of one of the lobby chairs, looking at her hands.

  “And the doctor?”

  “I’ll have someone check with Doctor Burns and see if he can’t come here closer to dinnertime.”

  Matt took the keys from the clerk and helped Annie to her feet. She looked at him blankly. “They’re delivering a tub and hot water to your room right now. You’re going to get yourself clean and lie down for a nap. The doctor is going to come see you, and then we’ll get you a meal in your room or I’ll take you to the hotel dining room. Whatever you want to do.”

  Annie sat on the edge of the large bed after he’d opened the door to her hotel room, her hand sweeping across the fancy quilt covering it, and watched the men carry buckets of steaming water in to fill the tub. A woman came in after them with towels and soap that smelled of lilacs. She left and pulled the door closed behind her. Annie stared at the tub and then at him.

  “Do you need help?” he whispered, bending close to her ear.

  She shook her head. He picked up her hand, rubbing it lightly. “I’ve seen men, hardened men, unable to bring a spoon to their lips after a battle. There is something in our bodies that can make us able to do extraordinary things, like run across a field dodging bullets, but when the battle is over, we find ourselves too tired, or even unable to move. Do you need help getting into the tub?”

  “I’ll be fine. Really, I will.”

  “Let me at least get your shoes off.”

  “My boots, you mean. Yes, you can help me get those off. Thank God I was wearing them. I had a knife in a slit between the leather and the lining. I picked the lock on Gilly’s manacles with that knife so she could strangle Frederick Miles, and I stabbed him with it.”

  Matt stared at her, knelt, unlaced the boots, and pulled them off her feet. Her accounting of her and Gilly’s heroics were spoken as if she were talking about the doily on the nightstand beside her, with no emotion, or fear, or even excitement of the retelling. Just a sober description of the way she saved her own life. She let go a long sigh as her bare foot sank down in the thick carpet. He stood and went to the door. “I’ll be next door. Pound on this wall or holler and I’ll be here right away. Lock this door behind me, Annie.”

  Annie pulled the curtains closed across the window and unbuttoned her shirt and skirt with shaking hands, letting them fall to the floor. She looked in the mirror above the dresser and touched her face, running a finger over her lower lip, puffy on one side and tender when she touched it. Her left eye was bruised and she wondered if it would be black by the next morning. Her hair was knotted and matted with dirt and blood. There was a large lump on the back of her head where Miles had slammed it into the cabin wall. Her fingernails were dirty, torn, and bloody, with hers or someone else’s, she didn’t know. She stepped into the steaming water and sank down to her neck, letting the heat loosen her muscles. She laid her head back on a folded towel and closed her eyes, nearly drifting off.

  After a few minutes she dunked her whole head in the water and rubbed the scented soap in her hair, slowly working through the knots as she soaped it and rinsed away the blood and grime. She came up for air, grabbing the towel left on a chair near her and wiping her eyes.

  “You’ve been through a war, Annie. You’re the victor.” She’d won! she thought as she recalled Matt’s words. She’d defeated the men who took her father and brother! Revenge had been delivered! She smiled to herself and would have stood and danced a jig if she had the energy. She’d outlasted them, outsmarted them, and although Matt had saved her life, his brother literally plucking her from the battlefield, she and Gilly were the ones still breathing. Abraham Thurman was dead and gone.

  The water turned chilly, and she stood and towel dried herself and her hair and pulled on the new nightdress Matt had bought her. Then she stretched out on the bed. Her eyes soon closed. A knock at the door woke her sometime later.

  “It’s me,” Matt said. “The doctor is here to check on you.”

  “Just a minute,” she said and quickly pulled on a new chemise and drawers, a light blouse and skirt. She opened the door and let the doctor in. Matt was leaning against the wall opposite to her door and looked as if he had cleaned himself up, too.

  Matt was still leaning against the wall when the doctor left. He’d paid the man in advance. He knocked on Annie’s door.

  “Well?” he asked after she opened her door. The bath and nap and clean clothes had done her a world of good, although she wouldn’t look directly at him.

  “I’ll live,” she said and smiled ruefully.

  “That’s it? You’ll live?”

  “He stitched the back of my head and told me my ribs were bruised pretty good but not broken and that I should wrap them. The lip will heal with time and some ointment he gave me for it. Nothing’s broken from what could tell, although he was worried about my cheekbone, but I’m covered with bruises.” She looked up at him. “They’ll go away in a week or two. I’m lucky. Very lucky.”

  “Good. That sounds like you’ll be fine with some rest.”

  She nodded, and he twirled his hat in his hand.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “I am.”

  “Would you like to go to the dining room? I’ve got a table held but I can have a meal delivered here to you, if you’d prefer.”

  “No,” she said and pushed away from beside the window where she’d been leaning. “I don’t know what folks will say with my yellow eye and my fat lip, but I’d like to eat in the dining room. It’s been years since I’ve eaten a meal anywhere but home.”

  She walked toward him and stopped when he didn’t move from the doorway. “They’ll say I’m the luckiest man in the world to have such a beautiful woman agree to dine with me.”

  He followed her to the dining room where they were seated at the table in the back of the room that he’d requested. She didn’t smile once, not when they were seated and their order had been taken, even though she turned over the silverware in her hand to examine it and gazed around the room at all the activity. It was if she wasn’t even there with him.

  They ate lentil soup and both had a glass of wine. His beefsteak and her roasted chicken arrived at the table and she stared at her meal, taking in deep breaths.

  “Are you well?” he asked softly.

  She lifted her head but didn’t look him in the eye. “I am. I’m not expecting a child.”

  Matt laid down his silverware and stared at her. He swallowed a lump in his throat. How was it that something that wasn’t ever there felt so real to him, so perfect, when he thought it might be? He’d been letting a child build in his mind’s eye, letting a life together with Annie become real enough to touch.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Annie.”

  Her lip was trembling when she looked up at him. “It will be easier this way. There’ll be no obligations between us when you leave.”

  He ate his meal but didn’t taste a thing. He escorted her to her room, went to his, and stripped naked. She was expecting him to leave her. He was facing a life without her and wasn’t sure he could do it, live that was. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. At half past midnight, he pulled on his pants and knocked on her door, intending to tell her what she meant to him, what she would
always mean to him, until there was no breath left in him.

  “Annie. I have to talk to you.”

  She opened the door, standing in the moonlight filtering through the curtains and her nightgown. Her dark hair was shining and her feet bare. All his intentions of talk fled his mind in an instant. His body took over, and perhaps thousands of years of instinct was the only communication he could offer. She was looking up at him, serenely, as if she’d been waiting for him.

  He pulled her in his arms, tilted her head, and kissed her, searching her eyes for pain or reluctance or refusal. She kissed him back, pressing her breasts to his chest. He growled and moved his thigh between her legs and ran his fingers down her neck and arm. She was soft and fragrant, and she was his Annie. He would never want another.

  They tumbled into her bed and he pulled her nightgown over her head, desperate to feel her. She unbuttoned his pants, shoving at them, pushing them over his hips and off his body, releasing himself into her hand. She was on her back then and he was leaning over her, touching her everywhere, kissing her hard and winding his tongue in her mouth. His cock was against her side and he was rubbing himself on her hip, his breathing shallow and hurried. He licked her breast until his mouth found her nipple and sucked on it until her hips were moving off the mattress.

  Annie touched his arms and chest, pulling at him, to get him above her. It was an explosion of need and want and the recognition that they’d lived through danger, and animal lust mostly, he would think later, as he was unable to think rationally at all at the time, only concentrating on the weight of her breast in his hand and the wetness between her legs when he touched her there.

  She moaned aloud as he moved his fingers inside her, bucking against his hand. He moved on top of her and entered her swiftly, stopping a moment to pull her legs around his hips, leaning on his forearms beside her. She threw her head back and he kissed her neck and ran his fingers in her hair. She whimpered and pulled him deeper, her hands on his backside pushing him harder and faster, meeting his thrusts and groaning. He came in her, spilling himself inside her and thinking there’d never been a woman for him before her. He was making love to his Annie, and it was surely only the second time in his life he’d ever made love.