by Craig, Emma
Mac didn’t argue. He merely followed Elijah into the house and winked at Virginia, who looked slightly taken aback. Then he closed the door behind them, sealing them all in the safe, magical cocoon of his home.
# # #
“Drink it, lad. It’ll do ye good.”
Elijah squinted at Mac and clamped his teeth together so he wouldn’t bellow at the old man. It wasn’t Mac’s fault Joy was hurt. Yet Elijah’s nerves were strung like an acrobat’s wire, and he had a struggle maintaining his composure. He wanted to break things. To shriek and scream. To stamp his feet and then throw himself on the floor and drum his heels. In fact, he wanted to throw a temper tantrum.
Instead, he drank the tea Mac handed him.
Oh, God; oh, God, Joy had to get better. She had to. Virginia laid a hand on his shoulder and he jumped a foot off his chair and sloshed his tea. He wanted to holler at her, too.
“I’m sure she’ll be all right, Uncle Elijah. Mac said she would be.”
What the hell did Mac know about it? Elijah grunted out a “Huh,” and didn’t ask the question. Joy was still unconscious. The only sounds she’d made since she hit the dirt beneath that damned tree were a few pitiful moans and a groan or two. Elijah had never been so scared in his life.
He looked at the clock ticking away on the bedside table. Almost nine o’clock. Nine o’clock, and she hadn’t opened her eyes yet. What did it mean? Oh, God, please don’t take her away from me.
“Looks like it’s past time for a bite of supper.”
Elijah jerked his head up and frowned. Supper? Why the hell was Mac talking about supper when Joy was in such a terrible predicament?
“I’ll help you, Mac. I’m sure we all need to keep up our strength.”
Strength. Strength? What the hell did Elijah need with strength if Joy died on him? The thought sent a wave of anguish through him, and he let out a choked noise that didn’t mean anything except how frantic he was. Mac gave him a compassionate smile, and Elijah wanted to belt him. He didn’t need compassion; dammit, he needed Joy.
He watched Mac and Virginia leave the room and buried his face in his hands. “God dammit, Joy, don’t leave me. You can’t die on me, dammit. Who’ll I fight with if you die?”
Elijah heard a chuckle from the direction of the door and whipped his head around. Damn. He’d thought Mac had already left. Elijah frowned at him to let him know there wasn’t anything funny about this catastrophe. Joy might die, for the love of God.
“I’ve often heard Joy say that a good prayer helps in times of trouble, lad.”
Elijah muttered, “Prayer? Hell.”
Another chuckle. Elijah’s nerves screeched like seventeen untuned violins.
“Prayers go in the other direction from hell, lad.”
Elijah shook his head, feeling horrible despair. Mac left, thank God, and he was left alone with Joy.
“Prayer.” The only time Elijah had prayed was when the nuns had made him pray in school. He’d had all the prayers memorized back then, and he tried to remember one of them. He’d never uttered a spontaneous prayer in his life, and wasn’t sure he could make one up on the spur of the moment.
“Hell, Perry, Protestants do it all the time. What’s the matter with you?”
Criminy, things were rough if he was talking to himself. Elijah muttered a soft, “Damn,” and got down on his knees. He folded his hands together, leaned on the bed, and endeavored to ignore the pain shooting through his body. Mac had tried to dose him with laudanum after he’d carried Joy indoors, but Elijah wouldn’t have it. He wanted to be awake for Joy if she regained consciousness.
When she regained consciousness, rather. Oh, Lord; oh, Lord.
That was a start. Elijah managed to murmur, “Oh, Lord,” before his imagination went dry. He tried again. “Oh, Lord, please don’t let her die.” That sounded negative. He had an intuitive suspicion that God appreciated positive thinking. He cleared his throat.
“Oh, Lord, please keep Joy safe.”
She wasn’t safe already. She was lying here, in this bed, as pale as a snowdrop, unconscious. Damn, Elijah wished a priest would pop up from somewhere and rescue them all from this crisis.
“Dammit, God, I don’t know how to ask for this. Make Joy better, dammit. It would be too damned unfair of you to take her now, when she’s only beginning to understand how to enjoy life, dammit!”
Frowning fiercely, he suspected he’d made a botch of his prayer already, and he hadn’t hardly begun yet. Oh the other hand, what the hell did he care if God got offended? Elijah had been offended by God often enough—or at least by His representatives here below.
“And, dammit, God, what about me? I know I haven’t been the best man in the world but, dammit, you wouldn’t have been either if you’d had to live the life I’ve lived.”
That didn’t make a lick of sense, and Elijah knew it. He thumped his fist on the bed, scared and frustrated and mad as hell. “Dammit, God, help her!”
“Stop . . .”
The soft, breathy word startled Elijah so badly, he jerked away from the bed and wrenched every single one of his already-sore muscles. He stared at Joy, scarcely daring to believe the word had come from her. Her eyes remained closed. She looked as close to dead as made no matter. He leaned closer, ignoring his screaming muscles, and squinted into her face.
“Joy?”
“. . . swearing . . .”
It was her! He’d seen her lips move! Elijah shouted, “Joy!”
She flinched at the noise. “. . . at me, Elijah Perry.”
Speaking so many words at once evidently exhausted her, because she didn’t even purse her lips after admonishing him, but lay there, breathing shallowly, her lips parted. Elijah, unable to help himself, whooped again, leaned over, and kissed her parted lips. “You’re alive!” he cried when he came up for air.
One of Joy’s eyes opened halfway. “I won’t be if you smother me.”
“Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” Elijah shouted. “She’s alive! She’s alive!”
The clatter of running feet announced Virginia and Mac before they charged into the room. By the time they got there, both of Joy’s eyes were open, and Elijah was doing a limping jig around the room.
“Joy!” Virginia cried.
“Lass!” Mac cried.
“She’s alive!” Elijah cried.
“I have a perfectly dreadful headache,” Joy announced in a voice that sounded as if it had been ripped apart by strong hands. “Please keep your voices down.”
Elijah flung himself onto his knees beside her bed so hard that a cry of pain was wrenched from him involuntarily. He didn’t care. He took up her hand. The palm was scraped raw and had been washed and anointed with healing balm by Mac. Elijah kissed her hand with a fervor he hadn’t felt for anything since he was born. “You’re alive!” he said again.
And he burst into tears.
# # #
“I can feed myself.” Joy sounded short-tempered and snappish. She sounded, in fact, quite like her old self.
“I don’t care. You’re going to let me feed you until you’re well.”
Elijah knew it was unmanly of him to have cried, but he didn’t give a damn. When he’d realized Joy wasn’t going to die on him, all the emotions he’d had bottled up inside of him for almost forty years had burst out in a flood.
“It’s only a headache. I assure you, my hands works perfectly well.”
“They don’t either. They’re scraped all to hell and back.”
“Stop swearing at me, Elijah Perry!”
“I’m not swearing at you. I’m just swearing for the hell of it.”
Joy uttered something that sounded like a snarl, but she allowed him to lift the spoon to her lips and drank the broth it contained. Elijah watched her avidly. Joy eyed him back, a wary expression on her face. Elijah tipped the spoon to her lips again.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked after she’d swallowed another sip of broth.
�
�Like what?”
“Like you’re only waiting to spring something on me.”
“The only thing I’m going to spring on you is me, Joy, as soon as you’re better.”
She looked worried.
Virginia, who was sitting on the chair beside Joy’s bed and petting Killer Apricot, laughed. “He was so worried about you, he almost died himself, Miss Hardesty.”
Joy still didn’t look as though she understood anything going on around her. Elijah, who didn’t appreciate Virginia announcing his weakness so bluntly, shot her a look and hurried another spoonful of broth to Joy’s mouth. She drank it because it was either drink it or wear it. She frowned at him. He was used to it.
“You’re on your way to a full recovery now,” he said, hoping to forestall any further revelations on his niece’s part. Shrewd woman, Virginia. Elijah wasn’t sure that was a good thing under the present circumstances.
“I don’t know why he was worried. I should have thought he’d be pleased that I finally made a complete fool of myself.” Joy lifted a bandaged hand to her bandaged forehead.
“Does your head still ache?” Elijah asked gently.
Joy slitted her eyes and squinted at him, and he guessed she wasn’t used to him being nice to her. She’d get used to it.
“Of course my head still aches, Elijah Perry. I fell out of a tree if you’ll recall.”
Elijah shuddered, dripping broth on Joy’s quilt. She gave a little hiss of disapproval. “How could I ever forget that? I thought sure you were dead.”
“Well, I’m not. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
The sourness of her words astonished him. “Get rid of you? For the love of God, Joy, I was scared for you!”
Her slanty-eyed look didn’t soften. Rather, her expression looked more incredulous than ever.
Virginia laughed at them both. Elijah swiveled his head to frown at her, but she ignored him. It figured. He was definitely losing his magic touch with the ladies. He braced himself when he saw Virginia take a breath with which to speak again.
“Far from wanting to get rid of you, Miss Hardesty, Uncle Elijah wants to marry you. He’s fallen deeply in love with you, you know.”
Joy’s eyebrows arched like soaring larks. “He what?”
Her screech hurt Elijah’s ears. Because he didn’t want Virginia to reveal any more of his secrets, he said, “You already know I want you to marry me, Joy. I’ve asked you sixteen or seventeen times.”
“You didn’t!” She sounded indignant.
Elijah didn’t understand. “I did, too.”
“You did not. You told me I was going to marry you, Elijah Perry. That’s a far cry from asking a woman for her hand.” She gave him one of her sniffs. God, he loved her sniffs. “And you never once mentioned a single, solitary word about . . .” She paused, her mouth open, before she muttered, “. . . affection.”
Damn. Elijah feared they’d come to this. Well, he guessed he was up to it. “That’s only because . . .” Because what? Crap. “Because I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”
“Nonsense.” Joy turned her head away from him and glared at the wall beside her bed.
Virginia giggled. Wonderful. Why the hell didn’t she leave the room? He might be able to declare himself if he didn’t have an audience. He heard Killer Apricot purr. It sounded like a mocking purr, and Elijah reckoned his mind was going. He sucked in a big breath, but he didn’t get to use it, because Joy faced him again.
“And besides, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet. Mr. Thrash’s agent will be here soon, and it would be a shame for him to come all this way to fetch me only to discover that I’ve changed my mind.”
“To hell with Thrash!”
“Will you please stop swearing!”
“Not until you promise you’re not going to join that idiot in South America, dammit!”
Virginia went off into a gale of laughter. This time Elijah and Joy both frowned at her. She rose from her chair, lifting Killer Apricot down and setting him gently on the floor. “I think I’m in the way here. I’ll just go see if Mac needs any help while the two of you thrash . . .” She giggled at her pun. “. . . out your problems without an audience.”
“Thank God,” Elijah grumbled.
Joy shot him a look. “Please don’t feel driven out, Miss Gladstone. I don’t believe you uncle is dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Elijah muttered. “Good God.”
Virginia bent to kiss Joy’s cheek. “No, I’m sure he’s not. But he does love you very much, you know, Miss Hardesty. And I should be very happy to have you as my aunt.”
Joy appeared surprised. Elijah wasn’t sure if it was because of Virginia’s claim that he loved her or if it was merely that Joy had never considered being anyone’s relation before, by marriage or any other means.
Deciding to ignore the love issue for the nonce, Elijah said, “There. You see? Virginia knows what you should do.”
That broke the spell for Joy. She was back to scowling at him in less than a second. “That’s as may be, but I don’t know what I should do!”
“What would be so bad about being married to me? We could run a nice hotel here in Rio Hondo. The only time I was ever happy was when I was helping out in my uncle’s hotel.”
“Yes, so you’ve told me.”
“And you’d love it, Joy. There would be people in and out, and you can leave Bibles in all the rooms and try to convert everyone.”
The scowl she gave him should have pickled his gizzard, but it only made him smile. God, he loved her!
“Humph,” she said.
“So, just say yes, Joy, and we’ll get married and live happily ever after.”
“What about that woman?”
“What woman?” Elijah racked his brain, and couldn’t think of any other woman but Virginia, and she was his niece. Surely Joy couldn’t have any objection to— Then it struck him. Mary Ellen. “Oh, her.”
“Yes. Her.”
Shutting his eyes and lifting his head, Elijah contemplated his many sins for a moment in silence. Then he decided to hell with it, and told the truth.
“Mary Ellen and I have known each other for years, Joy. We were, ah, lovers for a long time. Sporadically.”
When he opened his eyes, he saw the hurt and disbelief in her face. “We were more like friends, Joy. Honestly. I cared for her, but. . .” He didn’t know how to explain it.
Joy turned away from him for several moments. Elijah felt misunderstood and abused and sorry for himself. “Dammit, it’s not as if you didn’t already know I was a sinner, Joy! I never tried to hide it. Besides, I had no reason to reform until now, because I’d never contemplated marriage to anyone, but I sure as hell didn’t aim to live celibate. Women like Mary Ellen are the salvation of men like me.”
That was the wrong thing to say. He knew it as soon as Joy turned her face his way again. “The salvation of men like you, my foot. You exploited that poor woman, Elijah Perry, and made her think you cared for her. Small wonder she was angry with the both of us.”
“I didn’t exploit her!”
“You shared her bed!”
“Dammit, she was a whore!”
Oh, Lord, he’d; gone and done it again. He wished he still possessed even a tenth of the manners those nuns had tried to beat into him in his youth.
Joy’s gasp was followed almost immediately by a furious spate of words. “If you don’t watch your language, I shall never speak to you again in this life, Elijah Perry! And it’s only because of the vile appetites of men like you that women like that poor misguided creature are forced to do the kind of work they do!”
“Vile appetites?”
“Yes! Vile appetites.”
“Of men like me?” Elijah wasn’t sure he could stand it.
“Yes. Of men like you. Do you think that just because you’re men you have the right to slake your lust on any available female? Don’t you think women have passions too? But do we sink to the depths of depre
dation men sink to? No, we do not! We require affection before we give our bodies to men. “And furthermore—” She stopped speaking abruptly, evidently taken aback by Elijah’s sudden change in demeanor.
“You have passions?” Elijah felt the grin spread over his face even as he watched the heat staining Joy’s cheeks. “I always knew you did.”
“Oh, you’re impossible!”
“But, listen to me, Joy. You need to marry me. I mean, you’re almost becoming human. If you run off with those missionaries, you’ll revert.”
“Revert?”
“Yes. You’ll revert to your old self, and then you’ll hate yourself again. I’m good for you!”
“You’re a boastful cad!”
“And you’re just the one to reform me. You’re good for me, too, Joy. I mean, I never would have even thought about settling down if I’d never met you.”
“That was a black day, indeed.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was the best day in our respective lives.”
“I suspect we shall just have to disagree about that, Mr. Perry.”
“You don’t disagree. You’re just being stubborn.”
“Stubborn? Me? You’re as stubborn as an army mule. And you have no sense of fair play! A gentleman would never harass a woman about marrying him when she’s suffering with a headache like mine. You’re no gentleman, Elijah Perry.”
He felt a lick of encouragement and grinned at her. “Yeah, and you love me for it too.”
“Ha!”
“Just like I love you for your priggishness.” Oh, damn, he hadn’t meant to say that. He realized what he’d done when the color drained from Joy’s face as fast as it had bloomed.
“You what?”
Hell, there was no getting away from it now. He’d cooked his own goose. He cleared his throat. “I, ah, love you, Joy. Very, uh, much.”
The only response he received to this alarming declaration was a perceptible widening of her eyes. She had truly lovely eyes. And she no longer had that pinched-up look she’d had when he’d first met her, either.
“And, ah, I have plenty of money. I’ve been saving for years, you know, because I didn’t really have anything to spend it on.” He gestured with his hand helplessly. “You know, no family or anything—well, except for back in Maryland, and I guess we should go back there. My sister’s all right, I guess, and I know she’d like to meet you. We can honeymoon back there. Even take Virginia back with us, maybe. But that won’t take very much money. I figured we can use the money I have saved up to start our business.”