Nobody's Angel

by Karen Robards

  Susannah pushed her bonnet brim up out of her eyes and stood, fists on hips, watching. The rows Ian made were not as straight as the ones she had put in, but they were acceptable.

  He looked up then and saw her. He was nearly a quarter of a mile away, but she could feel his eyes on her. Susannah lifted a hand in salutation, then slowly turned and retraced her steps to the house. It was clear that she was not needed in the field.

  Ian Connelly never ceased to surprise her. As a gift to her, plowing that field ranked way ahead of candy or flowers. Her back still ached from the day before. She would have been wrestling that plow again this morning, while Ben took over Em's job of planting. Old Cobb had taken a dislike to Ben, and if Old Cobb disliked the person working him he refused to budge so much as an inch.

  In the kitchen, Sarah Jane had her head bent over some mending. The pungent scent of the okra soup bubbling over the fire lay heavy on the air.

  "I thought you were going to finish putting in the sweet potato crop." Sarah Jane looked up in surprise as Susannah entered.

  "Ian and Ben are doing it."

  Sarah Jane's expression became quizzical. "Ian?"

  Suddenly conscious of what she had said, Susannah flushed. She glanced at her sister and sighed. Keeping secrets had never been something she excelled at. Lying and dissembling did not come easily to her.

  "You were right, Sarah Jane. I fancy him." The relief of confessing even such a small portion of the truth was like lancing a boil.

  "Oh, Susannah! I knew you did. Tis as plain as the nose on your face." Sarah Jane's hands, which had been busily weaving a needle and thread through a hole in a petticoat, came to rest in her lap.

  "He's not your—typical—bound man." Susannah, for want of something to do, walked over to stir the soup.

  "No, he's not that."

  " Tis foolish, I know. I'm determined to put it behind me. How ridiculous it must appear, a spinster of my years pining over a handsome face!"

  Sarah Jane looked at her pensively. "Not ridiculous, Susannah. You could never be that. You know, it had never occurred to me before Connelly came on the scene that you might wish to have your own life away from us, with a husband and children of your own. Has it been a dreadful sacrifice, dear?"

  Susannah looked around at that. "A sacrifice, taking care of you and Mandy and Em and Pa? Don't be silly, Sarah Jane. I love you all more than I can say." Moving over to the flour bin and sliding back the lid, she began to scoop out white flour to make biscuits for the midday meal. Sliding the lid closed again, she added, with an attempt at lightness, "Besides, as Em pointed out not so long ago, no man has ever offered to take me away from all this. Had there been such an offer, and had I wished to accept, I assure you that I would have done so."

  Sarah Jane smiled but shook her head as she picked up her needle again and began to ply it. "I think that, had it not been for us, you would have had an offer. Several offers! Since Connelly appeared, you've been, I don't know, different—younger seeming, and—and pretty. Did you let yourself, Susannah, you could be quite lovely, I think."

  "Me?" Susannah was glad to be able to laugh a little. "How very sweet of you to say so. But I don't aspire to be lovely, thank you very much. Any more than I aspire to sprout wings and fly."

  "There are some bachelors among the congregation."

  A genuine, though wry, smile curved Susannah's lips. "Indeed there are. And not one of them would I have if he was offered to me on a platter with an apple stuck in his mouth. Now don't start matchmaking, Sarah jane. I am content as I am, I promise you."

  "Are you?" Sarah Jane's eyes flicked up to Susannah's face and held. "Are you really, Susannah?"

  Susannah met Sarah Jane's troubled gaze, but, before she could come up with an answer that would satisfy her without being a total lie, the unmistakable sounds of a carriage pulling up and of their younger sisters' voices and footsteps on the front porch distracted both women. Not that Susannah was sorry to have the conversation cut short. Sarah Jane knew her as well as anyone in the world, and Susannah was afraid that, if she said much more, Sarah Jane might be able to read between the lines.

  The first fat drops of rain splattered on the window glass not long after Hiram Greer, after much buttering up of Susannah, took himself off. Thunder rolled, lightning flashed, and in moments a soaked-to-the-skin Ben barreled through the back door.

  "That's some downpour!" he exclaimed, spluttering and shaking his arms so that water droplets showered the floor like rain.

  "Here, Ben, take this," Em said, scooping up the towel that hung from a peg by the dry sink and handing it to him with a shy smile.

  "Why, thank you, Miss Em." Ben took the towel, apparently all unconscious that Em's heart was in her eyes as she looked at him. Susannah, watching, felt a sudden pang of sympathy. She knew exactly how Emily felt. Mandy, who must have been watching too, snorted. Mandy had little patience for what she considered Em's childish heartburnings.

  "Where's Connelly?" Sarah Jane voiced the question that Susannah had not liked to put into words.

  "He went on down to his cabin. He, ah, had an accident."

  "An accident?" Susannah spoke more sharply than she intended. She could have bitten her tongue as soon as the words left her mouth, but there was no way to recall them or the tone in which they had been spoken.

  "Oh, he's not much hurt. He, uh, told me not to tell y'all about it." Ben, having mopped himself up, bent to dab at the puddle he'd created on the floor. He looked up, met Susannah's eyes, and shrugged. "Guess I don't work for him, though, do I? Old Cobb kicked him."

  "Kicked him!"

  "You know how the danged old—uh, mule—hates thunder. Connelly was pickin' a stone out of his hoof when it thundered. Next thing I saw, Connelly was flying down the field. I don't think the kick hurt him much, though. Leastways he was able to get back up. He swore a blue streak, let me tell you. It'd been rainin' for a few minutes, and the field had already started turnin' to mud. He was covered with it, and he looked mighty funny, too. Course I didn't laugh. Connelly's not the kind of fellow you'd want to laugh at to his face."

  Em giggled. Ben grinned at her. Sarah Jane smiled at Ben's telling of the story, but her eyes were thoughtful as they rested on Susannah's face.

  "Maybe I should go check on him," Mandy suggested brightly.

  Susannah gave her a quelling look. "No, I'll go. He might really be hurt, and I need to change his bandage anyway. Em, would you go fetch my medicine case?"

  Emily nodded and went to do as she'd been bid. Mandy, eyes suddenly stormy, glared at Susannah.

  "You just think you can get him for yourself! It isn't fair!" With that outburst, Mandy turned and ran from the room. Susannah, Sarah Jane, and Ben stared after her. Then Sarah Jane and Ben both moved their gazes in almost perfect unison to fasten them on Susannah.

  Susannah, flushing, was saved from having to say anything by Emily's return with the medicine case.

  "My goodness, whatever's wrong with Mandy?" she asked, wide-eyed. "She almost knocked me down going up the stairs."

  "Mandy's just a little upset," Sarah Jane said grimly. Then, looking at Susannah, she put the mending aside and stood up. "You go on. I'll dish up lunch."

  Meeting Sarah Jane's eyes, Susannah read her sister's silent support there. With that one exchange of glances, Susannah realized that, whatever she did about Ian, she could count on Sarah Jane's unconditional love.

  The knowledge heartened her. Taking the medicine case from Em, she pulled a shawl from a peg by the door, draped it over her head, and walked across the porch and out into the rain.

  Her shawl was soaked and her dress of tan and brown striped cambric was wet to the knees by the time she reached the little row of cabins behind the barn. Miss Isolda, her prize sow, snuffled at her hopefully as she went past the pigpen. Susannah clucked at her and her piglets, who were out of their shelter rooting happily in the rain and mud. Darcy whickered from the barn, and Clara could be seen crouching in the
loft, staring down at Susannah through the small open door that hay was hauled through. Brownie was probably curled up in the stall with Maybelle the cow. The two of them were great friends. Of Old Cobb she saw and heard nothing. It oc- curred to her that after what had happened, Ian might have left him to fend for himself in the field.

  Accordingly, the whereabouts of Old Cobb was the first thing she asked him when he opened the door in response to her soft tap.

  "If I'd had my way, the bloody animal would be floating, hooves up, in the stream, but I think Ben put him in the barn."

  Wordlessly Ian pulled the door wide to invite Susannah inside. She stepped past him, very aware that he was clad only in breeches and stockings, both liberally covered with mud. His bandage was still in place, though smears of mud adorned that, too. That he had been washing was obvious from the dirty water in the bowl on his washstand and the half-filled pitcher beside it. A small fire crackled in the rock fireplace set into the long wall at right angles to the door, and Susannah guessed from its meager size that he'd just lit it before he began to wash.

  Reaching the center of the small room, she turned to face him, clutching her medicine case with both hands and holding it protectively in front of her. This was the perfect opportunity to tell him of her decision, and the very thought of it was making her as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

  "Where did he kick you?" She asked the question almost at random. Better, she thought, to take care of his medical needs before she spoke her piece.

  "I didn't think that boy could keep a secret." Ian closed the door, then, with no more than a glance at her, headed for the washstand, sounding resigned rather than angry. "I suppose you had another good laugh at my expense."

  "I didn't."

  The slight emphasis on the pronoun struck him immediately. He stopped sluicing his arms with water to glance at her again.

  "You didn't. Then who did? Miss Mandy? Miss Sarah Jane? Miss Em? The whole household?"

  "Something like that." His very disgruntlement made her smile. Imperceptibly she relaxed, her fingers easing their grip on the medicine case. Looking around, she discovered the table at her back and set the case down there.

  "So where did he kick you?" she repeated patiently.

  Ian touched a spot on his rib cage that was covered by the bandage. "Right here. Hurt like—hurt a considerable amount at the time, but I don't think anything's broken."

  "If you'll come sit, I'll check it for you. I need to look at your back anyway."

  "My back's fine."

  "Then I need to take the bandage off. Will you come sit?"

  "Let me change my breeches first. I've gotten more dirt on me in the last two days than I ever have before in my life."

  Even as he spoke, he rubbed his arms and chest with a towel, then reached down to unfasten his breeches. Susannah, understanding that he meant to strip in front of her, felt her mouth go dry. As his navel and a narrow vee of hair-darkened skin below it were revealed, she quickly averted her eyes. But the image of him as he looked standing there, next door to naked, his black hair wet and tousled around his head, his sinfully handsome face not one whit marred by the frown that drew his brows together, his broad shoulders thick with muscle, and his bare, corded arms rippling as he undid his breeches, was already burned into her brain.

  Susannah had a dreadful feeling that she had made a mistake in bearding him alone. But how else was she to say to him the things that needed to be said? She certainly didn't wish for an audience to hear that she never meant to lie with him again.

  "What possessed you to try to plow the field, anyway?" She was looking steadfastly out the single window at the front of the cabin as she spoke.

  "Try to plow—I'll have you know I did plow it, every inch of it! We'd just finished when the bloody beast picked up a stone." He sounded absurdly proud of himself, like a small boy bragging of his accomplishment. Susannah heard the slither of cloth and deduced that he was stepping out of his breeches. The picture her mind conjured up tantalized her, but she did her best to dismiss it as she watched the falling rain.

  "Good for you." Her soft reply was evidently not the accolade he sought, because he grunted. Seconds later, he was behind her, moving so quickly and quietly that she wasn't even aware he was there until his arms slid around her waist, drawing her back against him.

  "Ian . . ." The feel of his hard arms holding her made her eyes shut involuntarily, but immediately she forced them open again and sought to pull away.

  "As to why I did it," he near-whispered in her ear, his mouth nibbling her lobe in searing punctuation, "the answer's obvious: no man worth his salt, not even such a useless fribble as you clearly consider me to be, is going to watch his woman breaking her back over work he should be doing himself."

  Then he bent his head to press a kiss to the sensitive place where her shoulder joined her neck, and at the same time one hard warm hand left her waist to cover her breast.

  Susannah gasped, going weak at the knees. Summoning the last reserves of determination she possessed, she tore herself out of his arms and put the width of the small room between them before whirling to face him.

  Of course, when she whirled, she had not realized that he would be stark naked.

  24

  "You're—you're not dressed!" Her shocked gasp sounded foolish, and, as soon as the exclamation left her mouth, she felt foolish stating something so obvious. But it was the shock of seeing him in all his naked glory, of course, that surprised such idiocy out of her. And, naked, he was certainly glorious. His tall, leanly powerful body, with its broad shoulders and narrow hips and long, muscular legs, was made to be seen without clothes. Susannah stared because she could not help herself, then wrenched her eyes back to his face.

  "No, I'm not," Ian agreed affably, starting toward her. A faint smile curved his lips, and she guessed that he was well aware of the effect his nudity had on her.

  Distrustful of that smile and of his catlike approach, Susannah took a step backward, only to have her bottom come up hard against the table. She reached behind her, groping, to find her medicine case.

  "I—I need to look at your back."

  "To hell with my back." He reached her before she could get a good grip on her case and pulled her into his arms. Susannah's breath caught as the solid warm strength of him enveloped her, as her nostrils filled with essence of man, as her hands encountered sleek bare skin.

  She pulled free.

  "Sit down," she said sternly, and somewhat to her surprise he did. His nudity discomposed her, and she tried to look no further than the broad bare back that was presented for her inspection. Her hands not quite steady, she removed a small pair of scissors from her medicine case and cut away the bandage.

  "Well?" he asked when she didn't say anything, trying to turn his head around so that he could view the damage.

  "It's better. Much better," Susannah said, and it was the truth. The swelling and infection were gone; her salve had taken care of that. But the thin red lines that crisscrossed his back remained, and she feared that they would do so forever. Slightly raised and lighter than the rest of his skin, scars would forever brand him.

  Turning back to her medicine case, she replaced the scissors and reached for the jar of salve. Perhaps, did she apply it again, it might alleviate some of the worst of the scarring.

  "That's not the remedy from hell, is it?" He was watching her as she unscrewed the lid, and from the way his brows drew together over his eyes she realized that he was only half-teasing.

  "Yes."

  He leaped up, causing Susannah's eyes to widen and then, immediately, to be averted from certain unmentionable parts of his anatomy that moved with him.

  "Oh, no, you don't. No more torture." He held up both hands in front of him, much like a small child hoping to ward off a parent with medicine, and shook his head.

  "But, la . . . this will help it heal."

  "My back's healed enough, thank you very much. I still
have lively memories of when your salve helped heal me the last time."

  With a deft movement he reached out and nipped the jar from her hand. Despite her protests and grabs for her property, he returned it to its place in the medicine case and firmly closed the lid. Before Susannah realized what he meant to do, he turned and caught her in his arms, pulling her hard up against him. Taken unawares, thrown even more off balance by the tender smile that curved his mouth, she had not, for one weak moment, the will to resist. Her body tingled all along its length at being pressed so closely to him. His broad bare shoulders loomed in front of her, and the wedge of black hair on his chest tickled her nose. Susannah breathed deeply, inhaling the warm, musky scent of him. Her pulse speeded up. Her head tilted back so that she could meet his gaze.

  His eyes were smiling down at her, but there was a disturbing hint of passion behind the lazy humor. The almost bruising grip of his hands on her arms told her he wanted her; so, against her skirt, did the unmistakable hardening of that part of his anatomy that she could not think about without blushing. His eyes confirmed what she already knew.

  Whatever his motives, he wanted to lie with her again. Right that very minute.

  He bent his head, clearly intent on kissing her. Susannah drew a deep, ragged breath—and stomped on his bare foot for the second time since she had known him.

  Yelping, he released her. "Damn it to bloody hell!"

  Susannah was able to put the length of the room between them before she had to turn and face him. He was glaring at her and rubbing the toes of his abused foot against the calf of the opposite leg. Of course he was still as naked as he had ever been, but Susannah, after one brief, comprehensive glance, refused to be disconcerted by his lack of modesty any longer. With steely determination, she refused to let herself look below his chin.

  "And why, pray, did you do that?" He sounded aggrieved.