by Jodi Thomas
Suddenly, like angry children, the three brothers were shouting and swinging at one another. Daniel’s emotions, which he’d kept so locked away for months, exploded. Adam took his anger out on them both. Wes, well, Wes just loved a good fight and never wasted time looking for reasons.
Nichole watched from the loft ladder as hay and fists flew in the shadowy light of early morning. The storm outside was nothing compared to the one going on in the barn. These three men she’d grown to love and think highly of were scrapping like wild wolves.
“Stop it!” she yelled as they all three tumbled into the back of the loft and began to roll into one huge ball of arms and legs. “Stop it!” she shouted again as the ball slammed into one wall and changed direction. Dust from the rafters sifted down like fine wheat flour over everything.
Thank goodness no one was around. Willow had said, if the rain continued, she and the women would be loading wagons at first light for Sunday service. They didn’t want to trudge through the mud and across the bridge to the church in their Sunday best. These three wild McLains would probably frighten poor Willow to death.
Nichole thought of firing her Colt, but she didn’t want the entire community to hear the shot from the church and come running. She looked around the neat workroom below the loft. The pot of cold coffee was the only thing on the table.
Dropping a few rungs down the ladder, she grabbed the pot and hauled it back up. With one mighty swing, she flung the cold liquid through the air toward the pile of men she once thought reasonable.
They broke apart yelling as the cold, grounds-thickened liquid splattered them all.
“I said stop it!” Nichole stood in front of them like an angry parent as she fought down a smile. “What do you think you are doing? Wiping out the McLain family from within?”
To her shock, all three men broke into laughter.
Adam stood and wiped his face on his sleeve. “You sound just like our mother used to,” he said as he moved toward her. “We wouldn’t have hurt one another. Honest, Nick.”
The other two joined Adam. Wes rubbed his jaw. “I’m not so sure. Little Danny boy’s got a real wallop of a right. Maybe one of us should show him how to pull his punches now that he’s finally grown.”
Daniel shoved him with a massive shoulder, and Wes shoved back.
“Stop it,” Nick warned, “or I’ll throw the pot next time. I don’t even know what you’re fighting over. If it’s me, I’m not for the winning by the whole lot of you. I’ve always thought Yankees a little slow-witted with their fast talk, but you three are downright vacant brained.”
Adam took a step toward Nichole, but she raised the pot like a weapon.
Wes raised an eyebrow as if to argue, but Daniel motioned with his head toward the door.
Wes nodded. “We’ll go wash up by the horse trough in the barn,” he offered as they both moved toward the ladder. “Even brainless, we can tell when we’re not wanted. You two need to talk . . . or something.”
At the opening, he turned and added, “Kid, if Adam gets too hard to deal with, shoot him.”
“Don’t tempt me,” she whispered as the brothers disappeared, leaving Adam and her alone in the dusty hayloft with only the watered-down morning sun for light.
He stood facing her, still rubbing coffee off his three-day growth of beard. “Must I always find you sleeping in my brothers’ arms?” he snapped, still angry. His brown eyes were almost black with smoldering rage.
Without knowing how to answer, she doubled up her fist and swung, but he saw the punch coming this time. He blocked and pulled her to him as he tumbled backward onto the hay.
He held her close, letting her struggle, feeling her anger. Dear God, he loved her. He loved her more than he’d ever loved anything or anyone in his life, but the harder he tried to hold her the more she struggled. She was a fighter to the core. He might have the advantage now, but she wouldn’t stop and eventually she’d find freedom, or he’d make a mistake and she’d break from his hold.
It would take a strong man to hold Nichole, but not this kind of strength, he realized.
He opened his arms and she jumped to her knees, whirling to face him, ready to fight. Her clothes were wrinkled and dusty. Her hair, cut short against her head, made her eyes seem even larger. Her entire body was tense with the spirit of a survivor. She’d never looked more beautiful to him, more desirable.
Adam lifted his hands in surrender and lowered his head. He couldn’t even look at her without wanting her so dearly all other thought left him. Maybe she was right, maybe he was brainless. He could never fight and keep her, yet he wasn’t sure he had the strength to let go and allow her freedom.
Nichole relaxed when she saw he wasn’t going to grab her. “Don’t ever try to hold me like that again or I’ll . . .”
“You’ll what?” Adam’s head snapped up and brown eyes challenged green. “You’ll shoot me for wanting to protect you? You’ll cut me deep for helping you? Tell me, dearest Shadow, how do you kill someone who loves you?”
“I don’t need you to protect me.” She saw her words slice him like a knife. “I can take care of myself.” Couldn’t he see by offering to protect her, he was telling her he didn’t believe she could take care of herself? He was silently calling her weak, something no one had done in years. His words of assistance were an insult, not an endearment. But he couldn’t see it.
Adam rose to one knee. “That’s right. You don’t need my help. You’ve proven it over and over. You don’t need anyone or anything, do you, Nick? You can’t even think you might, because if you did that would be a weakness and there are no weaknesses in you. You’re the finest, the best, the strongest, the fastest. . . .”
She stood and checked her Colt’s strap. “That’s right,” she said, wishing his words hadn’t sounded so hard. How could something she’d always been proud of sound so wrong when he voiced it?
Adam stared at her, wanting to scream that she’d learned to be everything but a woman, and all he wanted, needed, was that woman somewhere inside her to be his woman . . . his love . . . his other half. But he couldn’t hurt her, no matter how angry he was, by voicing his thoughts.
“We caught the two shooters just after you left.” He broke the silence between them. “Thanks to one talking, we rounded up the third outlaw. He wasn’t hard to identify with a cut across his throat.”
There was so much more he wanted to say, but he stayed with the facts. “Wes and I stood guard over all three until the sheriff arrived yesterday. The sheriff thinks Mole and the deputy might be involved somehow, but he can’t prove it, so he’s having both of them watched.
“I guess there’s no reason for you to stay here with Daniel. Fort Worth will be safe.” Adam stood, but turned away from her as he added, “Wolf wired that he’s on his way, so by the time we get back there’ll be no reason for you to stay in Texas.”
Adam watched her out of the corner of his gaze. “Wolf didn’t say your fiancé, Tyler, was coming with him.”
Nichole lifted her chin. “Tyler wasn’t my fiancé. I just didn’t want you to think nobody wanted me.”
“I see.” He couldn’t add that he wanted her. . . wanted her so badly his entire body shook. She’d made it plain she didn’t need him, and pride wouldn’t allow him to admit that he might need her. He’d even told her of his love without her saying the words in return.
“I’ll be glad to get back to Tennessee,” she lied again. “I’ve had enough of you crazy McLains.”
“Well, I haven’t exactly been void of trouble since you came to visit. Half the time I think I’m losing my mind. The other half I’m sure it’s already long gone.”
Nichole raised her chin a little higher. “I could never be what you want.”
“No,” Adam countered. “You don’t even know who that is.” She was doing it again, he thought, plowing through his heart
before it had time to heal. His loving her didn’t matter. He wasn’t sure what she needed, but he knew he wasn’t it. Maybe no man would ever be.
“I’ll be fine alone.” She closed her eyes. She’d rather be alone than have someone constantly protecting and pampering her. At least Wolf let her do her job and had respected her for that.
“So will I,” Adam echoed with his back turned to her.
The silence in the air was thick, almost liquid. The rain had slowed to a depressing rhythm, drumming, adding to the silence with its monotony.
He wouldn’t reach for her again, no matter how dearly he wanted to hold her.
And she couldn’t reveal her need for him. The years of being silent and standing alone were drilled too deeply into her. Her survival had depended on it. Now it blocked her from any happiness in the future.
“Adam!” Daniel yelled from below. “Come quick! There’s been an accident!”
Adam turned away from her, unable to say another word. She’d said she didn’t need him. At least someone below did. All he’d ever wanted was to help others, even if he couldn’t help himself.
“I’m coming!” He dropped down the ladder, leaving Nichole standing in the loft alone.
Closing his heart away, Adam ran with his brother into the rain. Daniel didn’t need to talk, his few words had said it all. No matter how Adam hurt inside, he had a job he was born to do and it had to come first.
As he sloshed through the mud, Adam realized no woman would ever understand him. She’d have to always be willing to step back and be second to what he must do. He had no right to ask any woman to do that, especially not one like Nichole, who deserved a full-time man.
Daniel led him past several houses to the bridge that crossed the creek in town. Most of the homes lay on one side while the school and church were on the other. Through the sheets of rain, Adam saw Wes standing beside the bridge. A few feet behind him men helped women and children climb from the canvas shelter of a wagon into the rain. They may have boarded the wagon to keep their Sunday best dry, but now something had happened that made their clothes unimportant.
Adam pushed past the people to the bridge.
“They’re pulling one boy up now!” Wes shouted as he signaled Adam near. “He looks to be hurt bad from a blow to the head.”
Adam looked below at the river that had been only a stream the last time he’d seen it. Now the water whirled and turned and pounded an overturned wagon with raging force. Through the gray light he could see four, maybe more, children fighting to hold on to the remains of an old Conestoga.
Men were lowering ropes to the stranded, but the rain and the wind were swinging the ropes off course. All the children were screaming for help. Cries from parents on the bridge echoed in answer.
“We have to go down to them!” Adam shouted as he grabbed a rope and began circling it around his waist. “They’ll never have the strength to hold to a rope while we pull them up.”
Wes nodded and began organizing the men.
“No.” Nichole stepped in front of Adam. “I’ll go down.” She tried to pull the rope from Adam’s hand. “I weigh less so I’ll be easier to pull up, and I’m strong enough to hold a child while I climb.”
“No!” Adam tugged the rope away.
A hundred replies came to her mind. Didn’t he think her capable? Was he afraid of losing her? What of losing him? But only one answer would make him stay on shore. “You’re needed here.” Nichole knew him well. “I can do this, but I can’t do the doctoring.”
There wasn’t time for him to think. He glanced at the boy lying in Daniel’s arms a few feet away, his head covered with blood. She was right.
As he turned loose of the rope she pulled it around her. For a second their eyes met. Adam saw something he’d never expected to see, gratitude in their green depths. In that one moment he knew what she needed, more than being loved or protected. She needed to be accepted for what she was, an equal. Not better, or less, but equal.
His hand passed along the rope now anchored around her waist. “Nick?” he whispered against her hair, but there was no time for more.
Adam turned from her and ran to the boy as she began her descent down the bank to the wagon. Wes was only a step behind her, but his footing was not as light as hers. Within seconds she was yards ahead of him.
Adam carefully lifted the bleeding child in his arms and moved toward the nearest house. As he passed the women, a few turned with him, knowing they could help more inside than watching from the bank.
As Adam left the bridge, Nichole reached the wagon. She grabbed the first child and swung back into the water. The men on the bank began pulling her in. There was no time for Adam to watch more, he had a boy to worry about.
An elderly woman answered the door when Adam kicked it with his foot. She took one glance and held the door wide.
“I need bandages and warm water,” Adam fired. “Have you someone to send to the barn for my medical bag?”
An old man unfolded himself from the rocker. “I thought I’d miss church what with the rain, but I guess the Lord means me to get wet this day.” He pulled on his coat and headed out the door without another word. Several other women passed him on his way out, all heading directly to Adam to await orders.
Adam laid the child on the table and examined the wound along the side of his face. “Clear the furniture near the fire and make beds. All the children will need to be dried and kept warm until I can get to them.”
Before he could finish with the stitches on the first boy, another child arrived with a broken arm, then another badly bruised, then another in shock from fright and cold. In the back of his mind, as he worked, Adam realized Nichole was doing her part. One by one, she saved the children.
Adam issued orders to everyone who walked through the door as only a man who’d lived through countless emergencies could. There was no time to waste. He cared for each child with skill and practiced swiftness he’d learned from his years in the army.
When Daniel entered, Adam asked without stopping working, “How many more?”
Daniel carried a child toward Adam. “This is the last and he’s in fine shape, only cold. The women with babies were in the first wagon. It made it across the bridge. The second had mostly school-age children. It missed the corner of the bridge and broke the pole acting as a guardrail. The third wagon had these women in it.” He looked around at all the women moving about, busy working. A few were already gathering up their children to take home.
“Where’s Willow?” he asked almost softly as he passed the child to Adam. “I thought she’d be in the last wagon.”
“She was in the first wagon,” someone answered. “She’s safe across the river with the babies.”
Daniel bolted, but two of the men caught him at the door. “She’s all right,” one said. “And so are your twins. They made it across the bridge.”
“I have to go,” he pulled at where they held him. “I have to know.”
“Let him go,” Adam ordered as he handed the frightened child he held to her mother.
The men lowered their grip and Adam added, “Danny, be careful.”
Daniel nodded. “I’ll be back as soon as I get them home safely.”
Adam glanced around the crowded room. “Stay with them. Everything seems to be under control here. Not nearly as bad as it could have been. I’ll probably be back at your place before you return with Willow and the twins.”
Daniel opened the door to leave. He seemed suddenly in a hurry to have the twins close to him.
Adam glanced out into the rain. One lone man splashed through the mud toward Dan’s house. Wes! His head was low against the rain and he cradled a body, limp and lifeless in his arms.
“Nichole!” Adam whispered the word, but it seemed to silence the room.
He grabbed his bag and ran to catch W
es. Adam knew she must be hurt and Wes was taking her where all three brothers knew she belonged. Beneath a McLain roof.
A scene from months ago flashed through Adam’s mind. Only Wes had been carrying May, Daniel’s wife, in the rain. And May had died.
TWENTY-SEVEN
ADAM LEANED HIS knee on the bed and slowly unbuckled Nichole’s gun belt. The leather was soaked, the Colt covered in mud as he unwrapped it from around her.
“She handed me the last kid,” Wes mumbled, “and I turned to pass the child along. In that moment, her foot must have slipped and no one was holding the rope tight. We were all laughing and hooting, because it was over and all the children were safe. She fell back hard before I could grab the other end of the line and start pulling her up.”
At the bedroom door, Daniel held one of his twins on his arm. “Is she all right, Adam?”
Adam ran his hand along her ribs and felt her slow, steady breathing. “I think she’ll be fine,” he answered. “Both of you get into dry clothes. I’ll take care of her. I’ll call if I need anything.”
Wes raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t argue. He left Adam and Nichole in Daniel’s bedroom and closed the door behind him.
Slowly, Adam began undressing her, checking for any bumps or cuts as he worked. Her breathing was normal, even her body temperature was not unduly low considering she’d been in cold water for the past hour. When he’d lifted her from Wes and carried her through the rain to Daniel’s house, she’d held to him tightly. Silently her embrace told him that maybe she was in need of a very special kind of care.
He opened her shirt, feeling slightly like a Peeping Tom as she laid unaware. He moved his hands to her waist and began unbuttoning her trousers. She was so beautiful, not like an untouchable statue or doll as he used to think of women, but like a real flesh-and-blood woman.