Blackstone's Bride

by Bronwyn Williams

Eleanor stayed three steps behind him, her mind working rapidly on what excuse she could give if by any chance he came up with something inexplicable. The sheet she’d torn into strips? Scraps of Jed’s underwear?

  Dust rags. Scrub rags. She hadn’t scrubbed her floors in more than a week, but Alaska wouldn’t know that. Chances were he wouldn’t even notice such a thing.

  As the bedroom was the only room with a door, he chose to look there first. The space was scarcely large enough to hold a bed, a washstand and her small trunk. Most of her gowns still hung in a corner behind a panel of cousin Annie’s burgundy brocade dining room draperies. A few things were in the living room, but she could explain that if she had to. Changing over from winter things to summer things. He would hardly know the difference, as he wore the same filthy overalls winter and summer alike.

  Lifting aside the curtain, he fingered her gowns as if he expected to find someone cowering behind them. She would have to wash everything he’d touched, she thought, shuddering.

  He got down on his hands and knees to look under her bed, and she took great pleasure in silently ridiculing the position. His butt was so skinny the bones showed through his patched overalls.

  She couldn’t help but compare him to Jed, who compared favorably with any man she had ever known, including the male lead in the only professional stage play she had ever seen.

  “He ain’t here.” Under any other circumstances, the look on his face would have been comical.

  “Of course he’s not here. If anyone had been in my house, I would certainly have noticed.” And had, she added silently. Oh, she most certainly had.

  After a cursory look through the rest of the house—there was obviously no place a full-grown man could have hidden—he went out onto the back stoop.

  The outhouse. Surely Jed would know better than to hide in there, Eleanor told herself as cold sweat beaded her skin. That was the first place anyone would search. And the shed was open on two sides. Didn’t used to be, but last winter’s ice storm had collapsed part of the roof, which had caved in one wall. There was nothing in there except for a broken-handled wheelbarrow. Every speck of mining equipment had long since been carted down the hill.

  Alaska stood in one place in her backyard and circled slowly, a frown on his bony, bearded face. On the back stoop, her arms crossed over her breast as if to contain her wildly beating heart, Eleanor watched him like a hawk. He might be ignorant, but he had the cunning of any wild animal that survived by hunting smaller, weaker prey.

  It seemed as if hours had passed by the time he turned and shambled off toward the front yard without so much as a glance in her direction. It would serve him right if McGee were no longer there. If Jed had taken the opportunity while they were inside to reclaim his property and flee. There was nothing to stop him. Nothing at all.

  A sense of profound bereavement came over her as she waited for Alaska to disappear down the path. She could hear him cursing the horse at every step, and that alone helped lift her spirits.

  It was growing dark, the western sky streaked with slate gray against a dull gold background when she finally deemed it safe for Jed to come out of hiding. “Come out, come out wherever you are,” she called softly.

  No response. Could he have crawled under the cabin? Alaska had forgotten to look there, but there was space enough. Once a family of skunks had taken up residence under the house. Dev had had to chase them out with the dogs. It had been a horrible experience for all concerned, one she would long remember.

  “Jed,” she called softly after several more minutes had passed.

  Nothing.

  Something?

  A groan?

  Hurrying in the direction of the sound, she called softly again. “Jed, he’s gone now, it’s safe to come out.”

  Out from where? There was no place to hide, only the sheer drop where a rockslide had occurred when Dev had tried to widen a fissure in order to use a windlass to bring up the ore. He had miscalculated his load.

  That time, he’d gotten away with it.

  Another groan, this time from directly below where she was standing. Dropping to her knees, she leaned over the edge of the slide, looking for a rock—for anything that could hide a man. Except for a few straggling weeds near the edges, the steep slope was clean. On the northwest side, buffeted by fierce winter winds, little had grown back since the topsoil had been blasted away.

  “Over here.” Jed’s voice! He sounded as if he were in pain. “Get a rope.”

  Still on her knees, she leaned over to the right and peered to the left, where branches from the surviving trees swept the ground. “Jed? Oh, my God! Hang on!”

  He was hanging on. On the edge of the slide, part of a root emerged from the rubble, shielded almost completely from view. “How did you get over there?” she called, and then said, “No, don’t talk, just hang on while I go find a rope!”

  What rope? She thought frantically.

  Clothesline. Knife.

  In no time at all she was back, testing the strength of the thin rope between her fists. It was meant to hold wet laundry, not a full-grown man. “Now what?” she called, knowing it would do little good to throw him the rope, even if her aim was accurate.

  “Listen carefully,” he said, his voice sounding strained. “Make a slip loop in one end, can you do that?”

  “Like crocheting,” she muttered as her fingers worked at knotting one end of the line. She tested the knot, then poked the free end through and pulled it until she had a sizable loop. Lord in heaven, if Alaska were to come back now—

  Absolutely not, I’ll shove him down the blasted mountain, horse and all, before I’ll let him take you away! “Done,” she yelled softly.

  “Now tie the standing end around something solid.”

  “The standing end?” She looked at the loop in the worn gray line.

  “The other end!” Was it her imagination, or was his voice trembling?

  “I’ll tie it off to one of the posts outside the shed.” It was closer than the house, and probably strong enough. It would have to be.

  She hurried to do that, taking care to tie the kind of knot that wouldn’t slip. She didn’t know what it was called, but she knew how to tie it. “There, that’s done,” she called breathlessly.

  “Throw the rest of the line down, but swing it this way, you hear?”

  “I hear. Get ready to catch it, here it comes!”

  They were both shouting, but softly, knowing how voices carried in the mountains. Luckily, they were on the other side from Dexter’s Cut.

  Unluckily, the loop fell a good ten feet short of where Jed was trapped, dangling from a root that was no bigger than his wrist.

  “Hang on,” she called, knowing that trying again would do nothing to lengthen the line. It had been shortened on both ends, first by the loop, then by having to stretch it all the way to the shed. “I’ll be back in a minute!”

  Jed had no choice but to hang on. He might not survive the trip to the bottom if he turned loose. Or if the root pulled free. Or if Eleanor couldn’t find another piece of rope. He tried to remember if he’d seen anything of the kind, but couldn’t.

  Dirt trickled from where the root emerged from the earth, striking his face. He didn’t bother to curse. Better to save his strength for whatever came next.

  “I’m back,” she called down after only a few centuries had passed. “It’ll take me a minute to tie this to the end of the clothesline, will you be all right until I get it done?”

  “Be fine,” he assured her, forcing a smile. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt helpless, but it wasn’t a feeling he would ever get used to. How the devil did a mostly law-abiding farmer’s son from Foggy Valley manage to get himself into so much trouble over the course of twenty-five years?

  Memories swept past in rapid succession. He hoped he wasn’t seeing his whole life pass before him. When that happened, or so he’d heard, a man was on his way out.

  Vera…

  God, why
think of her now? But she’d been sweet as honey and wild as the wind. She’d been his first, and he’d been her first. Or so she’d said. He’d been too ignorant to know whether or not she’d been telling the truth. Not that it had mattered. They’d had some wonderful times in that old lineshack before her papa caught her climbing out her bedroom window and had one of his men follow her.

  Vera had been his lodestone, his North Star. Everything he had achieved since then had been for her, even after he’d heard she was married. He might not still love her, but he would damn well show her that he was as good as any Stanfield. Better.

  “All right, try this,” Eleanor called down to him. “It’s old, but I don’t think it’s dry-rotted.”

  Attached to the far end of her clothesline was about twelve feet of something thick, lumpy and purple. God knows what it was—it looked familiar. He only hoped it was strong enough to hold his weight, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  “Got it!” he cried triumphantly after the third try.

  “What do I do now?”

  “Nothing. I’ll do the rest. If I don’t make it, get in touch with George Dulah in Foggy Valley, over near where Cane Creek runs into the Broad River, and tell him—”

  “Hush! Don’t even think that way!”

  She was hanging over the edge; he could see her head and shoulders. With the last rays of sunset backlighting on her matted yellow hair, she looked like one of those pictures done in colored glass on a church window.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d had the same thought. Funny how a woman he’d known for less than two weeks could become such an important part of his life.

  Chapter Twelve

  Time hung suspended as Jed lay there unable to move, barely able to speak. His eyes were closed but he could feel her hovering over him. Her hand was warm on his back, which was one of the few places that didn’t actually hurt. On the way down, afraid that bastard would catch him—and then again on the way up, he must have slid over a thousand tons of granite, most of it jagged and knife-sharp. The rope was still looped under his arm. He was lying on the knot. And while her knot had held fast when it counted, it was no thing of beauty. It felt like another fist-size rock, in fact.

  “Jed?”

  “Mm?”

  “Are you all right?”

  He couldn’t swear to all right, but at least he was here, not fresh kill at the bottom of the mountain, waiting for the local predators to stop by for supper.

  It was growing dark. The shadows were reaching out for him. “Yeah, I’m fine, just give me a minute to catch my breath.”

  She hovered the same way his mama used to hover over him when he was little and ailing, as if she had to assure herself that he was still breathing.

  Suppressing another groan, Jed rolled over onto his back and managed to sit up without passing out. “Get this thing off me,” he said. His sides hurt. His hands hurt. His shoulders hurt most of all from hanging on to the only thing within reach he could find after sliding some twenty-five feet down sheer rock face.

  “What happened?” she whispered.

  Glancing past her, he didn’t see anyone moving in on them, so he gave her the short version, leaving out his stark terror when he’d lost his grip and grabbed on to a fistful of vines only to have them break away in his hands. “Climbed over the edge, figured I could take cover under the vines and wait him out. Foot slipped. Caught myself on a root…or something.”

  “You’ve cut your cheek,” she said, as if scolding him for some boyish prank.

  “Yep.” That was the least of it. If he’d jarred his ribs loose again, undoing all the healing that had taken place, he might need another day or so to recover. A day or so they didn’t have. “Just a scratch,” he said.

  “We’d better get back inside. Since he’s already searched the house once, I doubt if he’ll insist on coming inside again even if he does come back.”

  No, but someone else might, now that they had the wind up. No point in pretending it wasn’t a likely possibility. The real mystery was why they had waited this long. Evidently a few of the ones who knew about him were starting to worry that he might have survived their beating. Lack of buzzards circling overhead might have tipped them off.

  Eleanor helped him ease onto his knees, then stood and pulled him up by the arms. He stopped just short of crying out, but couldn’t stifle a soft moan.

  Together they managed to reach the cabin. Once inside, Jed gave up all pretense. Dropping onto one of the two kitchen chairs, he wrapped his arms around his chest and closed his eyes. He couldn’t seem to stop shaking.

  Next thing he knew she was on her knees in front of him, lifting one of his feet. “You were limping. I don’t think it’s your ankle again, but you’d better let me see.”

  While he leaned back, gripping the edge of the chair with both hands to keep from sliding off onto the floor, she pulled a thorn the size of a nail from his right foot with her fingernails and held it up for him to admire. “Mercy, I’ve never seen such a big splinter. I’d better pour turpentine on it and make you a poultice.”

  If she’d poured kerosene on it and set it on fire, it could hardly have burned worse. Only reason he hadn’t noticed was that he was hurting everywhere else almost as much. “Lesson here somewhere,” he said through clenched teeth. “Tenderfeet got no business losing their boots.”

  She laid her head on his knee, damned if she didn’t. A minute later she lifted her face and said, “We have a slight problem, then.” Her lips were smiling. Her eyes weren’t. “Because I only have one pair of shoes that don’t have holes in the soles, and they don’t even fit me any longer. I can’t imagine they’ll fit you.”

  “I’ll survive.” He would wrap his feet in rags if he had to. The important thing was to get the hell away from this place before Alaska came back with reinforcements. He didn’t want to think of what would happen if they found him here. He was no coward, but this time he wouldn’t be the only one to suffer consequences.

  She sat on the floor, her knees drawn up and her ankles crossed like a little girl instead of the proper lady he knew her to be. But child or lady, when the chips were down she had come through like a champion. You’ll do to ride the trail with, sweetheart, that you will, he thought admiringly.

  “We can’t let your foot get infected because once we leave, we’re going to have to run like the wind. It’ll be pitch-dark, and even in broad daylight the downhill path can be hazardous. Slick places where moss grows—rocks where the dirt’s worn down around them. In some places, the pine needles are so thick you can lose your footing if you’re not careful, and there’s always the possibility of a fallen branch to trip on.”

  “It won’t be a problem, believe me,” he said, trying to ignore the persistent ache in his foot and his shoulders. The rest he could manage. Not without pain, but if it meant getting out of this crazy nightmare he’d blundered into, it would be worth any amount of pain.

  “At least this time of year it’s not all that cold,” she said. “Well, actually, it is once the sun goes down, but even so, I think we’d better figure out a way to protect your feet.”

  He waited. There was a connection in here somewhere. She wasn’t as scatterbrained as he’d first thought, it was only that she was used to talking to herself and filling in the blanks in her own mind.

  “Moccasins. I think I mentioned making you a pair from one of my quilts, but leather would be much better.”

  “You don’t have to do that, we’ll be riding once we reach the bottom of the hill.”

  “McGee, you mean. I wouldn’t count on finding him—we won’t have much time, and anyway, first we have to get there. It’s a twenty-minute walk even when you can see where you’re going.” Her brown-gray-green eyes looked so earnest he was tempted to kiss her. As if he weren’t in enough trouble.

  “First, though,” she said, “let me get something for your foot.”

  She came up onto her knees and he stopped her there. Leaned over unti
l his face was within inches of hers, and said, “Eleanor? Thank you. This makes twice you’ve saved my life.”

  She flustered so easy it was almost a crime to tease her. Not that he’d been teasing, it was no less than the truth. Without her, he’d be dead meat now, and George would lose the farm. By the time the state got through handing over his assets, Stanfield would have already foreclosed. Even if the conniving bastard couldn’t convince the railroad to buy him out, George and his family would be homeless.

  “Jed?” she whispered. “What is it? Are you hurting so much?”

  “Hurting?”

  “For a minute you looked…strange.”

  He felt strange. Hell, he was strange. For lack of a reply that she could even begin to understand, he caught her face between his hands and ground his mouth into hers.

  Granite dust, sandstone and red clay were pressed between his raw hands and her tender cheeks. His teeth touched hers and then he used his tongue on her, needed to taste the very essence of her—to reaffirm the fact that he was here with this woman instead of lying in a mangled heap at the bottom of the mountain. That he was alive and able to experience all the good things life had to offer. The heat of the sun on his naked skin, the smell of wood smoke in the fall, of rain on a spring morning. A woman’s lips, her soft breasts, the heat and scent of her body.

  It never occurred to him that this was one of the most basic reaffirmations of life, he only knew he had to kiss her. Wanted to do more than that, but he would take what he could get.

  She made no effort to escape, even though he kissed her as hungrily as if she alone could stave off starvation. Not until he encountered the buttons at the neck of her dress did he draw back, his fingers growing still. Seeing the streaks of dirt on her pale skin and on the bosom of her dress, he closed his eyes. “Eleanor, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

  Still on her knees, Eleanor blinked and settled back onto her heels. She was embarrassed. Mortified at the way she had greedily accepted his kisses. And now he was sorry?

  She took a deep breath, unaware that her dress gaped open to reveal the shoulder strap of her camisole. Unaware of the streak of dirt on her throat, all the way down to the swell of her breasts. Of the grime smeared on her cheeks from his hands.