She smiled sweetly. "You have to trust me. You have no choice."
"You bring it too close to any part of my anatomy that I consider near and dear, and you will regret it until your dying day."
"Alas, the ladies would be heartbroken!" she taunted in turn. "I will take the gravest care."
He released her wrist, but continued to watch her. There was a warning sizzle in his eyes that brought tremors to her heart. She had to steady her hands. "What the hell," she muttered. "Mr. Ego Reb. Were I to wound anything near and dear there's a likelihood that nobody would even notice."
It was a good thing that the knife had yet to touch his flesh. He caught her wrist again, pinning it, drawing her eyes to his once more. "Sometime, darlin', I just might let you find out."
She jerked away. "Darlin', don't even dream of it. Not in your wildest thoughts."
"Couldn't handle it, huh?"
"I'll handle it right now, if you're not careful, Captain Slater."
"Is that a promise, Miss McCahy?"
"No, a threat."
"Your hands better move with the skill of an angel, got that, Miss McCahy?"
His grip on her wrist was tight. But it wasn't the pain that gave her pause. It was his agony, for all that he concealed it so well.
She nodded. "Give me the bottle."
"What for?"
"To clean the scalpel." She doused the small sharp knife with the alcohol, and then he took the bottle back from her. He swallowed heartily. "Ready?" Shannon asked him.
"You are eager to take a blade against me," he said.
"Right."
"I can't wait to take one against you." His speech was slurred just a bit. When she glanced his way, she saw his grin, lopsided, heartstopping. She closed her eyes tightly against it, against the searing cobalt of his eyes, and the charisma of that smile. He was making her tremble tonight, and she couldn't falter.
She brought the scalpel against his flesh, holding his thigh to keep it steady. He didn't start or move at the swift penetration of the knife, but she felt his muscles jump and contract, and the power was startling.
He didn't make a sound. He just closed his eyes and clamped down on his jaw, and for a moment she wondered if he was conscious, and then she hoped that he was not. She quickly finished her cut, and brought the small forceps out. She had cut well. She quickly secured the ball and dug it from his flesh, then liberally poured whiskey over the wound and began to bind it with linen bandages. There weren't enough to finish the job. She glanced at his face, then lifted her skirt and tore her petticoat.
One of his eyes opened and he looked at her. "Thanks, darlin'." He wasn't unconscious.
"I don't want you getting Cole killed," she said flatly. She came up on her knees, and wrapped the linen around his thigh, moving higher and higher. Both his eyes were open now. She wished that her elegant bodice weren't cut quite so low. He was staring straight at her cleavage, and he was making no gentlemanly move to look away.
"Quit that," she ordered him.
"Why?"
"You're supposed to be a Southern gentleman," she reminded him.
He smiled, but the smile held pain. "The South is dead, haven't you heard? And so are Southern gentlemen. And you be careful right now, Miss McCahy. You're moving real, real close."
She was. She pulled her fingers back as if she had been burned.
"You did a good job," he told her, tying off the bandage.
"Because everything is intact?" she said caustically.
"I do appreciate that. But then, you wouldn't have dared do me injury, I'm certain."
"Don't be so certain."
A soft, husky chuckle escaped him. "Some day, I promise, I'll make it all worth your while."
"What does that mean?"
"Why, we'll have to wait and see, won't we?"
"Don't hold your breath, Captain Slater. And besides—" she widened her eyes with a feigned and sizzling innocence "—I'm just a child, remember? The McCahy brat."
She started to turn away. He caught her arm and pulled her back. She almost protested, but he moved with a curious gentleness, lifting a fallen tendril of hair, smoothing it. And his eyes moved over her again, over the rise of her breasts beneath the lace of her bodice, to her flushed cheeks, to the curve of her form where she knelt by his feet.
"Well, brat, it was a long war. I think that, maybe, you've begun to grow up."
"I had no choice," she said, and she was suddenly afraid that she would start to cry. She gritted her teeth and swallowed the tears harshly. She felt his eyes upon her, reading her thoughts and her mind and her heart.
"I was very sorry about your Captain Ellsworth, Shannon," he said. "I know what it did to you. But be careful. If you're not, you'll have scars on your soul, like Cole did when the jayhawkers killed his wife."
"Malachi, don't—"
"All right, Miss McCahy, I won't talk about sacred territory." He smiled, a devilish smile, taunting her, leading her away from the memory of pain. "You are maturing, and nicely. Thank you, Shannon." He paused, his eyes searching her, his smile deepening with a sensual curve to his lips. She thought that he was going to say something else, but he repeated himself. "Thank you, you did a good job. Your touch was gentle, nearly tender."
"I told you—"
His knuckles brushed her cheek. "Definitely growing up," he murmured softly.
She didn't know what to say. It should have been something scathing, yet she didn't feel that way at all, not at that moment. She just felt, curiously, as if she wanted to be held. As if she wanted to burst into tears and be assured that yes, indeed, the war was over, and peace had come. She wanted to feel his arms around her, the heat of his whisper as he caressed her tenderly and assured her that all was well.
But she had no chance to respond at all.
For at that moment, the quiet of the night beyond the stables was shattered. The thunder of hoofbeats sounded just outside, loud, staccato, a drumroll that promised some new portent of danger. Even through the closed door, she could feel the beat she knew well.
Shannon rose quickly, the blood draining from her face.
"Riders, Malachi! Riders coming to the house!"
As if in answer to her worried exclamation, she heard a faint scream of horror from the house. Shannon ran to the door, wrenching it open. The scream came again. Shrill now, then higher and higher.
"Kristin!" Shannon cried. "It's—it's Kristin! Oh, my God, it's Kristin!"
"Wait!" Malachi called.
Shannon barely heard him. Horses had come galloping down upon the ranch again. Numerous horses. The sound of those hoofbeats told her that the uneasy peace that had so briefly settled over the ranch would now be shattered once again.
She started to run.
"Shannon!" Malachi thundered.
She ignored him, unaware that he was behind her, swearing, raging that she should stop.
"Damned fool brat!" he called. "Wait!"
She didn't wait. She burst into the night, staring at the house. In the glow of the light from the house she could see twenty or so horses ranged before the porch. Most of them still carried their riders. Only a few of the men had dismounted.
"No!" Shannon breathed, but even as she ran, she saw her sister. A tall husky man with unruly dark whiskers was coming out of the house with Kristin tossed over his shoulder.
Kristin was dressed for dinner, too, in a soft blue brocade that matched the color of her eyes. Her hair had been pinned in a neat coil, but now it streamed down the giant's back, like a lost ray of sunshine.
Stunned, Shannon stopped and stared in horror.
"I've got her!" the man said sharply. "Let's get the hell out of here!"
"What about Slater?" someone asked.
Shannon couldn't hear the reply, but her heart seemed to freeze over. If Cole wasn't gone, then he was dead. If there was a single breath left in his body, the burly man wouldn't have his hands on Kristin.
Kristin was screaming and fighting f
uriously as the man walked hurriedly to his horse. Kristin bit him, hard.
He slapped her in return, harder. Swearing. Then he tossed a dazed Kristin onto his horse, and mounted behind her.
"No!" Shannon shrieked, and she started to run in a panic toward the house once again. She leaped one of the paddock fences in a shortcut to the house. She had to stop them. She had to save her sister.
Her feet flew over the Missouri dust, and her heart thundered. She had no thought but to reach the man before he could ride away with her sister. In terror, she thought only to throw herself at the man in a whirlwind of fury.
Suddenly, she was, in truth, flying. Hurtling through the air by the force of some rock-hard power behind her, and falling facedown into the red dust at her feet. Stunned, she inhaled, and dirt filled her lungs. Dizzy and gasping, she fought against the force now crawling over her, holding her tight. Panic seized her. It was one of the men, one of them…
"Stop it, Shannon!"
No! It was Malachi again. Damn Malachi. He was holding her down, holding her prisoner, when the men were about to ride away, ride away with Kristin…
"Let me go, you fool!"
He was lying over her, the length of his body flat on hers, hard and heavy. His chest lay on her back, and his hands were flat upon hers, pinning them down. She could barely raise her head to see.
She could only feel the tension and heat of his whisper as he leaned low against her in warning.
"You fool! You're not—"
"Damn you! Get off of me! He has my sister!" She couldn't even begin to fight; she couldn't twist away from him.
"Shannon! He has twenty armed men! And you're running after him without so much as a big stick!"
"He has—"
"Shut up!" One of his hands eased from hers, but only to clamp over her mouth. He kept them down, almost flat upon the earth. A trough lay before them. It hid them from view, Shannon realized, while they could still see the men and the house two hundred yards away.
"He has Kristin!" Malachi agreed. "And if you go any closer, he's going to have you, too! And if you don't shut up, he'll be after the two of us. We could try shooting down twenty men between us without killing your sister in the fire, but we'd still need our weapons—those wood and steel things back in the hay—to do it with!"
She went still, ceasing to struggle against him.
"My only hope is to follow them. Carefully," he said hoarsely. He eased his hand from her mouth. He did not lift his weight from hers, but pinned her there with him with a sure pressure.
She hated him for it.
But he was right. She had no weapon. She had panicked, and she had run off with nothing, and she could do nothing to help Kristin.
She would only be abducted, too.
"No!" she whispered bleakly, for the horses were moving. The men were all mounted, and the horses were beginning to move away.
With the same speed and thunder, they were racing away, into the night.
And red Missouri dust rose in an eerie fog against the darkness of the night…
And slowly, slowly settled.
CHAPTER THREE
When the horses were gone, Malachi quickly stood and reached down for Shannon. She would have ignored his hand and risen on her own, but he didn't give her a chance. All the while, he kept his eyes fixed on the house. As soon as she was standing, he dropped her hands to start limping for the porch. He climbed over the paddock fence.
"Where are you going?" Shannon demanded, following him.
He didn't seem to hear her. He kept walking.
"Malachi!" Shannon snapped. He stopped and looked back at her as if she was a momentary distraction—like a buzzing fly. "Malachi! We have to get guns and horses; we have to ride after them. You're wasting time! Where are you going!"
"I'm going to the house," he said flatly. "Excuse me." He started walking again.
She ran after him and caught his elbow, wrenching him around to face her. Stunned, frightened and furious, she accosted him. "What? You're going to the house. Just like that. Sure, we've got all the time in the world! Let's take a rest. Can I get you dinner, maybe? A drink? A cool mint julep, or something stronger? What the hell is the matter with you? Those men are riding away with my sister!"
"I know that, Shannon. I—"
"You son of a bitch! You Rebel…coward! Good God, I wish to hell that you were Cole! He rode in here all alone
and cleaned up a small army on his own! You didn't even fire a shot. You yellow-bellied piece of white trash—"
"That's it!" He stepped back, and his arm snaked out. He caught her wrist and held her in a bruising grip, speaking with biting rage. "I'm damned sorry that Cole isn't here, Miss McCahy. And I'm damned sorry that I didn't have the time to dig through the hay to find my gun or your gun or even my saber. If I had had my gun, I probably could have killed a few of them before they gunned me down. So I'm real, real sorry that I don't feel like dying like a fool just to appease your definition of courage. And, Miss McCahy—" he paused for a breath "—as for Cole, I really, honest to God can't tell you just how much I'd like to see his face. And that, to tell the truth, is what I'm trying to do right now. Those men are riding away with your sister. Well, my brother was in that house, and I—"
He paused again, inhaling deeply. Shannon had gone very pale and very still. She had forgotten Cole in her fear for Kristin. Malachi had not.
He dropped her arm, pushing her from him. "I want to find out if Cole is alive or dead," he said flatly, and he spun on his heels.
It took Shannon a few seconds to follow him, and when she did so, she did in silence. Dread filled her heart. She hoped Cole had left already. But the second that she learned something about her brother-in-law she would be gone. Maybe Malachi could let those men ride away with Kristin— she could not.
He heard her following behind. He spoke without turning around. "I am going after Kristin. If you don't mind, I will arm myself first."
"As soon as we…as soon as we find Cole," Shannon said. "I'll get everything we need. We can leave—"
"We aren't leaving. I'm leaving."
"I'm coming with you."
"You're not coming with me."
"I am coming—"
"You're not!"
Shannon opened her mouth to continue the argument, but she didn't get the chance. The porch door swung open again as Delilah came running out. Tall, black and beautiful, with the aristocratic features of an African princess, she was more family than servant, and no proclamation had made her free. Gabriel McCahy had released both her and her husband, Samson, years before the war had ever begun.
Now her features were wretchedly torn with anguish.
"Shannon!" she cried, throwing out her arms. Shannon raced to Delilah, accepting her embrace, holding her fiercely in return. Delilah spoke again, softly, quickly. "Shannon, child, I was so afraid for you! They dragged Kristin from here so quick—"
"Delilah," Malachi said harshly, interrupting her. His voice was thick. "Where is my brother? What happened? Cole would never—Cole would never have allowed Kristin to be dragged from his side."
Delilah shook her head, trying to get a grip on her emotions. "No, sir, Captain Slater," she said softly, "Cole Slater never would have done that. He—"
"He's dead," Malachi said, swallowing sickly.
"No! No, he isn't dead!" Delilah said with haste.
Relief flooded through Shannon. She couldn't stand any longer. She staggered to the porch and sank down on the lowest step. "Where is Cole, Delilah?"
"He rode out before—"
"When?" Shannon cried. "I didn't see him go!"
"Let's come inside. You both look as if you could use a little libation," Delilah said.
Shannon shook her head and stood with an effort. "I'm going after Kristin—"
"You're not going after anyone," Malachi said. "I'm going, and I'll do so as soon as I'm ready."
"Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Malachi Slater!"
>
He walked over to her, his eyes narrowed, his irritation as apparent as his limp. "Shannon McCahy, you are a willful little fool, and you will get us both killed, as well as your sister. I will tell you what to do, and if you don't listen to me, I'll lock you in your room. No, that wouldn't do, knowing you, you'd come right through the window. I'll tie you to your bed. Are we understood?"
She wasn't going to get into another test of strength with Malachi, not at that moment.
Nor was she about to listen to him.
But she inhaled and raised her chin with what she hoped was a chilling dignity. She walked up the steps to the porch and paused before the door. "Yes, let's do go in. I'll get Malachi some of Cole's breeches, and we'll all have a shot of whiskey. Delilah, you can tell us what happened. We do need to move quickly. Malachi needs to get going."
She smiled at him sweetly. She saw his lashes fall as his eyes narrowed, and she saw the cynical curl of his lips beneath his mustache. He didn't trust her. Not a bit. It didn't matter.
She entered the house with a serene calm, walking quickly through the Victorian parlor toward the office. It had been her pa's office; recently, she had begun to think of it as Cole's office. One day, she hoped, Matthew would reclaim it. The country would rebuild after the war, and Matthew's children would come and crawl on his lap while he went over accounts or the payroll.
Delilah and Malachi followed her. She opened the bottom drawer of the desk and drew out a bottle of Kentucky bourbon. With steady hands she found the shot glasses on the bookcase and poured out three servings, then handed one to Delilah and one to Malachi. She took her father's place behind the desk. "All right, Delilah, what happened?"
Malachi was watching her. He perched on the edge of the desk, waiting.
Delilah didn't sit. She swallowed the bourbon neat, and paced the floor.
"Cole left here about an hour ago. He came to speak with Samson and me, explaining that he thought things were going to get hotter a lot sooner than he expected. Some guy called Fitz wanted revenge. Cole didn't think that this Fitz would want to hurt the McCahys—but he knew that Fitz wanted all the Slaters, and just to be safe, he wanted to move Kristin and the baby right away. He didn't want to say anything to Kristin until he had a place to take her and little Gabe, and, well, you know your sister, Shannon, she wouldn't have let him get away. She'd have risked anything, herself and even little Gabe, I think. He meant to come back within a day or two. He didn't want her risking that child or herself." She paused.
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