by Jody Hedlund
She had no doubt she would. And when she found Daisy, they’d make a way together this time.
Something scratched against the door, and Connell sat to his knees.
A pattering of footsteps tramped across the roof, and a sprinkling of snow drifted down through the cracks.
Connell stared at the ceiling, and his eyes followed the trail of footsteps. Another scratch at the door was followed by a low whine.
She propped herself up on her elbow.
“Wolves.” His voice was low.
Her heart skittered to a halt. She pushed herself to a sitting position. Her long hair swirled around her face in an unruly tangle. “Are we safe in here?”
His focus darted back and forth across the roof as if he were mentally following the path of each wolf. “I think there are at least six of them.”
She shuddered.
The pawing at the door became more insistent. Suddenly, the old slab of rotting wood creaked inward, a long gray snout poked through, and a black tipped nose sniffed the air.
She sucked in a sharp breath.
Connell sprang to his feet and was against the door in an instant, ramming it closed with his shoulder.
A long chilling howl reverberated directly overhead, followed by several more.
“What do they want?” she asked, pulling a blanket around her as if she could ward off the frightening noise.
“Us.” He shoved the tree limb back against the door to wedge it tighter. “For a meal.”
“But they can’t get in, can they?”
A shower of snow from the roof rained down on them.
He glanced back at the ceiling and reached for Oren’s Winchester.
A flurry of pawing and digging sent another deluge of snow down upon their heads. A chunk slipped under her camisole and made a cold trail down her back.
“Move to the corner.” Connell jerked to a spot next to the fireplace. The urgency of his tone sent her scrambling.
She dragged the blankets around her and crawled to the safety of the corner.
More snow poured into the shack until a paw reached through a hole in the ceiling and swiped at the air.
She huddled against the damp earth and breathed in the moldy scent of rotting logs from the wall behind her. Would the decaying structure be strong enough to protect them?
Connell pointed the gun at the ceiling and backed up until he was standing in front of her. Without moving his aim, he lowered himself to one knee, providing a barrier between her and the wolf.
The wolf retreated and began digging again. Snow fell through the cracks in another spot of the roof.
“I was hoping they wouldn’t find the weak places.” He looked from one area of the roof to the other as if he couldn’t decide where to aim the gun.
“Did you know the wolves would come?” She shivered and wrapped the blankets tighter.
“I figured once the storm abated, they’d catch our scent. But I was hoping they’d leave us alone.”
The scratching at the door started again.
He flipped the gun to the door. “Apparently they’ve decided to attack us with all they’ve got.”
The branch against the door rattled.
Her body tensed, every nerve ready to fight, even though she doubted she could stand. “What can I do to help? Tell me.”
“I need you to unsheathe my knife.” He cocked his head to indicate the side where she’d find it.
She reached for the edge of his shirt and hesitated only a moment before slipping it upward.
“Hurry.”
Her fingers fumbled to lift the flannel higher until she found the scabbard against his ribs. She worked the knife out, trying not to graze him.
Finally she clutched the handle and let the shirt drop back into place.
His chest deflated, and only then did she realize he’d been holding his breath. Did her touch affect him as much as his did her?
“Hold on to the knife and be ready to hand it to me when I ask for it.”
“Don’t you want me to use it?”
He shook his head. “Just have it ready.”
If she hadn’t been so weak, she might have argued with him. As it was, she fell back against the wall, her body trembling with a wave of weariness.
The branch propped against the door scraped open a fraction. And the digging at the first hole in the roof resumed with a chorus of yips.
As the sliver in the door widened, splinters and branches from the roof caved in.
She didn’t want to cower, but she had the awful vision of being cornered by wolves with no escape.
The door rattled and the branch slipped away. A slender head poked in. Golden eyes rimmed with black narrowed on them. In another second the wolf squeezed through the opening. It was thin enough she could see ribs protruding in its heaving sides. It dipped its head, laid its ears back, and growled, exposing a ridge of sharp yellowed teeth and fangs. Frozen saliva dangled from one side of its mouth.
The beast crouched lower and began creeping toward them.
Connell swung the gun toward the intruder, but a snarl at the hole in the roof drew his attention upward again. The roof was giving way to the wolf’s scraping and in an instant the opening would be big enough for it to drop through.
She clutched the knife, her fingers stiff and numb with fear. How could they fight them all off?
“Get ready to hand me the knife,” Connell said with a voice that was low and calm. He raised the gun to the ceiling and took aim down the long barrel.
“Now.” Even as he said the word, he pulled the trigger.
In a blur of fear and hot dizziness, she held the knife toward him.
The crack of gunfire exploded in the air. At the same time his fingers gripped the knife, and before she could take another breath, he flung the blade with surprising swiftness and precision across the span of the hovel directly into the heart of the wolf creeping toward them.
The beast gave a sharp yip, took one step forward, and then crumpled to the dirt floor. A bright spot of red seeped through the thick grayish fur across its chest.
Connell stood, and with the smoking rifle aimed on the roof, he crossed to the door and slammed it closed. He leaned against it and studied the ceiling.
His jaw twitched and his finger cradled the trigger.
For a long moment they listened.
Silence descended around them, almost as if the world had deserted them completely.
“Are they gone?” she finally whispered.
“For now.”
She let out a shaky breath and let her body slump.
He shoved the wolf with his boot.
It didn’t move.
With a swift jerk he slid the knife from the wolf’s chest. Blood bubbled out across the fur and dripped into the dirt.
She stifled a shudder. “I wouldn’t want to face you in a fight, not with the way you handle your knife.”
“You can thank my dad for that.” He stooped and brushed the blade against the carcass, wiping it clean. Then he tucked it out of sight under his shirt. “He wanted his sons to know how to fight—I suppose so that no one could ever beat us up and leave us for dead.”
“I’m guessing that happened to him?”
“Twice. Before he left Ireland.”
She protested when Connell went out into the black night to attempt to patch the holes in the roof. He filled the biggest spot as best he could, and all the while she couldn’t help worrying that the wolves would return and attack him before he could get back into the shelter.
When he closed the door and shoved the weight of the dead wolf against it along with the branch he’d used before, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes, relieved but too exhausted to say anything.
She slept where she sat in the corner, waking whenever he shot the gun, realizing through a haze the wolves were attacking again. Off and on throughout the long night, the crack of the gun would startle her out of a fitful sleep.
Once he
woke her, offering her a tin cup of water from melted snow. His tired bloodshot eyes were round with concern. He laid his palm across her forehead, the coolness of his touch soothing her.
She wanted to grasp his hand and hold it there. But she was too weak to move. She wanted to tell him how much she admired him, but she could only manage a small smile that she hoped conveyed her gratitude.
She wasn’t sure how much time passed—it could have been hours—when something roused her.
With a start she opened her eyes. It took her a moment to realize Connell was sitting next to her and that he’d tucked her into the crook of his arm with her head against his chest.
The steady thud of his heartbeat echoed against her ear.
His face was haggard with weariness, a testimony to the sleeplessness and danger he’d endured all night. She had no doubt it was well into the morning and that the threat of wolves was over for at least the time being; otherwise he wouldn’t have allowed himself the luxury of breaking his vigilance.
Her parched tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and her body ached with feverish chills.
She was sick.
The peril of their predicament returned with a fresh wave of fear.
One glance across the shack to the door, to the dead wolf, to the blood now crusted brown, and the terror of the night crashed back through her.
How could they survive another day? Or another night?
“Please, God,” she whispered through cracked lips. All those years growing up in orphanages, she’d learned to say her prayers, to honor God, and to follow the Ten Commandments. But it hadn’t been until she’d met Betty, Oren’s wife, that she’d ever heard anyone pray to God as though He was a real person and really cared about what happened.
Betty’s prayers had always filled her with the whisper of hope that God wasn’t so far off after all. That maybe He hadn’t deserted her, as everyone else in her life had.
Lily closed her eyes and let the steady rhythm of Connell’s heartbeat soothe her. She curled closer to him and dared to lay her hand on his.
Suddenly something shoved against the door.
Connell woke with a start, and his knife was out and positioned to throw before she could move.
She strained to sit up, but his arm tightened around her, pulling her closer.
Another shove against the door pried it open a crack.
“Don’t move,” he said in a voice slurred with leftover sleep.
She didn’t know if she could move even if she tried. She was content to lean against him, into the safety of his arm, and know he would protect her, just as he had all night long.
Maybe her defenses had fallen away because she was sick. Maybe they’d crumbled because she’d come to realize that Connell was one of the most decent men she’d ever met. Whatever the case, she relinquished her need to always be the strong one, the one doing the protecting. For once, she could let someone else be strong enough for both of them.
A slam on the door, this one harder than the last, ripped the door from its tenuous hold on the rusting hinges. It crashed down on the dead wolf and tree branch, letting in a blinding stream of sunlight and a rush of frigid air.
“They’re here!” someone shouted.
She blinked hard, her eyes watering from the glare.
There was more shouting, and before she knew it, a man bundled in a buffalo-skin coat shoved his way past the broken door.
Through the fog that weighed down her head, she glimpsed the anxious face of Stuart Golden. In one sweeping glance, he took in her position within the confines of Connell’s arms and his eyes narrowed. She almost thought she caught a glimpse of jealousy in them before he forced a grin.
“What do you think you’re doing out here slacking off, McCormick, you big lazybones?”
Connell’s knife disappeared, and a tired smile hovered over his lips. “Oh, you know me. I’m always trying to get out of my work. Figured this was a good way.”
“Yeah.” Stuart peered at the gap in the roof and then at the paw of a dead wolf dangling through the hole. “I’d probably have more fun out here fighting off wolves too.”
“Yep. You don’t know the rip-roaring good time you missed.”
Stuart glanced again at her and then at Connell’s arm that was wrapped around her. He shifted his gaze away and swallowed hard.
“Is she alive?” Oren’s voice boomed from the doorway.
“Doesn’t look like the wolves had a chance,” Stuart said over his shoulder. “Not against Connell’s knife.”
Oren elbowed his way past Stuart. “Thank the good Lord.”
Beneath the brim of his derby, his face was red and chapped from the cold, but his eyes brimmed with a warmth that brought an ache to her throat. His overgrown mustache drooped as much as his shoulders, as if worry had pressed down on him like a felled tree while she was gone.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, wishing she could turn back the clock. If only she’d waited for Oren to take her to Merryville instead of rushing off. At the time, she hadn’t realized her rashness would nearly kill her and bring trouble to everyone else.
“How are you?” he asked, his gruff voice cracking.
“I’m fine—”
“She’s got a fever,” Connell interrupted.
Only then did Oren seem to take in the nature of her predicament. His gaze went first to Connell’s arm around her. His eyes widened at the lace of her camisole peeking above the edge of the blanket where her coat had slipped away. And then he glanced at her dress puddled on the dirt floor where she’d left it.
“What in the hairy hound has gone on here?” Fury flamed to life in his voice and his face.
“It’s not what it looks like.” Connell slipped his arm away from her, leaving her suddenly chilled.
“I’m not blind or stupid.”
“I know things don’t look proper.” Connell held himself rigid. “But you’ve got to believe me when I tell you that nothing happened between us.”
“I think I remember telling you no one touches Lily and lives to tell about it.”
“Then you’ll be happy to know I treated her honorably.”
“You had her sitting in your lap and were devouring her like she was your breakfast, lunch, and supper.”
“Don’t blame Connell,” she said. If anyone deserved a rebuke for the indecency of their situation, she did. She was embarrassed to admit it, but she’d been the one who’d wanted to be close to him, while he’d done all he could to keep an honorable distance from her.
Oren’s thick eyebrows came together in a furious scowl, one that would have scared the wolves away had they made an appearance.
“He saved my life, Oren.” Everything within her rose up to defend Connell. “If it weren’t for him, I’d be frozen like the ice on the river, and I’d be buried under several feet of snow. He did what was necessary to get me warmed back up.”
Stuart cleared his throat, and when she looked up, two more men had ducked inside.
She tugged the edge of the blanket higher until it reached her chin. “Connell’s a good man, and he treated me with the utmost respect.”
Nobody said anything for a long moment, but it was obvious from the way the newcomers shifted their feet and looked everywhere but at her that they had assumed the worst too.
Embarrassment crashed over her, and she sat forward with a burst of desperation. “Connell McCormick did nothing but put his life at risk numerous times to save me.”
When Oren met her gaze, the anger had fizzled and was replaced instead with sadness. “He may have saved your life, but let’s hope to high heaven he didn’t ruin your reputation.”
Chapter
12
“I’m going to make an announcement to the men at flaggins,” Connell said to the foreman of Camp 1.
Herb Nolan didn’t say anything and instead reached for the whiskey bottle filled with coal oil perched on a nearby stump.
Connell absently tapped the flat edge o
f his ax against the pine next to him, ignoring the growling in his stomach that told him the noon meal was fast approaching. “I’ve finally come up with a way to get us back on track with production.”
Herb squirted a stream of oil onto the long crosscut saw his sawyers were jerking through the kerf. The wobbling blade stuck for only another instant before the few drops of oil did their job. The men resumed their practiced rhythm, the saw swishing back and forth through the felled tree.
Connell’s trained eye measured the tree, checking the ax clips where the tree had been laid off, the places where the trunk would be cut into sections. Each was exactly twenty feet apart, just as he’d expected.
The swampers had already been over the tree, cutting off the limbs, throwing the tops and other waste into a pile. As far as Connell could tell, the log was an upper—a superior grade. Fortunately, about ninety percent of the logs from his three camps were uppers.
Unfortunately, they weren’t getting enough of those logs into town to the main rail. They’d already been struggling with production, but the week of melting had thrown them back even more.
“I’ve had the icer out every night this week.” The foreman stepped away from the sawyers. “I’ve even kept the contraption going during the daytime so we can haul as many logs as possible. The roads have never been smoother—”
“I know you’re working hard,” Connell reassured Herb. “But we’ve got to take advantage of this weather while we have it.”
Herb nodded, but the crinkle across his leathery forehead was only the beginning of the resistance Connell knew he was going to get once he asked the men to start hauling at night. Maybe his announcement would help.
Just then the bugle of the cookee’s nooning horn called to them above the echoes of chopping and sawing. The men straightened their backs and flexed their muscles before slipping back into the coats they’d discarded after becoming overheated from all their exertion.
They made their way to the swampy clearing where the cookee, the cook’s helper, had brought them flaggins on his pung sleigh. He’d started a fire, and the men gathered around it to warm their hands in the bitter air that had poured in from the north and chased away every last hint of an early spring.