Sin-Jin looked at the men who had assembled. "You, you, and you," Sin-Jin picked three from the crowd, "Get more buckets." The blacksmith joined him, handing Sin-Jin the pails he had brought. Sin-Jin shoved them into the hands of two other available men. "There's a horse trough over there." He pointed to the nearest one in front of the emporium. "Hurry!"
As he turned, he saw Riley running toward the shop.
The man's eyes looked wild with the thoughts that were flashing through his mind. Riley grabbed Sin-Jin's arm. "Rachel! Where's Rachel?"
"I sent her to the tavern for Sam. She's all right."
Behind them, the water line had started to form. Men, women and a handful of children were passing buckets hand over hand to the man at the head of the line in a frantic attempt to try and beat back the flames. Fire was a threat to them all, easily destroying what had taken them so long to build.
Riley was dumbstruck. Everything had been all right just a short hour ago. "How did it start?" he demanded.
Sin-Jin shook his head. There was no time for talk now. "Later." He pointed toward the emporium. "Get blankets," he instructed the other man, raising his voice in order to be heard above the growing noise. "And shovels, we need shovels."
He'd seen a fire like this before once, at the barracks in England. The wind had been high and within minutes, only ashes remained where once a large building had stood. It wasn't going to happen here, not in his town. Not if he could help it.
"We'll beat it back and throw dirt on what the water doesn't reach. Now hurry," he told Riley. "Hurry!"
The townspeople scattered, accepting Sin-Jin's instructions as naturally as a child took mother's milk. They were followers in need of a leader, and Sin-Jin had taken up the banner.
A second bucket brigade formed with Sam in charge. Others, among them Rachel and Riley, raced to toss the filled pails at the fire inside the store. Sin-Jin and Brom, the hulking blacksmith worked furiously, throwing shovelfuls of dirt at the bright flames as they attempted to bury the fire. Still others were beating the flames with blankets.
Noise and shouting filled the air as voices tripped over one another. Cries ringing with encouragement, confusion, and concern crisscrossed like a patchwork quilt that couldn't find a pattern for itself. The noise was so great that the crack of the musket that was being discharged blended in with it all, dissolving unheeded like a snowflake upon the tongue of a child.
Sin-Jin suddenly felt a sharp sting in his shoulder. He felt as if someone had shoved him, hard and he stumbled from the force. The pain that radiated was hot and ate away at his consciousness. He blinked his eyes, trying to come around.
Certain that someone had accidentally hit him, Sin-Jin looked about, but couldn't see where the blow might have come from. Everyone was hurrying to and fro around him, but there no one was next to him. Not knowing what to make of it, with time scarce, Sin-Jin forced himself to ignore the growing fire in his shoulder and concentrate on the one he could see. He continued issuing instructions to those around him. They were gaining on the fire, making it retreat to its source.
Within a few minutes, it was all over. The fire, defeated, sizzled its final protest as it disappeared. Only the left wall of the print shop had been destroyed. The rest of it, including the printing press, had only been blackened by the smoke. Rachel's house, as well as the emporium, had been completely spared thanks to the speed with which everyone had responded to the common threat.
The crescendo of noise died down along with the fire, until it as only a soft murmur. The citizens of Morgan's Creek looked at one another. The near silence was replaced with laughter, laughter laced with relief. For one small moment in time, they were all brothers. Shopkeepers, farmers, barmaids and blacksmiths alike, they had all united, been a part of a single effort. At that moment, there had been no distinction between them.
Riley rolled his shoulders, trying to liberate them from the tension that squeezed them. He saw Sin-Jin by the wayside and crossed to him.
"I have no idea how I'm to begin thanking you." Riley dragged a hand through hair that smelled of smoke and nodded toward the others who were milling around, congratulating one another. "You organized them as if they were an army of soldiers."
Rachel approached from the other side. Her face was streaked with soot. She ran the back of her hand over her cheek, smudging it further.
"Aye, that you did, Lieutenant." For once, there was no animosity in her voice as she used the rank.
Sin-Jin's lips moved in a smile, but it was a weak effort. He felt drained, exhausted. More than he should. Something felt very wrong, he thought. He tried to shrug and found he really couldn't.
"Old habits surface at times. I—" He turned toward her and saw her surprised expression. "What are you looking at?"
Rachel's eyes were wide as she looked at his shoulder. My God, he was wounded. How? When? "You're bleeding."
Instinctively, Sin-Jin glanced down at his right shoulder. A single thin stream of blood had run down his sleeve, soaking the material. His arm felt hot and stiff now. "Something must have hit me."
How could he talk so calmly? Didn't he realize that he might be bleeding to death? What was the matter with this man? Rachel clawed Sin-Jin's jacket off his other shoulder, then began to ease it from the wounded one.
"From the looks of it, it was a bullet doing the hitting. You've been shot." The words were uttered in awed disbelief as she looked at the wound.
Mechanically, Sin-Jin's hand went to his shoulder. He felt the stickiness oozing there as blood seeped from the wound. "This has not been one of my better days," he muttered.
"Riley," Rachel ordered, valiantly ignoring the sickness that gripped the pit of her stomach. "Bring him along into the house. Now!"
She spun on her heel and ran ahead to get a basin. There was some clean linen she could tear into bandages, she thought as she ran toward the house.
Riley placed his arm beneath Sin-Jin's shoulder. "Lean on me."
Sin-Jin tried to shrug him off. To his annoyance, he found that the strength to do so was lacking. Weakness was milking his limbs like a dairy maid drawing milk from a cow's udder. Still he had to protest. "I'm perfectly capable of walking on my own power."
"Humor her," Riley advised as he nodded toward Rachel's back. "Believe me, it's not a pretty sight when she loses her temper." Riley guided his friend through the gate and to the front steps.
Sin-Jin smiled as he crossed the threshold into the small house. "I've seen it." He glanced in Rachel's direction as she hurried about the room, gathering what she needed. "It's not so bad."
Rachel let out a breath that sounded more like a huff.
Damn him, he could have been killed. Killed because of her. She knew who had fired the shot, even though she hadn't seen Winthrop point the musket. She could feel it in her bones. She knew his kind. Fear of what might have happened made her insides quiver.
"Stop talking and sit down," Rachel ordered harshly in order to mask her thoughts.
Riley eased Sin-Jin into a chair at the table. As soon as his hands were free, Rachel thrust the basin into them. "Go to the well and get me fresh water. Mind that it's not from the horse's trough," she warned.
She turned her attention to Sin-Jin and frowned as she ripped the shirt from his shoulder. The wound looked terrible.
Sin-Jin tried not to wince. "I've dreamed about you ripping the clothes from my body. I never thought I'd have to get shot to have it happen."
"Shut up," she muttered through clenched teeth. She was doing her best to be gentle, but she could see she was hurting him. Ordinarily, she wouldn't have minded making him wince. But guilt gnawed at her. "I'm sorry. I'm trying to be as gentle as I can."
"It doesn't come easily to you, does it?" He closed his eyes for a moment as the pain passed through him like a giant wave. Perspiration beaded along his brow. He hoped he wouldn't embarrass himself by passing out in front of her.
She blinked back angry tears. What if the wound had bee
n to the right? What if it had been his heart instead of his shoulder? Damn this man for making her care.
"It does with the right person. Now will you please shut up and let me be going about my work." She sniffed as she examined the wound. "It's bleeding like a stuck pig you are.
He didn't care for the analogy. "I'd rather think I was bleeding like a valiant man."
She was being too harsh, she thought, even for her. It was the fear that was making her talk like this. The sick fear that he could have been killed because of her. Riley walked in, holding the filled basin before him. She beckoned him over, her eyes on Sin-Jin. "Aye, that, too."
Riley placed the basin on the table. Rachel dipped a cloth into the water and lightly dabbed at Sin-Jin's shoulder.
"Will you miss me when I'm gone?" Sin-Jin tried to concentrate on the way the light from the fireplace shot through her hair and not on the fact that the room was growing ever so slightly dimmer.
"You're not dead yet," she growled. And won't be if I have anything to say about it.
She hadn't answered his question, but then he hadn't really expected her to. Despite everything that had happened today, she'd probably rather see him roasting in hell than mending.
"But if you had your way—" Sin-Jin prodded.
Cloth in hand, Rachel raised her eyes. They held his for a moment, saying things to him that would not pass her lips.
"It's trying to stop the bleeding I am, not make it worse." Rachel pressed her lips together in frustration. She was trapped either way. "Does that answer your question?"
For the moment, it was all he could expect. He hadn't thought that she would fall into his arms just because he had been wounded while trying to save her shop. "Yes."
"Fine," she said crisply, picking up another strip of cloth. "Now you'll be doing us all a favor if you save your strength. That means no more wasted words. Am I making myself clear, Lawrence?"
"Yes, ma'am," he replied meekly.
"Good. Riley, get my poultices, please. It looks to be a clean wound, though it's messy as sin. The bullet had more sense than to lodge itself in his British flesh."
Sin-Jin merely groaned.
Despite the possible gravity of the situation and what they had just been through together, Riley couldn't help but laugh to himself as he went to fetch the poultices Rachel swore by.
Chapter Nineteen
To Rachel's relief, she was right. There was no musket ball to probe and remove from his shoulder. It appeared to have gone straight through. With skilled hands, Rachel cleansed the wound and carefully applied the poultices that her mother and her grandmother before her had sworn by.
There was a time long ago, she told Sin-Jin as she worked, that the O'Roarke women were feared to be witches.
"Because we could heal. Could you think of anything more foolish-sounding than that?" She shook her head at the nonsense. "Witches are supposed to bring harm to people, not try to be healing them."
Sin-Jin watched Rachel work, watched her long, sure fingers as they spread first the poultice against his skin, then held it there as she methodically bandaged his wound. "Do you believe in witches?"
What kind of a simpleminded fool did he take her for? "No, of course not," Rachel answered just a touch too quickly. She shrugged, relenting. "I believe in something." Her mouth curved as a far away look entered her eyes. "A little magic perhaps, but not in witches themselves. There aren't any." She looked at him sharply and saw the amusement there. "Nor fairies or elves either, if you're going to be asking about them next."
"How about leprechauns?"
She didn't dignify the teasing question with a reply. "There," she announced like an artist who had finished her painting. "'Tis done." She pressed her lips together as she rose and viewed her handiwork. "Lucky for you that whoever did that to you was a bad shot."
Riley had pulled a chair over to the table positioning himself next to Sin-Jin as Rachel had plied her craft. He took out his tobacco pouch and dropped a pinch into the bowl of his pipe, thinking it safe to light now that she was through. Rachel was touchy when she was working with her poultices. She said the smoke was bad for them.
He struck a match. "You said you had your suspicions about who did it."
Sin-Jin nodded. He picked up his shirt and awkwardly tried to slip it on. "The same man who probably set the newspaper office on fire." He looked at Rachel. "The one who tried to wreck the printing press and force himself on you."
Rachel took the shirt from him and helped Sin-Jin on with it. She yanked it down his chest a little to quickly. There was just so long a woman could be expected to look at a half-unclothed man and remain unaffected. The sight of him made her stomach feel queasy and brought thoughts to her head that she wanted no part of, at least not while they involved Sin-Jin.
She frowned, hatred in her eyes as she thought of the man in her shop. "You mean that Tory pig?"
"Exactly." With one hand almost useless, Sin-Jin tried to lace up the strings on his shirt and did a miserable job of it. Muttering something under her breath, Rachel moved his hand out of the way.
Sin-Jin grinned at her as she tied the ends together. He liked the feel of her hands on him, liked the feel of her dressing him. Someday, he promised himself, he was going to have the pleasure of feeling her undress him as well. This time in earnest.
"Do you know his name?" Riley prodded. Smoke curled from his pipe like the tail of a contented cat as he held it aloft, waiting for an answer.
"All too well. Winthrop Rutherford." It was all he could do not to spit the name out. "The first time I met him, he was trying to rape my wife." He set his mouth hard, remembering. "She wasn't my wife then, of course." He looked at Riley. "The man makes a practice of picking on people weaker than himself."
Rachel stopped folding the remainder of the linen strips. She wanted nothing in common with his wife, even though she had never known the woman.
"I am not weaker than he is," she insisted. "The simple truth of the matter is, the devil merely caught me off my guard, taking advantage of the situation." She looked at Sin-Jin pointedly.
He returned her gaze, his own suddenly hot and furious. He understood her meaning and took offense at it. It was plainly there in his eyes. Rachel flushed, knowing her comparison to be unfair. There was no similarity between what had happened between her and Sin-Jin and that monster and herself.
The pink cast to her cheeks was apology enough for Sin-Jin. The dark look left his eyes.
"Nonetheless, you are smaller than he is," he tactfully amended. He waited for her to take exception to that and for once, there was none forthcoming.
"A bear would be smaller than he is," she shot back. She shivered involuntarily as she walked to the front door with the basin. "That man should be tarred and feathered and ridden out naked on a rail."
She pulled open the door and emptied the basin. The water went sailing out into the garden with a vengeance as she pictured throwing it in his face. Rachel closed the door behind her.
"Except that the sight of it would be too ugly a thing for normal people to stand." She returned the basin to its customary place within the kitchen, next to the plates and utensils.
Sin-Jin nodded in her direction, amused. "Is she always this bloodthirsty?"
Riley drew on his pipe. He let a perfectly formed ring escape his lips before answering. "This is one of her better days." As Sin-Jin began to rise, Riley looked up. "You'll be staying for dinner, won't you, man? Seeing as how you saved my house, my shop and my sister all in one day, the least I can do is feed you. It's not much, but you're welcome to anything I have."
Sin-Jin glanced over his shoulder at Rachel and couldn't help the smile that rose to his lips. "A man can hardly refuse an invitation put to him like that." He saw Rachel's eyes narrow. "As long as Rachel wants me."
Oh no, she was too good with words to fall into that sort of a trap. Carefully, she picked her way around them. "Don't go flattering yourself, Lawrence. I'd rather sleep in the bar
n with the mice than share anything with the likes of you. But far be it from me to contradict my brother's invitation."
Sin-Jin grinned. He liked her better this way, fiery, not frightened. It had felt as if a bayonet had ripped through him at the sight of the fear that had fleetingly roamed freely in her eyes when he had come upon her in the shop.
"Then I'll stay. I don't believe I've ever had an invitation tendered to me so earnestly before." He rose to his feet.
Rachel looked at him, surprised. "And where do you think you're going?"
He indicated the front door. "To make sure my horse is properly stabled."
"Riley can take care of that." She turned toward her brother who was still sitting at the table. "Stop sucking on that pipe, Riley, before your lips harden that way, and do something useful."
"I can—" Sin-Jin began.
Rachel whirled on him, hands on hips. "No, you can't. You won't be prancing around, doing things and undoing my hard labors." She pointed to his bandaged arm. "I'll fashion a sling for you and I want you to sit still. I won't have you bleeding again, especially not all over my nice floor. Do I make myself clear?"
“Yes, ma am.”
He wasn't fooling her with that meek expression of his, but she was in no mood to have another go at it with him. "Good. Now get to that horse, Riley." She pointed toward the door.
The two men exchanged a glance. Riley was prudent enough to hide the grin that rose to his lips.
Her gruffness was a thin shield at best to mask the feelings that were dancing within her. Feelings that were so jumbled, she couldn't begin to sort them out plainly. She owed this man her virtue and it was bitter enough of a pill for her to take.
But more than that there was the sickly taste of fear that she was attempting to submerge, fear that Sin-Jin might have been seriously hurt or worse, killed. She didn't like this fear, didn't like having these feelings about a man she thought she wanted no part of. To have them warring within her confused Rachel and made her short-tempered. She would have given anything just to turn her back on it all and forget it.
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