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Gift Of The Heart
Miranda Jarrett


RACHEL SPARHAWK LINDSEY CAME FROM A LONG LINE OF SURVIVORSShe would not fail her heritage. But the snows were deep and the nights lonely - until Jamie Ryder arrived, bringing strength and joy into the hidden places of her heart… .The warmth of hearth and home had long been denied Jamie Ryder. Now Rachel Lindsey offered him refuge from the storms without - and the war within. But he knew this dream of love and family could not withstand the nightmare of his past… .









Table of Contents


Cover Page (#u68bbf063-ae52-54a3-a843-187a3001f14c)

Epigraph (#ue434b36d-12a6-5c8f-818d-ff69eccbcd5e)

Excerpt (#u75dda408-b131-5c0c-b20c-21652b9eb0ec)

Dear Reader (#ube49f512-e87f-5198-8e46-e96d0545168f)

Title Page (#u8c57a309-e394-5946-aab3-2d565a90b404)

About the Author (#u3d8ab09f-2705-5ff8-8e8d-f9c0fed3c680)

Prologue (#u931c5f9d-146c-5e15-a858-56d2ffba790a)

Chapter One (#ue7dc3d43-32e0-52f1-9a34-6cec927337d5)

Chapter Two (#ufa9a7e7c-0f4e-5c50-bf9c-7f40120a249a)

Chapter Three (#ue38394b3-0b93-5a92-a2c9-06e63505ef55)

Chapter Four (#u37ed8603-93b8-5756-a6b2-a146a7651761)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


Critical acclaim for Ms. Jarrett’s titles

Gift of the Heart

“…extraordinarily compelling and heartfelt romance from a delight to read..”

—The Paperback Forum

“Ms. Jarrett has a rare story-telling talent.”

—Rendezvous

“Once again Miranda Jarrett proves herself to be one of romantic fiction’s finest gems!”

—The Literary Times

Sparhawk’s Angel

“…an unusual, delightful, and precious reading experience. 5


s.”

—Affaire de Coeur

5


s”

—Booklovers




“I can live without being called ‘Mistress,’”


Rachel said with determined composure.



“As you please, Rachel Lindsey.” Jamie liked the sound of the name on his tongue. He had guessed she’d be called something more elegant, more exotic, the way she was herself, but now he’d never imagine her as anything other than Rachel. Rachel Sparbawk Lindsey. Lord, when was the last time he’d gone moony over a woman’s name?

He let his bemusement slide drowsily across his face. “You wanted to trust me when I was dead to the world. But do you trust me now, I wonder?”



She didn’t hesitate. “Not in the least.”



“Good lass,” he murmured. “Not only beautiful, but wise you are, too, Rachel Lindsey. Don’t you ever trust me, not for a moment.”



Then he smiled, and the sudden, devastating warmth of it was enough to steal Rachel’s breath away…


Dear Reader,



Miranda Jarrett’s last title, Sparhawk’s Angel, earned her 5


s from Affaire de Coeur, 5


s from Booklovers, and a special mention in Kathe Robin’s “Tête à Tête” page in Romantic Times. And we are already receiving good reports back about her eagerly awaited new book, this month’s Gift of the Heart. Be sure to take home this touching story set in the wilds of the New York frontier where a woman, abandoned by her no-good husband, discovers happiness in the arms of a fugitive haunted by his past

Beauty and the Beast is a new Regency tale by Taylor Ryan, who made her debut during our 1996 March Madness promotion of talented new authors. Don’t miss this wonderful story of a troubled nobleman who is badgered into health by an interfering young neighbor.

We are also so pleased to welcome back award-winning author Dallas Schulze with her long-awaited Western, Short Straw Bride, the heartwarming tale of a couple who marry for practical reasons, only to fall head over heels in love. As well as Reader’s Choice Award winner Laurie Grant with her new medieval novel, My Lady Midnight, the intriguing story of a Norman widow who becomes a political pawn when she is forced to go undercover as a governess in the home of the baron she believes responsible for the death of her best friend.

We hope you’ll keep a lookout for all four titles wherever Harlequin Historicals are sold.



Sincerely,



Tracy Farrell

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Harlequin Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3




Gift of the Heart

Miranda Jarrett







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


MIRANDA JARRETT

was an award-winning designer and art director before turning to writing full-time, and considers herself sublimely fortunate to have a career that combines history and happy endings, even if it’s one that’s also made her family regular patrons of the local pizzeria. A descendant of early settlers in New England, she feels a special kinship with her popular fictional family, the Sparhawks of Rhode Island.



Miranda and her husband—a musician and songwriter—live near Philadelphia with their two young children and two old cats. During what passes for spare time she paints watercolor landscapes, bakes French chocolate cakes and whips up the occasional last-minute Halloween costume.



Miranda herself admits that it’s hard to keep track of all the Sparhawk family members, and she has prepared a family tree to help, including which characters appear in each book. She loves to hear from readers, and if you write to her and enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope, she’ll send you a copy of the family tree along with her reply. Her address: P.O. Box 1102, Paoli, PA 19301-1145.




Prologue


Tryon County, New York

November, 1778

He didn’t want to die alone.

Not like this, not hidden beneath the shadows of the tallest trees, unmourned, unburied save for the drifting snow that would cover his body only until the wolves found him. Or the Senecas. Better the wolves.

Jamie forced himself to take another step, and another, the prints left behind in the snow staggered like a drunkard’s. If Butler’s men were tracking him, they could do it with one eye closed and the other asleep, but Jamie was far past being able to stop them.

The ball from Sergeant Herrick’s pistol had gone clear through his left shoulder, and the wound had seemed clean enough. Jamie was a large man, strong, and he’d survived worse. Because he’d been on the trail with the other Rangers, he had plenty of ground meal and dried beef in his hunting pouch, and as long as he stayed within sight of the Mohawk River to the north, he’d keep his bearings, regardless of the snow.

But by the third day the wound had been clearly festering, and the fever had taken him soon after the snow had begun. Now when he looked down at the rifle in his hands, the barrel iced with a fine line of snow, he couldn’t tell if his fingers shook from the cold or the ague.

But his mother would know the remedy for that, and how to draw the poison from the gunshot wound, too. He would hold the lantern high for her while she stood on a chair to sort through the bundles of dried herbs and barks that hung from the rafters upstairs, clucking her tongue and frowning a little as her long, graceful fingers sought exactly what she’d need.

Then she’d toss the leaves into the little iron pot with the mended leg and simmer them into a draught, or maybe she’d grind and mix them into a poultice. Whichever it was, he’d submit manfully, sitting in the straight-backed bench near the window in the kitchen without flinching or grimacing as an example to his little brother, Sam. Besides, when his shoulder was finally cleaned and bandaged, his mother would reward him with squash pie, not so much a slice of it as a slab, with sweet thickened cream puddled around golden custard on the red earthenware plate.

Somewhere ahead a branch snapped off beneath the weight of the snow, a loud crack in the white silence, and belatedly Jamie’s numbed reflexes took over and he lifted his rifle to his eye. But there was nothing, no Senecas or soldiers or gold squash pie on a red plate, only more bare, black trees against the endless snow.

With a groan of frustration and pain, he once again rubbed his thumb into his eyes. He didn’t want to slip into another fever-dream of home. He couldn’t afford to. Only dying men thought of their mothers and the places they’d lived as boys. After battles he’d heard too many final, garbled recollections from other soldiers to doubt it. He wasn’t going to die, not yet, and he wasn’t going to think of his mother, wiping her hands on her green apron before she smoothed his hair back from his forehead and—

Damnation, it was the fever, that was all! That stone house on the hill wasn’t theirs anymore and hadn’t been for over two years, not since his father had stood up in their Meeting and spoken out against this desolate, destructive war. A Quaker who had counseled peace instead of bloodletting, he had been branded a traitor for his beliefs by the same Congress that promised freedom. The Ryders had lost their house, lost the land that had been in their family for generations. There was no longer an attic filled with pungent, healing herbs, no bench beneath the kitchen window worn smooth by five generations of Ryders, no more of the pie his mother was cutting with the horn-handled knife, the butter crust flaking and crumbling the same way it would on his tongue—no!

Jamie shook his head with desperation, the snow dropping in heavy clots from his hat’s brim. He guessed it was nearly nightfall, and if he didn’t find some sort of shelter, a cave or empty trapper’s hut, he wouldn’t survive until dawn. He didn’t deserve the comfort of memories now. Better to remember why he was running. Better to think of what he’d done and what he hadn’t, of why he’d been shot and why he’d be hung if the soldiers caught him. Or the tall Seneca brave with the feathered scalp lock, the one who’d reached the children first. Better to let the grief and horror of all he’d seen eat at his conscience and sharpen his senses to survive.

God preserve him, he didn’t want to die alone.




Chapter One (#ulink_f5e74a5b-6218-5d3c-8e10-21b69baf0135)


“Hang on, Billy!”

Exasperated, Rachel dropped the milking bucket onto the snow-covered path before her and hoisted the giggling toddler higher onto her shoulders. Why did Billy insist on bringing his stuffed calico horse everywhere they went, even the forty feet from the house to the cow shed? Of course, clutching Blackie would seem more important than hanging on to her shoulders, and much funnier, too.

“You’re a wriggly little weasel, Billy Lindsey,” scolded Rachel good-naturedly as she bent to pick up the buckets again. “Don’t you let go again, mind?”

She couldn’t really blame Billy for not wanting to ride on her back like a baby anymore. By summer’s end he’d been nearly able to outrun her to the orchard, and for his third birthday in October she’d cut and sewn him his first pair of breeches, though he still came to her for help with the buttons. Now with winter here he needed real boots or shoes of his own, the kind she remembered the little boys in Providence and Newport wearing, not the deerskin moccasins he had on his feet now. Just because they lived so far from town didn’t mean he had to grow up wild.

But shoes and boots cost money, more money than she was ever likely to see with William off to war. Not that there’d been much when her husband had still been here on the farm, either. Once they’d left Providence, William had been as chary with money as he was with affection, and far too free with criticism and the back of his hand. With a long sigh she headed off to the barn, her skirts dragging through the new snow and her feet sliding in an old pair of William’s boots, the toes stuffed with wool.

She shouldn’t complain, not even in her own thoughts. Last winter had been hard because it had been her first here on the farm, and she’d been alone, too, except for Billy. This year would be better. She knew what to expect, and she’d be prepared. She wasn’t the same girlish bride she’d been then, full of silly romantic dreams. No, because of William, that part of her was gone forever.

And what of it? she asked herself fiercely. What good came from lamenting what couldn’t be changed? If she’d lost her old dreams, she’d found new ones to replace them. She paused long enough to look across the wide sweep of the land, theirs—hers—clear to the silver band of the river, feeling the same swell of pride and love she felt when she watched Billy. The sky was so blue it almost hurt to look at it, the new snow white and perfect. How dare she feel sorry for herself on a morning like this? She smiled and bounced Billy to make him laugh as they made their way down the path.

Because she’d taken the time to sweep her front step clear of snow she was late tending to her cow, and as she tugged the door across the little drift of snow Rachel could hear Juno lowing restlessly. At once Billy slid from her back and ran after the rooster and his hens, waving Blackie wildly at the fleeing chickens.

“Good day to you, my lady Juno,” said Rachel to the russet cow. “I trust you passed the night tolerably well?”

Yet she frowned as she scratched the cow’s velvety nose in greeting, and glanced back uneasily at the planked door. She’d been sure she’d latched that door tightly when she’d finished milking last night, yet this morning the bar had been dangling free. No wonder the animals seemed so skittish. If she wasn’t more careful she’d lose her “lady” as well as her poultry to wolves or mountain cats.

“Mama!” Billy’s frantic, frightened wail drew Rachel at once. She rushed around to the far side of the manger to where he’d chased the chickens, and lifted him into her arms.

“There now, love, all’s well,” she murmured, stroking his soft gold hair as he burrowed his face into her shoulder. “I wasn’t far. You couldn’t see me, that was all. I was here the whole time.”

But the little boy only wept harder as Rachel strove to comfort him, rocking from side to side. What could have frightened him so badly on such a bright, sunfilled morning? Finally Billy lifted his head with a shuddering sob and dared to peek around Rachel’s shoulder. What he saw made him howl again, and cling as tightly as he could to Rachel.

“What could it possibly be, child?” she said as she turned, too. “There’s nothing—oh, God in heaven!”

From where she stood the man looked dead, sprawled across the straw where he’d fallen, but still Rachel wished she had her musket with her. The man’s own rifle lay beside him where it had slipped free of his hand, and before she could change her mind Rachel put Billy down and darted forward to pick up the gun. Holding it in both hands, she felt better; living alone had given her a greater respect for firearms.

She was sure this stranger was—or had been—some sort of soldier. Though he was dressed like most men who spent their lives in the wilderness—a white blanketlike coat with indigo stripes, deerskin leggings and hunting shirt over another of checked linen, a long knife in a beaded sheath at his waist, a wide-brimmed hat with a turkey feather in the brim, and everything soaked with melted snow—the tomahawk hanging from his belt told another story.

Troubling, too, was the extra powder horn slung around his chest and another bag for shot and wadding, far more ammunition than any common trapper or wanderer would carry. The rifle in her hands was much finer, too, with a cherry-wood barrel inlaid with stars and elegant engraving on the plate. German made, she guessed, or maybe Philadelphia, but too valuable for most of the men in this part of New York.

Still the man didn’t move. Carefully she knelt beside him, Billy clinging to her skirts. The shoulder of the stranger’s coat was stained dark with dried blood, the ragged hole in the fabric doubtless matching one in him, and sadly she wondered how he’d come to be in such a sorry state.

He was younger than she’d first thought, no more than twenty-five or thirty, his jaw and mouth hidden by a fortnight’s growth of beard. His hair was long and untied, the ends curling over his collar, and the rich, burnished color of chestnuts. His features were strong and even, his nose and cheekbones marked with a scattering of freckles nearly lost on his weatherworn skin, freckles too boyish for the hard living that showed in every inch of his face.

A handsome man, admitted Rachel reluctantly, the kind of man who turned ladies’ heads with a smile and a wink. But dead or alive, he wouldn’t turn hers. She’d had enough of that with William, and she wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

“Mama?” asked Billy, all his doubts—and hers, too—clear enough to Rachel in that single word. What was she going to do with the man? Much as she wished he hadn’t come stumbling into her life, she couldn’t very well leave him here. Tentatively she reached out to touch his neck to find his pulse, if one still was there to find. She slipped her fingers inside his collar, his hair curling so familiarly around her wrist that she almost jerked away. Foolish, she chided herself angrily, foolish, foolish, to draw away from the meaningless touch of an unconscious man!

His skin was as hot as the snow in the fields was cold, and though she now knew he lived she wondered for how much longer, burning with a fever like this. As her fingers pressed against the side of his neck he groaned, the vibrations of it passing to her fingertips. Billy yelped and retreated behind the manger, and Rachel wished she could, too.

“Hush, Billy, he can’t hurt you,” she said, reassuring herself as much as the child. She bent over the man, keeping his rifle in her hand just to be sure. “He won’t be hurting anyone for a good long time.”

She had to get him into the house where the fire would warm him, and where she could tend to his wound. But though she was tall for a woman, he still looked to have half a foot advantage over her, and Lord only knew how much more he weighed. More than she alone could drag along the snowy path to the house, that she knew for sure.

“Sir? Can you hear me, sir?” she asked uncertainly. The man didn’t move again. “I want to take you back to the house so I can tend you properly, but you’re going to have to help me some.”

Suddenly Billy ran forward to the wounded man. With a shriek of bravado and indignation at being ignored by Rachel, he thumped his stuffed horse as hard as he could on the man’s chest. The man’s eyes flew open and he twisted and gasped with agony, but at the same time his hand groped reflexively for his knife.

“Billy, no!” Frantically Rachel pulled the boy away and shoved him behind her as she raised the rifle. Her heart pounding, her gaze met that of the stranger’s over the long barrel of the weapon. His eyes were blue, as blue as the sky outside, and filled now with confusion and pain. He blinked twice, his breath coming hard. He opened his shaking fingers and let the knife drop from them into the straw.

“I would not harm the boy,” he said slowly, painfully. Despite the cold, his forehead was glazed with sweat. “You must believe me.”

“I’ve no reason to believe anything of the sort.” With her toe Rachel kicked the knife across the floor. “I’m willing to help you, but no trickery.”

“You are…kind.” The man tried to smile, his mouth curving crookedly and with more charm than any man so close to death had a right to. But Rachel didn’t lower the rifle. The bluest eyes she’d ever seen and a smile to make angels weep weren’t reasons enough for her to trust him.

“And you,” he said, every word labored, “you won’t kill me with my own gun?”

With a sniff Rachel took the rifle from her shoulder. “Can you stand?”

“If you say I must.” With enormous effort and a groan he couldn’t suppress, he rolled over onto his knees and stayed there, his breath ragged. Rachel’s resolve wavered. Handsome or not, the man was weak from pain and lost blood, and he deserved her help.

Sighing, she leaned his rifle against the wall, opened the barn door and bent to slide her arm around his waist. Gratefully he put his arm across her shoulder and with a grunt managed to stand upright. Together they swayed unsteadily, the man’s weight almost too much for Rachel to manage. Having Billy clinging jealously to one of her knees didn’t help her balance one bit, either.

“Where’s your man?” the stranger asked when they’d managed to hobble to the wall for him to rest.

Rachel chewed on her lower lip, considering how best to answer. Most likely the man wanted to know if there was someone larger and more able to help him, but even weak as he was, she didn’t want him knowing exactly how alone she and Billy were.

“My husband’s not here at present,” she answered stiffly. With her arm around his waist, she was acutely aware of the man’s size, how he seemed all lean muscle and bone and sinew. Seventeen months had passed since William had left, seventeen months without feeling a man’s body pressed this closely to hers. “But I expect him back directly.”

The man glanced down at her beneath his long lashes. “Which army is he with?”

“American, of course, though—” She broke off, shamed by how easily he’d discovered the truth. “You’re a soldier, too, aren’t you? Is that how you were wounded, in a battle?”

“Aye, in a battle.” His voice was flat, so unemotional that Rachel guessed he had secrets of his own to hide. So be it; she’d respect that. But she couldn’t deny that she was curious about who he was and where he’d come from, why he hadn’t told her his name or asked hers either, and if the battle he’d fought would draw the war closer to her home. She’d simply have to wait until he told her himself, that was all. If he was like William, the next words from his mouth would be bragging and boasting about himself.

But somehow already she knew this man wasn’t at all like her husband.

“You go.” Billy looked suspiciously up the man’s long legs to his face. “You leave Mama alone an’ go.”

The man smiled again. “I’m trying my best, lad.” He pushed away from the wall with a grunt, leaning heavily on Rachel. “If you can spare something warm—broth or cider—I’d be obliged, and then I won’t trouble you further. I’ve tarried here long enough.”

“All the hot cider in this county couldn’t make you fit to travel,” scoffed Rachel. “You’ll stay here until you’re able to move on.”

He looked at her warily, in a way that reminded Rachel of how he’d evaded her question about the army. “Nay, you are kind, but I can’t ask you to shelter me.”

“You didn’t ask. I offered.” And only common hospitality made her offer, she reassured herself. Blue eyes and the neat way her body fit next to his had nothing to do with it. “There’s precious few white folks in these lands, and we all do for each other. I wouldn’t want to think of you perishing by yourself in the woods.”

“So I won’t be alone after all, will I?” He might have laughed; the sound was so hollow that Rachel couldn’t tell. “How far to your house?”

“Not far.” Not far to her, thought Rachel grimly, but for him the short path would seem like forty miles instead of forty feet. She could feel the heat of the fever burning through his heavy clothing, and she suspected he was a great deal sicker than he wanted her to know. “Not far at all.”

The man nodded. “What’s the horse’s name?”

“Horse?” repeated Rachel, mystified. When William had left, he’d taken the one horse they’d owned.

“Aye, the lad’s.”

“Oh, Blackie.” Realizing belatedly that the man meant the stuffed horse that Billy was swinging purposefully in his hand only made her wonder more. Why under the circumstances should any man ask about a child’s toy?

“Blackie’s my horse an’ she’s my Mama.” His jaw set stubbornly and his small fist balled possessively in Rachel’s skirts, Billy glared up at the man who was claiming far too much of Rachel’s attention. “Now you go!”

“Your Blackie’s a fine horse, lad,” answered the man with a seriousness neither Billy nor Rachel expected. “’Tis shameful to see him bound up in here with the cows. You’d best take him outside. Go on, lad. Show me how fast you and your horse can run!”

For a moment Billy looked at Rachel, clearly amazed by the freedom he’d just been given, and then he was gone, off through the open door as fast as his short legs, and Blackie, would carry him.

Trapped beneath the stranger’s arm, Rachel was powerless to stop him. “You’ve no right to do that! He’s scarce more than a babe!”

“He’ll be well enough, and you know it.” Resolutely the man took a tentative step, swayed unsteadily and grimaced with the pain. “Better than I will, anyways.”

He was right. By the time he and Rachel finally reached the little log house, the man’s face was white as the snow, his shirts soaked through with sweat, and he’d long ago stopped trying to talk. Rachel steered him toward the bed she’d shared with William in the house’s single room, and the man collapsed on it without a word, already past consciousness.

Quickly Rachel stripped away his damp clothing, striving to be briskly efficient and feel nothing else. Until she knew for certain that William was dead, she was still his wife, and she’d no business beyond compassion touching another man’s body.

And he would need all the compassion she could give, for the man had already slipped beyond the limits of her healing skills. As soon as she cut away his shirt she saw that the wound in his shoulder was worse than she’d feared, the skin around it purple and angry with infection. While Billy watched, she tended the man as best she could and covered him with three coverlets to keep him warm and help break the fever.

“He’s hurt,” said Billy sadly, his small face serious with concern and his jealousy forgotten after the euphoria of running free through the snow to the house.

“I’m afraid he is, Billy,” said Rachel softly. She lifted the boy into her arms and hugged him, the feel of his warm little body in her arms comforting to her as she held him close. “He’s hurt and very, very sick, and your mama can’t do anything more but hope and pray that he’ll get better.”

Through the rest of the day she stayed close to the man’s bedside, hoping he’d wake and speak to her again, or at least take some of the soup she made to help him build back his strength. Past sundown, after she’d put Billy to bed, the man stirred restlessly, and she flew to kneel on the floor beside the bed. He muttered odd fragments that made no sense to her, speaking of his mother and someone named Sam and then, though Rachel wasn’t sure, asking for a piece of pie. Yet too soon he stilled again, moving deeper into unconsciousness, and as she listened to his labored breathing through the long night, Rachel knew to her sorrow he’d likely be dead before morning.

She didn’t know when she fell asleep in the spindleback chair by the fire. She dreamed that winter was over and spring had come, the apple trees in the orchard a mass of pink and white flowers and the warm air fragrant with their scent. She was sitting on a coverlet with the stranger on the grass, laughing merrily.

Because it was a dream, she didn’t wonder that the man was strong and healthy again, his blue eyes bright and teasing, or that she was wearing her favorite gown from when she’d been Miss Rachel Sparhawk of Providence Plantations, the rose-colored silk lutestring that had no place on a farm. Still laughing, the man reached out to smooth back her black hair and tuck a sprig of apple blossoms behind her ear. With his hand still gently beneath her chin, he drew her face close to his and kissed her.

Abruptly Rachel awakened. The hearth fire had burned low, and the house was cold, the sick man’s ragged breathing still echoing in the little house. Shivering, she put another log on the fire and fanned it bright, then turned to look first at the sleeping boy on the trundle, curled safely in the little nest of his quilt, and then at the man in her bed.

Gently she swept the fever-damp hair back from his forehead, her smile tight. Sometime while she’d slept, Billy had come and placed Blackie on the pillow beside the man’s head.

Tears blurred her eyes, tears she had no right to shed. To be alone on the farm held no fears for her now; she’d welcomed the solitude when William had left. But why had it taken this stranger to remind her again that the price of being alone was loneliness?




Chapter Two (#ulink_08d2a681-8849-55be-be46-f721541846e1)


Jamie was weak, Lord help him, he was so weak and wasted that to raise his heavy eyelids even this much was more than he thought possible. But if he did, he could see the woman kneading the bread dough on the long wooden table, her bands and forearms white with flour, and for one glimpse of that he would have dragged himself through the snow to Albany and back.

She was so beautiful that at first he’d wondered if she was real or only one more groundless fever-dream. She was tall and graceful as she went about her tasks in the little cabin, her figure rounded but neat, the bow of her apron emphasizing the narrow span of her waist. Strange how often he’d focused on that bow when the pain had burned him the worst, struggling to concentrate on something, anything, but his own tortured body.

And damnation, she had made it almost easy. On the first night he remembered her coming to him by light of the fire alone, bending over him so her unbound hair, black as a moonless night, had rippled over her shoulders. Her fingertips had been cool as she’d gently, so gently, stroked his cheek above his beard. Then he had seen the color of her eyes in the firelight, the same bright green as young maples in the spring, and with feverish fascination he had watched as the little gold hoops with carnelian drops that she wore in her ears swung gently against the full curve of her cheek.

She’d saved his life, he knew that, but his pleasure in her company ran deeper than that alone. After all the ugliness and suffering he’d seen in these past two years since the war had become his life, her beauty was a balm to his soul, healing and easing him as much as the broth and herb possets she’d spooned between his parched lips.

Not that he’d a right to it, not for a moment. He knew that, too. After what he’d done, he deserved no beauty, no sweetness, no comfort at all.

Fiercely he reminded himself that he knew nothing of the woman’s allegiances, nor those of her husband’s. She was kind, she was beautiful, but he’d seen before how hatred could make other kind, beautiful women turn on their enemies. For all he knew she’d kept him alive only to be able to claim the bounty Butler offered for his capture.

“More milk, Mama,” said the little boy, waving his battered pewter mug imperiously as he tugged on his mother’s skirts for her attention. She turned and glanced so meaningfully at the cup that, mystified, he looked inside before he realized what she intended. Then he grinned, and held the empty cup out again. “More, please, Mama!”

Jamie watched as the woman smiled and bent to wipe the smudged jam from the boy’s mouth, and a fresh wave of guilt and sorrow swept over his soul as he thought of another boy, one who would never again be treated to blackberry jam and corn bread or a mother’s kiss to his sticky cheek. He closed his eyes again, desperately wishing it was as easy to shut out the memory of the past.

He would leave now, today. There was no other way.

Through sheer will he raised himself up on his uninjured arm. “Friend,” he began, his voice croaking from disuse, “I must thank you.”

With a startled gasp she turned toward him, her green eyes turning wary as she shoved the child behind the shelter of her skirts.

“You’re awake.” She brushed away a strand of hair from her forehead with the heel of her hand, forgetting the flour that left a powdery streak against the black waves. “Heaven help me, I knew this would happen when your fever broke yesterday.”

“Don’t rejoice too much,” said Jamie dryly, wincing as he shifted higher against the pillows. “Given a choice, I’d rather I’d waked than not.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” said Rachel quickly. Though it had made more work for her when he’d been ill, she was doubly glad now that she’d put him to bed in his breeches and shirt. “I wouldn’t have tended to you at all if I didn’t wish you to live.”

“Or given me your bed?”

Rachel drew back sharply, her face turning hot at what he implied. How much did he remember of what she’d murmured to him as he’d tossed with fever and pain? Unconscious, he had been only a lost, wounded man who would most likely die despite her efforts, and in her loneliness she had caught herself pouring out her heart into his unhearing ears. At least, then she’d believed he hadn’t heard. But now, under the keen, unsettling gaze of his blue eyes, she wasn’t certain of anything.

“This isn’t an inn with a bed to suit every traveler,” she said defensively. “You were too ill to sleep on the floor, and too large for the trundle.”

“The floor would have suited me well enough,” he said gruffly, wondering what devil had made him mention the bed at all. He’d meant to thank her, not insult her. “I didn’t ask for your man’s place.”

“What makes you think you have it now?” Lord help her, why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut? Furiously she began wiping the flour from her hands onto her apron. No man could ever fill the empty place William had ripped in her heart, nor would she let another come close enough to try. She’d no intention of making a mistake like that again. “A husband’s considerably more than a valley worn deep in a feather bed.”

“I never said otherwise,” replied Jamie softly, responding more to the unmistakable pain in her eyes than to her words. “So you miss him that much, then?”

But even as Rachel opened her mouth to correct the stranger, she realized the folly of telling the truth. Hadn’t she said enough already? She knew nothing for certain of this man, not even his name. She was miles from any neighbor or friend, doubly bound in by the snow. Better to let him believe that she loved William fervently, better still to hint that he was expected home again at any time.

“Of course I miss him,” she said carefully. “He’s my husband, and this is his home. I pray for his safe return soon, before Christmas and the worst snows.”

“Then he’s a fortunate man, your husband,” said Jamie with a heartiness he didn’t feel.

“He is.” Rachel nodded, a single swift motion of her chin to mask her bitterness. William was lucky, barbarously lucky; she was the one that fortune had frowned upon. “He always has been.”

“Luck of any kind is a great gift in this war.” Jamie sighed, trying to remember what else, if anything, she’d told him about her husband beyond that he was away with the rebel army. Not that it mattered. He meant to be gone long before the most fortunate husband returned.

She was watching him warily, stroking the little boy’s flaxen hair over and over with the palm of her hand, more to calm herself than the child. By the firelight her eyes were as green as he remembered, and unconsciously she swallowed and ran her tongue around her lips to moisten them.

Oh, aye, her husband was a fortunate man. Afraid that his expression would betray his own despondency, Jamie looked away from her face to the boy at her side and smiled. The child reminded him of his brother, Sam, his cheeks rosy and plump and his little chin marked with the same resolute stubbornness.

Like Sam, and not like the boy he’d abandoned in Cherry Valley…

“How’s the horse, lad?” he asked, jerking himself back to the present. “How’s Blackie?”

The boy’s eyes lit with excitement. “Blackie’s a good horse!” he declared eagerly, wiggling free of his mother’s hand and the safety of her skirts so he could state more openly at this fascinating stranger who was finally awake. “Blackie’s my horse, and he’s very, very fast!”

Jamie nodded sagely. “Fast as lightning, too, I recall. But mind, now, Billy, that you keep Blackie—”

“No.” Swiftly Rachel caught Billy by the shoulders and pulled him back. “I won’t have you hurt him.”

“I meant the lad no harm—”

“But you will hurt him with your careless kindness, as surely as if you used your knife!” With a fierce possessiveness she held Billy close, smoothing her fingers over the fine, babyish ringlets that she couldn’t bear to cut. “The child’s too young to remember his own father, and weeks pass when he sees no one but me. Then you appear, smiling and asking questions about his horse as if you care. Little enough it means to you, but what will he think when you vanish from his life as suddenly as you came?”

“You coddle the lad too much,” he said, more sharply than he’d intended, but her vehemence stung. He’d never meant to hurt her boy; he’d never meant to hurt any child. “But it’s of no matter. I’ll be gone before it is.”

Impatiently he shifted toward the nearest narrow window, the only one with the shutter drawn for light. By the height of the sun he guessed it was midmorning, later than he wished, but there would still be enough daylight hours left to make a start. He touched his shoulder, lightly prodding the bandage over the wound, and sucked in his breath as the dull ache changed abruptly to a raw stab of pain.

The woman clucked her tongue with disapproval. “There, now, see for yourself how badly you’re hurt. You can bluster all you wish, but you won’t be leaving until that’s healed. Another week at least.”

Jamie scowled, striving to hide the pain that was finally receding. “Don’t you think I’ll be the better judge of that?”

For the first time she dared to square her gaze to meet his eyes. But was she daring him, wondered Jamie, or herself?

“You’re a man,” she declared, “which is as much to say that you haven’t a blessed trace of sense where your own weakness is concerned. So, no, I don’t think you’re a good judge at all. Why, I doubt you could even lift that fancy rifle of yours this morning, let alone hold it steady enough to fire.”

He wasn’t about to admit she was right. “There’s more to that rifle than looks alone. With it I can shoot the seeds from an apple at a hundred paces.”

“I don’t doubt that you can,” she said. “But you can’t do it now, and you won’t ever do it again unless—”

“Someone’s here.” Jamie jerked his hand up to silence her as he strained his ears to listen. “One horse, one rider. Where’s my gun?”

Rachel rushed to the window, anxiously wiping away a corner of the frost with the hem of her apron to peer outside. What she saw made her mutter one of her seafaring father’s favorite imprecations under her breath as her whole face tightened.

“What’s amiss? Where’s my rifle?” demanded Jamie, struggling to shove himself free of the coverlet. “If you think I’m going to lie here like a trussed turkey-cock while you—”

“Hush, now, you won’t be needing your gun just yet.” She smiled grimly as she reached for her cloak from the peg on the back of the door. “’Tis only my husband’s brother, and if anyone’s going to pepper Alec’s backside, I plan to be first. But you needn’t worry. I’ll send him on his way soon enough.”

She swung the cloak over her shoulders, trying to decide whether to bring Billy with her or not. There was an even chance that he’d babble to Alec about the stranger, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to risk leaving him behind in the house, either. With a sigh she reached down and yanked the quilt from the trundle bed, wrapped it around Billy and scooped him, wriggling, onto the curve of her hip. Finally, with her free hand, she took one of the pair of long-barreled muskets that hung, loaded and ready, beside the door.

A new layer of snow had fallen in the night, not more than an inch or two on what already lay on the ground, but enough to soften the edges of the paths Rachel had shoveled and swept from the house to the barn. She walked forward only a dozen paces from the house, unwilling to go any farther to greet or encourage Alec, and set Billy down at her feet.

“Listen to me, Billy,” she whispered, bending to the height of the child’s ear. “This is important. We must not say a word about the poor man inside, or Uncle Alec may try to hurt him more. Not a single word, love, not even a peep like a baby chick’s. Do you understand? Shush!”

She laid her forefinger first across her lips and then across Billy’s, miming the silence she prayed he would keep.

“Shush, Mama,” he whispered back solemnly, hunching his shoulders beneath the quilt as he pressed his own finger across his lips. “I’m quiet!”

“Thank you, love, that’s all I ask,” she whispered as she gave him a little squeeze. “You’re Mama’s good boy.”

She knew her request wouldn’t be a hard one for Billy to obey. At best Alec had treated his nephew as an inconvenient nuisance, and even as a baby Billy had wisely learned to keep from his uncle’s path.

She straightened, lifting the musket to her shoulder. Long ago her father had insisted that she and her sisters learn how to load and fire a gun, but it was only since she’d come here as William’s wife that she’d been forced to put her skills to the test.

Not that Alec would be any kind of test; his visits were more of a trial that sent her heart to pounding with dread. She hadn’t expected him to come again until spring, when the snow was gone and the journey from his own cabin could be made in two hours instead of four. Carefully she kept her face impassive as he labored up the hill toward her, digging his bootheels into the sides of his weary horse. Most men would have dismounted and led the animal through the drifted snow, or at least found an easier path, but the only other man that Alec Lindsey resembled was his brother—and her husband—William.

And the resemblance was disturbingly strong. The same pale gold hair above arched brows, the same squared jaw turning soft from drink and the same slightly bored expression to his gentlemanly features that could so easily turn to sullenness, the fashionably cut coat of imported broadcloth beneath the heavy overcoat—all of it nearly a mirror to William.

Once Rachel had congratulated herself on marrying into a family with such handsome, charming men, but that was when she’d believed as well in the elegant country seat that the Lindsey brothers promised was the centerpiece of their vast estates here to the west of the Hudson, and well before she’d learned that the only thing vast about the Lindseys were the lies that slipped so easily from their lips.

She took a deep breath to calm herself, and flexed her fingers against the icy metal of the flintlock. “You can just turn yourself directly about, Alec,” she shouted when she was certain he was near enough to hear. “I told you before you weren’t welcome here any longer.”

“And a good day to you, sister!” Alec raised his beaver tricorn, dusted with snow, and gallantly swept it across his breast. “But pray put aside the musket, my lady. It’s not a greeting I particularly fancy.”

“The musket stays, Alec, for I intend neither to greet you nor to tease your fancy,” she called back. “Now, away with you, and off my land before I’m tempted to try my marksmanship.”

“The only thing you’re trying, Rachel, is my patience.” With a grunt he swung his leg over the saddle and dropped heavily to the snowy ground. “You’ll thank me when you learn why I’ve come.”

“If it’s more of your self-styled help, Alec, I want none of it.” Though she didn’t dare look away from her brother-in-law, she could feel how Billy shrank uneasily against her leg.

“You wanted it readily enough last year,” said Alec, his breath coming in great gusts in the icy air as he trudged through the snow. “And this past autumn, too. Who saw to it that you’d firewood to last through the snows, eh?”

“Only half of what you promised,” she declared, but grudgingly she rehooked the catch on the flintlock and lowered the gun. Though she hated to admit it, she wouldn’t have survived last winter without his assistance. It was what he’d expected in return that had made his charity so loathsome, and her position so complicated now. “What is it this time Alec?”

He stopped a half-dozen paces away and smiled with the full force of his considerable charm. “A chance to gild our pockets, Rachel. Twenty dollars, all going begging. You won’t say nay to that when times are so hard now, will you, sister?”

“No one lets gold go begging, hard times or not,” answered Rachel suspiciously. “Especially not you. The truth, Alec, plain and simple.”

Seeing how little charm was getting him, Alec jammed his hat squarely on his head and spat into the snow. “The truth, Rachel, is that one of those bloody Tory Rangers lost his head in the middle of a battle, quarreling over a woman or some other plunder. Shot an officer dead without so much as a by-your-leave. At least, that’s what they’re saying at Volk’s.”

“Oh, my, what’s said at Volk’s,” she scoffed. “Why do you think I’d care about your tavern tattle?” But despite the scorn she poured on his words, she did care. She cared very much, more with every second as she waited with dread for what Alec would inevitably say next.

“Because Colonel Butler himself’s put a price on the poor bastard’s life,” said Alec with obvious satisfaction.

The chill that swept through Rachel had nothing to do with the snow. As isolated as she was from the war, she still had heard of Walter Butler and the hellish pact he’d made with Joseph Brant, the chief of the Mohawk nation. Together Butler’s Rangers and Brant’s braves had cut a ruthless, bloody swath through to the east in the name of the king.

But, God help her, how could the man with the summer blue eyes, the man whose smile had haunted her loneliness as she’d drawn him back from death—how could this same man be so heartlessly cruel?

“They’re offering twenty dollars,” continued Alec. “Double the usual rate for a white man’s scalp. Of course, Butler’d rather have the man alive to deal with properly, but Brant and the rest of his savages aren’t inclined to be overnice with traitors.”

Rachel swallowed her revulsion, imagining all too vividly the stranger’s long, chestnut hair trailing from the belt of some Seneca brave. “I still don’t see what this has to do with me. This land here belongs to the Americans, not the British.”

“Only this, you foolish chit. Butler swears the man was shot before he fled, and in this weather he wouldn’t go far. If you find him on your land before the wolves do—or even after they have, as long as you can take his scalp—then we can claim the reward.”

Appalled both by his suggestion and that he’d make it before Billy, Rachel stared at him. “What kind of woman do you think I am, that I would use some wounded stranger so cruelly?”

“Oh, I think you’re a decent, loyal woman who loves her country and the sweet cause of liberty,” said Alec, his sarcasm unmistakable. “You wouldn’t want people thinking otherwise of you, would you? Whispering that you’ve forgotten your husband and gone over to the king? You’d learn soon enough how short tempers are in this county, Rachel, you and the boy both.”

“But I couldn’t—”

“You can do anything if your life depends on it,” said Alec firmly. “You’ve skinned game. Taking a scalp’s not much different. A tall man, they’re saying, name of Ryder, with coppery hair and a bullet in his shoulder. Shouldn’t be too hard to mistake, eh, sister?”

But to her dismay she felt Billy begin to shuffle and tug at her skirt. “Mama?” he began, unable to contain himself any longer, “Mama, why—”

Instantly she crouched down to the child’s level, praying that her voice alone could silence the damning question. “Hush, now, Billy,” she said urgently, resting the musket in the crook of her arm as she brushed her fingers across his cheek. “Mama’s talking with Uncle Alec.”

“And she’s not done talking to me yet.”

Before she realized it Alec was beside her, seizing her arm and dragging her to her feet so roughly that the musket slipped free and fell with a soft swoosh into the snow. She gasped with surprise, but didn’t fight him or struggle to free herself, instead going perfectly still. She wouldn’t give Alec that satisfaction, nor did she wish to frighten Billy any more than he already was, his fists locked tight around her knee.

“What in God’s name do you think you’re doing, Alec?” she said as evenly as she could. Lord, how had she let herself be so careless? “This is ridiculous!”

“Not as ridiculous as you pointing that damnable musket at me,” he said, his face near enough to hers that she could smell the rum and stale tobacco on his breath. “Perhaps next time you’ll remember that I don’t like to be kept out in the snow at gunpoint like some gypsy tinker.”

“There won’t be a next time, not if I can help it!”

“But there will, Rachel.” For a moment that was endless to her, Alec’s grasp seemed to turn into a caress that burned through her sleeve before his fingers tightened once again. “I swore to William I’d look after his pretty little wife, and look after you I shall.”

“I never asked you for that!”

“You took my food and my firewood when I offered it, didn’t you?”

“Because you were my husband’s brother!” she cried, her bitter anguish still fresh after so many months. “You were all the family I had for hundreds of miles, and I trusted you!”

“Then I’ve every right to be here, haven’t I? You can’t order me away, Rachel, not for wanting to offer you advice and comfort.” He let his gaze slide boldly down her throat to her bodice, and chuckled as Rachel self-consciously clutched the front of her cloak together. “The whole county knows what I’ve done for you and the boy. I’ve made quite certain of that. And if in return I ask some small favors, some little indulgences, why, there’s none but you who’d begrudge me that.”

“‘Small favors’!” Unable to bear his touch any longer, Rachel finally jerked her arm free, rubbing furiously at her forearm as if to wipe clean some invisible stain. “What you ask, Alec, what you expect—William would kill you if he knew!”

“We’re discussing my brother, Rachel,” he said with insolent confidence, “and I’m not so convinced that he’d mind at all.”

And neither, thought Rachel miserably, was she. With William, she never did know for certain. In humiliated silence she watched as Alec fished her musket from the snow where she’d dropped it. Slowly he brushed off the snow that clung to the stock before he held the gun out for her to take.

“I’ll be back, Rachel,” he said softly. “Be sure of that. And mind you keep your eyes open for Ryder. I wouldn’t want the talk to start about my brother’s wife.”

Rachel snatched the gun away from him, her eyes blazing with shame and anger. “Just leave, Alec,” she said. “Leave now.”

He laughed and lifted his hat again with mocking gallantry, then turned away to retrieve his horse, his boots crunching heavily through the snow. Rachel wasn’t sure which hurt her more: that parting laugh, or the way he was so infuriatingly confident that she wouldn’t shoot him in the back.

She felt Billy’s grip on her leg beginning to relax as he peeked around her to see if his uncle had left. She pulled him up onto her hip and with a trusting little sigh he snuggled against her body for warmth and reassurance.

“I hate Uncle Alec,” he muttered into her cloak. “He’s bad.”

“I don’t much care for him, either, love,” she confessed, pressing her cheek against the little boy’s soft curls. When she held him like this, wrapped up in the quilt with his bands curled against her breast, she could imagine he was a baby again, when she was all of the world he knew or needed. But sorrowfully she knew in her heart that that time had already come to an end. Now it would take more than a hug and a kiss and a spoonful of strawberry jam on a biscuit to make things right in a world that included both Alec Lindsey and a violent war that had suddenly come to their doorstep.

She watched Alec’s horse pick his way through the snow, her brother-in-law’s red scarf the single patch of color in the monochrome landscape. Without mittens, her fingers were growing stiff and numb from the cold, and she shouldn’t keep Billy outside any longer.

Ryder, that was the name Alec had mentioned, and she sighed unhappily. That was the name—J. Ryder—elaborately engraved on the brass plate of the stranger’s rifle, and the hem of his checked shirt had been marked with the same initials in tiny, flawless crossstitches. She had tried so much to distance herself from the stranger, to keep herself apart from whatever had brought him here. She hadn’t wanted to know his secrets any more than she wished to share her own. Now he had a name, a past and a price of twenty dollars on his head, while she’d lost every notion of what she’d do next.

“I’m cold, Mama,” said Billy plaintively, “an’ I want t’go inside.”

That at least would be a start, and with another sigh she wearily headed back to the house, the musket tipped back over her shoulder. She pushed open the door, already framing what she’d say to the wounded man waiting in the bed.

Except that now the bed was empty.

Frantically her gaze swept around the house’s large single room, from the bed with the tangled sheets past the stone hearth and the flour-covered table and Billy’s blocks and the tall mahogany chest with the shell-front drawers that had come with her from Providence. There was no other doorway but the one she stood in, and the ladder to the loft was still neatly hooked on its pegs. But how could a man of his size disappear?

“Mr. Ryder?” She set Billy down but kept the musket. “Mr. Ryder, are you here?”

She swung the door shut, and gasped when she found him there on the other side, braced against the window’s frame. He was sickly pale and his face glistened with sweat, but the rifle in his hands never wavered as he kept it trained on the last dark speck that was Alec’s retreating figure.

“I would not have let him hurt you,” he said softly when he looked at her at last. “Not you, not the boy. Not for all the world.”




Chapter Three (#ulink_8c3f67a9-7a26-57ed-ae61-4e92ce0e6f70)


“That—that would not have been necessary,” stammered Rachel, her heart thumping almost painfully within her breast. She didn’t doubt for an instant that he would have killed Alec if she’d struggled or screamed for help, and it terrified her to think of how unwittingly she’d risked Alec’s life. “My husband’s brother can be a bully, true, but nothing more.”

“Nothing?” Slowly the man lowered the rifle, his unflinching gaze never breaking with Rachel’s. “That wasn’t how it appeared to me.”

“Appearances aren’t always what they seem,” she said quickly, too quickly. In all the foolish fantasies she’d woven about this man to pass the hours at his bedside, she’d never imagined him with this kind of deadly, intense calm that came from deep within. “I don’t believe Alec would ever do either Billy or me any real harm.”

“No, Mama, he would hurt us! You said!” piped up Billy indignantly. “Uncle Alec’d hurt you an’ me an’—an’ him! You said!”

“Hush, Billy, no one’s going to hurt anybody,” scolded Rachel, secretly thankful to have a reason to look away from the man near the window. Now, she thought with dismay, if she could only find one for Billy, as well; she’d never seen his face shine with such endless admiration and awe as it did now for this wonderful new champion. She hung the musket back on its pegs and pulled down the narrow ladder to the loft. “You’ve had adventure enough for one day. Now please take Blackie upstairs and play there until supper.”

Billy ducked his chin stubbornly. “Don’t have stairs.”

Rachel sighed with exasperation. “Oh, I know, it’s only a ladder, not a staircase, but regardless I want you up there directly.”

The boy’s chin sank lower, into open rebellion. “Don’t wanna go. Wanna stay here.” He pointed at the man near the window. “With him.”

“Billy,” said Rachel sternly, desperate to forestall the tantrum she felt sure was brewing. “Please go to the loft so I can speak to Mr. Ryder.”

“Don’t wanna go, Mama!” The little boy’s voice shrilled higher, almost to a wail. “Don’t wanna!”

“Of course you don’t, lad,” said the man softly, so softly that Billy immediately stopped arguing so he could hear. “Why should you want to go up there when everything that’s interesting is down here?”

Billy’s brow stayed furrowed, unconvinced, and for extra emphasis he stamped his moccasined foot. “Don’t wanna.”

“Billy Lindsey!” Mortified by the child’s behavior, Rachel took a step forward to haul him bodily up the ladder before he did anything worse.

But before she could the man bent down on one knee, leaning heavily on the rifle, to be closer to Billy’s level. “You don’t want to go, Billy, and I can’t say I blame you. Well and good. But there’s plenty of things in this life that we must do that we don’t want to. While your pa’s away, you’re the man here, aren’t you?”

Miraculously the stubbornness vanished from Billy’s face, replaced by the same unabashed worship that Rachel had noticed earlier. “I’m a big boy,” he announced proudly. “I’m Mama’s best boy, an’ I help her!”

“I reckoned you are,” said the man, nodding wisely as if he’d expected nothing less. “That’s why you won’t want to hurt her the way your uncle Alec tried to.”

“Not Mama!” Anxiously Billy glanced at Rachel. “I’ll never hurt her!”

“You’re hurting her now,” said the man mildly. “Hurting her by being so thickheaded about going to the loft the way she asked. She wants to be proud of you, but instead you’re making her sad and shamed.”

Without stopping to answer, Billy raced to the table to grab his toy horse, threw his arms around Rachel’s knees for a moment of reassurance and apology, then clambered up the ladder to the loft overhead, disappearing with one final grin over his shoulder for the man who’d explained everything so neatly.

“You have a way with him, Mr. Ryder,” said Rachel grudgingly, her arms folded tightly over her chest. She told herself again that she didn’t wish to see Billy become too attached to his new hero, especially since he had a price on his head. But if she was honest with herself she knew she was also a bit jealous of how swiftly Billy had listened to someone other than her. “Though as I told you before, I’d rather you had as little to do with Billy as you can.”

He sighed, glancing up the ladder to where the boy had disappeared. “By my lights, you needed a bit of help.”

Rachel bristled. “I assure you Billy’s not usually so ill-mannered.”

“Ill-mannered or high-spirited, it’s all the same to mamas, isn’t it?” he said. “I was a boy once myself, and it doesn’t take too much to remember how it was.”

He was still leaning on his rifle, kneeling at her feet in a way that she found oddly unsettling. Because she had taken his own shirt to clean and mend, he was wearing an old shirt of William’s, the too-short sleeves turned up over his thick-boned wrists, and that disconcerted her, too. The shirt belonged to her husband, she reminded herself fiercely, yet still she noticed how the worn cambric strained to cover the unfamiliar shoulders beneath it, and tried not to look at the triangle of dark, curling hair framed by the shirt’s open throat.

“You haven’t been a boy for a good long time,” she said, and immediately flushed guiltily, realizing too late how she’d as much as confessed her indecent observations. Lord, how bold would the man think she was? “That is, Mr. Ryder, I meant there’s a world of difference between you and Billy.”

He nodded, saying nothing more. Beneath the ragged growth of beard he might have been smiling up at her, and at her expense, too.

“You don’t have to stay there on the floor, you know,” she said stiffly, her cheeks still on fire. “You can stand now.”

“I’m not sure I can.” What she’d feared was a smile turned into more of a grimace as he tried to push himself back up to his feet. “Seems I’m fit for little more than impressing boys.”

“Oh—oh!” Rachel hurried to his side, slipping her shoulder beneath his arm to help guide him across the room to the bed, then darted back to bring him a cup of water.

“How thoughtless I’ve been!” she said contritely as she watched him drink. “You must forgive me, please, for—”

“Ask yourself for forgiveness, not me,” he said sharply, his eyes suddenly snapping despite the pallor of his face. “Consider what your brother-in-law must have told you about me. Your sympathy could have cost you your life, coming so close to me like that. You should have kept your musket until I’d given up my rifle.”

“Oh, bother and fuss! As if I put any stock in what Alec tells me!” Rachel tossed her head indignantly. “I decide my own mind. You’d never have walked two steps without my help.”

“And that’s two times this day alone that your deciding’s made you careless,” he said relentlessly. “If you want to go on living by yourself out here, you’ll have to do better.”

“While you, sir, would do better to learn gratitude to those who help you.” With an angry flurry of her skirts, Rachel turned her back to him and returned to her neglected baking. Left so long, the dough on the table had begun to rise into a lopsided lump toward the warmth of the open hearth, and with her fist she smacked it down.

Watching her, Jamie swore softly and leaned back against the headboard. He hadn’t meant to be so hard on her like that, but she had been dangerously trusting, both with him and the man she said was her husband’s brother. He’d rather make her angry than keep silent.

Absently he ran his fingers back and forth along the rifle’s barrel. He wondered how she’d come to this little log house, where she was as out of place as the gilded bull’s-eye mirror hanging over the crude stone fireplace. Her speech, her self-assurance, even her cheerfully ignorant trust, belonged in some elegant city parlor, not here. He remembered the wealthy daughters and wives of merchants he’d seen riding in their carriages through the Philadelphia streets—beautiful, expensive women in rich imported silk and kerseymere. She’d been born one of them; even the rough linsey-woolsey skirts she wore now couldn’t hide that. But what kind of fool of a husband would bring a gently bred lady like her to the wilderness?

She was putting her whole body—and her anger—into thumping the dough, bending over the table far enough to give him a clear view of her ankles, neat and trim even in woolen stockings. Humiliating though it had been to ask for her help, he’d learned again how softly curved her body felt against his, how readily she fit against him, and he’d learned that she found him attractive, too. He’d seen that shy but eager interest in the eyes of women enough times before to recognize it, though the devil only knew how she’d feel that way when he must look like a scarecrow complete with a mouth full of straw. Perhaps, he thought wryly, she had been alone too long.

But was that reason enough for her to have shielded him from her husband’s brother the way she had?

“How much did your brother-in-law tell you?” he asked softly.

Her back stiffened, but she didn’t turn to face him. “I told you already that I don’t heed what Alec says.”

“I didn’t ask you what you believed. I asked how much he told you.”

She swung around, her black brows drawing downward at being challenged. “He told me, Mr. Ryder, that you are one of the Tory Rangers serving under Colonel Walter Butler.”

His expression didn’t change. “As I recall, your husband fights with the rebel army. I’ll warrant that makes me your enemy as well as his.”

She raised her chin with the same stubbornness he’d seen in the boy. “At present you are a man who needed my assistance. You’ve trouble enough without me turning you away into the snow on account of your politics.”

“I’m caught in my enemy’s territory with the wind whistling through the hole in my shoulder.” His mouth twisted bleakly. “Oh, aye, that’s trouble enough.”

“Not quite.” Rachel leaned closer, lowering her voice so Billy, doubtless eavesdropping overhead, wouldn’t hear. “It’s worse than that. Somehow you’ve managed to cross your Colonel Butler badly enough that he’s offering a bounty on your scalp. Twenty dollars, according to Alec.”

“Twenty dollars?” Jamie’s heart plummeted. He’d never dreamed Butler would offer such a reward. Twenty dollars would set every penniless rogue in the land on his trail.

Rachel nodded. “Twenty it was. Where money’s concerned, I’ve never had reason to doubt Alec.”

“But you doubt the rest?”

“I make my own decisions. I told you that already, too.” She noticed how he’d neither denied nor confirmed Alec’s story, and she wondered uneasily whether she’d been wrong to trust him as much as she had. As he’d told her himself, he was her enemy. “Whether it’s twenty dollars or forty pieces of silver, Mr. Ryder, I’m not in the habit of putting a price on any man’s life.”

“Thank you.” It didn’t seem enough for what she’d done, but he was afraid that anything more would sound false. “And the name’s Jamie Ryder, without the trappings. You can save the ‘sirs’ and ‘misters’ for the next gentleman who wanders into your barn.”

But Rachel didn’t smile, considering instead the easy familiarity he was proposing as she turned back toward her work table. There were already too few barriers between them, crowded together like this in her home’s single room, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to give up the fragile formality of that “mister.”

He waited, puzzled by her silence. “There, now,” he said gruffly. “I’ve handed you leave to call me by my given name, but it seems instead I’ve offered you some sort of offense.”

“Oh, no, it’s not that,” said Rachel hastily as she moved to the hearth to lift the iron pot with their supper closer to the coals. She lifted the lid of the pot to stir the contents while she thought, brushing her hand briskly before her face against the rush of fragrant steam. His insistence on no formal title might have another, very different explanation. She could know for certain, if she dared risk making a fool of herself.

And it was, she decided, a risk worth taking. With a brief, nervous smile, she glanced back at him over her shoulder.

“Does thee believe that thy appetite could be tempted by a plate of stew?” she asked as cheerfully as she could. “To me thee seems well enough for heartier fare.”

He relaxed and set the rifle in his lap to one side, his mouth watering already from the smell alone. “Thee couldn’t keep me from thy table now, as thee knows perfectly—”

He broke off, realizing too late how neatly she’d tricked him. Butler must have described him in every detail when he’d posted his blasted reward.

“Thee’s a clever woman,” he said dryly. “Thee knew to use stewed rabbit and onions as bait to catch a poor feeble invalid weary of gruel.”

“There’s nothing feeble about you that time and stew won’t cure.” She concentrated on spooning the hot stew into a pewter bowl, avoiding the reproach that she knew would be on his face. She had tricked him, true enough, but now she had her answer, too.

Carefully she wrapped a cloth around the bowl to hold in the heat, and brought it to him in the bed. “Don’t eat so fast that you burn yourself,” she cautioned. “And mind you don’t spill. I don’t want to consider what sort of hideous mess that would make on the coverlet.”

“My, my, but your concern’s alarming,” he said as he took the bowl and balanced it on his knees. “I think I liked the plain speech better.”

She dragged a chair closer to sit at his bedside to keep him company while he ate. “My grandmother was a Friend, and I always liked to listen to her talk. She could make even a scolding sound special. While you were ill, you often spoke that way, too.”

He stared at her, mute with horror, while the stew turned tasteless in his mouth.

God preserve him, what else had he babbled to her? Had he told her of the dull whistle that a tomahawk makes as it whips through the air, the sickening thud when it buries deep in its mark? In the grip of the fever had he raved about the smoke from the burning houses, the screams of the dying or the last frantic wails for mercy that had filled the early-morning air? Had he confessed to her what he’d seen, what he’d done in the empty name of his king, and failed to do for his own conscience?

To Rachel it seemed his face shuttered in an instant, closing her out as his eyes turned cold and empty. Her curiosity had done this, she thought with an inward shiver, her infernal curiosity had driven away the man who’d so gently teased Billy, and left her instead with another whose face was as hard as if carved from the same granite as the cliffs in the valley.

A face that belonged to one of Butler’s Rangers, to one of her enemy, to a man who, weak though he was, could still load and aim a rifle with terrifying accuracy.

“It wasn’t what you said, but how,” she said, struggling to explain herself. “I didn’t mean it as an insult, you know. In this part of New York, there are so few Friends that I found your words remarkable.”

“And you thought I might have a Quaker grandmother, too?” He forced himself to make his manner light, to lift the carved horn spoon dripping with gravy again and again to his lips as if nothing had changed.

If she knew the truth, she could not sit here with him, not this close. No decent woman could. Butler’s reward would be nothing compared to her horror if she knew the truth. With luck, she never would, at least not until he was gone from her life.

She shook her head, her carnelian earbobs swinging. “I thought you were a Friend yourself,” she said, almost wistfully. “Even with you dressed as you were, and carrying the rifle and a knife.”

“You’re right enough there,” he said wearily. “No decent, godly Friend would carry a weapon of any sort to be used against another man.”

“My grandmother wouldn’t allow guns anywhere in her house, not even for hunting game. Not that there was much to shoot on an island, anyway.” She tried to smile in the face of his still-grim expression. “So I misjudged thee, and thee has no Quaker grandmother after all?”

“Nay, she’s there in my past. Grandmother and grandfather, father and mother, and all manner of cousins.” He stared down at the bowl in his hands, sorrowfully remembering too much of a life that was forever gone. “Because my whole family belonged to the Society of Friends, I was a birthright member of our Meeting, too. But—now I’m not much of anything.”

“Ah.” Solemnly she nodded again, and with her fingertips smoothed her hair around her ears. She could understand that. There were days—too many days, and nights—when she believed she wasn’t much of anything, either. “I suppose I believed you were a Friend because I wanted you to be. It made you easier to help if you didn’t belong to either side. Not that it matters now, of course.”

He shrugged his uninjured shoulder, volunteering nothing more. Though she could understand his reticence, she wasn’t used to it in men, especially not after William, and it made her uncomfortable.

“My grandmother was turned out of her Meeting,” she said, determined to fill in the silence. “For marrying a man who wasn’t a Friend. It was quite a scandal at the time, mostly because she wasn’t the least bit contrite.”

“If she was anything like you, then I’m not surprised she was turned out of her Meeting.”

Rachel looked up sharply, so ready to defend herself that Jamie very nearly laughed.

“I didn’t intend that as an insult, either,” he said softly. And he didn’t. He remembered the girls in Meeting as dutifully demure, shrouded in sober gowns with their eyes downcast beneath their bonnets. This one, with her vivid coloring and green eyes and swinging black hair, would have shone like an irresistible beacon in their midst, and he would have followed. He’d always had a fondness—a weakness, according to his father—for worldly women; it had brought him no end of trouble when he’d been younger, before the war, and he didn’t want to consider what could happen now if he wasn’t careful.

“I didn’t take your words as an insult,” she said quickly.

“No?”

“No.” She shook her head again for extra emphasis, loose strands of her black hair drifting about her face. “How could I? My grandmother was a very fine, gracious woman.”

“Then I’m honored that you imagined I’d be like her,” he said with the perfect degree of bland politeness.

“I did?” she asked, baffled. This man with the rifle cradled beside him on the bed had precious little in common with her peaceable, silver-haired grandmother.

“Aye, me. If you imagined I was a Friend, and the only one of the lot you seem to know well was your paragon of a grandmother, then it stands to reason that you believed that I was a paragon, too. At least, you did until I opened my eyes and my mouth.” It had been a long, long time since he’d teased anyone like this, especially a girl this pretty, and he surprised himself by doing it now. “Mightily flattering, that.”

“I suppose it is,” said Rachel faintly, not quite sure what had just happened. She’d rather thought he was flattering her, not the other way around, and the extra spark in those blue eyes wasn’t at all reassuring.

Jamie took another bite of the stew while he collected his wayward thoughts. What the devil was he doing, anyway? Was it some lingering fever from his wound, or the warm food in his belly, or the hot flush on her cheeks? He was endlessly grateful she couldn’t read his mind, or she’d realize how wrong she’d been to judge him safe simply because of that grandmother of hers. Himself, he’d been born a Friend, but hardly a saint.

He fiddled with the spoon between his fingers. “Though you flatter me, aye, you keep the advantage. You know my name, but you haven’t told me yours.”

Rachel’s cheeks grew hot. “It’s Rachel. Rachel Sparhawk Lindsey.”

He liked to see her blush, especially over something as foolish as her name, and though he knew he’d no right to do it, he held his silence a moment longer to savor her discomfiture. Strange how she clung to her maiden name, and stranger still that her husband permitted such a thing.

“Well, then, Mistress Lindsey,” he said at last, “a fine good morning to you, and pleased I am to make your acquaintance.”

Her cheeks grew warmer still. He might not say much, but what he did say seemed to disconcert her more than all of William’s grand speeches put together. Not that she intended to let him get the better of her. She couldn’t afford to do that, not for her sake or for Billy’s.

“If you wish no titles for yourself, Jamie Ryder,” she said with determined composure, “then I can live without being called ‘Mistress.’”

“As you please, Rachel Lindsey.” He liked the sound of the name on his tongue, just as he’d liked hearing his on her lips. He had guessed she’d be called something more elegant, more exotic, the way she was herself, but now he’d never imagine her as anything other than Rachel. Rachel, Rachel Lindsey. Rachel Sparhawk Lindsey. Lord, when was the last time he’d gone moony over a woman’s name?

“Rachel Lindsey, Rachel Lindsey,” he said again as he let his bemusement slide drowsily across his face. “You wanted to trust me when I was dead to the world. But do you trust me now, I wonder?”

She didn’t hesitate at all. “Not in the least.”

“Good lass,” he murmured. “Not only beautiful, but wise you are, too, Rachel Lindsey. Don’t you ever trust me, not for a moment.”

Then he smiled, his whole face lightening, and the sudden, devastating warmth of it was enough to steal Rachel’s breath away and her wits, as well. Oh, she was right not to trust him, and it had nothing to do with wars or Tories or long-barreled rifles. If he could do this to her when he was weak and ill, what havoc could he bring when he’d recovered?

Swiftly she stood and reached to take the empty bowl from him, being sure that their fingers didn’t touch.

“You will understand, then,” she said as she briskly carried the bowl back to the table and away from the tempting power of that smile, “that while you’re welcome to stay as long as you need to recover, I also expect you to leave when you’re well. If Alec guesses you were here, he may be back, and I daresay others will come, too, once they’ve heard of the reward. Hard money’s scarce in this county, especially twenty dollars.”

She swallowed hard, longing for him to say something in return. “I have to think of Billy,” she said, hoping she sounded firm, not strident. “With William away, life is difficult enough for us as it is. Surely you must understand that.”

Still he didn’t answer. Impatiently she wiped her palms on her apron and turned to face him again. “Surely you must see my—”

But he wasn’t going to see anything. His eyes were closed, and he was fast asleep, the hint of his smile still lingering on his lips.

With an exasperated sigh, Rachel collected his powder horn and bullet pouch where he’d left them beside the window and set them beside the bed. Gingerly she eased the rifle away from him and laid it, too, on the floorboards. Perhaps letting him keep the gun was not the wisest thing she’d done, but still she sensed it was in her favor. She would put off changing the dressing until morning. Sleep now would be the best thing for him. At last she drew the coverlet over his shoulders, tucking it protectively around him the same way she had when he’d been so sick.

The same, yet different, the way everything between them had changed in little more than an hour’s time. There wasn’t any “same” left now, and the Lord only knew what would happen next.

“Oh, Mama, is he asleep again?” asked Billy mournfully as he leaned over the edge of the loft.

“Rest’s the one thing now that will help make him well.” She glanced upward, wondering if the boy had been there all along as she’d suspected. “Come down and wash up for supper.”

But now that Billy had her attention, he was in no hurry to move, instead leaning on his elbows as he stared down at the sleeping man. “You said he had to go, Mama,” he said accusingly. “You said he couldn’t stay.”

“Oh, Billy, sweetheart, it’s not up to me,” she said unhappily. “I know he’s been very kind to you, but he doesn’t belong here. Once he’s better, he must return to his own family and friends. I’m sure they miss him very much, and they’ll be glad to see he’s well again.”

“Don’t want him to go,” said Billy, more wistful than stubborn. He hugged Blackie closer, resting his chin on the horse’s worn back. “He made Uncle Alec go away.”

“Not really, love. Mr. Ryder was watching, but that was all. Uncle Alec left on his own.”

“Not ‘Mr. Ryder,’ Mama,” corrected Billy patiently. “It’s Jamie. An’ Jamie made Uncle Alec go away.”

“Well, then, Jamie didn’t make your uncle go home. Uncle Alec didn’t even know anyone else was in our house.”

Unconvinced, Billy shook his head, and Rachel knew exactly what he meant. She might not trust Jamie Ryder, but she had believed him when he said he’d do all he could to keep her and Billy from harm. Why else would she have put his rifle where he’d find it as soon as he woke?

“Uncle Alec’s bad,” continued Billy steadfastly, “an’ Jamie’s good, an’ I like him, Mama, an’ I want him to stay here.”

“Oh, Billy, that’s simply not possible, you see, because he—because we—” She broke off, searching vainly for the words to explain her reasons to a child. She looked back at the man in her bed, his face relaxed and boyish in sleep. How could she hope to explain how she felt about Jamie to Billy when she couldn’t explain it to herself?

“It’s simply not possible, Billy,” she said wistfully. “Jamie must leave as soon as he can. But I like him, too, Billy. I like him just fine.”




Chapter Four (#ulink_982a4bb3-8b09-53bd-b311-1ea79b531296)


Rachel hurried down the path to the barn, her feet slipping here and there across the packed snow she’d worn slick to ice. With little clumps of ice clinging to the hem of her skirts, she balanced the lantern in one hand and the empty milk bucket in the other, the musket slung on a strap over her shoulders banging against her back. Only the scent and feel of more snow in the icy air, the threat of a new storm, could have brought her out this early at all.

She hated the dark that closed in around her, the black shadows that swallowed up the feeble light her lantern cast over the snow. This darkness that came when the moon had set and before the sun rose, the darkness of the deepest winter morning, made her heart pound and her imagination race to picture all that could be hiding in the murkiness around her.

Fiercely she tried to remind herself this was her land, her home. Nothing could harm her here. She knew every inch of this path, just as she knew exactly how many paces lay between her house and her barn. But all the fierce reminders in the world couldn’t brighten this darkness, and by the time she reached the barn she was almost running, the lantern’s light bobbing wildly and the empty bucket thumping against her thigh. With fingers clumsy from the cold, she tore at the latch, flung back the door and slammed it shut after her as if the devil himself were at her heels.

As crazy shadows from the swinging lantern danced across the walls, the hens flew squawking from their roost, flapping furiously in the air, and the cow lowed and thumped uneasily against the sides of her stall.

“Hush, now, hush, all of you!” called Rachel, her voice shaking for all she tried to hold it steady. “It’s only me, and I swear there’s nothing to be frightened of!”

Brave words, those, she thought as she hurriedly hung the lantern from a beam. How could she scold the poor hens for skittering and squawking when she’d been the one seeing demons in the dark? She sighed with exasperation at her own foolishness and tried to calm the frightened animals, murmuring nonsense to the cow, Juno, as she broke the ice in the water trough and replaced the winter straw in the manger.

She set the bucket on the floor and ran her fingers through the bristly hair between the cow’s ears. This was all Jamie Ryder’s fault, filling her head full of grim warnings and cautions, and Alec’s, too, with all his tales of Tory and Indian raids. Indians, pooh. In the eighteen months since she’d come here she’d seen only two Indians, a pair of Mahicans traveling north with an English trapper.

And as wild as it had once seemed to her, this land so close to the river was downright civilized. On clear days she could easily make out the smoke from her nearest neighbors’ chimney, and though the journey to Ethan and Mary Bowman’s house took more than an hour through the forest, by the standards of this part of New York that was only as far as the house next door was in Providence. The war that was tearing apart so much of the country was so far away as to seem unreal to her, one more thing she’d left behind in Rhode Island. She was likely safer here than anywhere else in the state.

Besides, the sun itself would rise in an hour, and banish the dark and the shadows for another day. So why, then, was her heart still pounding, her breathing still as ragged as if she’d run four hundred paces instead of forty?

Though the rooster and his hens had settled once again with only a few lingering, irritated clucks among them, Juno had not, shifting uneasily in her stall with her eyes white-rimmed.

“Hush now, my lady,” said Rachel, her own voice finally settling down. “Hush now, you silly old madame cow.”

Yet still Juno tossed her head, the most defiance a cow can show, and enough to make Rachel wish she could postpone the milking. Once she’d made the mistake of continuing when Juno was feeling out of sorts, and learned the hard way how quickly a cow can kick. She’d had the bruise for a fortnight.

Instead she pulled the three-legged milking stool back and dropped down onto it with a sigh. She couldn’t wait forever; not only was Juno’s bag heavy with milk, but Rachel herself had to be back in the house before Billy woke and missed her. And Jamie Ryder, too. When she’d left he’d been sleeping soundly enough, but she didn’t want to give him any more time than she had to alone in her home, or alone with Billy, either. Lord, how everything changed with him here!

She pressed her forehead against the cow’s side and softly began to sing, hoping that would cure Juno’s restlessness. It usually did. The more morose the song, the better, as far as the cow was concerned, and she was particularly partial to the sailors’ laments Rachel had learned long ago from her brothers.

He has crost the raging seas his Molly for to tease And that is the cause of my grief,

I sigh, lament and mourn waiting for my love’s return,

Of whom shall I seek—

Abruptly Rachel broke off, listening. She thought she’d heard a scuffling sound, almost scratching, but as soon as she fell quiet it stopped. Daft, she thought with disgust, she’d gone daft and soft brained as an old rotten log.

So farewell, my dearest Dear, until another year Then the sweet Spring I hope for to—

There, she’d heard it again. Swiftly she moved the milk bucket aside and caught up the lantern. She smacked Juno’s angular hip to make her move away from the wall, and then knelt in the straw with the lantern held low. The scuffling sound was definitely there now, like something digging against the wooden wall, searching for a loose deal. Rats or squirrels, most likely, starving from the snow cover and desperate for the grain in the barn.

Scowling, Rachel rose and grabbed her musket. She’d had to pay dearly for that grain from Alec, too dearly to let it be nibbled away by rats. She stormed out the door with her skirts flying, ready to teach the thieves a lesson.

She slipped once on the ice and swore impatiently. She’d left the lantern inside, but with the door ajar a narrow beam of light slid across the snow. She peered into the shadows where the scratching sound had come from, trying to see as her eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Something moved, something low and dark, and she kicked the door open a little farther.

The pale light washed farther over the snow, down to the corner of the barn and the stone wall beyond. The low, dark shadow rose up from the snow, startled by the light, growing larger by the second. A long tail, the sharp triangles of ears and yellow eyes glowing in the lantern’s light. No scratching now, no digging, only the deep rumbling growl as the wolf drew back on its haunches to face her.

There had been something in the dark. She hadn’t been imagining things. But a wolf, God help her. Not a rat after corn, but a wolf.

He crouched there in the snow, cornered between the barn and the wall, his lips curled from his teeth and the hair bristling on the back of his neck like some mongrel guarding a stolen bone. But the wolf was bigger than any dog she’d ever seen, and she didn’t think he was going to run off if she stamped her foot and shook her apron.

Slowly, so slowly, she raised the musket to her eye and released the lock. Her hands were shaking, making the sight tremble, and she took a deep breath to steady herself. She had to make this single shot count; it could take her a full minute, sixty seconds at least, to reload the musket, and she wasn’t sure she’d have that time.

The wolf angled sideways, closer, testing her, the yellow eyes bright and hard.

She had to do this, shoot him now, before he came any closer. She told herself she couldn’t miss at this range. She couldn’t afford to, anyway. She swallowed hard, whispered a terse little prayer and squeezed the trigger.

She heard the hammer click, the little sizzle of the pan and the bright flash, she smelled the familiar acrid puff of gunpowder, and then—

And then nothing.

No thump as the butt kicked back against her shoulder, no crack from the ball flying from the barrel. Only the flat, worthless silence of a gun that had misfired.

Somehow the animal seemed to know Rachel had lost her advantage and began inching closer. His nails clicked softly with each footfall on the frozen snow, his breath gathering in white puffs around his bared teeth.

With a muffled cry of dismay and fear Rachel dropped the musket from her shoulder, her forefinger tangling clumsily with the trigger as she fought her panic. Eight feet away, maybe six. There was no time to dear the fouled gun, no time to reload, not even time to run back into the barn, not now that the wolf was closer than she to the open door. If she turned and tried to run for the house, the wolf would surely head for the open barn and poor Juno.

Or he could choose instead to chase after her. Forty paces uphill, across a frozen path in the dark where the animal could see so much better than she, chasing after her to seize her ice-heavy skirts in his jaws and drag her down, down.

Suddenly the wolf lunged across the snow and Rachel staggered back, barely keeping from the animal’s reach. Gasping, she slid her hands down the musket to the end of the barrel and swung it as hard as she could. She felt the impact of the butt striking the wolf, and heard the startled yelp of pain. But the same sweep of the musket through the air threw her off-balance, her feet sliding out from under her on the ice, and she pitched forward hard, the musket flying from her hands to spin across the crusted snow.

“No,” she gasped as she tried to scramble away on her hands and knees. “Dear God, no!”

She saw the white fur of the wolf’s underbelly as he whirled through the air, a blur as white against the black sky as the snow she lay upon. The scream she knew was her own, shrill with fear. But the sharp crack of the rifle’s shot made no sense, not even when the wolf dropped lifeless to the snow before her. No sense, she thought, her heart pounding wildly as she crouched on the snow, it made no sense at all.

“Are you hurt, Rachel?” Jamie pulled her to her feet, his voice harsh from concern and strain. “Look at me, lass. Are you hurt?”

She stared at him, uncomprehending, her eyes still wide with terror and her breath coming in short little gasps. Her braid had come unraveled, her hair hanging half-loose around her face, and when she lifted her hand to brush it back he saw the raw scrape across her knuckles where she’d fallen on the ice. But nothing worse, thank God.

He glanced again at the lifeless body of the wolf, then slung his rifle on its strap across his back and set his hands gently on her shoulders. “You’ll be fine, Rachel,” he said, forcing her to look at him and listen. “The animal’s dead, and can’t harm you.”

“Yes,” she said hoarsely, nodding her head even as she searched his face for reassurance. “Yes, I’m quite fine. Quite.”

It was Jamie Ryder, of course, Jamie who had saved her. With the light from the open door behind him, his face was dark in shadow, but she would have recognized his voice anywhere. And who else, really, could it have been?

Yet even as she realized what he’d done, she wished it hadn’t been so. She wanted to be like all the other women in her family, her grandmother and her mother and her older sisters. She wanted to be strong, independent, able to take care of herself and Billy, and this winter, before this man had come, she’d thought she was. But then she remembered how the wolf had sprung toward her, and she didn’t feel very strong or brave at all. What she felt was weak and weepy, and if he said one more kind word to her she knew she’d shatter at his feet.

Instead she drew away from him, smoothing her hair from her face as if her fingers still did not shake, and bent to pick up her musket.

“It misfired, you know,” she explained, almost grudgingly, as she peered at the flintlock, poking the bits of snow away from it. “Else I would have made the shot myself.”

“True enough. But ‘twas a good thing my rifle didn’t suffer the same ill.”

Frowning, she glanced up at him without raising her chin. “How far were you from—from me?”

“Not far.” He shrugged carelessly, but Rachel saw how he favored the wounded shoulder. “I’d just stepped outside the house.”

“That’s forty paces, and in the dark, too.” She was impressed, as much by his modesty as by what he’d done. She’d never known another man who’d have been able to resist such an opportunity to boast. “You said you could shoot the seeds from an apple, and you weren’t bragging.”

She heard his smile without seeing it. “That old wolfs a sight bigger than an apple.”

For the first time Rachel forced herself to look at the dead animal. The sky was beginning to pale with dawn, and the gray shape of the wolf was clear against the snow, framed by the darker puddle of its own blood. Only luck and Jamie had saved her from lying there instead, stiffening on the snow, in the blood. She looked, and could not look away, any more than she could stop the trembling that suddenly racked her or the tears that blurred her eyes, and this time when Jamie reached for her, she crumpled against him, her musket slipping forgotten from her hand.

“There now, lass, I told you you’d be fine,” he murmured as he folded his arms around her. “I’ll grant you it was a close thing, but you’ll be fine.”

And she was fine, thought Jamie, fine and soft to hold against his chest, the way he’d known she would be. Her hair slid like silk across his wrists as she pressed her cheek against the fringed yoke of his linen Ranger’s shirt, her hands curled loosely together like a child’s. He’d heard once that the fringe was meant to draw rain away from a man’s shoulders, to scatter the drops where they’d shake away. Would they work the same way now, he wondered, to draw away a woman’s tears?

Instinctively he tightened his arms around her and she burrowed closer. The image of her bravely swinging the musket at the wolf was burned forever in his consciousness, along with the sickening lurch he’d felt deep inside when he’d realized what it would take to save her. And he’d done it; he hadn’t failed her. But he couldn’t remember the last time a woman had turned to him like this, and he longed to give her the comfort she needed. Aye, that was all, comfort, to ease her fears like a brother or a friend.

Like hell that was all, he thought wretchedly, as if he could ignore her womanly scent or the soft warmth of her breasts pressed against him. Like hell was exactly what it was. He’d warned her not to trust him. Why the devil hadn’t she listened?

“I thought—thought I was going to die,” said Rachel raggedly, hiccuping with her sobs. “I thought everything was—was going to end, and I was so seared, and—and oh, I’m such—such a silly coward!”

He smiled in spite of himself. “Oh, hush, that’s nonsense. Whatever else you are, Rachel Lindsey, you’re no coward.”

“No?” Her voice squeaked upward, and she pulled back to look at him, but not so far that she’d be free of his embrace. Furiously she dashed at her tears with the back of her fist. “Then why—why else am I crying so?”

“Because you’re wise enough to know you’re mortal,” he said as he gently traced his fingers along her cheek, her face so close to his. “Frightening thought, that. Because you know how sweet life can be.”

He kissed her then, and she didn’t stop him. The wolf, and the gun misfiring, and now Jamie’s lips on hers—none of it was real. Swiftly she parted her lips for his, swaying into him as she let herself become lost in his kiss. This was the sweetness he’d spoken of, the dizzying richness of pleasure and life that she hadn’t wanted to abandon.

Her palms flattened against his chest, pressing against his shirt to feel the steady beating of his heart. She was glad his was steady, for her own was racing like a rabbit across a meadow. The taste of him, the maleness of his desire, stole her breath away and made her limbs turn to butter. His hands slid lower, following the curve from her waist to her hips, and she shuddered as he pulled her closer against his long, hard body.

Yet she wanted this; no, she needed it, more than she’d realized was possible. This fire of a man’s kiss on an icy morning and the heady security of his arms around her proved that she wasn’t alone, that someone cared whether she died or lived.

The same pleasures she’d once believed she’d find with William. With her husband.

With a shudder she shoved herself back, tucking her wayward hands beneath her arms. “I didn’t mean anything by that,” she said with a swift, ragged urgency. “Nothing, you understand?”

He didn’t move to reclaim her again, instead standing impossibly still before her. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing,” she declared, the lie so great she nearly winced.

“Then that’s a great pity,” he said softly. “Because I did.”

She prayed the same half-light that masked his expression would hide her own guilty flush, as well. “That’s—that’s not possible.”

“Aye, it is.” He turned away and went to prod the dead wolf with his toe. “Kissing you could never be meaningless, Rachel Lindsey. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. Nor, I think, would you.”

Some place near her heart tightened in her breast. “You must not say such things.”

“Even if they’re true?”

“They can’t be,” she said, bowing her head beneath the weight of her shame. “You forget that I’m married.”

“True enough. I kissed the woman, not the wife.” He sighed deeply, staring down at the dead wolf instead of her. “But if it displeased you, I’ll try not to do it again. I can’t swear an oath to it—I’ve kept that much of my father’s beliefs—but I will give you my word. That should be enough.”

The tears smarting behind her eyes were dangerously close to spilling over. What else had she expected from him? That the foolish dreams she’d whispered to him when he’d been delirious would turn real?

He’d saved her life just as she’d saved his, with the same justice and decency that ruled the frontier. She was the one who’d erred by falling into his arms, and he could hardly be faulted for expecting more. Men always did. Hadn’t she learned anything from William and Alec? At least Jamie Ryder was simply doing what she’d claimed she wanted, to be left alone as any decent married woman would wish.

Kissing you could never be meaningless, Rachel…

Fiercely she rubbed her sleeve across her eyes. If he could be so unbearably calm about this, then she could, too. She’d just survived being attacked by a wolf. She wasn’t going to let herself be felled by her own misplaced emotions and a handful of empty compliments.

“Billy must be stirring by now,” she announced in a voice as loud and stilted as a town crier’s. “He’ll be wanting breakfast. I’d best go.”

“Not until you tend to your stock, you shouldn’t,” said Jamie. “That’s the whole reason you came out here, isn’t it?”

“But Billy—”

“When I left Billy he was sleeping as deep as a boy can, and I’d wager he is still.” He bent to slide his fingers along the weathered gray deals of the barn, seeking and finding the loose board that the wolf had been digging at. “You look after your milking, and I’ll mend this.”

Silently Jamie counted to three, then ten, putting off the inevitable moment when he had to turn and face her. He had no choice, not with her standing between him and the barn door, but he still wasn’t sure he could do it. Once he’d had her in his arms, he’d forgotten every vow he’d sworn to himself.

A woman as good and honorable as Rachel Lindsey didn’t deserve to be handled like some backwoods strumpet. It shouldn’t have mattered one whit that she was also one of the loveliest creatures he’d ever seen. She had trusted him and he’d taken advantage of that trust until she’d been forced to remind him she was married, and even then she hadn’t berated him the way he’d deserved.

But what was worse, what disgusted him more, was that he knew he’d kiss her again in a moment. Even now he could feel his body grow hard at the memory of how her soft lips had parted for him, innocently welcoming his intrusion just as she’d welcomed him into her home.

But no more. If he’d a mite of decency left in his weary soul, he’d never touch her again. Swearing to himself, he gave one final desultory kick to the loose deal on the barn with his moccasin and slowly walked toward her.

“Come along, now,” he said as he tried to smile. “I’ve no mind to cross Billy if he’s expecting a cupful of that milk when he wakes.”

How it pained him to see the way she stepped back, away from him!

“You’ve shaved,” she said, her voice oddly breathy.

“Aye, this morning.” He held the barn door open for her to slip inside. “I didn’t know when I’d next see a mirror or hot water, so I took advantage of the kettle on your hearth while I had the chance.”

Her eyes were round, her tongue clearly speechless, so much so that his smile turned lopsided from uncertainty. “I hope the results aren’t too dreadful.”




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