by Jillian Hart
Fortunately in her search she ran across the kerosene can. The fuel echoed in the tin, and it sounded suspiciously as if there was very little left. She set it aside to deal with later, after she’d set Duncan straight.
With the buffalo fur draped over her shoulders, she filled the last clean cup, stirred in a generous teaspoon of honey and, heedless of the danger, crossed the threshold and into a darkness so stark, it was like death.
Chapter Thirteen
“Duncan?”
She’d already predicted he wouldn’t answer her. But did he have to be so difficult? So stubborn? It was a good thing she was used to people like that.
And besides, there wasn’t a creature on this earth she couldn’t eventually charm. Although, she sensed it might take all her strength and will to lure Duncan from his dark, icy prison.
“I brought you some more tea. It’s scalding hot. I put in extra honey.”
There came a scrape from the far corner, as if his boot heels grated on the varnished floor. Was he near the bed?
“Put it on the night table.”
He sounded eerily hollow, as if a ghost spoke, and yet Betsy knew how it felt to be hollowed out like a log made into a canoe. Hollow and empty and torn wide open. As if everything important within had been scraped and lashed away.
She did as he requested, feeling her way across the room. She stubbed her right big toe on the foot of the couch. Hit her knee on the wooden bed frame and felt with careful fingers along the carved edge of the night table for a safe place to rest the cup.
Except the carving…it was intricate and masculine. She could tell as her fingertips traced the pattern that it wasn’t the same as the bed set in her modest upstairs room. But it was similar enough that she had to see it.
She released the cup safely in the center and dug into her skirt pocket for the little match tin. But it wasn’t in her right pocket, so she plunged her hand into her left.
“Are you still here?” he barked. “Go. Leave me.”
“What, is a big strong man like you afraid I’ll try to trick you into proposing?”
“Yeah.”
“Trust me, you’re in no danger.”
“You mean, you aren’t a desperate spinster who’d do anything for a husband. Hell, you look like one to me.”
“Me? I look like a spinster? Goodness, thank you for the compliment.” Really, she thought, rolling her eyes. She found the tin in her apron pocket and struck a match.
A brief light flared, and in the moment it fought for life, it illuminated only the angles and planes of a face that looked more gargoyle than human, more snarling predator than man. The deep grooves etched around his mouth gave the illusion of jowls opening in the moment before an attack, and the flame sputtered out, as if terrified by the sight.
She did not turn and bolt. No, she struck another match and lit the bedside lantern. A soothing brightness cast a soft circle over the table, ebbing to where Duncan sat as motionless as stone on the edge of his unmade bed. “Thank you so kindly for that lovely compliment. Every woman who’d celebrated her thirtieth birthday likes to be told she looks like a spinster. And a desperate one at that.”
“It’s the plain truth. I know what you are.”
“Do you, now?” Betsy didn’t grow up with five brothers and stay happily married by not understanding that men were unintelligible.
It was a given fact that a woman simply had to accept or the confusion of it all would drive her mad. Men and their illogical brains required infinite patience…and a little artfulness. So she knelt to study the masculine and bold carving of river rocks so exquisite she couldn’t believe this stubborn mountain of a man could have that much poetry in him.
She cast her smile wider, so her dimples showed. She was bound and determined to wipe the bitter pain from his tortured face…but how? “This is beautiful. The furniture.”
His gaze blackened. “I’m going to say it again. I’m not going to marry you.”
Apparently he thought it was very important that she understand this. She could feel his agony. She laid her hand on his granite-hard knee and felt him flinch at her woman’s touch. Saw the distrust well up through the bleakness.
Gently she said, so he would finally believe her, “We’re in agreement, Duncan. Don’t worry. I don’t want to marry you.”
“Agghh!” He shot off the bed, pretty fast for an injured man. Maybe that was proof of how het up he was.
Lost in the reaches of the room, and any noise he made obscured by the screaming storm outside, Betsy would have sworn she was alone if she didn’t know any better. When she spoke, she wasn’t even certain if he was listening. “Why do you think I want to marry you?”
“What woman isn’t trying to trap a husband? Get him to pay her bills and provide a house for her to clean. What? Why are you looking so shocked? Isn’t that the damn truth?”
“What have I ever done to suggest I’m that horrible of a person?”
“You came. You—you cleaned. You didn’t leave when I told you to.”
“I came because all that time you were here alone and injured, I thought you were dead. I can never pay you back, ever, for what you did in the forest. So I am doing what I can while you’re recovering from the wounds you incurred on my behalf!”
“You cooked! Baskets of food.”
“So you wouldn’t have to fend for yourself. You know that’s true. If you’d settle down enough to feel what’s beneath your very offensive anger, you’d see—”
“Offensive? It’s not offensive! It’s justified!” Red exploded behind his eyes and he slumped against the wall, too weak to stomp out of the room like he wanted, and he gave thanks for the shadows that hid the truth. Summoning up the loudest, most vicious tone he could manage, he roared like a mountain lion. “You shove your way in here. Manipulate to spend the night in my cabin—”
“Manipulate? O-oh, it’s true! I have powers over the weather and I made the blizzard come down the mountain so fast, that I had to stay or be frozen to death on the road back home.”
“You damnable woman!” The red behind his eyes exploded into a swirl of heat and hot, searing white. “Don’t make a jest of this! I’m not about to let you tempt me. Get this straight—you stay far away from me. Now. Do it. Go into the kitchen and stay there. You’ll keep your virginity, do you hear?”
“Do you often mistake a woman for a dog? Or for a bridled horse?”
“Is there no end to your sass? No wonder you’ve never married! Any man with a lick of sense would run as fast as he could in the opposite direction. Which I wish I could do right now.”
“Me, too, because you’re so pleasant. And for your information, just so you know, in case you’re trying to trap a woman into marriage so she’ll cook and clean for you? Stay away from me. Don’t tempt me. And what else did you say?”
Framed by the soft glow of the lamplight, she cocked her head to one side as she thought, causing the thick, long riot of abundant hair to bounce enticingly over her full breasts and along the curve of her tiny waist. “Oh, I remember. Don’t worry. You’ll keep your virginity.”
“This is no joke!”
“I see that.” Calm, so annoyingly calm, she flashed him a gentle smile with dimples and charm, and made his toes curl and his soul stir.
Desire surged through his blood and he was rock-hard. Damn it, aroused was the last state he could risk being in. How could she affect him this way when he was roiling with rage and wished to hell that he’d never met her?
Because he wanted nothing more than to wrap her in his arms. To kiss her until she made low moans in her throat, until she was soft and wet and accommodating beneath him. And then he could push his way inside her tightness, love her until they were both spent, hold on to her forever so the world and its cruelty and sorrow stayed forgotten.
He felt ready to shatter into small, irretrievable pieces with wanting her. To feel her kisses, to surrender to her gentleness, he would give anything. Do anything. He wa
nted her so much.
Her touch came out of the dark, as if from a dream. So magical he thought he was imagining it and he straightened, inviting her silently closer. She came behind him, her fingertips exquisite brushes of heat along the outer curve of his shoulder.
“Do not worry, Duncan. I’m not trying to trick you into anything.” When she should have been furious with him, for the way he was treating her, she was kind. Her voice warm when it should have been hateful. “I am no spinster or virgin. I’ve been married and widowed.”
“No. I don’t believe it.”
“Too bad, for it’s true. I have my own house, I run my own business, I’m happy. I have no need to bring heartache upon my life by marrying for any other reason than true love.”
True love? He scoffed. Acid flooded his mouth, tasted sour on his tongue. Unrelenting on his soul. “There is no such thing.”
“You’re wrong.”
“There’s no way you can be a widow.”
“Why not? Because I’m not in my later years?”
Because you’re so beautiful. The words caught in his throat, unspoken. Words he could never say. Because she was lovelier than anyone he’d ever known. Because love and trust, even for one moment, brought with them consequences he could never endure again. Because once the storm was ended, there would be consequences enough without his ever laying a hand on her. Without another singular kiss.
“I’m a widow. Not out of choice, mind you, so don’t even try to pick a worse fight with me, because I will not fight you, Duncan.” Gentle her words, alluring her voice, warm her heart.
How was he going to resist her now? He swallowed hard against the emotion in his throat but found he could not speak. He was trapped in silence and darkness and ice while her petticoats whispered like a temperate spring breeze. And he squeezed shut his eyes and turned his chest to impenetrable steel. And what good did it do?
She was still here, her hand on his shoulder, her spirit a gentle presence against his.
“Charlie was my true love. Maybe my only love. I don’t know. I suspect there is only one great love meant for each of us. That somewhere in this world is our true match. I found mine, and when you think about it, it must be rare, in all the places of this world, of all the people alive and dead and yet to be born, I found my perfect soul mate.”
“Sure. Whatever you say.”
His bitterness gathered around them like the blizzard that swarmed the cabin. Closing them off, blocking out all light and hope. As barren as a vast glacier field.
What did she do to you? Betsy knew there had been someone he’d loved once, long ago. But what could break a man’s heart so that, instead of beating despite the breaking, it was as if the very core of him had been obliterated. She could feel the edges of the abyss and the hopelessness that plunged into his soul.
How could anyone—man or woman, strong or weak—live with this mortal wound? She knew darn well he wanted to be alone, and she knew why. Because being alone was safe. Being alone meant you didn’t have to hand over what remained of your heart. Being alone meant you never had to trust again. Hurt again. Lose again.
Alone meant that the worst thing that could happen was nothing. Nothing at all. Sometimes, that was the wisest, safest choice.
But not today.
When she should have left him be in peace, she placed her hand on his chest and, fingers splayed, felt the dependable, mighty thud of his heart.
And it was as if she could feel the devastation. Feel the agony that twisted through him at her touch. He didn’t move. She was aware as his every muscle stiffened.
It was as if he’d shielded himself behind an iron wall. And although she was close enough to feel his warm breath across her cheek and the rhythm of his life force against her palm, the essential part of him seemed to be hundreds of miles away.
Please, let me help you.
If nothing else, she wanted to do this for him. He did not love her, this she knew and even understood, but she could not leave when the blizzard was done knowing she had made his existence more painful.
That beyond his physical wounds, which she could never be sorry enough for, there lay a wound of his spirit. It was as if being close with her and having her in his house reminded him of a time in his life that had been like an autumn’s first hard frost, killing all green things struggling to grow.
It was the very least she could do for this man who was so great.
“Never think that I’m going to make something of my entrapment here, all right?” Gentle she spoke, so he would listen and hear her meaning. So he would turn toward her and, like a wounded animal in the wilderness, let her close enough to save him.
“Why should I trust anything you say? You’re a woman. The only thing a woman can give a man is pain.”
“I suppose there are women who might try such a thing, such a horrible thing, but I am not cut from that poor quality of cloth. I married Charlie because there was no other choice to make.”
“Oh, he had money, did he?”
“No. He was poor. That was why my family objected to his courting me.”
“I’ve met your family. I can’t imagine how you ever trapped him into marrying you. Unless it was with sex.”
“Oh, Duncan.” Her laughter rippled as alluring as a high mountain creek.
She wasn’t angry or amused or mocking, and it shamed him. His chest swelled and there was no room for anything but his bitterness. He hung on to it with all his might. It was the only thing protecting him from the world. The only thing saving him from giving in to needs too long denied and reaching for daylight—for her.
“Hasn’t that happened to you? The startling telegraph of connection that just fills you up and turns you inside out?”
Yes. Once. With you. Duncan wrenched away from her touch, turning so that, although she was nothing more than a silhouette in the storm-dark room, she couldn’t see inside him. So that the arc of connection that seemed to flow from him to her would stop.
Forever. He had to stop it now. Panic rose up and he could feel her turning with him, moving in the dark, as if they were waltzing in the light, heart to heart, moving in synchrony and all he wanted, all he needed, was to break away and be alone. He could not stand to have her so close. So near.
But did she understand the hint? No. Duncan kept moving and she kept following, her hand always touching him, lighting on his shoulder. And he shrugged that away, and she touched down on the middle of his spine. Like lightning through an unwilling sky, that’s how she sparkled through him, a harsh piercing of light that was blinding.
And still, she kept speaking. “A real love, a real marriage, is struggling to make life better for the person you love.”
“That’s just how women do it.” He ground the words out, crumbling. Hell, he was like a granite rock disintegrating. “They say all the right words. Do all the things meant to fool a man into thinking…”
He choked back the rest of the memories too bleak to examine. Images that whirled like black wraiths before his eyes. “Women know just what to do to make you think how wonderful they are. So sweet and dainty and feminine and loving until your heart is caught like a fish on a line and you don’t even know enough to escape until you’re out of the water. Struggling to breathe. Seeing the glint of the knife before it slices you wide open. So when I say, ‘Get away from me,’ I mean get away from me.”
Her hand flew off his back as if he’d slapped it away. He waited, panting, as she stepped away and disappeared into the darkness.
She fled, staying out of the reach of the only lamp. Her rustling skirts faintly marked her progress across the room and into the kitchen, where she remained, a light in his darkness he could not extinguish.
Or ignore.
Silence. How loud it seemed when her ears were no longer filled with the savage sounds of the storm. The blizzard had blown out but snow obliterated the windows in the kitchen, so she could not see out to be certain if it was safe to venture home.
Women know just what to do to make you think how wonderful they are. So sweet and dainty and feminine and loving until your heart is caught like a fish on a line. She remembered how combative he’d been and how silent in the hour or so since. Her rifle-toting grandmother and her overprotective brothers had said something horrible to him.
But what? And if they’d told him he wasn’t good enough for her—wasn’t that all they seemed to do, try to find her eligible men to marry or to eliminate the unsuitables?
How dare they decide that for her? How dare they hurt the one man who’d made her wish? The one man who’d made her feel again in all the long, lonely years of her widowhood?
A floorboard creaked and there he was, slicing through the shadows as if he were part of them. Hardly discernable as he grabbed his coat from the hook by the back door. Ice broke from the fur to tinkle to the floor. His boots crushed the ice slivers as he came near, into the small glow of light.
“Why do you have the lamp turned so low?”
She tried not to jump at his hard words and how they reverberated in the room. “That’s the last of the kerosene, unless you have an unopened tin somewhere.”
“No.”
“We have wood enough for a spell. Let me warm your wraps before you put them on.”
“Damn it, woman, stop meddling.” He eased into the coat, still frozen nearly stiff from his earlier trip outside.
He truly did not seem as if he could tolerate her presence. Had she been wrong to push him? To try to let him know that he may not feel that special twinkling lightning strike for her, but some woman in the future, perhaps. His future need not always be lonely. If she could save him from his hopelessness, then maybe she could repay how he’d saved her.
