“I am,” he assured me. He pulled himself up so he sat with a grunt, then yanked the bottom of his shirt up so we could see the wound. He was right. It wasn’t bad, but he would probably need me to stitch it.
His skin was warm beneath my palm, soft yet taut over his muscles. I felt dizzy at the sight of his skin, of the sparse black hairs that drew lines over his chest and belly. I touched his side, near the cut, and gasped at the contact, no weaker than it had been a moment before. He felt it, too, and stared at me in amazement.
“Skin to skin,” I said quietly.
He took my hand from his chest and held it to his lips, then tugged me closer. I don’t remember moving toward him, but I was there, and he was kissing me, our bodies feeling each other as they always dreamed they would. His lips were warm, and he smelled of sweat and dirt with a hint of fresh blood. He tasted…like nothing I could describe. He tasted like Andrew. His fingers were in my hair, strong and sure. He drew away from the kiss far enough that we could look into each other’s eyes.
“My God, Maggie,” he whispered.
Tears poured down my cheeks, and he wiped them away with his thumbs. His lips brushed my cheeks, my neck, my eyelids, my forehead, my lips. I lost track of everything around us. I had no idea if it was day or night, and I didn’t care. I was in Andrew’s arms. He was all there was in the world.
He pulled away again, holding my face in his hands. His smile was beautiful, his cheeks wet with our shared tears. The dark eyes I had seen in my dreams danced.
“Come away,” he said. He stood up, wincing only slightly as his wound objected, and pulled me to my feet. “Let’s go home.”
“Home?”
“My home,” he said, then gave me a wry smile that raced through my senses. “Our home, if ye’ll have me.”
I laid my palms on his warm, solid chest and felt whole. Complete. Every question answered. Finally, after everything, I felt at peace.
“Tell me you’re real,” I whispered.
“I’m as real as ye are, Maggie. An’ I’ll spend every day of the rest of my life provin’ it to ye.”
Chapter 35
Resolution
At first, Andrew didn’t understand. He had her. He had Maggie in his arms, safe and warm and real. But she said they couldn’t go. Not yet.
She led him by the hand, deeper into the woods. “My sister is back here,” she explained.
Adelaide was awake but lying still as a fawn in the grass. When she saw Maggie, she sat up slowly. She offered a small smile, looking curiously at the man who held her sister’s hand.
“How do you feel?” Maggie asked, kneeling beside her.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Addy,” Maggie said, her face lit with joy. “I never told you something.”
Addy waited.
“This is Andrew. This is the man I have always known in my dreams.”
Addy looked confused, but not overly surprised. She knew her sister well enough to know it was the truth.
Maggie turned to Andrew, who sat in the grass beside her. “I never told anyone about you,” she admitted. “I didn’t want—”
“Nor did I,” he assured her.
Andrew studied the slight blond version of Maggie. So alike, he thought. And so different. Like his brothers and him. He felt a twinge of regret. Maggie would have liked Dougal.
Iain and Wahyaw, looking more than a little confused, joined them, and Andrew introduced Iain to Adelaide. Wahyaw glared at them all. Soquili understood English and spoke a little, but Wahyaw had never learned. Adelaide began to translate, and his expression relaxed. He nodded with understanding as Maggie explained.
Maggie’s gaze was weary. “There’s one more thing I have to do. If they never see the proof about Captain Quinn, I will spend the rest of my life running.”
“Tell me what to do,” Andrew said. “An’ I’ll do it.”
“There is a box,” she said slowly. Her fingers tugged at the grass by her feet. She ripped out one piece at a time while she spoke. “It’s in a cabin near the fort. That cabin belonged to Captain Quinn. He… he brought girls there. Girls his men stole from their homes and did terrible things…” Her voice caught and she grabbed a handful of grass, but didn’t pull.
“It’s okay, lass. Take it slow,” Andrew murmured, resting his hand over hers until it relaxed.
“How is it ye ken these things?” Iain asked.
“Because…” She stopped, unsure.
“It’s all right, Maggie,” Andrew said. “He’s a friend.”
Maggie’s chin quivered slightly. She looked up and met Andrew’s eyes. The air between them thickened, and for a moment, Andrew forgot anyone else was there.
“I know because Addy and I were two of those girls,” she said softly.
For a space of a breath, the only sound came from the tall pines whispering overhead. Then Addy sniffed and Iain cleared his throat.
“And the evidence, lass? What’s in the box?” he asked.
“Quinn took something from every girl. He put those things in the box. There are ribbons and lace and shoes and… and dolls…”
Maggie closed her eyes, and Andrew felt the air change again, as if it drew him toward her. He held her trembling hand tighter, and she showed him the six beaten girls in the cabin, and the worn wooden box off to the side.
“Please, Andrew,” she said silently.
“Where do we go?” Andrew asked.
“I’ve only seen it once,” Maggie admitted. “But there is someone else who knows.”
Chapter 36
Guardians
Joe had known it was coming. From that moment in the prison when she’d entered his mind and discovered what he knew about the cabin, he’d known she’d need him again. He felt her now, as he stepped out of the woods and through a field of knee-high grass.
The soldiers were miles behind, having eventually accepted his apologies for having lost the fugitives’ trail. In fact, he thought smugly, he could have followed them with his eyes closed. Theirs had been a desperate escape since both the girl’s sister and the big warrior were injured. Their track would have been obvious. But no one questioned Joe when he led them down the line of the riverbed, in the opposite direction.
She needed the box. He had wondered how she would manage to get it. She knew there were captives in the cabin. She had shown him that. She most likely knew the place was guarded. But what she didn’t know was the exact location.
Safely away from the army, Joe skirted the fort and headed toward Quinn’s cabin. The building was buried deep in the brush, a delapidated four walls and a roof. That was all Quinn had required for storage.
Joe sat hidden among the trees, watching six shabby men loll in the clearing. Usually only two stood guard, and under closer inspection Joe saw that only a couple of them carried pistols. Another had a musket. So two, maybe three were guarding. And the others? Why would men make their way out this far if it weren’t for the girls in the cabin? Joe’s gorge rose and he spat into the leaf mold beside his feet.
The men appeared to have finished what they’d come to do, and now relaxed around a small fire, laughing and talking. Nothing much to hold Joe’s attention. He lay back in the dry autumn grass and waited for Maggie.
It didn’t take long. “Joe,” she whispered.
He knew she would follow his mind as easily as he had hers. All she had to do was hear his thoughts and she’d know exactly where to go. Her gratitude wrapped around him like an embrace, and when it was gone, he felt alone.
The sun was high in the sky, filtering through the canopy of the forest, dotting Joe and the leaves around him. The man with the musket stood up, brushed off his trousers, and nodded farewell to the other men. Joe slid soundlessly out of view and watched him head down the path. Now there were five outside the cabin.
Maggie was close. Almost close enough he could hear her if he tried. Joe peered around the area until a quick movement caught his eye, and he spotted Maggie’s group. T
he two Cherokee were there, and it looked as if the warrior’s injury had been well tended. Joe could see no trace of blood. Two other men had joined them. Large white men. Scottish Highlanders, from their dress. Joe had seen quite a few Highlanders in town recently. He got along with them, for the most part. They weren’t so different from the Indians in some ways. They lived off the land and they were not a people to suffer provocation in silence. Maggie crouched behind with her sister, as if they were protected by the men’s shadows.
Joe had no intention of fighting. Today he was merely an observer. He had brought her here. He had given her what she needed, and in return she had given him something he couldn’t name.
There was a thwick! thwick! as arrows cut through the air and plunged into the two armed men. They fell to their knees without a sound, and their cohorts stumbled backwards with surprise, then grabbed their knives and scanned the line of trees.
The Scots downed the first two, and the uninjured warrior sliced the third man’s neck with unerring skill. They left the bodies where they lay, then strode toward the cabin with one Cherokee in the lead. The injured warrior stayed behind to watch over the sisters. Joe wasn’t surprised. From everything Maggie had shown Joe back in the prison cell, he imagined she had no desire to step any closer to the cabin.
The sound of heavy breathing alerted Joe. He sat up straighter, always hidden. Ten feet in front of him hunched the man who had left earlier, adjusting his position amongst the fallen leaves. The man must have heard the noise of the short-lived brawl and come back. The barrel of his musket followed the midpoint of the smaller Scotsman’s back as the group walked toward the cabin.
Joe slipped through the crackling brush as silent as a snake, until he was close enough to smell the man’s scent: musky and aroused. Joe knew many men who reacted the same way when they killed another man, as if it were a sexual act. Joe had never felt that. He accepted that causing death was part of his life. An unpleasant part, but one he understood.
Joe’s huge hands clamped on to the man’s face from behind. The musket dropped to the earth with a dull thump in the split second that Joe held the man’s life in his hands. Then he jerked his grip with precision, disconnecting the man’s neck from his spine.
Joe dropped the body and ground his jaw forward and back as he considered what he had done. He couldn’t know whether or not he had ended his own life through that quick twist of his wrists. He would be put to death if his action was discovered, yet his heart felt unusually light.
She had been right. He had known what to do.
Chapter 37
Lost Voices
Andrew hadn’t known what to expect when they stepped into the cabin. Soquili moved aside, probably feeling his appearance would frighten the girls more than theirs, but Andrew wasn’t sure if he was right.
He glanced over his shoulder toward Maggie, but couldn’t see her.
“It will be over soon,” he told her, and relief tickled through his mind like a spring shower.
Iain knocked on the door. There was no response from within, but they hadn’t expected one. After a moment Iain opened the door.
Six girls huddled together in one corner of the room, their eyes huge with fear, their meager dresses torn and bloodstained. The air was heavy with a nauseating blend of sweat, stale sex, urine, and fear. Iain dropped to a crouch, as he had when he first met Peter and Flora in the woods. The girls watched him, but their gazes flicked behind him, at the imposing profiles of Andrew and Soquili.
“We’re here to set ye free,” Iain told them.
The girls stared, mute.
“We’ll take care of ye now,” Iain said.
One girl pointed a trembling finger at Soquili. “He’s an Indian,” she said in a terrified whisper. Soquili rolled his eyes, annoyed. Andrew hid a smile.
“Aye, he’s that,” Iain assured her. “But no’ the kind of Indian ye need fear. We’ll help ye from this place an’ have ye cared for. Ye’ve nothin’ to fear from any of us.”
One of the girls began to weep, and another joined in. Their sobs tore at Andrew’s heart, and he remembered Maggie’s bruised, tearstained face on that day so long before. His Maggie had lived through this as well.
“I wasna wi’ ye,” he thought.
“You saved me,” she whispered back. “Now you can save them.”
“Come away,” Andrew said softly to the girls. “We’ve food an’ water, an’ horses to carry ye to a good bed. No one will touch ye unless ye need help.”
The girls rose slowly, leaning on each other for support. Andrew, Iain, and Soquili stood back and let them pass, ready to catch the fragile creatures if they lost their balance.
Maggie stood at the edge of the trees, watching. When the girls came outside, she ran toward them and offered whatever comfort she could manage. Tears had dried on her cheeks in little trails, but she smiled encouragement to each tortured face.
Andrew turned back inside and found the box in the corner of the single room. It was weathered and nondescript, not much more than two feet by three feet, not quite as high as his knees. Andrew knelt beside the box, wedged his fingers under the bottom, then stopped as his head filled with the voices of so many young girls. He felt their terror, the pain, the despair, felt it shudder through his entire body. He let go and stared at the box, then touched it again.
“We will do all we can to bring ye justice, though it is far too late. May ye find peace where’er ye are,” he said, and the frenzy of pleas began to slow.
Andrew left the box closed and cradled it against his chest. He carried it out the door, toward Maggie. She was kneeling beside a girl, wiping a cool, wet cloth over a dirty brow. When she saw Andrew, she rose and went to him, her steps unsure.
She stared at the box, and he sensed her dread. He set it on the grass in front of her, then stepped away, wanting to give her room to breathe.
“Stay with me,” she whispered, sinking to her knees. Adelaide joined her on the grass, and the sisters stared at the box.
Andrew walked around so he could touch Maggie’s back, offering support. He knelt behind her and kissed the side of her neck, feeling goose bumps rise on her skin. She trembled under his fingers, and he felt her urge to run, to forget the pain in the box, to escape with him and never dream of it again. But the voices called to her as they had to him, needing to be heard.
Maggie unhooked the clasp and lifted the top. She reached within the worn planks and Andrew’s fingers tingled, as if the girls held his hand, and he knew Maggie had opened her mind to share everything with him. The first thing Maggie pulled from the box was the blue ribbon that had been yanked from her hair so long before. She drew it loose, flattened the length of it between her fingers, then wrapped the ribbon loosely around her neck and tied the ends into a bow. She took another breath, then withdrew Adelaide’s bracelet and gave it to her sister. Adelaide slid it over her wrist without a word. Then Maggie rested her forehead against the edge of the box and reached for Addy’s hand. She forced her other hand back into the box and closed her fingers around the waist of a little rag doll. The tiny body shook as Maggie lifted it, then held it to her chest. Her grief seized Andrew and whispered in his mind.
“My sister, Ruth.”
Chapter 38
Life Continues
Iain rode to New Windsor with the evidence.
Maggie had told Iain everything about Captain Quinn and his business. Iain listened with unswerving attention, the changing expressions on his wide, bearded face reflecting strong emotions. She told him there was only one man she trusted with the evidence: Sergeant MacMillan, the officer to whom she had confessed immediately following Quinn’s death. There were men of power in the town who would want to seize the incriminating evidence within the box, and Iain would have to be on guard for them.
No one would get in Iain’s way. Andrew felt confident the evidence would be presented, the story told in all its horrific detail, and Maggie would be vindicated. It wasn’t going to be
an easy process, since the judge and other prominent figures were involved in Quinn’s business. But there were too many witnesses now, witnesses who were more than willing to stand up and point accusing fingers.
That was why Andrew hadn’t let Maggie go with Iain. The army was scouring the forest for her, Soquili, and Wahyaw. They wouldn’t hesitate to pluck the three off the street and drop them behind bars.
The rescued girls yielded to Iain’s soft promises that the Cherokee would not hurt them. They rode back to the village with Wahyaw and Soquili, where they would be tended by the healers. The Cherokee women would do what they could for the broken bodies, but the girls’ spirits would require more time. Two of the girls were very ill, their bodies torn, their eyes deadened. Andrew wasn’t sure they would survive.
Maggie, Adelaide, and Andrew walked to his home a few hours away. They took their time, depending on Maggie’s strength, stopping often to rest. When at last they reached the tiny settlement, Maggie took Andrew’s hand and squeezed it. He smiled, but a flurry of nerves bubbled through his chest.
“Would ye be happy livin’ here?” Andrew asked.
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“I mean, to leave the Cherokee an’ all—”
“Oh. No,” she said, her eyes glancing appreciatively around the houses, barn, and sheds. “I won’t ever leave them entirely. But I want to live with you. I want to be with you, in this house you built. It already feels like home.”
He squeezed her against his side and thought: yes, now that she was here, it did feel like home.
Seamus opened the door and discovered Andrew with two unknown women. They joined him inside and warmed themselves by a snapping fire while Andrew explained as much as he could. The children buzzed around him like flies until he told them where Iain had gone. Janet hung on a pot of stew over the hearth, brought the sisters something clean to wear, and checked Adelaide’s injury.
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