by Susan Wiggs
That had been back when everything was different. When Lucas had believed his father could do anything.
Blue crossed the room, his feet soundless on the French carpet he and Sancha had picked out together. Ghosts rose from the ivy design twining through the rug, threatening to trip him up.
But old ghosts and a defiant son faded as a sense of mission rose up in him. He gave his full attention to the woman on the bed, and curiously, it was a relief to see her. At least if she was here, she couldn’t be out committing murder.
No, she could be in his home committing murder. Scowling, he took Miss Fish-Wooten’s hand and pressed three fingers to the inside of her wrist. Her pulse raced. Fever raged through her. Heat rolled off her in waves, as though she was a loaf of bread fresh from the oven.
Her English rose cheeks were on fire, and her dark hair lay plastered to her brow. She still wore the white smock over the gray jacket he’d given her this morning.
He thumbed open one eye, then the other, his fingers warmed by her fevered brow. Her pupils responded to the light. The irises were as clear as a spring creek. But she was completely insensate. Reaching behind her, he drew her up. She lolled forward, and for an awkward moment they were embracing. A peculiar and unexpected feeling took hold of him. In the most fundamental way, he was aware of her as a woman. The rare flicker of intimacy startled him, and he pulled back. Setting his jaw, he lifted her to check for bleeding; the bandage he’d applied this morning was stained with dried blood the color of earth. He settled her back against the pillows again. His gaze lingered on her mouth, and he found himself remembering the charm of her smile, even when she was pointing a gun at him.
“Has Delta seen her?”
“No. She’d gone home for the day by the time I got here.”
“Where’d you find her?”
“In the gardening shed at the churchyard.”
“And she was like this when you found her? Did she speak?”
Lucas glanced away. A furtive hand drifted to the pocket of his dungarees.
Blue straightened up in a rush of anger and panic. “She was armed, wasn’t she?”
Lucas stuck his hand into his pocket and brought out the small Derringer. Blue regarded the obscenity in the palm of his son’s hand.
He grabbed the pistol. “Christ, it’s loaded. Never carry a loaded weapon,” he said. “Don’t you know any better than to—”
“How would I know?” Resentment threaded through Lucas’s words. “You’ve never allowed me anywhere near a firearm.”
Lucas had always been fascinated by firearms of all sorts. He constantly sneaked off to Wild West shows and shooting competitions, and each year for his birthday, he pleaded for a gun.
Blue had no idea what to make of his son’s fascination. He didn’t understand how Lucas could be so enamored of something that had destroyed his family. Yet logic told Blue the boy remembered nothing of the horrors wreaked on the Wyoming prairie. When Blue found them after the battle—or incident, as the army had termed it in the official documents that had followed—Lucas had been gently cradled in his dead mother’s arms, protected by her to the end.
A little boy with large brown eyes, Lucas put his finger to his lips and said, “Shh. Mama’s sleeping. She said I must be very quiet so she can sleep.” But even at such a tender age, Lucas must have known the unnatural sleep was the beginning of an unimaginable grief. For when Blue had plunged to his knees in the dust and ash, the boy had said, “Save her, Daddy. You have to save her.”
Blue emptied the chamber of the Derringer. He shoved the bullets into one pocket and the gun into another. “Where’s the pistol?” he demanded.
“I just gave it to you.”
“The other one. The Colt’s.”
“There was just the one.”
“She had another.”
“Well, I didn’t see it. She’s in a bad way,” Lucas reminded him. “Shouldn’t you be tending her?”
He was right, of course. Blue pushed his son farther away from the bedside, then bent and folded back the coverlet. It was edged in heavy Belgian lace, a wedding gift from Blue’s uncle Ryan and aunt Dora.
He bent over the bed where he used to make love to his wife. Now he examined a murderer.
He knew even before he checked her that the wound had become infected. Despite his precautions, the poison was spreading through her. He couldn’t think straight, and it wasn’t like him. Ordinarily he had no trouble giving his total absorption to a patient. Yet this stranger, here in this bed, had an unsettling effect on him. The past lived in this room, and that was why Blue could never come here.
Every object held a piece of his heart. Even the smallest detail—a hairpin left on the vanity table, a half-finished letter in her handwriting—stabbed him with a reminder that he used to know how to be happy. He used to know what it felt like to greet each new day with pleasure, to smile from the heart and to feel glad he was alive. He used to know what it was like to love a woman. Being here reminded him of all that. No wonder he never came to this room.
He turned to his son, making no attempt to hide the fury in his face. “Why the devil would you bring her here?”
Lucas stared at him in disbelief. “Oh, sorry. I thought you were the doctor in the family.”
“Generally when one is threatened by a gun, one goes for the police.” He put up a hand to forestall further sarcasm from his son. He sent him down to the surgery for supplies, and the boy hurried out, more obedient and unquestioning than he’d been in ages.
After Lucas left, Blue eyed Miss Fish-Wooten with resentment. “So I’m to start and end my day with you,” he muttered.
Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t stay open. There was such delicacy about her. It was hard to believe she had survived the day.
“Give me one reason I should save you,” he said. “Because I’m a doctor who took an oath? Because my son brought you to me like a bird fallen from the nest?”
Scowling with fury, he took off his frockcoat, rolled back his sleeves and poured water into a basin.
He thought with fading wistfulness of his plans for the evening—a quiet supper with his son. He’d actually hoped Lucas would be too exhausted from the churchyard gardening to pick a fight with him. On some evenings, Blue paid a visit to his longtime mistress, Clarice Hatcher. Elegant, accomplished and undemanding, she had been a small yet diverting part of his life for years.
But alas, tonight would belong to Miss Isabel Fish-Wooten.
Nine
Isabel was glad she hadn’t shot the angel after all. At least, she didn’t think she had. Her memory of the dusty shed was still a blur of images as her senses whirled with pain and fever. But she was quite certain she hadn’t gunned down her savior. It was a good thing, because by the looks of things, the angel had brought her to heaven.
And heaven was exactly as she had imagined it. She lay upon a cloud of soft eiderdown while golden light streamed in soft slanting bars through an open window, bathing her in warmth. Gauzy curtains blew inward on the gentlest of breezes. A rare sense of safety and security enveloped her. Somewhere not so far away, seraphim sang in a velvety voice.
Swing low, sweet chariot…
Interesting, thought Isabel. The angel sounded nothing like those fussy chorales that performed in churches, rolling their Rs and singing in Latin as though they knew the meaning of the incomprehensible prayers. These words were clear and sweet, ringing with honest emotion, as a proper hymn should be.
Coming for to carry me home…
She realized the song was a Negro spiritual. In the slow slide of its melody, the soulful notes held all the sorrow in the world, yet hope and joy echoed through the words and hovered in the silences between them.
A dark shadow slipped over her. The golden light outlined a formidable shape. This angel had nut-colored skin and shining hair pulled away from a serene face. Her appearance stirred a vague memory in Isabel, but thinking too hard caused her head to throb in a way that shou
ld be disallowed in the hereafter. Isabel felt vaguely miffed. What was the point of dying if you could still feel pain?
“Mercy, you’re awake,” said the dark angel. “It’s about time. You had us worried.” She rested the back of her hand on Isabel’s forehead. A motherly touch, thought Isabel, though she had no idea how she would know what that was. “I’ll just be fetching Dr. Calhoun,” the angel added.
Dr. Calhoun. A swift memory swept over Isabel—broad shoulders, gentle hands, accusing eyes. A decidedly earthbound sort.
When the angel went away, Isabel pushed herself gingerly to a sitting position. Her wound burned like hellfire and damnation. And it struck her then, a knife twist of revelation, that she wasn’t in heaven after all. That should be no cause for surprise. Certainly she’d never expected to find herself in paradise, given the way she’d lived.
Very well, then. She wasn’t dead in the least, but alive and hurting.
The movement of her head caused her to see stars. Whirling images flitted in and out of her consciousness—light, lace, scrolled woodwork. The wobbling room wavered in and out of focus, its beauty blurred but undiminished by her imperfect vision. Sunlight and fringe, white linen and ruffles. The walls were painted a lemony yellow, and crystal sconces crowned the gas jets. A white marble fireplace dominated one wall. There were doors leading to adjoining rooms, French windows framing a balcony decked with alabaster crocks. In one corner was a draped vanity table with a round mirror. The bed itself was a wonder, its soaring posters carved with sheaves of rice, topped with pineapple-shaped finials. Draped in sheer white tulle, the canopy formed a graceful arch over the softest of mattresses.
Everything was clean and light, right down to the white cotton bed gown she wore. Someone had taken her clothes, such as they were. She frowned, thinking that there was something important about that, but the thought fluttered away before she could capture it.
The door to the light-filled room opened and in walked a tall man, his imposing form limned by sunshine as he passed in front of the French windows and approached the bed. The air pulsed and lurched around him.
Dr. Calhoun. Theodore Calhoun, she realized, seeing him through a thick haze. He’d worked so hard to save her. It was the one thing she recalled with crystal clarity. She had threatened him at gunpoint, yet he’d treated her with more tenderness than any man ever had.
But she’d sabotaged his efforts to heal her. She could still hear his warnings and protests echoing in her ears. She’d left despite his admonitions, of course. What else could she have done? And now look where it had brought her—right back to him. Amazing. In all her travels, she had never come back to anyone before. Perhaps that meant something.
If her head would stop whirling, if her mouth weren’t so dry, she would ask where she was. And then she would tell him not to look so concerned. She thought she detected shades of guilt in his stern face. This wasn’t his fault, she wanted to tell him. He probably saved lives every day and shouldn’t regard her as a failure. Holing up in a filthy shed and coming down with a raging fever had been her fault entirely. She was beyond saving, and had been for a long time.
He paused by the bed to study her while she regarded him with curiosity and mounting confusion. His wide shoulders balanced nicely with his impressive height, and unlike many men of fashion, he was clean-shaven. He was dressed in a suit of dark, crisp superfine. The white boiled collar and cuffs were professional-looking rather than fussy. He had abundant hair the color of the wheat fields she had passed on her journey by train across the heart of America.
His most arresting feature by far was his eyes. They trapped the light. They were as blue as shattered sapphires and filled with unspoken thoughts she wished he would share. He had the sort of face every girl pictured when she was young and hopeful enough to dream of marriage.
He was not merely handsome but…protective. She wasn’t sure what made him seem that way. The set of his jaw, perhaps? His aggressive posture?
“So you’re awake,” he said, his voice harsh with contempt.
Despite his obvious animosity, Isabel felt glad she had not been taken to heaven after all. This was much more interesting.
“Good morning,” she said. Her voice creaked like a rusty, unused gate hinge. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Good morning, Doctor.”
“A better morning than yesterday,” he said, angling a spindle-legged chair to face the bed and taking a seat.
So she’d only lost a day and a night to the murky oblivion of fever. Then she remembered the disquieting reason that had prompted her to flee in the first place. He and his nurse—the woman she’d mistaken for a singing angel earlier—were going to set the police on Isabel. Regardless of what had really happened at the waterfront that night, she was bound to be in big trouble.
“Where am I?”
“This is my private home. You belong in a hospital but you’re too ill to be moved.”
“I’m not going to any hospital.”
“Not today. You’re too ill.”
She tried to work out a plan in her head, but the fever burned away her thoughts like coals in a hungry fire. Bright ideas glowed only to turn to ash a second later. Clearly she was in no condition to flee again. For the time being, she would be forced to lie here, imprisoned in a strange house by a man who clearly resented every breath she took. She despised her imprisonment with a clarity that shone through the heat shimmers of fever. She never, ever wanted to surrender control of her life to someone else.
Yet she would have to regain her strength before she could take back her freedom. That being the case, she was determined to make the best of the situation. Despite the searing pain in her back, she summoned what she hoped looked like a grateful smile.
“You saved my life twice,” she said. “I wish I had two lifetimes to repay you.”
He took her wrist in one hand and pressed his fingers to her pulse. Though she told herself he was a physician who was obliged to treat her, his tenderness nearly made her weep. She’d never been touched in this way, ever. Until now. Until him.
An odd notion occurred to her while he held her hand in his. She wanted to let this moment stretch out into eternity. Perhaps it was a bizarre side effect of her raging fever, but for now, at least, it was the dearest wish in her heart.
When he caught her expression, he looked taken aback. “I’d best give you a powder for that dyspepsia,” he said. “You look as though you’re taking a turn for the worse.”
“I’m not getting worse,” she assured him. “And I’m not dyspeptic.”
He leaned toward her, putting his face so close she could feel the warmth of his breath. She could smell his scent of soap and bay rum, could see the perfect shape of his lips, the strong cut of his jaw and the intriguing facets of his eyes. An unexpected sense of anticipation rose in her chest. Another out-of-the-blue notion swept over her. For the first time since she was a young, idiot girl, she yearned for a man to kiss her. And it was not just any kiss she craved, but a swift, hard crushing-together of mouths, a deep sharing and tasting, an intimate and delicious communion. She had no idea where that peculiar desire had come from. The fever, surely.
With infinite gentleness, he rested his hand on her brow and closely studied her eyes. She lost herself in his gaze, seeing depths within depths there and finally, reflecting back at her, a tiny image of herself. Gaunt cheeks and large eyes. Her hair hastily cut by her own hand. Could he see her thoughts? Could he feel the yearning in the pulsing rhythm of her heart? Could he sense the beginnings of true adoration?
“You’re not suffering from digestive upset?” he asked. “Headache, nausea?”
“No.” She frowned at him. Perhaps he was not as wise and wonderful as she’d thought if he mistook the look for dyspepsia. So much for yearning and desire.
The chair creaked as he shifted, leaning forward. “Look, Miss Fish-Wooten, or whatever your name is—”
“You may call me Isabel,” she said expansively. Her v
oice seemed to emanate, disembodied, from another part of the room. She was quite drunk with fever, but long ago she had schooled herself to speak with perfect diction, and her aristocratic accent still rang true. “I know it’s quite early in our acquaintanceship, but under the circumstances, I feel as though we enjoy a rare level of intimacy.”
“What you mistake for intimacy is simply the duty of a physician toward a patient.”
“So I am nothing but a bag of bones to you.” She waited for him to protest, but he didn’t.
Instead, he glared at her. Even glaring, he was uncommonly appealing. A pity they had met under such disastrous circumstances. It would not be the first time Isabel found herself in the right place at the wrong time. But as so often happened to her, the disaster came with an interesting opportunity. He was sitting at her bedside, not three feet away.
Dr. Calhoun. Theodore Calhoun. A man whose physical appeal was surpassed only by his capacity for gentleness. Whose foul temper masked a humanity she had never before encountered in a man. He stirred her heart. His very nearness caused goose bumps to race over her skin. She wondered if she might be falling in love with him, quickly and passionately. She was, after all, a lady adventurer. And being in love was one adventure she’d never enjoyed. So far, it felt exhilarating, as though she were no longer earthbound, but floating in some happy warm state.
Or perhaps that too was the fever.
“Are you married, Dr. Calhoun?” she asked, getting right to the heart of the matter. Of necessity, Isabel had few scruples, but stealing other women’s husbands was something even she would never allow herself to do.
It wasn’t a difficult question, yet he gaped at her as though she’d spoken gibberish. His face paled and then reddened in quick succession. And finally turned so cold that she stopped floating for several moments.
