Heartstrings

by Rebecca Paisley

  “How is it possible for you to think of me as a sweetheart and then be so angry with me?”

  Gently, he laid her on the ground and rose to his feet. “I didn’t mean to call you sweetheart, got that? It—it’s one of those worried words. Those stupid words people say when they’re nervous. Well, hell, Theodosia, you had passed out, and you wouldn’t wake up! The word just slipped out. That’s all there is to it, so forget I ever said it.”

  A shiver passed through her, causing her to realize she was wet and partially unclothed. Indeed, her bosom was clearly visible through the clinging chemise. “You pulled my dress down.”

  He saw suspicion floating in her huge brown eyes. “Yeah, and then I ravished you. I’m wanted in five states for violating unconscious women.” He stalked toward the wagon to retrieve the Colt he’d thrown at the wolf. God, to think he’d thrown one of his precious weapons at a damned wolf! He’d never committed such an atrocity in all his days of carrying a gun.

  And all because of a woman. A woman! Mumbling profanities, he reloaded both weapons and took one to Theodosia. “The last time you ate was yesterday at the fair. You need something in your stomach, or you’re going to get dizzier. I’m going hunting. I won’t be far, and while I’m gone, stay exactly where you are. If anything happens, fire two shots into the air. You do know how to shoot a gun, don’t you?”

  She cocked the revolver, pointed the gun toward the sky, and pulled the trigger.

  In the next moment, a slender branch fell on top of her, causing her to shriek with surprise.

  Shaking his head, Roman left to find breakfast.

  When he returned a short while later, Theodosia was fast asleep. Her hand on her chest, she still held the gun, pointing it directly at her face.

  “Oh, of all the…” Roman muttered, taking the gun and stuffing it back into his belt. “You don’t have the sense God gave a hammer.”

  The smell of food soon awakened Theodosia. Opening her eyes, she saw Roman stirring a pot over the fire. “What are you making?”

  “Soup. We’ve got provisions in the wagon, but nothing I can make fresh soup out of. I doubt you can keep down much more than this.”

  Holding the side of her head, Theodosia sat up. A moment passed before the pain subsided sufficiently for her to speak. “What kind of soup is it?”

  “Prairie chicken. I got three.”

  “Prairie chicken?”

  He threw some salt into the soup. “I’ve also heard them called grouse, but the name never stuck with me.”

  “I’ve never eaten a decoction of Tympanuchus cupido pinnatus for breakfast.”

  He gave her a sideways glance. “Is that scientificaneeze for prairie chicken soup?”

  “Scientificaneeze?”

  “That’s the name of the language you speak when you’re off on one of your genius runs.”

  She ignored his barb. “A decoction of Tympanuchus cupido pinnatus is indeed prairie chicken soup.”

  The bump to her head obviously hadn’t done anything to her brain, he mused. “How’s it possible for you to think of anything intellectual about three buck-naked, simmering prairie chickens?”

  “I—”

  “Never mind. Here.” He dished out a bowl of the broth and handed it to her. For himself, he made a plate of the meat.

  “I thought I’d done well,” Theodosia said after finishing the soup. “After I left Singing Creek, I tried to do everything I thought you would do.”

  He tossed a prairie chicken leg into the fire. “Yeah? Well, I never would have laid myself out like a damned banquet and invited wolves to come eat me.”

  Gingerly, she lay back down on the leaves. “I would not have placed myself in such a predicament had you not infuriated me with your temulency yesterday. You—”

  “I might have gotten drunk yesterday, but I did not temulent you!” He wasn’t exactly sure what temulency meant, but it sounded like something sexual.

  “Temulency means drunkenness, Roman. After Miss Fowler left the room, I told you I was leaving Singing Creek. But due to your state of inebriation, you possessed neither the will nor the ability to accompany me. Did you really expect to find me in the room when you awakened?”

  “I sure as hell didn’t expect to find you out here in wolf kingdom! Where did you think you were going, anyway?”

  She picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle through her fingers. “To a town.”

  “What town?”

  “The first one I came to.”

  He stood. “You were heading southwest, Theodosia. In four or five days time you would have been in the damned desert, with nothing but cacti, mesquite, and rattlesnakes for company.” He crossed to the wagon and began scrounging through Theodosia’s bags.

  When he brought her the nightgown, she frowned. “What—”

  “Put it on. You’re not going anywhere today, tomorrow, or the day after that. In fact, you’re staying put until I think you’re fit to travel, and you might as well be comfortable while you’re at it.”

  She drew the gown over her head, pulled it down, then removed her clothes from beneath it. “You are wrong about my not having company while I journey,” she said, slipping her arms into the sleeves of her nightgown. “I have John the Baptist, who is superb company. He does not belittle me, nor does he shout at me. Would you bring him to me, please?”

  Shoving his fingers through his hair, Roman swiped her clothes off the ground, threw them into the wagon bed, then bent to get the cage out from beneath the vehicle. As he straightened, the cage door swung open.

  John the Baptist was not inside.

  “Roman? Will you bring him to me, please?” Theodosia asked again, wondering why he was standing so still.

  His back to her, Roman held the cage to his chest and frantically tried to decide what to do. If he told her the bird was gone, she’d make him go look for it. She’d want to go with him, of course. She’d have to go, since there was no way in hell he’d leave her here unprotected.

  But what about her head injury? She couldn’t travel.

  He wouldn’t tell her that her bird was gone.

  But if he didn’t tell her, the parrot would wander farther away. Theodosia would never forgive him if something happened to her pet.

  Dammit!

  “Roman?”

  “Uh…he’s asleep.” Roman placed the cage on the wagon bed so Theodosia couldn’t see it. “Dead to the world. He—didn’t I just tell you that you had to rest today? Go to sleep!” Still refusing to look at her, he walked around the buckboard, his gaze sweeping over every inch of dirt he passed as he looked for signs of John the Baptist.

  Theodosia didn’t care for the distress she heard in his voice. Something was wrong. Determined to find out what it was, she struggled to her feet, resisting the wave of weakness that passed through her. One slow step at a time, she approached the wagon.

  “John,” she whispered upon seeing the empty cage. Clutching the side of the buckboard for support, she picked up the cage.

  When Roman turned around, the first thing he saw was the telltale shine in her eyes. “Don’t cry. I’ll find him. God, just don’t cry.”

  She nodded mutely, then began to sway. The cage crashed to the ground.

  In an instant, Roman swept her into his arms. “I swear I’ll find him, Theodosia, but I won’t go out looking for him right now. I can’t leave you here, and I can’t take you with me. You’re about to pass out again, and I—”

  “The wolves,” she whispered. “What if the wolves got him?”

  “They didn’t. They didn’t get him. Got that?” God, he hoped the wolves hadn’t gotten the parrot.

  “Please find him, Roman.”

  Her voice shook. With pain or fear, Roman didn’t know. “I will, but—”

  “I’ll be fine. I can drive the wagon while you ride Secret. I’ll follow you.”

  “The hell you will!” He regretted shouting the second he saw more tears fill her eyes. “I told you not to�
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  “I cannot stem my tears,” she whimpered, feeling several tears trickle over her lips. “John the Baptist is more than a pet to me, Roman. He’s—well, how would you feel if Secret were lost, and the only person who could find him refused to cooperate?”

  The moment the question was out of her mouth, Roman knew he was defeated. Truth was, if Secret were ever lost, he’d scour every inch of the earth until he found the stallion.

  And the parrot had played a part in keeping Theodosia safe from those Bandana Brothers, he recalled.

  Roman gave a great sigh. He was going to track an African parrot through the Texas wilds while tending to an injured genius from Boston who was wearing nothing but a flannel nightgown.

  This was the stupidest thing he’d ever been forced to do.

  Without another word of argument, he placed Theodosia into the back of the wagon and made a bed for her. “I’ll lead your mustang. You stay here on the pallet. I know you don’t have a lot of room, but you can curl up or something.” He stared at her until she crawled into the bed.

  After kicking dirt over the campfire and tying Secret to the back of the buckboard, he resumed his search for clues as to which direction the parrot had taken.

  “You aren’t going to ride?” Theodosia asked, watching him examine the ground all around the wagon.

  “The parrot isn’t heavy enough to make tracks I can see while mounted. I’ve got to be close to the ground. He can’t fly, right?”

  “Only for short distances.” She grimaced as pain shot through her head. “His wings are clipped.”

  “You sliced his wings?” Roman asked disbelievingly. There was no love lost between him and the bird, but he didn’t like thinking about the parrot being cut into.

  “I only snipped a few of his feathers off. The ones he needs to fly. He experienced no pain during the procedure.” With a will so strong that it surprised her, she fought and conquered the terrible weakness that continued to seep through her limbs. “How long do you think he’s been gone?”

  Roman remembered knocking the cage over when he’d dragged Theodosia out from beneath the wagon. “About three hours.”

  “Three hours? Oh, Roman—”

  “He’s a parrot, for God’s sake, not a roadrunner! He couldn’t have gotten very far, especially since he can’t fly.”

  She forced herself to remain calm.

  “Here’s a bird footprint,” Roman muttered, his eyes following the prints until they stopped at a patch of grass. “Sand,” he said, bending over the grass. “There’s sand stuck to this grass.” Rising, he looked out over the distance. “He went that way.”

  “How do you—”

  “If you start feeling the least bit bad, you have to tell me, Theodosia. Promise me you will, or I won’t make the first move to find your bird.”

  She knew he’d keep his vow. “I promise.”

  Satisfied, Roman took hold of the mustang’s bridle and began to walk, his gaze never lifting from the ground.

  “What is it you see?” Theodosia held the wagon’s sides while watching Roman in action.

  “There was a heavy dew last night. When John the Baptist walked through this grass this morning, he had sand on his feet, and it came off on the wet grass. We’re lucky that the grass grows in patches surrounded by sand. Every time your parrot left grass, he got into more sand, and then into more wet grass. The dew is dried now, but sand is still stuck to the grass. We have a trail to follow.”

  Though fear for her parrot and pain from her head wound continued to plague her, Roman’s explanation amazed her. While living in Boston, she’d spent thousands of hours in the company of brilliant people, but she’d never once come across anyone who possessed the marvelous skills Roman demonstrated now.

  She knew then that if it was at-all possible for someone to find John the Baptist, that someone was Roman Montana.

  An hour later, he proved her right. Theodosia spotted John the Baptist. Although he resembled little more than a gray blob in the far distance, she knew it was he. His red tail feathers acted like a beacon.

  The bird sat perched on the horn of a steer skeleton, calmly preening his feathers. “Roman, there he is! Oh, please, let’s go collect him before he meanders away again!”

  Roman didn’t move. Something wasn’t right. He saw nothing alarming, but his every instinct warned that danger lurked just ahead. Still as steel, he watched and waited for evidence of the peril.

  It came in the form of a man. Hidden in an oak thicket and blending in with his rustic surroundings, a Comanche warrior pointed a lance straight at John the Baptist.

  Chapter Eleven

  Roman reacted instantly and retrieved his rifle from the sling on Secret’s saddle. In the next moment he fitted the weapon to his shoulder, narrowed his eyes, and sighted along the rifle barrel.

  Theodosia watched him point the gun at John the Baptist. “Roman! Dear God, what are you doing?” Pulling herself to her knees, she tried to grab his shoulder.

  She caught thin air and toppled out of the wagon.

  Deaf to her horrified screams, Roman curled his finger around the trigger and fired just as the lance left the warrior’s hand.

  Frightened into speechlessness by the sharp crack of gunfire, Theodosia raised her head from the ground and watched something long and slender fly out of the oak forest. She couldn’t determine what it was but knew only that it sped directly toward John the Baptist.

  Before she could scream again, the sailing object came apart in the air, splintering into two pieces that fell harmlessly to the ground.

  Roman lowered his rifle, and keeping his gaze directed straight at the warrior, he assisted Theodosia back into the wagon bed. “Why’d you throw yourself out of the buckboard?”

  “I did not throw myself out, Roman. I fell out while trying to keep you from shooting John the Baptist. You—”

  “I spent a whole damned hour following bits of sand to find him for you! Why would I have gone through all that and then killed him?” God, would he ever get used to her complete lack of common sense?

  She nodded and swept her hair out of her eyes. “Yes. Yes, of course you’re right. You wouldn’t have shot John the Baptist, but I—I panicked, Roman. I wasn’t rationalizing. It all happened so quickly, and I couldn’t understand what you—” She looked into his eyes. “What was that thing you shot?”

  Roman watched the Indian vanish into the woods, but the man’s disappearance in no way settled his apprehension. The warrior was without a mount, which was highly unusual for a Comanche brave. And from what Roman had been able to see, the warrior’s lance had been his sole weapon.

  With no horse or arms, the warrior would surely attempt to get those necessities somehow.

  Dammit! Roman raged. This morning he’d battled a pack of wolves, and he suspected that he would soon be forced to fight a Comanche warrior. “Roman?”

  “I shot a Comanche lance. The warrior was going to kill John the Baptist, probably out of fear. I doubt seriously that he’d ever seen an African parrot before today, and Indians are—well, they’re suspicious of things they don’t recognize.”

  “A Comanche warrior?” Theodosia scanned the entire area but saw no sign of the Indian. “How did you see him? Where—”

  “Sunlight hit the metal tip of his lance. When I saw the flash, I saw the warrior.”

  “You—Roman, you shot the lance,” she whispered as if in prayer.

  “Would you rather I’d shot the warrior?”

  “What? No. No, of course I wouldn’t have wanted you to shoot the warrior. But you—”

  “I aimed for the lance because I knew the warrior was just about to throw it.”

  She couldn’t fathom his blasé attitude. For goodness’ sake, he’d hit a flying lance from a distance of at least a hundred yards! Another man would have bragged about and celebrated such marksmanship.

  But not Roman. He made use of his skills when he had to, and when he had no further need of them, he pu
t them away, like a shirt he didn’t feel like wearing anymore.

  Her profuse admiration for him moved her to embrace him.

  Instantly, Roman thrust her away. “Theodosia, get down in the wagon.”

  She started. His voice sounded like wheels churning through gravel, and she realized immediately that he would stand for no argument on her part. As she slipped into the pallet he’d made for her in the wagon bed, her heart skipped several beats when it dawned on her that Roman had spotted the Indian again.

  “Stay there,” Roman instructed her. His fingers whitening around his rifle, he watched the Comanche warrior step out of the thicket and walk toward the wagon, a small bundle in his arms.

  By heading straight toward a white man’s loaded rifle, the Indian showed incredible bravery, stupidity, or desperation, Roman thought. He tensed in preparation for whatever he would have to do to protect Theodosia.

  Finally, the Comanche stopped near the wagon, knelt, and slowly placed the bundle on the ground. His black eyes never leaving the armed white man in front of him, he unwrapped the parcel and then stood.

  Roman saw a Comanche infant lying amidst the cloth. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered when the baby began to wail.

  Disturbed by the sound of the infant’s wailing and Roman’s curse, Theodosia sat up. One look at the warrior caused her to gasp with surprise. Wearing nothing but a buckskin breechcloth and the cloak of his thick black hair, he stared directly into her eyes. Taken aback by the intensity of his dark gaze, she looked away and glanced at the baby at his feet. The naked male child appeared to be about four months old, and as Theodosia listened to his cries, her heart went out to him.

  “Roman,” she murmured, “the baby—”

  “He’s probably the warrior’s son,” Roman replied. “The mother must have died somehow.”

  Filled with pity, Theodosia held her aching head and began to climb out of the wagon. But she stilled instantly when the warrior spoke.

  “Mamante,” he warrior said, laying his hand on his chest. “Mamante.”

  “His name must be Mamante,” Theodosia said. She tapped her own chest. “I’m Theodosia. And this man, is Roman. Roman, tell him who we are.”