“So you can take pleasure from my former wife?” Malcolm laughed. “You don’t even know she’s barren. Take her, and you’ll never know the joy a son can bring.”
“Men marry more than wombs. They marry women. Pity you didn’t understand that,” Daniel said. “Near as I can tell, you drove a fine one to do some awful things. A man like you doesn’t deserve a woman like Hannah.”
“He’s quite taken with you, darling,” Malcolm sneered. “We’ll see if he still wants you when I’m through with you. You’re coming home. I need to prove you’re still alive and the only crime committed was one against my name.”
“I won’t go anywhere with you! You’re a lying thief!” Hannah shouted.
Malcolm cocked the pistol and pointed it toward Daniel. “I need you alive, but I don’t need your lover. In fact, I think he might try to interfere. You know how I detest inconveniences.”
She darted in front of the revolver. “No! Don’t shoot him! I swear I’ll go with you!”
“You must promise, Hannah, that you’ll be a good girl. No crying, no scenes on the way back. As for my part, I’ll release you once my name is cleared. You might even persuade me to drop any charges. You may be barren, but you still have other charms.”
Daniel started to protest, but Hannah interrupted. “No. Don’t try anything. Malcolm means it when he says he’ll kill you.”
“Not if I kill him first,” Daniel muttered, but perversely, an image flickered through his mind like summer lightning. That bloody bayonet. The final Rebel he had killed.
Hannah backed away and joined her former husband, who hoisted her on board Daniel’s horse.
“You don’t mind if she borrows him, do you?” asked Malcolm. “We’ll turn him loose after a bit, to give you long enough to consider what might happen if you follow. The horse will find his way back home.”
He led Chance toward where the gray he’d bought was tied and waiting, and the two of them rode off into the night.
o0o
In the distance, fires glowed, and smoke dimmed the starshine. Even the waning moon’s light was diminished by the distant infernos nearly surrounding Peshtigo.
“I’ll be damned if I burn for you,” said Malcolm. “Fortunately, I’ve already attended to our lodgings.”
They rode down side streets Hannah had never seen before, then stopped. With his Colt, Malcolm gestured for her to dismount. When she did, he slid off his horse, then swatted Chance on the backside. The horse’s hoof beats receded quickly.
Hauling Hannah by the wrist, he took her toward a dilapidated stable. Near its door, a boy dozed by a lantern.
“Not a word or I’ll make the gossip back home all too true.” His whiskers brushed her ear and made her flinch. More loudly, he spoke to wake the boy. “Cool him down before you put him in a stall tonight.”
The lad roused himself to catch a coin and then took the gray’s reins. “You can trust me, sir. Thank you.”
“Remember, you haven’t seen a thing tonight. I’d be aggravated if we were disturbed.” Malcolm’s voice flowed sweet as sorghum, as if he’d only planned one of his seamy rendezvous.
“I take your meaning, sir. Don’t worry. Ma has a strict rule. No jealous beaus allowed. They never pay when they break in the doors.”
Malcolm urged her into a tiny cottage behind the stable. Once inside, he turned up the lamp. She looked around and shuddered. A rickety washstand stood in one corner, and beside it a poorly finished dresser peeled. A bed took up most of the remaining room.
Her former husband latched the door, then turned to gaze at her intently. Her stomach roiled with nausea as she guessed the meaning of his stare.
He took one step toward her. “It’s time for our reunion, Hannah. Now come and show me what I’ve missed.”
She backed away, her legs bumping against a soiled mattress. “Don’t you have a wife now?”
“She’s not here, and I want you. You’re far more beautiful than Melissa, and I remember well your passion. Come, and I’ll be sure to keep you out of prison. Otherwise, I’m certain I could persuade my good friend, Judge Clarke, to make an example of you for your fraud.”
“Just like you persuaded him to take everything from me?” Hannah shook her head. “No. I told you I’d go back, but I’d rather go to jail than bed you.”
He slipped off his coat and laid down the revolver. She edged closer to the door.
He grabbed her arm and flung her to the bed. “You misunderstand. I’m not asking anything.”
She couldn’t let him do this! Of all the wrongs she’d suffered, she knew this she could not bear. Maybe if she could keep him talking, she could somehow get away.
“You threw aside your mistress, too. What about that precious son she gave you? Did you leave him as well?” she asked.
He looked insulted. “Of course, Gerald will be well-provided. But I couldn’t very well marry Marcelia. The woman was a mistress. Totally unacceptable.”
“Your standards are so different for yourself.” She glanced once toward the gun; then he leapt on her.
She tried to scream, but he clapped his hand across her mouth. Crushing his body against hers, he spoke into her ear. “Your struggles only make you more entertaining. I’ve imagined for so long what it would be like to take you this way. See how proud you are now, Hannah! Through everything, you’ve held your head up, but I swear, I will break you. Next time you try to put on airs, I want you to remember what I’m doing!”
He grabbed the neckline of her dress and tore it to her waist. When she fought, he slapped her hard until she lay still, dazed with terror. He pulled out a pocketknife and cut through her underclothing, then pulled back the pieces to expose her chest.
“No, Malcolm,” she groaned. “You mustn’t. Please, no —”
He silenced her protests with slobbering kisses. She thought she would vomit as he explored her mouth and then her ear with his questing tongue. All the while, his hands squeezed her breasts and pinched her nipples, far too hard for any lover’s touch. Tears ran down her face to mingle with the moisture from his mouth. He began to pull her skirt up, then abruptly stopped to rip off his shoes and pants.
The pants around his ankles, Hannah saw her chance. Leaping from the bed, she grabbed the Colt revolver and landed on her knees. He jerked forward awkwardly, then stopped, seeing the gun’s barrel was leveled at his chest.
“Get out!” she commanded as she stood. “Leave the shoes and trousers, and get out of here before I shoot.”
“Hannah . . . Surely, you can’t mean to turn me out like this. Please, I’m sorry if I was a little rough.”
“If you don’t leave, I will shoot you. A man who would do this to a woman surely deserves to die.”
“You don’t even know how to use a gun.” He waddled toward her, the pants hindering his movement.
The revolver clicked as she cocked it. “I wouldn’t be so sure. You never did give me credit for the things my father taught me. Now take the jacket and get out.”
A shout from outside distracted both of them a moment before a kick smashed open the door. Daniel Aldman and a pair of his lumberjack friends stood there with clubs made of old lumber.
Taking in the situation, Petey laughed. “Daniel, it don’t look like she needs our help after all.”
With one hand, Hannah pulled together the tattered remnants of the top part of her dress.
Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “It looks like this man needs a lesson on how to treat a lady.”
Malcolm stammered. “She — She seduced me! The woman’s nothing but a slut.”
Daniel punched him so hard, he flew backwards onto the floor. Malcolm grabbed his nose, and blood oozed between his fingers.
“Now do what I said and leave here,” Hannah told him. “But leave the shoes and trousers.”
“Hannah, I —” Malcolm began. Dark rivulets dripped down his hand.
“— I believe I have three witnesses who would offer testimony if this gun were to a
ccidentally discharge.”
The loggers nodded and Daniel grinned, amused.
“Make sure he leaves town,” Daniel told his two friends.
“I’m not through with you!” Malcolm swore, but he did as Hannah bade him. The shanty boys followed, hooting catcalls and humiliating taunts.
Daniel closed the door and turned to Hannah. “I’m sorry it took so long to find you. Did he —”
She shook her head. “He tried, but as you see, I took his gun.”
He took it away from her and set it down, then went to the washstand. There, he wet a small towel and brought it back to wash her face.
The two of them sat down on the bed, where she trembled while he cleaned her. She flinched as the cloth touched her swollen cheekbone.
“He hit you, didn’t he?”
She nodded.
“I should have beaten him to hell while I had the chance,” Daniel said.
“Why?” she asked. “Why do that for me? I’m nothing to you, Daniel, nothing but a woman who tried to trick your brother.”
“Oh, you’re something to me,” he said quietly.
“What am I?” she asked.
“I think you just might be my second chance.” He bent his head to kiss her softly and thanked a God he’d long ignored when she began to kiss him back.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Daniel held her and gently pulled her close. Their kiss continued, warm and sweet, and gradually, he felt her quaking cease, as if their contact was drawing out the poison of Malcolm’s attack.
Finally, he pressed his lips lightly to her forehead. She leaned her cheek against his shoulder.
“I want to go back to the Barlow’s. Please take me to my room there,” Hannah whispered.
He nodded, then pulled a threadbare blanket from the bed and helped her drape it over her shoulders. “I want you to stay in Peshtigo.”
She smiled, but her blue eyes brimmed with tears. “I’m beginning to believe I misjudged you when we met. But there’s no future for us, Daniel. Think about your family’s feelings.”
“Amelia loves you. That could be enough.”
Hannah shook her head and rose. He tried to take her arm to help her, but she pulled away. “You can’t base love on pity. That would never work. You think of me as something fragile to protect.”
He laughed loudly. “After watching you point that revolver? Why, I’ve known loggers, drunkards, and notorious brawlers who would cross the street if they saw you coming down the sidewalk! I don’t pity you. I admire you, Hannah Shelton, and if you’d let me get to know you better, I think that admiration could grow into something more.”
“Please, just take me back. I don’t have the strength to talk about this tonight.”
Reluctantly, he nodded. “Don’t answer now. Just think about it while you rest.”
“I promise that I will,” she said.
He picked up the Colt and walked her to the stable, where the boy was holding Chance. Daniel clapped him on the back.
“Thanks, Sid, and don’t worry about the door. I’ll be back to fix it later, like I told you.” Then, to Hannah, he explained. “I was damned lucky to find my horse milling around in the street before some rowdy found it in his heart to give him a new home. Here, let me help you up.”
For the second time that night, Hannah mounted the tall chestnut. Instead of adding his weight, Daniel led her through the streets.
When they returned, he roused the Barlows and explained to them that while they’d been walking, a hooligan had tried to assault her in the street. Faye, with more kindness than Daniel had ever imagined she possessed, led Hannah away to bed.
“More to it, ain’t there?” Hank asked. “I heard a commotion right after you went out. When I peeked past the curtain, I saw a stranger with a gun. By the time I could think of what t’do, he’d took her, and off you run.”
“So what did you do then?” asked Daniel.
“Hell, I had another drink. What use is a one-armed man against that sorta scoundrel?”
Daniel grimaced, thinking of a dozen things he could have done to help. If he’d had a few more drinks before he had met Malcolm, would he have been as useless? Hank Barlow surely wouldn’t keep Hannah from harm if her ex-husband returned.
“He might come back for her. You better let me sleep here, too. I took his gun, and if he tries to get in, I intend to plug him right between the eyes.” Daniel tried not to think of what that might cost him, of the nightmares he still had of the last man he had killed. He’d gotten a gut-full of bloodshed, and like now, the cause had seemed right at the time.
“I’ll scrounge you up a blanket and a pillow. You sure you won’t have a little nip to calm your nerves?”
“I’m sure,” he answered, and he thought, surer than I’ve been in far too long.
o0o
Daniel rolled, and the wretched blanket slid off his broad shoulder. The clock chimed three, and he regretted his decision not to have a drink. Maybe that would have softened the wooden floor a mite. Maybe it would have kept him from jumping at the cat that yowled its passion from a nearby alleyway.
Tonight, without the defense of a soft bed or the haze of alcohol, he couldn’t stop remembering. Usually, he could shove back the boy’s face, but tonight the memory only circled around, then came back again like a damned buzzard.
It happened fairly early in the War, when the patriotic strains of northern bands still stirred the fire in his soul. He’d been eighteen then, and mad as hell when the Rebs had fired on Fort Sumter. To his mother and John, the War seemed so far off, so remote from a Wisconsin farm, but to Daniel it sounded like the future calling him. A future filled with heroism: the defense of the great Union, freedom for the slaves. About the only book outside the Bible he’d read, at the time, had been Uncle Tom’s Cabin. No, that slavery business wasn’t right at all, and he intended to wear a blue uniform and try and set things right.
He’d been a child then, he realized, a big child playing man, like so many volunteers. But for his size, he could move as quietly as a deer, a skill he’d learned through his love of hunting as a boy. When the lieutenant wanted somebody to sneak through the woods and kill a sentry, Daniel had been proud to do his part.
He’d been damned good at it too. He knew to stay downwind from the horses, so they wouldn’t scent him. He could slip in, knife a dozing Reb, and be back to his unit before the fellow reached the Pearly Gates. The other soldiers took to calling Daniel Saint Peter, for the men he sent that way. Like a fool, he’d been proud of that name.
Until it all went wrong. He’d been sent ahead to give warning of the enemy’s approach when he nearly ran into the Rebel picket. Like Daniel, the other boy had been alone. But unlike him, the Rebel lurched with panic and tripped over his big feet, trying to make for the cover of a fallen tree. Daniel would have preferred to use his knife, but the rifle was his only chance. Lifting it, he shot the Reb mid-fall.
The boy jerked sideways, stifling a cry of pain, as blood erupted from his shoulder. His weapon dropped beyond his reach, in the lee of a fallen pine. Daniel stared, and the unarmed Reb stared back, wild-eyed. He had hazel eyes, Daniel recalled, sweaty, dark blonde hair. He’d been so young, maybe sixteen, and scared to death to die.
“Please, please no . . .” the boy moaned. Despite the heat, his teeth were chattering.
Shoot again, and fast, Daniel’s mind screamed, but his hands would not obey. For the first time since the killing started, Daniel realized it could just as easily be him. As agony and terror contorted the boy’s face, Daniel knew the damage his stealthy blade had done those past few months.
Saint Peter, he decided, was a poor nickname for the devil’s tool. He lowered the rifle from his shoulder and wondered how he would ever lift it there again.
Stupidly, he didn’t even turn at the tramp of footsteps through the leaves, but he recognized Lieutenant Perkins’s shout.
“Jesus, boy. Don’t be an idiot. Kill him, and then run. They’
ll have heard that shot for sure.”
Daniel shook his head. “No, you go on ahead.”
Lieutenant Perkins, only a few years older, gave him a hard shove. “I’m not leaving you here, boy. Now bayonet him and let’s go.”
“He’ll bleed to death if we just leave him,” Daniel said, ignoring the order.
Perkins swung around the stock of his rifle and cracked Daniel on the jaw. Taken by surprise, the younger man fell hard. He scrabbled to his feet, mad enough to fight.
Perkins met him with the tip of his own bayonet. “I said run him through. You don’t do this, you’ll never be worth a damn again.”
Drawing a deep breath, Daniel turned back toward the Reb. He felt Perkins’s weapon prod him, cut right through his jacket. He stared down at the Rebel. The boy looked him in the eye.
And nodded just before he closed his eyes for the last time.
Daniel made his first cut count, deep and steady, to the heart. And then he turned and ran away with Perkins, his steel dripping blood.
Daniel grabbed at the blanket and thought about the steel he’d seen tonight, the steel in Hannah’s pale blue eyes. He would never forget the image of her holding that gun on her ex-husband, ordering him to leave without his shoes or pants. Most women would have been too humiliated to do anything. What she’d once told his Aunt Lucinda had proved true: I’m stronger than you’d guess. Yet there was something soft in her as well, though perhaps more carefully hidden. He’d seen it when she spoke of horses and when she’d lectured him about his daughter.
Somewhere in the small house, a door creaked. Daniel reached for the gun but otherwise lay still. He listened to the progress of soft footfalls on the wooden floor. Every muscle in his body tensed taut as a bowstring and quivered in anticipation of release.
“Daniel?” The syllables were quiet, yet unmistakable. If he lived a hundred years, he knew he’d always recognize her voice.
“You all right?” he asked.
The padding feet grew nearer, and he saw her dim shape settle in a nearby sofa. “I couldn’t sleep. I kept hearing Malcolm’s voice, saying all those horrid things,” said Hannah. “And I knew you were still here. Faye told me before she went to bed. I doubted you’d get much rest, so I thought I’d go ahead and thank you for giving up a good night’s sleep.”
Touched by Fire Page 7
