“Stand up there, girl!” he shouted. When Fallon looked to where Charles had been beating Trader, she saw her uncle lying on the ground writhing in pain, his arms drawn against his midsection. As Simmons pulled Fallon against him and held his knife to her throat, he also turned to face Trader. Seeing that Fallon was endangered once more, Trader stopped abruptly only inches from her.
“Let her go,” he growled.
Simmons chuckled and shifted the knife in his hand so his grip was firmer as he now pointed it threateningly at Fallon’s bosom. “She’s dead, ya animal. Watch her die. And I had her last…remember that.”
As Simmons raised the knife, Trader easily grabbed his wrist in one hand. He yanked the man, wrenching him from Fallon and flinging him aside as if he were no more than bundle of feed.
Fallon watched as Simmons crumpled to the ground, looking up at Trader with an expression of disbelief on his ugly face. As he flopped onto his back, a bloody and fatal wound to his chest was revealed, inflicted when he had fallen on his own knife. He pointed a blood-stained finger at Trader before his body went limp, and he lay motionless on the ground.
From behind her, Fallon heard Charles say, “You’ll die too, Donavon.” Fallon quickly turned to see the man standing behind them, his pistol pointed directly into the shadows of the hood.
“No,” Trader stated plainly a second before his fist brutally met with Charles’s jaw, knocking him to the ground. Taking Fallon’s wrist in hand, Trader held her wounded hand up and said, “But for this, you will!”
Lying on his back in the dirt, Charles still managed to retrieve his pistol and point it at Trader. Trader raised his foot. He planted his boot solidly on Charles’s gun hand, pinning it to the ground. Fallon winced at Charles Ashby’s screams of pain as Trader twisted his foot, crushing the man’s hand beneath it.
Trader retrieved the papers from Charles’s pocket. Then placing his hands around Charles’ throat, he began to squeeze.
“Trader! No!” Ben shouted, reining in his horse. “Let him be. Let him hang.”
Fallon recognized the sheriff as he reined in beside Ben. “He will hang, Donavon. I promise ya that,” the man assured. “Along with the other one we picked up on our way here. My deputies have taken him back to town.”
The blackness of the hood turned to face Fallon. Trader released his grip on Charles, who fell to the ground, clutching his crushed hand to his chest.
“Tie him, Ben,” Trader ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Ben replied with an almost tangible intonation of respect in his voice.
“I’ve seen enough men die in my life. Let the law deal with him,” Trader mumbled, turning to Fallon. Taking her still-bound hands, he reached down. Drawing a knife from his boot, he severed the rope that held them. He held her hands gently as he turned them over in his own, studying the chafing at her wrists. Removing the primitive bandage, he raised her injured hand to his face, and as it disappeared into the hood, Fallon felt the warmth of his kiss on the wound. He dropped her hands, and his attention focused on her face. Shyly, Fallon looked away until she felt his touch on her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion as he pulled her against him. “What…what else did he do to you?” he asked.
Fallon was astonished at the obvious emotion in his tone. Wanting desperately to reassure him of her well-being, she said, “Nothing.”
“I saw you as I approached, Fallon. That man…Simmons. What did he do to you?”
“You’re here now. You’ve come for me, as I never doubted you would. That’s all that matters now,” she whispered, as a tear traveled down her cheek.
She knew Trader sensed her need. As always, his ultimately powerful yet ever tender hands caressed her face, and Fallon melted against him.
“Put it from your mind, Fallon,” he whispered, taking her chin in his hand and tilting her head back. “Let your mouth only remember mine.” And, as the familiar and beloved hood descended toward her, Fallon closed her eyes. A moment later she began to tremble within as her body and soul rejoiced, bathing in the wonderment of his delicious, coveted kiss.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Removing his cloak, Trader protectively placed it about Fallon’s shoulders, lifted her into the saddle, and mounted behind her. “Get on, Brigadier,” he commanded, and the horse bolted forward.
“You were letting them beat you,” Fallon stated, as they rode.
“I didn’t want them harming you. They were thirsting for my blood. I knew they wouldn’t touch you until they thought they were getting the best of me,” he explained dryly.
Fallon studied his injured hand as he held the reins in front of her. Her mind went back momentarily to the day she had ridden home with him for the very first time. It seemed so long ago, and she felt so much wiser and ripened since then.
“I’m sorry I failed you, Fallon,” he mumbled unexpectedly.
“What?” Fallon asked. She wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly.
“I said, I’m sorry,” he repeated angrily. “This should never have happened. You should never have been taken and certainly never wounded!”
“All this trouble…all the trouble you’ve had these past months is because of me, Trader. Do you mean to humiliate me by apologizing to me?” Fallon asked, though she knew he was sincere. “You told me to stay in the house, remember? I was careless this morning.” Fallon looked up at the blazing summer sun. “All this and it’s not even noon,” she whispered.
But Trader spoke no more as they rode home. Fallon sensed he was deeply immersed in harsh, confusing, guilt-ridden thoughts, and she was frightened of his silence. It so closely mimicked his hiding beneath the hood. And she wondered if her hope to win him over had been lost.
As Trader reined the horse to a halt long enough to let Fallon down, Patty came rushing out of the house, her face red and streaked with tears. Throwing her arms around the blood- and dust-covered Fallon, Patty sobbed bitterly and mumbled over and over, “He’s brought you home! He’s brought you home!”
Fallon returned Patty’s embrace and let her own tears of relief spill freely. She turned and watched as Trader rode toward the stable. She worried he blamed himself so harshly that he would forget all was right.
“Come on, honey,” Patty said, dabbing at her eyes with her apron. “Let’s get you inside and cleaned up.”
The water felt good on Fallon’s dust-covered face and limbs, and brushing her hair was a pleasure she had never before appreciated. The bath and fresh dress were revitalizing. As Patty helped Fallon to clean and dress the wound on her hand, she talked to her, telling her what had happened that morning after she was taken.
“I’ve never seen Trader in such a state, Fallon,” the older woman spoke quietly as she attended to Fallon’s hand. “I have to tell you it frightened me. After they took you, he knew he had to wait. And wait he did, for over an hour. He paced the kitchen and at times got so frustrated he had to pound something. Since those devils weren’t available for pounding, the kitchen is near to destroyed, Fallon. Every one of my cupboard doors is either bashed in or completely torn away. He dropped to his knees after a while…and…it tears at my soul to remember his prayer. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘After all this, my life—everything—taken from me. Why her?’ he said.” Patty paused and looked to Fallon as tears fell from both their eyes. “Never, Fallon. I’ve never seen that boy in such pain. Not even when he came home—” Patty drew in a long breath and continued. “Anyway, when that dirty man rode up with the papers, I was scared for you. I thought sure Trader would kill him, and then we’d never find you. But he beat the east wall in instead. What kind of angry force that would take, I just can’t imagine it. But it’s there for all the world to see if they don’t believe it.” Patty stood and took Fallon’s long hair in her hands, continuing to brush it as she spoke. “Trader signed those horrible papers and rode out after you, telling Ben to fetch the sheriff and follow awhile later. I had to sit and wait. That’s all I
could do, and I know how he felt that hour he was waiting to hear news of you.”
Taking the brush from Patty’s hand, Fallon embraced the woman as she sobbed softly on Fallon’s shoulder. “It would’ve killed him, Fallon. No man, no war could take his life. But losing you…it would’ve killed him.”
Fallon wept, an odd mixture of joy and terror rushing through her body. She closed her eyes, imagining Trader tearing the kitchen apart, pounding in the east wall of the house. He cared for her, she knew he did! The knowledge would give her strength—the strength she needed to tell him what she’d hidden from him for so long. Trader Donavon wasn’t the only person hiding his pain. Fallon Donavon had hidden hers as well. And the hiding had to end.
“He’s in the stables, ma’am. Been in there since he rode in,” one of the hands answered when Fallon asked about Trader’s whereabouts.
As she entered the stables, Fallon saw him standing, his back to the door. He had removed his shirt and hood and was standing before a bucket filled with blood-tainted water. Tearing pieces of his shirt into strips, he began placing them on his injured hand. Fallon felt tears anew in her eyes as she saw the massive bruises already apparent on his back and ribs. His hair, shortened now since he’d cut it, had the effect of making him appear even taller than his already lofty height.
“Trader,” she ventured. “I…I…your hood,” she finished awkwardly.
“No,” he said. “No.” And at the sense of knowing his intention, Fallon prepared herself for the revelation she had wanted for so long.
She was prepared—always had been. Ever had she been prepared for whatever horrible disfigurement had been secreted behind the dark hood worn by the man she loved, adored, and cried for. But prepared as she was, she was not prepared for the sight that met her expectant eyes when slowly Trader turned to allow Fallon to look at him face-to-face for the first time.
Fallon paused as the man looked at her. Before her stood the most attractive man she had ever seen in her life! Never had she imagined a man could be physically beautiful in his feature of face. Never had she dreamed a mortal man could be so handsome. His eyes were an almost translucent blue, shaded by long, dark lashes. His jaw was chiseled, squared, his chin boasting a slight cleft. His short, rather tousled hair gave him a striking, rugged appearance, and when he questioningly spoke her name, she caught a glimpse of his perfectly ordered and very white teeth. She did notice the scars on his face. Anger and hurt dug at her soul. Yes, she could see well that the scars marring his face had once been brutal, deep wounds. One traveled the length of his left cheek from the corner of his eye to the corner of his mouth. Another lay diagonally across his forehead, and yet the severest of all traveled from his chin, down his neck and back over his shoulder.
“You liar!” she screamed as tears of frustration washed down her cheeks. She began to bury her face in her hands but could not pull her gaze away from the vision before her. “You deceived me! Did you find it amusing? Did it entertain you? Intimidating me and others? Making them afraid of you because of whatever you hid beneath the hood? Oh how you must have laughed at me! Knowing I was wholly and incurably in love with you. Making me think the reason you couldn’t love me is because you were a monster, when, in fact, you could never love me because of my plainness compared with you!” Fallon was devastatingly self-conscious about her appearance at that moment. Others had always said she was a beauty, but she saw only a plain, small girl, and the vision of the magnificent Trader Donavon before her only proved her opinion of herself.
Trader Donavon frowned. “What, for the love of Pete, are you talking about, Fallon?” he said.
“How silly you must think I am, Trader. To be in love with you.” She turned and started toward the stable door.
“Fallon,” his voice spoke quietly, causing her to pause.
“Just leave me be, Mr. Donavon,” she spat, facing him defiantly. She watched as he strode toward her, looking like a great panther descending upon its prey.
“I fought in the war, Fallon,” he said, barely audible, “for the Confederacy. In one of the many—of so many—loathsome battles, I lost my gun, and a Yankee pulled my own saber on me. I was already shot and dizzy, and he used my own saber to disfigure and maim my body. You didn’t see me when the wounds were fresh five years ago.” She looked up at him. She judged his age to be middle or late twenties, but she wasn’t certain.
“They were gruesome beyond description, Fallon. Large purple and red lacerations with huge, black stitches. Call it vanity, if you will, but when my own aunt, Patty, screamed and burst into tears at the sight of me, I vowed no one would see me from then on. Julia nursed me when I first came here, so she knew. And she and Patty have been telling me for some time the wounds had healed and were no longer repulsive. Poor Patty,” he said, shaking his head. “All this…every time she shaves me…all this time she’s tried to convince me the wounds had healed. But I couldn’t believe it and stubbornly refused to look in a mirror.”
Fallon stumbled backward as she looked up at him again. He was truly beautiful, and she looked away, humiliated by what she viewed as her plainness.
“I’m in love with you, Fallon. I’ve nearly confessed it every day since I brought you here, but I was so sure that if you saw me as I am, you would run from me, repulsed by my horrible scars.” He took another step toward her, and she stumbled backward, intimidated by his pure presence. “I want you, Fallon. I want you as my companion, my friend. I want you for my lover—my true wife—and the mother of my children.” His words astonished her, and she looked up at him, unable to believe such a man was speaking such things to her. “I never would’ve married a woman simply for selfless reasons. I loved you even before that stormy night I stopped for shelter. You’ve always thought your uncle moved you from the table and into my arms that night, haven’t you?” Fallon’s eyes widened with sudden understanding.
Trader chuckled and took several more steps forward until he stood directly before her. “I did it. You were so frail-looking and cold, and then he caught us, as I hoped he would.” He reached out and took her hand, but she drew it away and turned shyly from him. “I love you, Fallon. And I know you love me.”
“Do you know, Trader,” she whispered, “do you know how really…how really beautiful you are?”
“Beautiful?” he said, frowning. “I saw myself once years ago, Fallon. I saw no reason to look again since. No doubt because of your humility and lack of vanity, you see just an ordinary woman when you look in the mirror. I may be scarred, but you’re blind. Because you’re the beauty, Fallon. You’re the beauty.” He cupped her chin in his hand and bent to kiss her. The moment his lips touched hers, her desires melted her timidity. His kiss was ever familiar and intoxicating! The moistness of it, united with the ever-present taste of peppermint, caused her to shiver. As their lips parted, he whispered, “You would’ve loved me anyway, wouldn’t have you?”
She nodded and whispered, “I love you more than my own life. But you wouldn’t let me prove it to you.”
Without another a word, Trader gathered Fallon into his powerful arms and, kicking the stable doors open, carried her to the house. Patty met them at the door as they entered the house. Trader did not pause, however, and only said, “Out of my way, Patty.”
Patty, mouth gaping open, stepped back, and he strode past her, down the hallway, and into the room that had once been Fallon’s. Letting her feet drop to the floor, he pushed the door shut, locking it. Going to stand before the mirror, which stood in one corner, he frowned as he gazed at his own reflection.
Fallon walked to stand just behind him and whispered to herself, “It’s only one of two mirrors in the house.” She had never noticed it before, but indeed hers and Patty’s were the only mirrors she knew to exist in the Donavon house.
Trader stood for several moments staring at his own reflection. “They were so horrible before, Fallon. I swear it,” he muttered at long last, letting his fingers travel the le
ngth of each scar as he stared at his reflection in disbelief. Turning to her, he said, “I swear to you. I didn’t know. I love you, Fallon. I wouldn’t have been so…if I had known, I would’ve…”
Then, as the truth of his words filled her being with unparalleled joy, Fallon reached up, tracing his lips with her fingertips. “I…I love you, Trader. I love you so desperately.”
“Desperately?” he asked, quirking a disbelieving brow yet grinning triumphantly all the same.
“Yes,” Fallon said, smiling and brushing a tear from her cheek. “Do you think…” she stammered. “Do you…will…will I be your wife one day, Trader? Truly your wife one day?” she asked. She looked away shyly, still awed by his appearance, still trying to fully soak in his confession of love. “One day,” she ventured, “one day…will you really take me to…”
Imaginary butterflies instantly burst into flight in Fallon’s stomach as Trader’s hand covered her mouth. His breath tickled her neck as an alluring whisper of “Shhh,” breathed from his own. He smiled, and it thrilled her to trembling—sent emotion and desire swirling in her mind and body!
His fingers skillfully unfastened several buttons at her dress collar, his hand slipping beneath its folds to caress her neck. He bent, placing a lingering kiss at the hollow of her throat, his lips traveling over her cheek to find her mouth.
“Truly my wife?” he asked, his voice low and beguiling. “Oh, yes, Fallon,” he whispered, the heat of his moist, peppermint kiss descending onto her mouth. “This very day,” he whispered, flashing his brilliant smile as his mouth captured hers once again. “This very minute.”
My everlasting admiration, gratitude and love…
To my husband, Kevin…
My inspiration…
My heart’s desire…
The man of my every dream!
Divine Deception Page 12
