“It is not every day a woman gets her very own hero.”
Hero? Hardly. Duncan growled and, although he’d only swallowed twice, it had exhausted him. He lay panting, eyes tearing, his entire body vibrating with unbearable pain and he remembered her humming. He remembered her at his side and how she’d told the truth.
This morning her eyes were red-rimmed and she was pale with strain. She was wearing his shirt and a pair of his trousers tied with a rope at her waist. The clothes engulfed her, but nothing could dim the sincerity as she eased over him, careful of his wounds and laid her head over his heart.
A sharper pain than he’d ever known bore through his chest. It was an odd thing, to feel tenderness for this strangely emotional woman who’d been honest. And the way she held him seemed just as honest as when the men had come and he’d thought, confusing the present with the past, that he was going to be wrongly accused again.
The sweet scent of honeysuckle filled his head and he wished he could move his arm. Because if he could, he’d lay his hand over her head and wind his fingers through her soft hair. He’d press her close and hold on tight, because she was surely a dream. Surely.
But too soon the outside door swung open and eye-stinging light filled the room. It was more people—he saw the swish of a woman’s skirts and heard the low murmur of a man’s voice—the same one from before. And she was leaving him, lifting her head and straightening it.
Longing pierced him, but it was impossible because he didn’t need or long for anything or anyone. Especially not a pretty and proper town lady who was everything he’d come to distrust. She stood. Her weight lifted from the mattress and he was alone. His chest ached with emotion, but it was impossible to know what emotion he was feeling.
He’d given up on feelings long ago.
“Granny!” It was Betsy’s voice, rising with excitement, moving away from him. “What are you doing here? I don’t understand. And Mama—”
“What were you thinking? Spending a night all alone with a mountain man. With any man!”
It was a mother’s scolding voice and through his foggy vision, he saw two women. One a matronly figure decked out in an enormous hat with a fake flower that bobbed with the movements of her head, which she nodded to emphasize nearly every other word.
Clearly, Betsy’s mother. Her ample figure suggested a life of being well fed and her brown dress looked to be of the finest material. He recognized the mother-of-pearl buttons that marched from her chin to her toes and the disdainful frown that withered her otherwise pleasant face.
She glared at him as if she smelled a skunk. That’s all it took and he knew what Betsy’s mother saw. She was a lady of means, probably the type that liked everything in its place including people in the slots where they belonged.
And she was right. Her daughter should keep a far distance from him. The stink of prison felt as if it had been ground into his skin and deeper. It had changed him. Tainted him.
Mrs. Prim and Proper shook her head from side to side as she studied him, the flower on her bonnet swaying to and fro.
He focused on that.
It was safer. Easier.
He wished for the strength to let it mean nothing. Nothing at all as the three women—daughter, mother and grandmother—gazed over him. He saw compassion in the elderly woman’s eyes and he knew. She knew. Shame rolled over him like a flooding river and the tide of it drowned out everything he’d worked to become. Washing away all the good he’d ever done, and he felt more naked than if he’d worn no clothes at all. And worse, he saw her pity.
“Come, my sweet Bets.” The elderly woman turned her back to him and grabbed hold of Betsy’s slender arm and pulled her from his side. “You have worked all night, and I am here now. Go with your mama and your brother, and I will tend the mountain man.”
Yeah, he knew they’d take her from him. They should. His heart was steel again. His soul impenetrable. Strong again, he let no weak emotion live within him. He watched as her brother took her other arm.
“Come now, Bets,” the brother was saying, not placating, but with real caring. “You have your reputation. The doctor promised me he’d stay with you and he broke his word.”
“Joshua, he had other patients waiting for him. Please, there is no need to be so angry. How could my reputation possibly be damaged? Goodness, anyone would do the same if they were me.”
“Then think of your health, dear.” Granny slipped a thick shawl over Betsy’s shoulders, the fine wool wrapped her from chin to ankle. “That will do for now, until we get you home. You’ve been up all night, haven’t you? And with the weather turning, you’ll likely catch cold and fall ill. You let your mama take you home and spoil you.”
“Gran, I don’t need to be spoiled. I caused this man’s injuries.”
“Not you, dear, but the bear.”
“Bears.” It was important that Granny—that everyone—understood. “I have to make this right. I can’t leave him. He’s too weak to fend for himself, and there are no neighbors close. No one to come if he should need help.”
“There’s me.” The gleam in Granny’s green eyes said more.
Betsy understood. Mama was so…well, overbearing. She looked at Mr. Hennessey and saw a mountain man who was of no worth. For, as Mama said, what gave a man more worth than a good-paying job and the sense of responsibility to show up for it every day?
All anyone had to do was to glance around the dim one-room cabin to realize Mr. Hennessey wasn’t a wealthy man. But he was a worthy one. That was something Granny had to understand.
“I will tend him as well as you would do.” Granny pressed a kiss to Betsy’s cheek and secured the shawl pin beneath her chin. “Now, don’t worry, my sweet girl. This is for the best.”
“No, I don’t think—” She peered over her shoulder at the man who was more shadow than substance, lost in the dark corner where the light did not seem to reach. Her heart wrenched hard, bringing with it a suffocating pain. “He needs me.”
“He needs care, and I will give it to him.” Firmly, although there was no mistaking the love warming her stern ways, Granny turned her around and gave her a shove toward the door.
Exhausted and weak—she hadn’t eaten nor drank—her feet seemed to trip forward and she wound up in her brother’s firm grip. No, this was wrong. She needed to stay. She had to. “Please, Joshua. I can rest here and eat. That way I can be close—”
“You will do better in your own bed, and he has all he needs.”
Joshua lifted her into his arms, as if she were a child, and it was tenderness that gentled the fierce frown that made him look nearly as intimidating as Mr. Hennessey at his worst.
“No, please, you have to let me—”
“You are what matters to us. Come, let us take care of you. When you are stronger and rested, we’ll talk about you coming back.”
It sounded reasonable. Even sensible. She was light-headed, she realized, from lack of food. Maybe that’s why she was acting the way she was, as if everything was more intense than usual. Maybe that’s why it felt as if she were breaking from the inside out, as if something vital were being wrenched from her innermost being.
She strained to look over her brother’s shoulder as he carried her through the threshold, turning sideways so her dangling feet wouldn’t smack against the door frame. She saw that Duncan was awake, twisting his head on the pillow, watching her leave. Struggling to keep her in his sight, although he was too weak to do more. His shadowed face was furrowed, his eyes intensely following her progress away from him, and it was almost as if he couldn’t take her leaving.
As if he didn’t want her to go.
Their gazes met and the impact