Colorado Dawn (20 page)

David groaned. “I got stiff sitting there so long.” His hand grasped her elbow.

She gripped his arm to help her rise. “Ow!” Staggering, she hit the rock wall with her shoulder.

“Karen, are you all right?”

She pushed herself up, her lips tight against the pain. “Pins and needles.” A million tiny stabs trickled through her legs. When the pain lessened, she took a few wincing steps. “There. That’s better.”

“Are you ready to keep going?”

She closed her eyes and gave her head a little shake. Panic fluttered through her chest and parched her mouth. “I can’t remember which way we were heading before we stopped.” If they chose wrong, they’d wind up right back where Marcus left them.

“Don’t worry. Before we fell asleep, I slipped my watch out and put it on the ground. I laid out the chain in the direction we’re supposed to head.”

She sniffed back a few hot tears and swallowed the scream. “I never would have thought of that. You’re so capable.”

His hand trailed down her arm until he found her fingers. Lacing their hands, he squeezed. “You can’t possibly know how much that means to me. I haven’t felt capable for a very long time. Just knowing you need me gives me courage.”

Grasping his belt once more, she braced herself to go on. If he could be courageous, after all he’d been through, she would be, too. They hadn’t gone far when the hand she dragged along the rock wall brushed something metal. “Wait.”

David stopped. “What is it?”

Karen swiped gingerly until she made contact with the metal once more. Thin, cold, driven into the rock. The jutting end coiled upward. “Just another candle holder.” But no candle. Couldn’t the miners have left
one
behind? When they got out of here, she planned to light every lamp and candle she owned, just for the joy of seeing them glow.

They continued on. Since turning back from the waterfall so long ago, David had suggested they walk almost side by side so he could keep one hand on one wall and she could keep one hand on the opposite wall, thereby hoping not to miss further branches that might prove to be the way out. But each tunnel they tried dead-ended.

David talked, and Karen was sure it was to encourage her. She tried to respond, but weariness, thirst, and an ever-increasing sense of despair made it difficult. How long since they’d had any water? She forced her mind back to what David was saying.

“I’m beginning to think we must be in the old Wildcat Mine. I could be wrong, but there are so many tunnels, branches, and offshoots. I can’t think of another mine within a day’s ride of Martin City with such a labyrinthine layout.”

“Will that help us, knowing which mine it is?”

“If I knew for sure it was the Wildcat, and if I could remember the details of the plan I saw one time, and if I knew exactly where in the mine we were…” He chuckled. “No, I guess it doesn’t make any differ—” An odd
thunk
stopped him, and he plummeted to his knees, tearing her grip from his waistband.

“David?” Karen went down beside him. His hands pressed against his head, and he moaned. “What happened?” Her fingers flew over his face, taking in the tense jaw and the rigid muscles in his neck.

Through gritted teeth, he whispered, “Got distracted and hit my head on something.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Just wait.”

She scooted around to pillow his head on her lap and gently stroked his shoulder and upper arm. Eventually he began to relax.

“Does it hurt very much now?”

He sat up, and his arm came around her shoulders. “It’s better. What a stupid thing to do, getting distracted and walking into a brace. I might have knocked myself out completely, and then where would you have been? Dead stupid.”

“You’re not stupid. You’re the most brilliant, caring, wonderful man I’ve ever met.”

David sat silent for a minute. Then he said, his voice rueful, “I’m surprised you would say that, Karen. Brilliance, caring, and wonder have all been sadly lacking in my treatment of you.”

The soft caress in his voice broke her heart. “David, I…I…”

“I love you, Karen,” he whispered against her cheek. “I know I haven’t acted like it, but I’ve never stopped loving you.” His hands came up to frame her face, and he brought his mouth down to hers.

With a grateful heart, she accepted his kiss.

Breaking apart, he rested his forehead against hers.

“David, I don’t want to accuse you, but I need to know…why? Why did you put us through so much agony over the past few months?”

“I’m so sorry, my love. You can’t know how I regret it. After Marcus left us here, I had a long time to think while I waited for you to wake up. I finally had to acknowledge the reasons behind my actions.”

Karen held very still, not wanting to distract him from the words she needed to hear and the words she knew he needed to say.

David breathed a quick prayer that God would slay his pride and help him conquer his fears, and he gathered his wife close. “The morning of the cave-in, I sent Sam and Marcus to the surface to go over some new figures. I was standing at the edge of the square-set framework I’d designed. Several miners worked the stope above and to my right removing ore we’d blasted a couple days before. A row of candles in their little holders flickered along the tunnel, each tiny flame giving enough light for the miner to see to dig. Paddy Doolin came toward me, pointing to the floor and yelling. I couldn’t hear what he said over the sound of the drills and sledgehammers, but as he came closer, a shower of dust and pebbles fell from somewhere overhead. Then the framework groaned and cracked, and I knew it was all coming down. I think I yelled to Paddy to run, but it was too late.”

His arms tightened around her, and his heart beat thick in his ears, reliving those moments when he thought he’d died. “I thought of you in that instant, Karen. While the rocks tumbled down around me, while the dust choked me, filling my eyes and nose and lungs, I thought of you and how sorry I was to be leaving you.”

She stroked his upper back, clinging to him. When he could relax, she asked, “Then what happened?”

“I remember being trapped, pinned to the floor by rock and timber up to my waist. At first I thought I might suffocate, the dust was so thick. I managed to pull the collar of my coat up over my head as best I could and tried to breathe the air in that little tent. Rubble kept raining down on me. One good-sized rock or piece of timber must’ve come loose overhead and crashed into my temple. I blacked out.”

Karen gripped his hand as if to give him strength and sympathy all at once.

“I don’t remember Sam pulling me out. Father said Sam wouldn’t leave the mine until he found me. I didn’t wake up for two days.” He swallowed and rubbed his thumbs on the backs of her hands. “When I did, I wished I had died in the mine. Karen, there’s something in our family, something we don’t talk about. In fact, once things were settled, Father forbade us to ever mention it. Most of it happened when I was just a boy, but the aftereffects have lingered on. So much so that you were caught up in them without knowing.”

“What happened?”

“I told you once about my father’s younger sister, Bernice?”

“Only that you said she was Marcus’s mother and never to mention her because it was a sore spot with your father.”

“That’s right. Bernice was beautiful and vivacious and smart, and she married a man named Frank Quint. This was when we still lived in Ohio. When the Union called for soldiers, Frank went off to war, and when he arrived home a year later, he’d lost both his legs and his right eye. His face had been badly burned, and he couldn’t do much for himself. Marcus was about fifteen at the time, and I was around twelve. I remember being horrified at the sight of Frank’s injuries. Every time I looked at him, a shiver would race up my back. I wanted to help him, but I was repulsed.”

He swallowed and laced his fingers through hers, pressing his palm to hers. “Bernice took one look at him and was sick. She refused to be near him, and at the first opportunity she left. His condition so disgusted her that she ran out on him. Father went after her and tried to drag her back, but she wouldn’t come. Said she wouldn’t be tied to a freak for the rest of her life, and that Frank would’ve been better off dead.”

“What happened to her?”

“For a while she kept in contact with Marcus. She would send him letters from time to time all about her glamorous life. She spent some time on the riverboats, then went to New Orleans. Then one day a trunk arrived along with a letter. The steamer held all her belongings, and the letter was from a doctor in a sanitarium. She’d died of consumption after working in a brothel for a few years.”

“That’s terrible. What happened to your uncle Frank?”

“He went mad when she left him. Started drinking and talking to himself. He refused to bathe or eat, and he started hurting himself on purpose. Father tried to help him and was in the process of getting him committed to a hospital when Frank snapped. He drank a whole bottle of laudanum. He just couldn’t face life without her.”

“That poor man.” Tears thickened her voice, and when he touched her cheek, his finger came away damp.

“I always wondered how he got the laudanum. Mother kept it locked in a cabinet in the kitchen. I guess a part of me always wondered if Marcus had given it to him.” He took a deep breath. “So when I woke up unable to see, I guess I thought history was repeating itself. There I was, engaged to the most beautiful woman in town, and I was a cripple, like Frank. I did you a grave injustice fearing you would be like Bernice, but I was so afraid. I’d lost my sight, and at the time, I was sure I had killed several good men through my negligence. I hated myself and thought you would, too. Even if you didn’t loathe me right away, eventually you would. Then you would leave me.”

“So you tried to leave me first.”

“I didn’t want to be tossed aside as damaged goods.” He stroked her hair. “Then my mother devised that entire lawsuit scheme, and I found myself married. I’ve never been more scared in my life.”

She hiccupped on a sob. “I shouldn’t have done it, but I was so desperate. Then you wouldn’t take me as your wife, and I wondered if I’d made a terrible mistake. You threw the word
annulment
in my face.”

“What I said to you on our wedding night was unforgivable, and yet, I do beg your forgiveness. It took everything I had in me not to open that door when I heard you crying, and yet, fear held me back. I thought you would be repulsed or I would be inept as a husband, and that fear kept me from you that night. And I feared fathering a child. Someone who would despise me like Marcus did his father. Someone who would be ashamed of his crippled dad.”

She ducked her chin, and her breath came quickly. “I wish you would’ve told me.”

“As I said, it was something our family was in the habit of not talking about.”

They were quiet for a while. Then she stirred in his arms. “David, I’m so sorry for the way I acted when Aunt Hattie died. I shouldn’t have blamed you.”

“Ah Karen, you shame me with your apology. I was the one who refused to go visit her. I was so wrapped up in my hurt and pride, afraid of being a burden to you, afraid of being the object of curiosity or worse, pity, that I kept you from being able to see her one last time. Then you went away and took my heart with you. I was afraid you wouldn’t come back, or that if you did, you’d announce you wanted an annulment.”

“I was so hurt and grieved I barely knew what I was doing. I just knew I couldn’t fight you anymore. I needed to get away to think, but I always knew I would come back. I’ll admit your letter scared me, telling me to take all the time I needed. I thought you didn’t need me at all.”

He groaned. “I was trying to be supportive. If you only knew how I labored over that letter. I just wanted to ease your mind that Buckford and Mrs. Webber were taking care of me. You were the one who kept writing about how wonderful Pastor Hamilton was and about the matchmaking ladies of his church. You even mentioned that your aunt’s lawyer was working on some annulment proceedings.” He gave her a little shake.

“Oh David, we’ve been rather foolish, haven’t we? Is it too late to start over?”

His hand found her chin and lifted her face to his. Gently at first, but with the growing hunger of knowing they were at last free to love each other without misunderstandings, fear, or guilt, he took her lips with his own.

When he broke the kiss, she wiped at his cheeks, wet from her tears, and brushed her lips across his chin. “When you kiss me, when you hold me, I don’t think of you as being blind. I just know I love you.”

“As much as I’d love to stay here kissing you, I think we’d better get moving. But trust me, when we do escape this infernal mine, you’re going to get a thousand more kisses, and you’re never going to have to wonder if I love you.”

She laughed and scrambled to her feet. “Is your head still paining you?”

Bracing himself against the wall, he pushed himself upright. “I’m a bit light-headed, but that might be relief and your kisses more than any crack on the skull.”

“Then lead on. I want to get out of here and make you fulfill some of the promises you’ve just made to me.”