Hearts in Defiance (Romance in the Rockies Book 2) (31 page)

Forty-Eight

Night had long since settled when McIntyre, Beckwith on his heels,
crested Red Mountain Pass.
He had expected to be
met with the sight of Defiance, tents and buildings glowing serenely on the
valley floor. Instead, flames from the west end of town lit the night sky like
a giant torch.

The hotel!

His heart stopped and a bone-chilling dread seared his mind. He
kicked the sorrel and raced toward town, trying to outrun the nightmarish
scenarios that hunted him like a pack of demons.

But the nightmare was real. Before he reached the hotel, he heard
the deafening cacophony of crashing, splintering wood. Men screamed warnings as
the ravenous flames devoured the fuel. McIntyre raced down Main Street in time
to see the second floor of the Trinity Inn collapse into the burning jaws of
the first floor. Flames and sparks clawed angrily at the sky.

Stunned, he raced up to the fiery skeletal remains and skidded to
a stop. Through the flames he could see three lines of bucket brigades
stretching down to the stream. Dozens of men, yelling back and forth, scurried
about like ants, frantically tossing water on the hotel. The building, though,
was a loss.

Fear and smoke strangling his lungs, he scanned the mayhem of men
moving in every direction. A beam let out a final burst of flame and with its
light, McIntyre spotted Rebecca and Ian tossing water on the remnants of the
front porch. He hollered their names as he jumped off the horse, but they
couldn’t hear him over the roaring flames. He ran to Rebecca and spun her
around. Grimy, covered in soot, she blinked as if she didn’t recognize him,
then her eyes glazed over.

“Where is Naomi, Rebecca?” She didn’t answer immediately and panic
stole his reason. He shook her violently. “Where is Naomi?”

Ian stepped in, gently pushing McIntyre back. “Lad,” he moved
between him and Rebecca. “We’ve no’ found her yet.”

McIntyre’s brain stopped. He couldn’t comprehend the meaning of
the words. “Wha–what do you mean? Where is she?”

“We dunna know.”

McIntyre heard the veiled pain in Ian’s voice and stepped away
from him, trying to distance himself from what he was implying. “No, she’s here
somewhere.” He swallowed his panic and pointed at the charred hotel. “She is
not in there.” Rage erupted in him, a rage so strong it frightened him. His
teeth clenched hard, to the point of hurting his jaw. “She is not in there!” He
commanded it to be so. He railed against heaven. Ian reached to grab hold of
McIntyre but he jerked away. “She’s not in there.”

“We have a body!” a man yelled. McIntyre swung toward the voice.
Two men had ventured into the back of the hotel, where the kitchen was.
Together, they used shovels to heave a smoking beam out of the way. Heaving and
grunting, they stood the stove upright. “Yeah, could be a woman!”

Rebecca screamed, the agony in her cry vibrating through every
fiber of McIntyre’s being. His limbs went cold and he didn’t think he could
move them. He stopped breathing and wasn’t sure if he’d ever start again.

~~~

Somehow, McIntyre found himself at Doc’s, staring out the window
into the night, holding his hat in a death grip. He had no recollection of the
walk over. Behind him, Ian consoled Rebecca in soft, gentle tones. McIntyre
could hear her agonized whimpers. She’d collapsed at the hotel, moaning
inconsolably about losing Ben and Gracie and now Naomi. At the moment, she
seemed to have faded into shock. Off to his right, Wade huddled in a rocking
chair, a sooty gray bandage encompassing the top half of his head.

Black Elk had hit the deputy over the head with a bed leg. For
reasons still not clear to McIntyre, the deputy believed the Indian had gone
over to the hotel and started the fire, perhaps as a diversion to make his
escape from town easier.

Had Naomi walked in on him? Had they fought?

No.

McIntyre knew that Naomi was not dead. He wouldn’t grieve. He
wouldn’t give up. If she was dead, he’d know it. He’d told her once he was
bound to her. This connection was not something he could explain, he could only
feel it. When Naomi died, he would die, too.

She was not dead.

She was not lying on that bed in Doc’s examination room.

The door behind him opened and Doc stepped out, tucking his
glasses into his pocket. Haggard and bent, he shook his head and stared at the
ground. “We have a female, between the ages of twenty-five and thirty.
Approximately five-foot-three. Small-boned.” McIntyre caught his knees before
they buckled. Rebecca started weeping softly into her hands. “That’s all I can
say for sure.”

McIntyre rushed to him, jabbing his finger in his chest. “So
you’re not sure it’s her, are you?”

Doc cast a pleading glance at Ian and ran his hands through his
cropped, yellow hair. “Do you know another young woman who meets that
description and who would have been at the hotel? I understand Mollie and
Hannah took Silas out to Sarah’s.” He rested a hand on McIntyre’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”

McIntyre stared at nothing and crushed his hat in his hands. The
belief that Naomi was not dead kept him standing. He wouldn’t listen to that
other voice, the one telling him to accept the facts. He heard only the
prophecy of death in that voice, for if Naomi was dead, he couldn’t live.

But she was not dead. If he repeated it enough times, he could
make it true. So where was she? He didn’t know where to start looking for her.
Slowly, McIntyre slipped his hat on. “Who was the last person to see Naomi?”

Doc rubbed his chin. “Matthew, I believe.”

Ian nodded. “Matthew said he saw her leave your saloon and head
toward the hotel, no one has seen her since then.”

~~~

Forty-Nine

Holding Little Billy with one arm, Hannah hugged Sarah tightly
with the other. Slowly, reverently, Billy and Emilio lowered Silas into the
black hole. This new grave lay forlorn and lonely, with only one other for
company, in a vast, grassy plain. Hannah had offered the most hopeful words she
knew, reminding Sarah that she would see Silas again and that God wept with her
over this loss. Sarah had nodded and prayed silently while Hannah spoke.

Now, Sarah stared down at the grave, her soft, round face
twitching as she fought for control. The bun at the nape of her neck had lost
much of its shape with her auburn hair poking every which way. Trembling and
quite disheveled, a quiet peace still emanated from her. Even so, the woman’s shoulders
jerked and heaved as the first shovel of dirt thudded on the pine. More tears
slipped down her pudgy cheeks.

Hannah looked at the small grave beside Silas’s. The headstone
said Marcus had gone to be with the Lord at the age of five, over ten years ago.
First a child and now a husband. Sarah had taken everything the West could
throw at her. Would this break her? Or was she the kind of woman who could
throw it right back at the devil? Filled with gratitude for the baby in her
arms, Hannah let her own tears flow.

On the other side of Sarah, Mollie had her head bowed, eyes
closed. And beyond her, Naomi stood staring at the coffin, trance-like. She’d
been like that most of the day, from the moment she had run and jumped onto the
back of the wagon. The move had struck Hannah as panicked and irrational,
scaring the daylights out of her, but Naomi wouldn’t talk about it. She would,
eventually. Hannah wouldn’t let her suffer alone.

Several minutes later, Billy, Emilio, and Lucas, the gangly young
man who panned for gold on the ranch, finished off the grave with rocks plucked
from the surrounding pasture. Mollie reached an arm around Sarah and patted her
on the shoulder. “Would you like to go back to the house now, Sarah?”

“No, dear,” she patted the girl’s hand in return. “I’d like to
stay here awhile. We were married thirty years, seems only right to stay by his
grave for a bit.”

The comment made Hannah look across the new grave to Billy. Their
eyes met and held. Sweaty, his face smudged with dirt, he smiled slightly when
she shifted Little Billy on her hip. Hannah prayed she would never have to
stand over his grave.

“All right, Sarah,” Hannah said without taking her gaze off Billy,
“take your time.”

God, please don’t make me have to bury my husband until we’re all
old and gray and bent with age. Please …

~~~

Naomi hugged the rough-hewn cedar post on Sarah’s porch and leaned
her forehead against it. A breeze, the chill of winter still in it, drifted
down from the mountains and wafted over her. In the distance, she heard the
soft lowing of cattle, a horned owl announcing the advancing twilight, and the
distant yipping of a coyote.

She tried to concentrate on them. Not the wail that had escaped
Sarah when they’d told her the reason for their arrival, not the wail that
wanted to rip free from her own breast. She felt foolish and stupid for being
upset about Charles. After all,
he
at least was still alive and Naomi
would heal. Sarah would never see Silas again this side of heaven. That kind of
pain was like a searing brand on your soul.

But the image of Charles in that woman’s arms—she clamped her jaws
down tight to stop the sob. Her fists clenched. She would not cry, she would
not cry—

“Naomi, please talk to me.” Hannah’s tender plea jolted her out of
her miserable thoughts, but only for a moment. Naomi shook her head, not
trusting her voice. If she broke, if she started crying, she might not stop,
and she hated to cry. “Please, Naomi.” Before she could stop her, Hannah had
wrapped her in a hug. “It’s going to be all right, whatever is breaking your
heart, Naomi. It’s going to be all right.”

No it isn’t.
And the dam broke. “I
caught Charles with another woman,” she wept into her little sister’s arms.
Hannah stroked her head and kissed her hair and held on while Naomi emptied
herself of the tears, till she clawed her way back to solemn footing. It took a
while. Naomi didn’t know she could cry so much. This was grieving, but
differently than what she’d gone through for John. In a way, it hurt more,
because of the betrayal involved.

After what felt like an eternity, embarrassment got the better of
her and she pulled away, drying her eyes. “Oh, gosh, I’m so stupid.” Naomi
raised her fists to her forehead and wanted to pound Charles out of her mind.
“How could I be so stupid?”

“I can’t believe you are. Naomi, that man loves you. I’d bet my
life on it. Are you sure of what you saw?”

“Oh, yes, indeed.” She choked on the last word. “Maybe he does
love me, Hannah, but if I can’t trust him, if I can’t believe in him …”

“I wish you hadn’t jumped on the wagon with us. He’ll be sick with
worry and so will Rebecca.”

Yes, Naomi did regret that. As for Charles, she’d love to think of
him in misery and torment, but it seemed he was capable of finding comfort.
What
was it he had said about these other women? I am done with them?
And she’d
believed him
.
Oh, if he was standing right in front of her, she would
shoot him, she was sure of it. John had never hurt her like this.

The grief and fury blazed through her chest, burning her hope to
ashes. How she ached. “Hannah, I need to be alone.”

She stepped off the porch and wandered toward the furthest point
of Sarah’s yard, the edge of the corral, fifty or so yards out. The Maddens had
a neat, one-story adobe home on five hundred acres with a hundred head of
cattle. One side of the house grazed the forest that swept down off a long
hill, the others opened to a sweeping valley. The towering mountains in the
distance and carpet of rolling pasture, like all the spectacular views in the
Rockies, made Naomi feel small and easy to overlook, but she knew God was near.
She stared up at the raging purple sky, the last rays of the sun fading, and
wondered how she would survive this.

God, I hurt so badly. I just want to curl up and die. How could he
do this to me?
She smacked a fence post
and almost cursed the name of Charles McIntyre. She hated that he could make
her feel this way. Foolish tears welled up again. She sniffed and fought them
back with steely determination.
I can’t forgive this. I can’t forgive it
because I can’t forget it.

Despite her best efforts, Naomi hugged her ribs and crumpled to
the ground. She cried as quietly as she could and asked God over and over to
take away the pain. After a while, the reservoir of tears empty and full dark
upon her, she lost herself in the night sounds. The horned owl hooted again,
this time closer to the house. His mate answered from the barn, or so it
sounded to Naomi. The horses in the corral grumbled then whinnied nervously.
The coyote yipped again, and he sounded closer as well. Uneasy, Naomi climbed
to her feet and listened.

She was being silly, of course, except that the horses were
stirring about more restlessly now. Silly, maybe, but not stupid. A plethora of
creatures could be out here. Mountain lions, bears, even wolves prowled
ranches. Time to go back—

A hand snaked out of the darkness and clutched Naomi’s face.
Instantly she was pulled back against a lean, sinewy body. The acrid smell of
sweat and bear grease filled her nostrils. She elbowed the person with all her
might. As her captor flinched, she wrenched her mouth loose and screamed with
every ounce of terror she had shooting through her. She turned and saw the
flash of war paint, glimmering black eyes, and feathers. Her scream turned to
growling as he tried to wrestle her back into a hold. Out of her mind with
rage, Naomi clawed and scratched, gouging flesh with her nails. She kneed the
man like she was fighting with Satan and kicked at his shins with merciless
blows. He tried desperately to gain control of her flailing, clawing hands,
while dodging or absorbing the kicks.

A rifle shot split the night, followed by the sudden explosion of
multiple, chilling war cries. Out of the corner of her eye, Naomi saw the fist
coming down on her like Thor’s hammer.

And the world turned black.

~~~