Seduced (6 page)

“I DON’T LIKE this, Duke,” Cole whispered, leaning against a fallen pine, the worn leather of his saddle against his back. The stars were scattershot across the dark sky and it had been a long two hours of thinking about how ashamed of him his mother would be.

Duke huffed a deep breath into Cole’s ear, and he reached up to scratch at his horse’s nose. He should have shot Jimmy on the way up from Denver, because if there was ever a man who needed to be shot, it was Jimmy.

But he needed Steven’s letters. He needed whatever information Jimmy had about his brother.

And so he’d let that woman walk into the house, knowing that whatever happened to her, a good part of it was his fault.

He’d been flirting with her. Charmed despite himself.

Cole pushed himself to his feet just as the front door opened and Mrs. Hurst came out. Her hair had come down in pieces, long blonde ropes falling to her waist.

The hair on his own body stood in warning. Her dishabille seemed a terrible sign of violence.

Her back to him, she quietly shut the door and stepped down the small porch. He caught her at the edge of the freshly dug earth.

It had all the makings of a kitchen garden, and his heart was thick with memory. The kitchen garden at home had been turned into a graveyard, full of Union soldiers.

“Mrs. Hurst.”

She stopped, her hair, nearly white in the starlight, covering her face. She was as still as a rabbit sensing trouble.

“I am just checking on my sister.” She did not look at him.

“Mrs. Hurst.” He kept his voice low and quiet and patient. It had been a useful voice for talking pistols away from terrified flag bearers who could march no more into battle.

“Please . . . Go back to your camp. Or better still, go back to Denver. I am sure if you were to find oil, my husband would find a reason to kill you. Saddle your horse and ride away from here.”

“Mrs. Hurst.” He was a step from her and he could see her shaking so hard the hem of her dress trembled. Her hair trembled. He reached out a hand to her elbow, but she turned, smacking it away.

Half of her face was red and swollen. Her lip was cut.

But her eyes were wild and he took a step away, pushed back by the wrath on her face.

“I remind you of home, don’t I? Of your life before this war? My conversation brings back memories of a better time. A better life. A girl, perhaps? Well, that life was a tragedy! It is in ruins, Mr. Smith. As am I.” Her voice cracked but her eyes were stone cold. “Go, before my husband wakes and kills us all.”

She lifted her skirts and ran. If a trail of smoke had risen from the ground as she passed, he would not have been surprised.

Mrs. Hurst . . . Melody . . . was no accomplice in her husband’s masquerade. That was clear. And at this point she would no doubt fully endorse his means of questioning Jimmy about his brother.

Cole glanced at the still, dark cabin and then at the barn, where Melody had run.

He followed her footsteps into the barn.

“HE’S AWAKE?” MELODY hissed, on her knees beside her sister in the cave.

“Light a lamp.” The thick male voice came out of the darkness, and Melody pressed her hands to her lips.

“How long?” Melody asked, and could feel her sister’s vibrating tension beside her.

“I am lying right here,” the voice said again.

“Ten minutes, hard to say,” Annie said, and then the lamp wick caught in a bright flare. Annie turned it down as low as she could, and the cave was illuminated by a small orb of light.

Mr. Baywood sat up against the stone wall. The swelling was gone around his forehead—though the bruising remained—and his eyes were clear. She tried not to look below his neck. His chest was . . . large.

“Mr. Baywood—”

“Steven.”

“Steven . . . you are alive,” she gasped, amazed for the moment that they had done it. They had saved this man. She grabbed her sister in her arms. “You did this. You saved him!”

Annie’s lips were trembling and she reached for Melody’s face. Belatedly, Melody jerked back, scurried for the shadows.

Annie followed her, guilt writhing in her expression.

“What happened to your face?” Mr. Baywood . . . Steven asked.

“I am fine. Fine. He just . . . hit me before he passed out,” she whispered to Annie, ignoring the man who seemed to fill out his body in a way he hadn’t while unconscious. How outrageous that they had dragged him to this cave. They must have been possessed by the strength of ten men. “He’s still asleep. I think . . . I think we should saddle our horses and ride away.”

“I think we should shoot him where he sleeps,” Steven said. “Bring me a gun and I will do it myself.”

“You can barely sit upright,” Melody snapped. “The prospector is leaving. If we hurry we could travel with him.”

“What about him?” Annie pointed to Steven. Who was now pushing himself up higher against the cave wall, even though he was sweating and weak.

“We will leave him food and a gun. He can manage.”

Annie’s gasp of censure was loud in the cave.

“We must care about ourselves now, Annie!” she hissed. “Enough of your Christian kindness! It will get us killed. We must leave.”

“Mrs. Hurst?” It was Cole’s voice and he was in the barn.

Annie nearly dove for the lamp, extinguishing the flame. Melody pressed her fist to her chest, praying he had not seen the flame reflected on the rock. Praying he could not hear the mad thump of her heart.

“Mrs. Hurst, I mean you no harm.” She could hear the prospector’s boots against the packed dirt of the barn floor. “I understand your distrust. I am not a prospector. I am searching for my brother—”

Steven made a heavy noise, as if he’d been punched in the chest. Melody crouched beside him, to put her hand over his foolish stupid mouth, but he grabbed her hand in his.

“Cole?” he asked, in a loud, clear voice, and Melody jerked her head sideways, though she could not see Steven.

“Steven?” Cole’s voice rang out with sudden urgency.

“Beside the goat. There is an entrance to a cave.” Steven turned to Annie. “Light the lamp.”

Annie did, with a flint and straw just in time to see Cole walk in through the rocks, his black eyes wide with astonishment. When he saw Steven, he stumbled forward as if his knees were not working. And then they weren’t. Cole fell to the ground, his fists clutching the dirt.

Annie stood to face Cole and Melody shook free of Steven’s hands to do the same.

“You will not hurt him,” Melody said, with no weapon to back her up. But she had not saved this man only to have him shot again.

“Of course not,” Cole whispered, his eyes traveling over Steven’s prone body. The light was unreliable but she wondered if there weren’t tears in his eyes.

Melody’s head was ringing like a bell. She put a hand against the wall to brace herself.

Cole was beside Steven in a blink, his hand going to his blond head, as if to be sure he was real. His fingers shook as they touched Steven’s hair and face. And those were tears in his eyes. Annie scrambled to her side and they clung to each other’s hands, staring at the men in shock.

“Hello, brother,” Cole whispered.

“Took you long enough,” Steven whispered, and the two of them smiled. Gently, carefully, Cole bent his head to rest his forehead against his brother’s.

Melody turned her eyes from the tenderness. The sweetness between them.

“This is not how I expected to find you,” Cole said, glancing over at Annie and Melody against the cave wall.

“They saved my life,” Steven said.

“Jimmy would have taken it?” Cole asked, all of his sharp edges on display. He was fierce and quiet. Intent. Utterly terrifying.

“We have an unfortunate history.”

Cole braced his hands against hard thighs and stood, facing her.

For some reason, she got the sense that he would touch her. Or was about to, and she pulled away, pressing harder into the stone wall. Not because she was afraid of him, though she was, but because she could not bear to be touched. Not at all. His brown eyes fell from hers and returned to his brother.

“I'll be right back and then let's get you out of this cave.”

What . . . what was happening?
She could not keep up with how quickly everyone seemed to be moving. Annie crouched and began to gather up her supplies, putting them back into Father’s medical kit.

“How did you manage to get me out here?” Steven asked.

“Truthfully,” she whispered, “I have no idea.”

Cole came back into the cave. “Jimmy is still passed out. You must have dosed him with something?”

“Laudanum,” she said, wishing she had some of it for herself. Dreamless sleep would be a blessing.

“Well.” Cole smiled at his brother. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“What about Jimmy?” Melody asked.

“I will take care of Jimmy,” Cole said and began to carefully help his brother to his feet.

I will stay here
, Melody thought.
I will stay here because I am out of bravery. I have nothing left.
She wanted to cower against these stone walls, press her bruised face to the cold water and let time pass her right on by.

Cole and Steven stepped out of the cave and she turned to Annie.

The question in Annie's eyes was the same one that pounded in Melody's heart.

What will happen to us?

Melody could not let herself die and rot and turn to dust in this cave.

She grabbed Annie’s hands. “We will be fine. As long as we are together.”

COLE CAREFULLY SETTLED his brother on the ground, propped up against his own saddle. The darkness of the night was just beginning to turn in the east. Dawn was coming.

“What have you heard from everyone? Mother?” Steven asked. His weight was heavier, his voice slurred. The strength gained by their reunion had run out.

“We can talk about this later,” Cole said.

Steven’s sigh was heavy with knowledge. Duke came over to snuffle around Steven’s hair.

“That’s Duke.” Cole grabbed a shirt from his saddlebags and pulled it over Steven’s head.

“You named your horse after your dog?” Steven groaned, lifting his arms through the wide linen sleeves. “How like you, Cole.”

Cole didn’t know what that meant anymore.
How like you
. That boy he’d been was a stranger. A character in a story he’d heard once, a long time ago, and only dimly remembered.

“I’m going to wait for him on the porch,” Cole said, ignoring Steven. “I’ll leave you my rifle and pull him out—”

Steven shook his head. “I'm too weak to hold a rifle. I can’t take him, even with a clear shot.”

Cole looked down hard at his brother and saw him as he was, wounded and impossibly, painfully old, but also the kid, the big brother who led him further and further up the tree. And then helped him down when he got too scared to climb down by himself.

Steven, as he sat in this clearing, was a man defeated. And Cole never thought he'd see that.

“Maybe you should give the gun to the blonde,” Steven said. “She probably has a few reasons to put a bullet in Jimmy’s head.”

On the other side of the clearing, the two women come out of the barn. He could barely see them in the darkness, but the pale gleam of their skin gave them away. Mrs. Hurst glowed in the dawn.

“Melody,” Cole said.

“Pardon?”

“Her name is Melody.”

They came out from under the trees into the meadow. Her hair was pinned back up, and even from this distance he could see the bruise on the side of her face, the swelling and the cut. The bump on the opposite temple. It looked obscene.

Cole had learned his lesson in the last six years. The horrors of the world no longer surprised him, but looking at her face, that perfection blighted and ruined, he was shocked by his anger, the icy cold rage on her behalf and at himself for his role in her getting that bruise.

It had been two years since he cared about anything but finding what was left of his family. Caring about Jimmy’s soon-to-be widow was uncomfortable. Like sensation returning to a frostbitten toe. Painful and hot.

From inside the cabin there was a thump and a shout, and it was as if even the birds stopped moving.

“Melody! You bitch!” Jimmy yelled, and Cole watched as Melody picked up her skirts and ran across the clearing toward Cole and Steven.

Cole drew his Colt just as she arrived, panting, at his side. He met the eyes in that ravaged face and saw a depth of anger he understood all too well. This woman had been robbed—by the war, the world, but specifically the man inside the cabin.

“Have you ever fired a gun?” he asked.

She nodded, her blue eyes wide.

He handed her the pistol. For a moment he thought she would push it back at him.

But the front door of the cabin opened and Jimmy was belched out, wild eyed and disheveled. “Did you run off, whore?”

Fury, not fear, rolled off of her in a wave and Cole felt the hair rise up on his arms.

“It kicks. Use both hands,” he told her. He helped her lift her arm, felt the steadiness of her muscles under the tremble of her skin.

Listening to him, she gripped the gun with both hands, braced herself straight down to the earth, and when Jimmy turned toward her she fired.

The first shot missed, but the next three didn't.

She blew the bastard right off the porch.

The boom of the pistol shots echoed throughout the clearing. Animals in the underbrush scattered and his ears rang in the silence that followed.

“Lord forgive me,” she whispered, sinking to the ground, her skirts billowing up around her. He grabbed his Colt before she hurt herself.

Annie ran up and fell to her knees beside her sister.

Leaving them, Cole went to see Jimmy where he lay bleeding into the dirt, his eyes wide open in a death stare. She'd hit his stomach, his chest and his neck.

Cole looked at the gun in his hand and threw it onto the porch.

I am done with you
.

COLE BURIED JIMMY in the forest. Melody wanted him to be left out for the creatures. She wanted birds to pull out his eyes, wolves to tear apart his flesh. But Cole didn't want those animals close to the barn.