The Redhead and the Preacher: A Loveswept Historical Romance (20 page)

He covered her breasts and stood.

“No, Macky. Not like this. I’ve never done a thing like that before and I won’t now.”

“I wouldn’t have stopped you.”

“I know. But a woman deserves respect. She deserves to be honored. I don’t know what kind of dark secret you carry but I won’t hurt you to learn it. I’ll wait.”

“For what?”

Until I’ve found the man I’m after. Until the man who is after you is satisfied
. But he couldn’t say that without doing more explaining than he wanted to do. Macky was the kind of woman who’d go after the crooks herself. No, he’d have to mislead her.

“Until you’re ready to be honest with me.”

She wanted to laugh. Honest? He wanted her to be honest with him? Did he expect her to confess that he was driving her crazy with wanting?

Did he not know about her part in the robbery? He had seen the coins, but did he look close enough to see the
S
engraved on them? Maybe not after the attack on the stage, but back in the room he’d mentioned her hidden money under the mattress. She sighed. Trying to control a lie was like trying to stop the spread of a broken egg, it simply slid through all her attempts to contain it.

“Does honesty work both ways?” she finally asked.

Bran turned back from the door and looked down at her. She was considering his offer. Her honesty for his. And he couldn’t do that, and be sure she was safe.

He had a job to do, and for the first time he was allowing something else to interfere with his duty. Sylvia Mainwearing had paid for his services, not Macky. Yet she’d become as important as his mission. When had instinct become need? He didn’t know.

Bran made a rare adjustment of his eye patch. He’d been given the name Eyes That See in Darkness and told that someday he’d learn why. He’d always believed his gift would lead him to the man who’d murdered his family, to the man whose laugh haunted Bran’s dreams. He’d never doubted his quest, until now.

Now, Macky had distracted him and he didn’t have the
power to resist her. He had to stop what was happening between them.

“You know I’m not a man of God, Macky. But I won’t give you away, not yet. I’ll keep your secret for now, but someday you’ll have to face what happened to you, why you left Promise. It might not matter to the world, but it will to the man you love.”

The man you love
. That was an earth-shattering thought.

“You’re not really a preacher, Bran. You don’t have to be so noble. Since you’re not in love with me, it won’t matter in the end anyway, will it?” She turned her face to the wall and wished he would go.

“I don’t know,” he whispered.

He opened the door, and slammed it behind him. Moments later, Macky heard it open again as the serving girl reentered.

She was confused. Was Bran telling her that he couldn’t love her? Wouldn’t love her?

Who was he? Was what he made her feel a sin? What if they truly were married, would that change his anger? And why was he hiding in Heaven?

More importantly, she knew if she were discovered as the only one to spend coins minted with an
S
, Bran would be held accountable. She’d put him in danger.

To protect this man, Macky had to run away.

With an expression of anxiety, Macky sat up and peered beneath the bed, but the servant didn’t respond. “I have to relieve myself.” Macky said finally. The girl brought a chamber pot from behind a screen and placed it by the bed.

“You can leave now,” Macky told her. When she made no attempt to do so, Macky stood, took the chair by the door and placed it outside, motioning for the maid to go. Reluctantly, the girl complied, and Macky locked the door behind her, before quickly shucking her crinolines.

Moments later, Macky made her escape, stepping through one of the windows onto the veranda that wrapped
around the house, and tripped down the outer stairwell to the ground.

She would have gotten away, had it not been for the violent explosion that turned the sky into a shower of fire. Footsteps pounded. Doors opened and the guests suddenly joined Macky outside the house, staring in horror at the blaze that roiled up in the night sky in the distance.

“The mine!” Mrs. Mainwearing cried out.

Then the men were rushing toward the flames that had turned the sky an angry orange, shooting sparks into the blackness like the explosion of a Chinese firecracker. This time it was Macky who comforted Mrs. Mainwearing.

Bran and the marshal outdistanced the judge. By the time they got to the mine, fire was spewing out the mouth of the tunnel. The screams of a man inside spurred Bran toward the entrance. But the flames were too hot. He glanced around calmly to assess the situation. One thing he’d learned was that rushing into the center of a problem wasn’t smart.

At the end of the rail tires that exited the tunnel were rough wooden carts used to move the ore from inside. Nearby, a trough still piped water down a sluice and into a stream that joined Pigeon Creek.

“Help me, Larkin. Let’s swing the trough around and fill the cart with water.”

Larkin understood Bran’s intention and began pushing his weight against the rickety conveyance. Together they ripped the lower extension away, allowing the water to pour into the cart. Bran discarded his coat, submerging it into the water, wetting it thoroughly. Once the cart was full, he climbed in, took hold of the tongue inside the cart and began pumping it up and down. With help from the marshal, the cart rolled back inside the mine.

As the cart reached the flames, Bran took a deep breath and ducked his head beneath the water. He had no idea where the man was, but he figured that he could follow the sound of the screams.

Finally, just as the cart came to a jolting stop, Bran realized the screams had hushed. He lifted his jacket and raised his head into the heat. The inside of the tunnel had apparently collapsed at the site of the explosion. The cart could go no farther. A crackling fire eating at the support beams gave off enough light so that he could see the man leaning against the debris.

“Help me …” The voice was barely more than a moan.

Quickly Bran climbed over the side and fought his way to the man. Behind him a second cart rolled down the rails and crashed against the first one. Marshal Larkin climbed out and started toward the downed man. As he and Bran lifted the burned victim they heard the second cart start to roll.

“What the hell?” Bran looked over his shoulder.

“There’s someone else. He’s running away,” Larkin said.

“Go
after him,” Bran yelled out. “I’ve got this one.”

The marshal covered his head with his arms, ran behind the moving cart, and pulled himself inside.

Bran fought the intense heat and struggled to lift the injured man over his shoulder and get him into the badly leaking ore cart. There was little water left now and the smoke was so bad that he could barely breathe.

For a moment, Bran was thrust back into the past. He still felt the pain of the arrow in his eye when he’d come to and found the cabin filled with smoke so thick that he couldn’t find his sister and mother. Only because his father’s body lay near the doorway did he stumble over it. But even then, he couldn’t pull the heavy man outside.

He refused to let it happen again. Grimly he climbed into the cart and, wetting his jacket once more, covered his head and began to pump. Beams fell and the smoke choked him, but Bran refused to stop. Finally, just when he felt as if his lungs would burst, they were in the open.

As the onlookers pulled the injured man from the cart, it was obvious that Bran’s efforts had been in vain.

“Did you catch the other one, Larkin?” Bran asked as he staggered toward the lawman.

“No, the fool hit me and knocked me down. Before I could get up, he’d dropped over the front of the cart and disappeared. I lost him in the dark.”

“Are you hurt?” the judge asked, coming to Bran’s side.

“Well, let’s just say I don’t look forward to the fires of hell,” Bran said, studying the marshal, who’d obviously fared better than either Bran or the man he’d rescued.

The miners had set up a bucket brigade and begun dousing the flames. Back at the main house, both the marshal and the judge recounted the heroics of Brother Adams, who’d risked his own life trying to save the fatally injured men who’d been trapped there.

“Too bad the other one escaped,” Bran said. “He might be able to tell us who hired him.”

Bran declined Sylvia’s offer of assistance and climbed into his wagon, directing Macky to take them back to town. He’d said he wasn’t hurt, but Macky took one look at the singed clothing and soot on his face and knew that Bran was not a man who willingly revealed his weakness.

He’d saved the stage from bandits who would have stolen her gold and paper money. He’d gotten her to safety and then gone back for Jenks. He’d protected her from Pratt by allowing her to pretend she was his wife, and now he’d risked his life to rescue the criminal intent on destroying the Sylvia. Her plan to leave would have to wait until she knew that he was all right—whatever the risk.

Lorraine met them at the saloon door, took one look at Bran’s smoke-smeared face and ruined clothes and went into action. Before Macky could argue, he’d been taken to their room and was about to be undressed and bathed.

“Get the burn salve,” Lorraine directed her girls, “and tear some bandages from a bed sheet.”

Macky leaned against the wall and felt a stab of jealousy
as another woman took care of the man who was supposed to be her husband. When Lorraine began to remove Bran’s clothing, Macky roused herself.

“Thank you, Lorraine,” she said, pushing herself between the saloonkeeper and the bed. “But I’ll do that.”

Bran’s eyelids flickered open. “You’re still here?” he asked and Macky wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or resigned.

“Of course,” she replied, then stopped and waited until Lorraine backed away and left the room. Once they were alone, Macky unfastened and stepped out of the petticoats that interfered with her nursing. She began to unfasten the buttons of his shirt.

“This isn’t very smart of you,” he said.

“Maybe not.”

“But then, you’ve always found trouble if it was to be had, haven’t you?”

She pulled the shirt from his body and began to clean his face gently with a cloth.

“You did this for me earlier tonight when I was … sick.”

“Yes, but that was different.”

“How?”

He groaned. “I thought you were only pretending to be ill.”

She rinsed her cloth and began washing lower. “I was.” She watched his skin pucker, the way his nipples retracted into tight little balls beneath the hair that covered his chest. “I was running away when the explosion occurred.”

“I would have come after you.”

“I know, Bran. Be still.”

He should stop her, but he couldn’t move. Tired beyond belief, with the hair on his arms singed and his muscles aching so that he could hardly lift his head, he lay, letting himself feel the warmth of a woman’s touch, listening to a confession that only bound them closer. He knew it was foolish, that it couldn’t last. That it wasn’t smart to lower his
defenses enough to respond to an emotion that wasn’t only physical.

But her eyes were filled with concern and for just this one night he wanted to take what she was giving. “You ought to have let Lorraine do this.”

“Why, shame on you, Reverend Adams. The very idea. Lorraine is a single lady.” She rinsed her cloth again and turned her attention to his arms. “I have to clean your skin so that I can treat your burns.” Carefully she washed away the evidence of the fire and the soot, until she’d bathed his upper body completely. When she reached for his drawers, he grabbed her wrists and held them tightly.

She could see the war in his eyes. Gone was the amusement he used as the shield to hide his need. He wanted this, yet he was struggling to deny himself the pleasure of her touch.

“You don’t understand, Macky. Don’t give me lofty ideals. Forget everything I said tonight. No matter what I claim, underneath I’m only a man.”

“I understand that,” she said. “But I have to do this for you.” She reached down and unfastened his trousers.

To her credit she didn’t gasp when she saw the unadorned results of her touch.

To his credit, he didn’t flinch or try to hide his state of arousal when she washed the spot on his thigh where his trousers had been burned away.

“I’m sorry. I’m going to have to hurt you.”

“I’ve been hurt worse.”

“Your eye?” she asked quietly, continuing her ministrations.

“That, and the pain that comes from watching people you love brutally murdered and not being able to stop it.”

“Your family?” She tried to focus on something other than his desire. “Tell me about them.”

“My mother died trying to save my sister. They’d already killed my father. I tried to stop them, but I couldn’t. After
the bastards were through, they shot them with arrows and scalped them to make it look like Indians had done it.”

She ripped the trousers and his drawers off, exposing his red-streaked feet and ankles. His worst injury was on his thigh, where the trousers had been burned, leaving a slashing mark. Macky risked looking at him. He’d closed his eyes.

“But you knew different,” she said softly. Her voice seemed to distract him, almost without knowing he was doing so, he described the carnage that had so affected his life as a young boy.

“Were they caught?”

“No. But they will be, at least one of them will. The one who told the others what to do.”

Despite his iron-willed control, the grim set of his lips told her how painful that deeply buried memory was. She looked down at this stern, dangerous man and knew how much she was beginning to care.

“There,” she finally said, as she began applying the salve. “You don’t appear to be burned so much as bruised. I think you’ll feel better by morning.”

Bran let out a deep breath, trying desperately to prevent what was about to happen, then gave in and pulled her across his body.

“Nothing will take care of my problem, McKenzie Kathryn Calhoun, except this.”