Linda Castle (19 page)

He finally broke the contact and drew back enough to stare into her face. Rough, strong fingers pushed strands of hair away from her face. A gentle smile curled his lips.

“How are you, honey?”

She swallowed the lump that lodged in her throat. “I’m better—now that you are here.” She ducked her head, unwilling for him to see her weakness. “Is anybody else with you? Pa and the boys?”

“Sorry, honey. Your pa and Shane are delivering some beef on the hoof, Flynn is workin’. They wasn’t expectin’ to have to come to New York.”

He lifted her chin with a callused fingertip. “What is all this nonsense I hear about you makin’ and then breakin’ an engagement to Brooks?”

“I can’t ever marry.” She inhaled a ragged breath. “Not him or anybody else.” She nearly choked on the truth of it.

Clell pulled a nearby chair close beside her bed. “Never is a mighty long time.” He took her small hand in his. “Do you love him?”

Her bottom lip trembled and she looked Clell straight in the eye. “More than anything in the world.”

“Then you can marry him. And it better be quick or he may just dry up and blow away. The poor boy is near starvin’ himself to death worryin’ over you. He looks bad, honey, real bad.”

“Is he sick?” Marisa’s heart contracted in fear.

“Lovesick.” Clell stood up and stretched his legs. “Let
me go out and call him and Logan. We’ll get this foolishness over with—”

“No!” Marisa’s voice cracked with emotion. She grabbed at Clell’s shirt like a wild woman. “I can’t see him.”

Clell frowned. He had never seen her act like this. “What in tarnation is wrong with you, girl?”

Tears threatened to spill over her bottom lids. “I can’t let him see me like this. I just can’t.” Her voice cracked again as she fought back the tears.

“Like what, honey?” Clell stroked her face and tried to pry her fingers from his shirt. “You look just fine.” He reached out and traced the smudges under her eyes. “You don’t look like you been sleepin’ a lot, but that is easily fixed.”

“I’m not fine. I’ll never be fine.” Her voice was high with barely restrained hysteria. “Don’t you understand? Can’t you see?” She suddenly released him and started pounding on her knees with her fists. “Don’t you see, Clell?”

“See what? I can’t see anything wrong with you, honey.”

“I’m crippled!” She looked at him with anguished eyes. “I can’t walk.” Her voice was little more than a husky whisper. “I can’t stand. And as God is my witness, I will not saddle Brooks with a damn, useless
cripple
for a wife.”

Clell walked out into the hallway and for the first time in his life knew what a condemned man felt like. He glanced toward the hopeful, haggard face of Brooks.

A little part of him died when their eyes met.

“How is she?” Brooks asked as he rushed forward.

“She asked to see you, Logan.” Clell broke the contact and deliberately avoided Brooks’s eyes. He wasn’t sure
he could do as Marisa asked, but he knew he would because he had given his word. She had pleaded with him in a voice dry as her eyes had been until he had given it.

Logan swallowed hard. He removed himself from the windowsill where he had been lounging. Clell watched him disappear inside Marisa’s room.

“Tell me, Clell. How is she?” Brooks insisted.

Clell sighed and eased his body into a chair. A bone-deep weariness seemed to overtake him as he searched his mind for the right words. “She is recoverin’, Brooks.”

His answer would not satisfy the man staring down at him.

“Clell, I consider you a friend. Now look me in the eye and tell me.” Brooks clenched his fists tightly against his thighs, determined to maintain his unraveling control.

“She is awake and as stubborn as ever.” Clell looked up and managed a shaky smile. “She asked me to give you a message.”

“What?”

“She wants you to walk away from this hospital and get on with your life. She said to tell you that it can’t be. She is not the woman you asked to marry you, not what you thought she was.”

Brooks contracted his fists harder. “Are those words yours or Marisa’s?”

Clell’s eyes widened and he drew in a breath as if he were going to shout, or spill his guts, but then he ducked his head. “They are not mine,” he said in a whisper.

“Why, Clell? Did she tell you why?”

“Yep, she told me.” He sighed heavily.

“Well?” There was a sharp edge to Brooks’s question.

“I gave her my word I wouldn’t say, Brooks. But I will tell you this. She has made up her mind, and no power on earth is going to budge her. You might as well do as
she says. Get on with your life, forget you ever met Marisa O’Bannion.”

“I could as easily stop the sun from setting.” Brooks raked his hand through his tousled hair. “There has to be a damn good reason for her to change her mind.”

“There is.” Logan strode toward them. His face was ashen and his eyes held a pain that Brooks had never witnessed in them before. Tight lines of tension bracketed his young mouth and eyes.

“What is it, Logan?”

“Logan, she doesn’t want him to know,” Clell warned as he took a step forward.

“Yeah, I know, but I wouldn’t give her my word like you did, Clell. She asked for it, but I wouldn’t give it.” His voice cracked with restrained emotion. “Near broke my heart to hear her beg me, but I couldn’t do what she asked. It just ain’t fair for him not to know.” Logan’s voice cracked. “It ain’t fair, Clell.”

“I know that.” Clell nodded and swallowed hard.

“What? What has happened?” A thousand imagined terrors flashed through Brooks’s mind.

Logan drew himself up as if preparing to take a blow. “She is crippled, Brooks.” He met Brooks’s gaze unblinkingly.

“What did you say?” Brooks wasn’t sure he had heard correctly.

“She is paralyzed. Missy can’t move her legs.” Logan sagged weakly against the wall as if the act of telling Brooks had sapped all his strength.

“Paralyzed?” Brooks felt the cold blanket of dread wrap itself tightly around his heart. “Marisa is paralyzed?”

“That is why she will never ever marry you,” Logan said sadly. “She means it, Brooks—she won’t change her mind.”

“T
ry to move your toes, Marisa.” Dr. Levy glanced up at Marisa. A frown puckered her forehead.

“I don’t want to try,” she said, lying flat on her back and staring at the ceiling. “Nothing helps, nothing changes. It doesn’t matter, anyway.”

Dr. Levy sighed and pulled the sheet up over Marisa’s motionless legs. “You have given up.”

Marisa hated to admit it, but Dr. Levy was right. She wasn’t trying. But then what good did it do for her to try? She couldn’t feel her legs, and she certainly couldn’t move anything below her waist. Besides, she remembered how hard it had been for her, Clell and the rest of the family when Trace couldn’t come to terms with his blindness. They’d had to stand by and helplessly watch him struggle day after day. No, she wasn’t going to do that to her family.

I can adjust.

Marisa drew in a deep breath. The sooner she resigned herself to being a cripple, the sooner her lonely heart would begin to heal. And now that Brooks was out of her life, her heart felt almost as numb as her legs. Without his love she had no desire to try.

“You know, Marisa, your recovery depends on you.” Dr. Levy rubbed the furrow between her brows. “Everyone says you are a woman of fiery temperament and iron will. The fact that you won’t fight worries me more than your injury. The swelling on your spine is lessening everyday. The bruise is all but gone.”

Marisa turned her head and stared at the doctor. “Are you saying I will walk again?” she asked.

“No, I can’t say that. But at this point it is a little early to decide your injury is permanent. There are many things we don’t know about the human body. It could take weeks before you regain any feeling or mobility—even months…”

“Or?” Prompted Marisa.

“Or…you may never have any more mobility or sensation than you have now. But that is no reason not to try,” Dr. Levy added quickly.

Marisa sighed. She would not cry. Tears were useless, just as struggling against her paralysis was useless. There was no point in trying to make Dr. Levy understand. Nobody could understand how she felt. She had never had to depend on anybody in her life. Losing her ability to walk was almost like being dead.

Worse than being dead because her heart still felt empty.

“Marisa, would you like to leave the hospital?”

She searched her mind for an opinion, but it really didn’t matter where she was. The moment she’d taken Brooks’s ring from her finger she’d stopped caring what happened. But then she thought of Violet’s second visit. Miss Ashland had cautioned Marisa about returning home, saying it would be too easy for Brooks to reach her there, and that if she
really
cared, she would find someplace else to go.

Marisa turned to Dr. Levy. “No. I don’t want to go home.”

“Well, there is no reason for you to remain here,” Dr. Levy noted.

Marisa pulled her thoughts from Brooks. “Is there some
place,
someplace where they take people like me—cripples?” The few times she’d left her bed she had been put in an invalid’s chair and wheeled around by a nurse. She had felt people’s eyes upon her back and seen pity on their faces when she’d turned.

“I wish you wouldn’t speak of yourself like that,” Dr. Levy said, and frowned. “There
is
a place not too far from here. With trees, animals and quiet. The facility was built for patients with special needs.”

“You mean cripples?”

“No.” Dr. Levy was growing impatient with Marisa’s attitude. She needed something to shock her into
caring.

But what?

“My patients go there simply to rest.” Dr. Levy smiled and patted Marisa’s forearm. “To rest and to heal.”

“Are you talking about a sanitarium?” Marisa asked.

“I suppose you could call it that.”

She thought about Clell’s and Logan’s reactions. They would not be inclined to let her go anywhere alone. “Could my family come?”

“I don’t see any reason why not.”

“Then I’ll go,” Marisa answered. She had to hide from Brooks until he saw that what she was doing was for the best.

“Marisa, I want you to think about something else.”

“What?”

“I need to hire another person to help with your rehabilitation. We don’t seem to be making any headway.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Marisa didn’t care.

“Because I need your permission to bring another person
in.” Dr. Levy just wished she knew what kind of a person it would take to make Marisa want to get well. “Do I have your permission?”

“Sure, hire whatever nurse you want. I don’t care.”

Dr. Levy nodded and walked to the door. Her hand was on the doorknob.

“Dr. Levy, there is one thing I want.” Marisa spoke before the door opened.

“Yes?” She paused, hoping that this was the turning point—that Marisa
wanted
something.

“I want this kept secret. I don’t want anyone to know where I am going.”

Dr. Levy nodded and felt disappointment fold over her. “Whatever you say, Marisa. You are the patient.”

Brooks paced the corridor of the hospital, counting the uneven tiles, just as he had done for many long weeks. He had tried every way in the world to sneak into Marisa’s room, but Dr. Levy had proved to be a formidable opponent. She had told him from the start that Marisa’s care was her only concern and that he would have to find some other way of addressing the issue of their broken engagement.

He dragged his hands through his hair and tried to think of a way to see her. Strong, striding footsteps brought him around.

Logan grinned at Brooks from under the brim of his Stetson. “You are lookin’ down in the mouth,” Logan drawled.

“That’s what losing the woman you love does to you.”

Logan’s smile widened.

Brooks grimaced in the face of such happiness, but then he realized that if Logan could smile, Marisa must be better, or at least no worse.

“How is she?” he asked hopefully.

“The same.”

Hope died. Brooks fought the wave of melancholy that washed over him. “I see.”

“No, I don’t think you do, not yet.” Logan pushed his hat back with the tip of one finger. “What would you say if I told you that you could find the woman you lost?”

“Find
the woman?” Brooks’s head snapped up and he focused intently on Logan’s cheerful face. “What do you mean?”

“Say if a certain gal was goin’ to take a trip—a secret trip—it would be nice of some fella who knew where she was headed to let another fella know, wouldn’t it?”

The hair on Brooks’s nape prickled. His stomach lurched at the possibility of finally speaking to Marisa face-to-face. “It would be more than nice.”

Logan leaned against the wall, crossed his boots at the ankle and grinned. “I betcha if the time comes that I ever lose my lady love, somebody I consider a friend—like you, for instance, Brooks—would tell me what I needed to know. Wouldn’t you?”

“You could count on it,” Brooks said softly. “To my dying breath, you could count on it.”

“I knew it.” Logan rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “You know, I heard a funny thing this morning…” He appeared to be tracing the outline of the ornate cornice with his eyes as he spoke. “Seems Missy, I mean Marisa, is goin’ to some sort of sanitarium, a place called Hunter’s Roost.”

“I’ve heard the name,” Brooks said.

“I understand the place is kind of secluded. It might be easy for a determined man to sneak in there without being seen. You know what I mean?” Logan’s pale eyes slid over Brooks’s face.

“I think I do,” Brooks said with a small grin. “I think I follow your story real well, at that.”

* * *

Marisa woke with a start. It took her a moment to get her bearings and remember she was in a train car. Both Clell and Logan were watching her with unguarded expressions of pity on their faces. She turned away from them and tried to banish the lingering memory of her dream.

The sensation of lying in Brooks’s arms, feeling the heated desire of his kisses, had begun to haunt her. At first she’d taken comfort from the vivid recollections, as she sat immobile in her invalid’s chair. But as the days wore on, the memories began to be more torture than comfort. Now she realized those recollections were her curse, not the blessing she had thought. No matter how determined she was, and how sure that she was right not to saddle Brooks with a wife who could never stand at his side, all she could think of was the look in his eyes and the touch of his fingers.

He was right. He had branded her with his love.

She would never ever be able to forget him. She choked back the pain and misery that clogged her throat.

I will not cry.

She had not shed a single tear for herself, and she wasn’t about to start now. The sooner she came to grips with her paralysis, the better off she would be. Besides, what did it matter? Without Brooks in her life any kind of happiness was little more than a pipe dream.

Brooks sat huddled in the corner of his seat at the back of the train, watching, waiting. He was roasting in his disguise of muffler, coat and low-slung hat, but at least he’d gone undetected.

His eyes had never left Marisa since Clell had carried her into the car. There was a dull but steady ache in his heart. It was pure hell to be so near her and not be able to reveal himself.

Dr. Levy leaned over to adjust the lap rug across Marisa’s motionless legs as he watched.

He wanted to be the one who cared for her. Brooks yearned to hold her, to comfort her.

She looked up.

He saw her face clearly in the spring sunshine slanting through the window. There was something unfamiliar about her eyes, something that clawed at his insides.

It was as if all the fire that had burned inside her soul had been extinguished. Not even tears were in those dark eyes.

For a moment she appeared to look straight at him. He held his breath, but her eyes slid away, and he realized she had not recognized him. He slouched lower in the seat and pulled his hat down over his eyes. He could not afford to be discovered, not yet. Logan had slipped him information about which train Marisa would be on. But not even Logan knew Brooks sat only yards away. It took all his control to keep from revealing himself. He forced himself to wait as mile after mile flowed by. He watched her from under the concealing brim of his hat while his hands itched to touch her and his body tightened with love.

Brooks loved the person that Marisa was inside, not just her legs, her hair or the color of her eyes.

If she would only talk to him he could make her understand. She was his soul mate, and if it took him until his last breath, he was going to prove it to her one way or another.

At a town so small it didn’t appear to have a name, Marisa was carried off the train and loaded into a surrey with short black fringe hanging from the leather top. Clell carefully tucked the lap robe over her legs before he strapped their baggage to the back and climbed in beside her. Brooks watched every detail through the coalstreaked
glass. Marisa never looked about, never changed her stoic expression.

As the surrey rolled away from the train, the axles bent down the tops of windflowers growing in the middle of the dirt road. This was not a mecca of activity.

He watched until the buggy disappeared from sight and only then did he leave the train, shedding his stifling disguise as he went. He stood staring at the spot where he had last seen Marisa, while his heart thudded painfully in his chest.

“Are you turning to stone?” a crackling voice asked in an accent that was pure New Englander.

Brooks turned to find a man so old his age was almost beyond calculating. He was perched on a stump, beneath the shelter of a million leaves. Sunlight dappled his features. Brooks was put in mind of a woodland gnome. The man’s fingers were as knotted and burled as the root he was whittling. Curled slivers piled at his feet.

“You need to hire a buggy?” the old man asked, with only a cursory lift of his eyes.

“To do what?”

“Follow that gal you was a-watching, I’d figger.”

Brooks grinned. Here was a man Clell would appreciate. “Maybe. How far is it to Hunter’s Roost?”

“Hunter’s Roost?” the man said derisively. He stopped whittling and looked at Brooks. One eye had a milky core in the center. Brooks realized the old man was almost blind. “It was Hunter’s Roost when it was only a bird blind for a-hunting. I don’t know why they call it that now, with all those people sitting around just a-waiting to die.”

“Is that what you think they are doing up there?” A knot of worry formed in Brooks’s gut. Was Marisa worse than Logan had told him? Had she been more injured than anyone had revealed to him?

Was she dying?

“Seems like to me. If’n they’d get up and move around I warrant they’d all feel a sight better. A body that don’t keep busy might as well get planted, I always say.” He bent his head and went back to whittling. Relief flooded through Brooks when he realized it was just the old man’s personal convictions that made him say what he did and not some portent of doom regarding Marisa.

“How far is it to the place?” Brooks asked again.

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether your a-walking or a-riding.”

Brooks grinned. He was enjoying this exchange. “What would be the best way if I didn’t want somebody to see me coming?”

“Now that would best be done by taking the footpath. It curves around the lake and leads right to the back door.”

“And how far would it be?”

“Not far. A quick man should reach the place ‘bout suppertime.”

“Thanks.” Brooks hefted his valise and took off down the vine-lined path. He found himself whistling a hopeful tune as he hiked beside hedgerows and rabbit burrows. By suppertime he intended to find out why Marisa had broken their engagement, although he suspected it was due to her injury, and then he was going to get his ring back on her finger.