Dripping wet, she emerged from the lake shivering and self-conscious of her nudity.
She stood over him for several moments.
His eyes were half-open, but she knew he couldn’t see her.
Hellfire, but he was attractive.
It worried and baffled her that she should notice such things about a white man.
¤ ¤ ¤
She was a water nymph with black hair nearly to her waist and the bluest eyes he’d ever seen.
Her legs were long and smoothly tapered, her hips slim and boyish yet utterly feminine.
Her breasts were perfectly formed; faintly tanned, softly swelling globes that would fit easily in his hands.
Harrison wanted her more than he’d ever wanted another woman.
In his dreamlike netherworld, she was attainable; all he had to do was reach out for her.
He threw out an arm, and his hand connected with her ankle.
He wrapped his fingers around cold, supple skin, dampened with lake water.
He’d seen her rise from the water and walk to him.
He tried to pull her closer.
¤ ¤ ¤
Miracle stared down at Harrison’s hand wrapped around her leg.
She was shocked by the lurch of her heart, the spurt of desire his touch ignited.
She yanked her foot away and snatched up a blanket, wrapping it around herself before heading cautiously through the woods to the wagon.
She had to get over this strange fascination she had with him.
It was dim inside the wagon as Miracle pulled on clean drawers, a petticoat, and a pink cotton shirtwaist.
Frowning, she buttoned a buttery soft buckskin skirt around her small waist, still annoyed with her reaction.
Harrison Danner was not a man to be fascinated with.
She sensed it in her bones.
He was white, and he was off-limits.
Dragging a comb through her thick hair, she let her restless gaze fall on an assortment of bottles, some broken, others chipped or still, amazingly enough, intact.
Inside one chipped jar was a dried marshmallow root.
Miracle snatched up the jar and stuffed it inside the pocket of her skirt.
Uncle Horace had used it in a poultice to help prevent gangrene.
Knowing the depth of Harrison’s wound, Miracle was afraid for the death of vital tissue.
But what was the rest of the cure?
She could see Uncle Horace now, waving a half-empty bottle of rum at her, as they sat around the campfire.
“Sweet milk,” he said with a sly, one-sided grin and a hiccup.
“You gotta boil it down to a decoction in sweet milk.
Then add powdered elm bark, just to thicken it.
Spread it on, then, Miracle, my girl, pray to God Almighty that He sees fit to keep the flesh from putrefying!”
As a last thought, Miracle grabbed up some of Uncle Horace’s clothes, then she rushed back to Harrison.
She had no milk, nor did she have even a pinch of elm bark.
But it was the marshmallow root that would stop gangrene.
Harrison face was flushed, but he was quiet.
She touched his skin.
Hot.
Sighing, she began gathering sticks for a small fire.
She would cut the root into pieces as fine as she could manage, then boil them in lake water.
And then she would make them into a poultice and pray to God Almighty.
¤ ¤ ¤
“Where is Harrison?” Kelsey asked her brother in alarm.
“You were with him last night, weren’t you?”
Jace Garrett, his dark russet hair mussed from its usual oiled slickness, glared down at his rebellious sister.
She was too knowing, by God.
Hardly an attractive feminine trait!
She would be the bane of Harrison Danner’s existence, and that – along with the possibility of a stake of Danner land – was the reason Jace looked forward to their union.
His gaze slid sideways, settling on his own wife, Emerald.
Now, she knew what being a woman was all about.
She sat still and poised on the edge of the horsehair couch in the parlor, her lovely white hands folded in her lap, the picture of sweetness and gentility.
Jace smiled to himself.
He’d made a good catch.
Emerald’s family was one of the wealthiest in Malone, and after Lexie’s rejection, Jace had determined to marry a woman he could be proud of.
And he’d tried like hell to beat Tremaine and Lexie to the altar – he hated anyone thinking he was pining for that Danner bitch – but Emerald had insisted on a proper length of time before the nuptials.
Unlike Lexie, Emerald was worried about propriety.
She didn’t want anyone to think they were rushing into marriage for improper reasons, so she insisted on a year’s engagement after her father had accepted Jace’s proposal.
The wedding had been in Rock Springs, the most lavish the town had ever seen.
Jace’s delight in showing off his beautiful dark-haired bride had only been marred by the news that Lexie had just delivered Tremaine a son.
Jace had yet to get his wife pregnant.
Emeralds sharp black eyes were glittering at Kelsey; she neither approved of nor liked Jace’s hoyden sister.
The trace of an amused smile lifted one corner of her rapturous little mouth.
Jace’s good humor fled.
Was she laughing at him, because he’d made a fool of himself last night?
Lord knew he was lucky to be alive thanks to Sheriff Raynor’s appearance at the Half Moon while he’d been attempting to pay off those miserable, stinking outlaws.
Jace had never been so glad to see Raynor’s bulging stomach as the moment it had appeared in the Half Moon’s office door.
The outlaws had bolted out the back before Raynor saw them, more’s the pity, but at least they’d left Jace’s throat intact.
The thought still made him break out into a sweat.
Emerald, however, was gazing at Kelsey’s snapping gray eyes.
Her secret amusement was apparently because Harrison Danner had chosen to stand Kelsey up at her own wedding.
“How in God’s name should I know where Danner is?” Jace growled.
Emerald’s satin skirts rustled behind him.
A brassy trill of laughter escaped her.
Just whom was she laughing at?
Jace’s ears burned.
“You were gambling together at the Half Moon,” Kelsey pointed out.
“You told me you were!
Did Harrison make it home?”
Jace shrugged.
“He left when the cards heated up.
I don’t know where he went.”
“Then I’ll ride over to Tremaine and Lexie’s and see if he’s there.”
“No!” Jace was adamant.
A squeak of merriment erupted from Emerald.
She’d seen him come home escorted by the sheriff and knew he’d just managed to save his skin from that mangy collection of thieves who’d held him for ransom.
Goddamn that Harrison Danner!
He’d
told
them they could have his money.
How was Jace supposed to wrangle out of that without some official help?
The bastard.
In his heart Jace hoped Harrison had met some extremely painful end.
Next to Tremaine Danner, Harrison was his most hated enemy, and then right on down the line to Jesse Danner, the family’s black sheep who’d disappeared from Rock Springs ten years earlier, and Samuel, the quiet youngest brother who’d moved to Portland but had a head for business that somehow alarmed Jace in a deep-down visceral way.
Damn all those Danners to hell!
“It’s your wedding day, Kelsey!
You’re going to stay right here until we leave for the church!” he snarled.
“And wait at the altar for a missing groom?” Kelsey questioned, lifting one eyebrow in that arrogant way, Jace hated.
“Joseph wouldn’t have come here looking for Harrison if he wasn’t extremely worried.
Not with Eliza being sick.”
“Eliza Danner’s ill?” Emerald asked with quick interest.
She was an unbridled, unprincipled gossip.
“Yes,” Kelsey said quietly, worried about Harrison’s mother.
“Even if Harrison does show, I might have to call off the wedding.”
“No,” Jace said again with a shake of his head.
“The wedding takes place as planned.”
Kelsey looked at him in that way that always made his stomach tighten.
He could sense something in her, revulsion, he suspected.
She’d been a hellcat as a child, and she was even worse as a young woman.
Jace wished their mother had lived to take her in hand.
Lucinda Garrett wouldn’t have allowed her to be the way she was.
She would have taught her how to behave, even if she’d had to beat it into her.
But Lucinda had been thrown from a horse two summers past and had never recovered from her injuries.
Now Jace suspected he’d been too soft on his sister.
“I sure hope Eliza gets well,” Emerald murmured, straightening her skirts so they fanned out smoothly over the horsehair couch.
“She’s a fine woman.”
Lexie and Harrison’s mother was a true lady; even Jace could admit that.
But she was a Danner, and the truth of it was he didn’t care whether she lived or died.
“Don’t you go near that house if there’s sickness there,” Jace warned his wife.
“I know how soft-hearted you are.”
Emerald smiled sweetly, tilting her head in that pretty way of hers.
An inarticulate sound escaped Kelsey throat, and she banged out the front door.
“Darling,” Emerald said, patting the sofa beside her.
“I’m sure Harrison will show up for the wedding.
He’s no fool.
He knows how much trouble he’ll be in if he isn’t there.”
Jace sat down beside her, uneasy.
What had happened to Harrison?
Had he survived?
Though Jace would be happy to dance on the man’s grave, it was damned inconsiderate of him to stand up a Garrett, making Kelsey a widow before she was even married.
Emerald’s dark hair was scraped back into a taut line, several curling tendrils highlighting her heart-shaped face.
“What did you do to him?” she asked.
“I didn’t do anything to him!” Jace growled angrily.
“Harrison Danner’s as unreliable as the rest of them!”
She clucked her tongue sympathetically.
“He didn’t burn last night, did he?”
Jace turned to stare directly into Emerald’s eyes.
Gooseflesh rose on his arms.
His wife’s guesses were just too close to the bone sometimes.
“In the barn fire?” he asked, to give himself time.
“You were there, too,” she said, as if there were no room for argument.
“Those men Sheriff Raynor wanted descriptions of – you were paying them off.
You didn’t pay them to burn the barn, did you?”
Jace had to fight to keep his jaw from dropping.
“You just accused me of murder!” He knew Raynor and his men had scraped several bodies from the smoldering ashes.
“Harrison and I were gambling.
Nothing more.”
“If he’s dead, darling, the war between the Garretts and the Danners will begin again.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Jace asked in sudden realization.
“Sometimes I think you hate the Danners even more than I do.
Why?”
Emerald’s palm was silky as it trailed down his cheek.
When he opened his mouth to badger her some more, she pressed a finger across his mouth, then slipped it between his lips.
Jace was sufficiently distracted to stop asking questions, and Emerald smiled to herself, as capable and ruthless at hiding her own thoughts and feelings as her husband was.
¤ ¤ ¤
Miracle combed her hair and braided it into one long, shining rope, tossing it over her shoulder.
For the first time since her kidnapping, she had time to think, and her thoughts weren’t pleasant ones.
She gazed at Harrison’s sleeping form, considering.
Why had he tried to rescue her?
What would happen when he was well enough to remember what she’d done and strong enough to do something about it?
She frowned.
While she’d been fighting for survival she’d had no time for introspection.
Now her mind was plagued with uneasy thoughts.
What had he said to her in the barn loft?
He’d been kind, she remembered, teasing.
“One kiss for freeing you,” he muttered.
Then his lips had captured hers, and she responded by stabbing him in the back.
She grimaced at the memory.
No man would forgive a woman for such treachery, no matter what the circumstances.
Hellfire!
He would be hard pressed not to turn her into the sheriff.
She should just leave him here and run for her life.
Miracle’s hands were gripped so tightly together they hurt.
She sighed.
She couldn’t leave him.
She wouldn’t.
It wasn’t in her nature.
But Lord, she was in trouble!
If Harrison lived, he would stir up a storm of trouble for her, and if he died… she would be a murderess.