Heartbreak Creek (31 page)

“Cougar!” Joe Bill shrieked and whirled to scramble up the bank. “Pa! Pa!”

“No!” Edwina grabbed the back of his shirt. “Don’t run!” She yanked him back so hard he toppled. “He said don’t run!”

But it was too late.

The cougar bounded out of the brush, mouth open in a snarl.

Without thinking of anything except the boy sprawled helpless at her feet, Edwina charged to meet it, shrieking in terror and waving the pail over her head.
“Go away, go away, go away!”

The cougar checked and made a yowling sound, one paw up, claws extended.

“Go away!”
Edwina screamed, waving and rushing into the water.

The cougar crouched and edged back, ears flat, tail twitching.

“Ed, drop!” a voice shouted.

Edwina ducked.

A rifle cracked. She heard the whine of the bullet past her ear, the whump as it struck flesh, then a broken cry as a huge, heavy weight crashed into her back and drove her face-first into the water.

T
he weight lifted. Hands grabbed at her, flipped her over as if she were a rag doll.

“Ed! Jesus, are you all right?”

Coughing and spitting water and grit, Edwina fought to drag air into her lungs as a heavy hand pounded on her back. “D-Don’t,” she choked out. “Stop!”

He stopped. She felt herself lifted from the water in arms that held her so tight she could scarcely breathe. A moment later, he laid her out on the soft bank in a bed of wildflowers.

“Talk to me, Ed! Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

She blinked up at her husband’s pale, worried face. “Joe B-Bill?”

“He’s here. He’s fine. Tell her you’re fine.”

Joe Bill came into view. Dirty, wet, spattered with blood. “I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Cougar blood. It’s all over you, too, and in your hair. It fell on you. Scared Pa half to death, didn’t it, Pa? Never seen you move so fast.”

She shifted her gaze to Declan. His face had regained some color, but his eyes still showed fear. “W-what happened? I heard a shot, then—”

“Pa got him! Right through the throat. Almost blew off his head, didn’t you, Pa!” Joe Bill glanced at the creek behind him, then at Edwina. His hazel eyes were round in his dirty face and seemed unnaturally bright. “Can’t believe you charged him. You’re crazy, you know that? Mad-dog crazy!”

“Joe Bill,” his father warned.

“Well, she is. Did you see her, Pa? Did you see what she did?”

“I saw.”

Edwina frowned up at the faces hovering over her. She was shivering and wet. She felt mauled and beat up and bruised, and was in no mood for Joe Bill’s foolishness. But when she opened her mouth to tell him that, she realized Joe Bill was grinning. At her.

“Can you walk?” Declan asked.

“I think so.” But her legs didn’t seem to work right, and if not for Declan’s strong arm around her, she would have crumbled back to the ground.

“Crazy as Cooter Brown,” Joe Bill said, hovering at her side and getting in the way as Declan steadied her. “Going at a cougar with nothing but a pail of spinach. That’s just plain crazy.”

Edwina wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard a note of pride in his voice. “It was poke salet.” She felt dizzy and her heart was racing so fast she could scarcely get the words out. Leaning against her husband, she paused to look back at the dead cougar, terror still coursing through her.

It lay sprawled on the bank where Declan must have thrown it after he pulled it off her back. Its fur was matted with blood and plastered to ribs that showed through its mangy pelt. It looked a little sad lying there like a pile of trash. “I thought it would be bigger.”

“It’s big enough,” Declan muttered.

“And old,” Joe Bill chimed in, still crowding at her side. “Probably couldn’t hunt anymore. That’s why it came after us, right, Pa?”

“Maybe.”

Joe Bill sprinted on ahead, calling back as he ran. “I gotta tell them how you went at a cougar with a pail. They’re not going to believe it.”

After she had washed away the cougar blood and changed clothes, Edwina suffered through the concerned comments and questions throughout the rest of the day, putting on a brave smile despite the soreness that grew more pronounced with each passing hour. But by suppertime, she was hobbling like an old lady.

“What you need is a hot bath,” Declan advised—the most he’d said to her since they’d come back from the creek. She wasn’t sure why he was so quiet, but it was just as well; she wasn’t feeling that talkative, either.

Every time she thought of that snarling face coming toward her, she started to shake. What if she’d gotten Joe Bill killed? What if Declan hadn’t come when he did?

“You finished?” Declan asked.

She looked down at the plate wobbling in her hands. It was still half full. She couldn’t remember what it was, or how much she’d eaten, or if she’d eaten anything at all.
Rabbit stew.
An image flashed in her mind. Amos bustling around the campfire, filling the plate and handing it over. “It’s delicious. I’m just not hungry.”

Declan pulled the plate from her hands and set it on a rock beside the fire. “Come on then. The boys already carried up bathwater.” He rose, holding out his arm for her to take.

She pulled herself up. Then, mindful of her manners, she thanked Amos for fixing supper, and the soldiers for working so hard, and the boys for carrying up the water.

Declan’s sons were so engrossed in scraping the underside of the pelt a soldier had taken off the cougar, they barely looked up. The smell of the raw skin made her stomach roll. She paused to watch them, wanting to shake Joe Bill and hug him and tell him how glad she was that he was alive. Instead, she contented herself with brushing her fingertips over his blond hair, which earned her a scowl, then let Declan lead her toward the house.

Big, solid Declan. There in the nick of time. A series of “what ifs” rolled through her mind, but Edwina pushed them away.

Home, now. Safe
.

That was all that mattered.

Grateful for her husband’s presence, for the sturdy strength of his arm beneath hers, she tipped her head against his shoulder and tried to ignore the ache in her back and shoulders.

With each step, she felt a weakening of the taut control she had struggled to maintain throughout the day. Here in the dark, with no one but her husband to see, she winced at the pull of stiff muscles, bit off a gasp when her ankle turned on a rock and a shock of pain shot up her bruised back. She made it into the kitchen, but the stairs defeated her. Without a word, Declan scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the loft. Once in the water closet, he set her on her feet, then began undoing the long row of buttons down the front of her dress.

“I can do that,” she said, uneasy with the idea of him undressing her. Then realizing how absurd that was after some of the things they’d done last night, she made only a weak protest—more out of disgust with her own helplessness than for modesty’s sake. “You needn’t bother.”

“It’s no bother.” He slid the dress off her shoulders and down her arms, hung it on a hook, then began to untie the tabs on her petticoat.

She studied him through her lashes, a bit confused by his reticence.

Was he angry with her? Disappointed that she wasn’t more stalwart?

The idea of that annoyed her. She couldn’t help being battered and sore. In addition to having a huge animal crash into her, she’d fallen into a rocky creek bed. Her palms were scratched, her chin scraped, and she would probably have bruises from head to toe.

“Step out,” he said, holding her arm so she could balance.

“Are you upset with me?” she asked when he turned to hang the petticoat beside her dress.

“No. Raise your arms.”

When he bent to lift the hem of her chemise, she put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Then what’s wrong, Declan? Why are you angry?”

He straightened, hands planted low on his waist, his lips compressed in that resistant way he had. For a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then, without looking at her, he said, “I shouldn’t have let you go down there. I knew there had been a cougar hanging around. I thought with the soldiers there, it would have left, but . . .”

He thinks it’s his fault?
“Hush.” She touched her hand to his mouth. “You’re not to blame for this, Declan. Joe Bill and I are okay. The cougar is dead. It’s over.”

Warm air rushed past her fingers as he let out a deep breath. He nodded and she took her hand away. “Go,” she said, softening the order with a smile. “I can do the rest.”

He hesitated as if he intended to argue the point, then turned and left the small room.

Edwina finished stripping, then stepped gingerly into the tub. Steam rose as she sank into the hot water, temporarily dimming the room as it fogged the glass chimney of the lamp bolted to the wall.

She slumped forward, wisps of hair hanging down to brush against the water. Tremors rippled over her shoulders and along her arms . . . as if the fear still trapped within her body sought release.

She never ever wanted to be that afraid again.

 

 

Declan stood at the broken window and listened to her cry. She made little noise. But he had lived with an emotional woman for ten years, and he knew what that occasional sniffle and muffled sound meant.

Turning from the window, he prowled the room but still couldn’t outrun that thought. Eventually he stopped trying and sank down on the edge of the bed.

Pictures flashed through his mind. Ed, charging—his son scrambling to his feet—the cougar crouched, ready to spring.

Christ!
He brought his clenched fist down hard on his thigh, using the pain to drive the image away.

That realization made his chest hurt so bad for a second he couldn’t move. Then with a great, hitching breath, he sucked air into his lungs, and his heart resumed its furious rhythm and blood roared past his ears in a dizzying rush.

But they didn’t.

But they’re not.

Clinging to that thought, he closed his eyes and waited for calmness. When it came, he unclenched his fists. Flattening his hands on his thighs, he stared out the broken window at the aspens twisting in the breeze.

He sat that way for a long time, his mind churning with images and memories and questions he couldn’t answer. But one thought kept circling around and around, like a half-remembered melody or a phrase repeated like a chant. Until finally he could no longer ignore it.

He loved Ed. He loved his wife. And stupid bastard that he was, he almost had to lose her before he came to that realization.

 

 

Edwina felt much better after her soak. The shaking had stopped, the terror had faded into memory, and all that was left was a bonedeep weariness, a tub of cold water, and two very puffy eyes.

She added a dozen bruises to that list when she stepped out of the tub and saw how the hot water had brought out the colorful marks that her fall had left down the front of her body. She wished Pru were here to concoct a salve or a balm or plaster-something to speed the healing. Pru always knew just what she needed.

She smiled, thinking of all the news she had to share with her sister when she got back. She wondered if Pru would have equally momentous news to share in return.

Once she’d pulled on her gown, she turned out the lamp, then moving with a lot less pain since her bath, stepped around the screen.

Declan was sitting in the dark on the far side of the bed. He was facing away, so she couldn’t see his face in the dim moonlight coming through the window, but she recognized that stiffness in his shoulders and back and knew he was fretting about something.

He had shocked her earlier with his outburst of guilt. How silly to blame himself. It had been her decision to go to the creek and her decision to allow Joe Bill to accompany her. If Declan hadn’t come running, they might both be dead.

That harrowing thought awakened the fear again, and Edwina had to pause for a moment to catch her breath and let her nerves settle.

Declan must have heard her, because he twisted around, saw her standing beside the screen, and immediately rose. “Feel better?”

She nodded. “Much better. Thank you.”

“Good.”

They stood in awkward silence, the bed between them. Edwina looked down at it and thought of all that they’d done here last night, and resolved not to let unspoken words rise between them.

“You saved my life.”

“You saved my son’s.”

She gave a broken laugh and felt new tears clutch at her throat. “If I’d thought at all, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I was just so . . . angry.”

“You were brave.”

“Pure hysteria. How could I have faced you if I’d let harm come to your son?”

“Ed.” He started around the end of the bed. A moment later, his strong arms closed around her and pulled her against his body.

She was crying again, and wasn’t sure why, and couldn’t seem to stop the tears no matter how often she blotted her face against his shirt. She drew in his warmth, his scent, his strength. She listened to the beat of his heart. And for the first time in more years than she could count, she felt safe.

When she got herself in hand, she drew back just enough to be able to see his face. His beautiful, stern, beloved face. “But he’s okay, isn’t he? Joe Bill?”

“He’s okay.”

“We protected him. Just like you said. Just like parents are supposed to do.”

“We did.” His voice sounded gruff, but his hands were gentle as he steered her toward the bed. He lifted the edge of the covers. “Hop in.”