Judith E French (6 page)

And worse, she’d put horns on him with some other man and tried to pass the babe off as her niece. His wife, the woman he’d once loved more than his hope of resurrection, was a cheat and a liar.

He needed a strong honest woman, someone who could tote water, clean game, plant a garden, cook, and sew, and give him healthy sons. He worked from dawn to dusk, seven days a week, and he wanted a partner who was willing to do the same.

Instead, he had Caitlin.

He’d told Justice that a man shouldn’t make hasty judgments, but following his own advice was going to be strong medicine.

“Over here,” Gabriel shouted.

Ahead, Shane saw the mare lying on her side with Gabe kneeling next to her. Shane stood in the stirrups and waved. “Coming,” he called.

Something whined past Shane’s ear, and from the wooded hillside he heard the crack of a rifle. “Son of a bitch!” he swore.

Somebody was trying to kill him.

Instinctively, Shane threw his weight to the far side of his horse, making himself as small a target as possible while still remaining in the saddle. He snatched his own rifle from the holster, braced it against the gelding’s neck, and waited.

A tuft of dirt and grass flew up just ahead of his mount’s nose as another shot rang out. Shane swore as the roan shied and began to buck wildly. By the time he got the frightened animal under control, he knew it was too dark to return fire.

“Stay down,” he shouted to Gabriel.

He could no longer see Gabe or the mare, but he knew Gabe would have hit the dirt when the bullets started flying.

The last vestiges of twilight vanished into starless night. Whoever was shooting at them had probably hightailed it out of there, Shane decided. And if he hadn’t, it was too dark for the polecat to hit anything.

Then Shane heard the sound of a galloping horse, coming fast in the darkness, behind him. He twisted in the saddle and aimed his rifle toward the source of the hoof beats.

“Shane! I heard shots!”

Justice’s voice
. Relief washed over Shane. He eased
back the hammer and holstered his rifle. “Go back to the house. Now!” he ordered.

The boy reined his pony in close to Shane. “What was that shooting?”

“Do as I tell you, Justice. I’ll explain later.”

“If there’s trouble, I’m not running away.”

“Damn it, boy! Listen for once. Somebody shot at me. I need you to go back and protect the women. Tell Mary to lock the doors and close all the shutters. Now, ride!”

“Yes, sir. Yah!”

Shane heard the slap of leather and the thud of the pinto’s hoofs against the grass. When he was certain Justice was safely across the pasture, Shane dismounted and led his horse toward Gabe and the laboring mare.

The wrangler didn’t speak until Shane laid a hand on the downed horse’s neck. “You hurt?” Gabe asked quietly.

“No.” Shane fought the waves of white-hot anger that boiled up from the pit of his stomach.

A man who let his temper get the best of him didn’t last long out here. Cold reason could make the difference between living and dying, not just for him, but for Gabe and Justice as well.

“In the morning I’ll scout out those woods and see if our shooter left any sign,” Shane said.

“That’s Thompson land.”

Gabe had stated what they both knew, something he rarely did.

“There’s bad blood between me and the Thompsons,” Shane continued, “but Big Earl’s no back shooter.”

“Rachel neither.”

Shane had a feeling that they were both thinking of the same person. “Beau? He’s mean enough, but setting an ambush takes more ambition than Beau’s shown me.”

Big Earl Thompson’s only son was a worthless piece
of buffalo dung, and Earl knew it. His daughter Rachel had more sense and twice the balls Beau did. Trouble was, Rachel didn’t fit into the old man’s picture of what a daughter should be any more than Beau met Earl’s expectations as a son.

Gabe nodded. “Could be Beau, certain. I saw him toss a pup into the river and use it for target practice.”

“Whoever it was,” Shane promised, “when I find him, he won’t get any older.”

“You take care, friend,” Gabe cautioned. “You shoot Big Earl’s son without proof, and hellfire will come thunderin’ down on Kilronan.”

“Big Earl’s a bad man to cross,” Shane agreed.

“And so are you, friend.”

The mare groaned as another birth contraction gripped her. She kicked with her hind legs, and Gabe stroked her neck and whispered into her ear.

“We’d best tend to this horse and let the shooter wait for daylight,” Shane said.

“Right, but there’s more you need to know. While you were gone, I found another section of fence ripped down. Five of our horses were grazing on Thompson grass. I drove them back and put up the rails.”

“Any chance the horses broke out themselves?”

Gabe made a sharp clicking sound with his tongue, an Indian habit Shane had come to understand as wry amusement. “Six rails high,” Gabe added. “New fence.”

“Shit.” Bad luck had plagued Kilronan since his uncle and cousin had drowned in the floods. Calves dying, fences mysteriously broken, and a pasture fire in the midst of a thunderstorm that had nearly enveloped the house.

But bullets were no accident. And as far as he knew, nobody but the Thompsons had a grudge against him … nobody alive, that was.

The mare whinnied anxiously, and Shane ran his hands over her swollen belly. “Do you think we can get her to the barn?” Moving the animal was dangerous, but lighting a lantern and trying to deliver her foal here would be stupid. They’d make too good a target if the ambusher was still hiding out in the woods.

Gabe grunted a reluctant approval of the plan, and the two of them set about getting the mare on her feet. They’d walked her halfway back across the pasture when Gabe signaled a halt.

“Someone’s comin’,” he whispered.

Shane listened, but he couldn’t hear anything but crickets and the breathing of the horses. Then the soft hoot of an owl drifted across the field.

Gabe cupped his hands around his mouth and returned the call. “It’s Mary,” he said to Shane. “Mary’s comin’.”

“I told Justice to keep the women at the house.”

Gabe shrugged.

Shane thought he heard him chuckle. Then he became aware of definite footsteps coming toward them. He eased his rifle out of the saddle holster. He trusted Gabe, but even Gabe could be wrong.

Two figures loomed up out of the night.

“Shane? Are you all right?” Caitlin called. “Justice said—”

“We’re fine. What the hell are you two doing here? I gave orders for you to stay in the house.”

“Did you?” Caitlin flinched at Shane’s harsh language and peered through the darkness. Missouri seemed so big, so empty. At home, before the potatoes died and everything changed, she’d often gone out of the house at night without a light. She’d known every hedge and lane for miles around. But this place was different. Mary had told her to stay with Derry, but she couldn’t. If Shane was
hurt, he needed her. And now that she saw that he was unharmed, her fear for him turned to anger.

“Who is trying to kill you?” she demanded. “What kind of place is this that people shoot at—”

“I don’t know.” He cut her off gruffly.

Another question rose in her mind—one she couldn’t resist asking. “And what kind of man are you, Shane McKenna, that someone would wish you dead?”

“You’ve a sharp tongue, Caity. Best you hold it for a better time and place.”

“I will that,” she promised him. “Be sure of it.”

“Boy tell us locky door,” Mary said in her odd singsong English. “He say ba-ad man shoot at you. Mary no bringy lantern. Mary come quick. Missy-Wife no stay house.” She replaced her unlit pipe in her mouth and nodded firmly.

The mare raised her head and uttered a strangled moan. Instantly Mary ran her hands along the animal’s belly and murmured in a strange language.

“I don’t know if we can get her to the barn,” Gabe said.

Mary nodded again. “Need light. You help or horse die quick, I think.”

A coyote howled off to the north, and Caitlin glanced nervously over her shoulder. Anxiously she followed the three back to the largest stable.

Once inside, Mary lit a lantern, and Gabe and Shane let the suffering mare sink down in a pile of clean straw. “I’ll need whiskey,” Shane said.

“I’d think this would be a time when you’d need a clear head,” Caitlin offered.

Mary grinned, exposing perfect white teeth. It was the first time Caitlin had seen her smile. “Mary bring whiskey.”

When she turned toward the doorway, Caitlin asked, “Are you going to the house?” She was torn between
remaining here and seeing if Derry was safe. In the end, concern for the child won out and she hurried back.

Mary went into the large parlor, and Caitlin returned to the kitchen where she’d left the children. “Is Derry—”

Justice nearly knocked her down running past. “Where’s Shane? Did the mare have her colt?” He didn’t stop for an answer. Caitlin heard Mary say something to him, but she couldn’t understand what the Indian woman said.

Derry was seated in the chair where Caitlin had last seen her, sound asleep, rosebud lips sucking contentedly. In one chubby hand she clutched a handful of duck feathers; in the other, a piece of Mary’s fry bread smeared with honey. She was nearly hidden in the man’s shirt that someone had draped around her shoulders.

Caitlin heard the front door close. Suddenly, unwilling to miss out on what was happening in the barn, she picked up Derry and carried her out to the stable.

When she reached the circle of lantern light, she saw that Shane had stripped away his shirt. Naked to the waist, he vigorously soaped his muscular arms over a tub of water.

Caitlin laid Derry in a nest of hay and tried not to stare at Shane’s exposed chest. Thin white scars crisscrossed his tanned skin. His stomach was flat beneath bands of hard sinew; his biceps bulged below a set of brawny shoulders.

A fair broth of a man, she thought, and her remaining anger at him drained away. Surely Shane had been brusque with her out of concern for her safety. It was only natural that he’d not want her in the field where someone had tried to shoot at him. She’d been too quick to flare up, as usual, and she’d accused him of being to blame. Her behavior was inexcusable, and she resolved to apologize to Shane as soon as they were alone.

She could not take her gaze from him as her pulse
quickened and disturbing thoughts filled her head. She had lain beneath Shane McKenna, felt those powerful arms around her, known the intimate touch of his long fingers. He was her God-given husband … but she had never seen him like this.

“Mary,” he said.

The housekeeper uncorked the whiskey bottle and poured the amber liquid over Shane’s hands. He rubbed them together, then sloshed the potent brew along his arms to the elbow.

“Oh,” Caitlin murmured. She hadn’t realized that he meant to use the
uisce beathadh
as a disinfectant. “I thought you were going to drink the—”

“Shane doesn’t drink,” Justice said.

Another thing she didn’t know about her husband. Caitlin’s cheeks grew warm.

Shane had drunk in Ireland. Not that he was a drunk like his father, but few men didn’t drink, if they didn’t wear a cleric’s collar. Even the priests in County Clare were known to enjoy a drop or two.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I …” She trailed off when she realized Shane wasn’t listening. All his concentration was on the mare and the small hoof that had suddenly appeared in the birth opening.

The horse’s brown hair was drenched in sweat so that she looked almost black in the lantern light. Her eyes rolled back until the whites showed and her nostrils flared. She tried to rise, but Mary and Gabe held her halter tightly.

Gently Shane followed the line of the tiny leg with his hand. The mare quivered and cried out in pain. Then Shane tugged and a second hoof thrust through. He nodded to Mary and she let go of the halter.

The bay mare scrambled to her feet and a wiggling foal, encased in a translucent sack, slid onto the straw
amid rivulets of blood and birth fluid. Instantly Shane was on his knees, tearing free the dark head and wiping clean the foal’s nose.

Caitlin saw a tiny black face with a white star in the center. Small wet ears pressed back against the curve of the head. Mary joined Shane in the straw. She began to rub the little horse’s back and belly with a rough cloth.

Caitlin was so transfixed by the sight of new life that she wasn’t bothered by the smells and the blood. The foal was so perfectly formed, so precious.

But it hadn’t made a sound or taken a breath. Tears welled up in Caitlin’s eyes as she realized that the baby was stillborn.

The mare turned and looked at her foal. She nickered softly and flicked her ears.

“Do something,” Caitlin pleaded.

Justice shook his head, “It’s dead.”

Mary rubbed harder against the foal’s limp body. “Filly,” she said. “Girl.”

Shane leaned down and blew into the baby’s velvety mouth and nostrils. When the foal still didn’t respond, he repeated the action.

“No use,” Gabe said. “We lost her. At least the mother’s—”

“No, damn it!” Shane swore. “I won’t give up on her.” Prying open the foal’s mouth, he cleaned out still more mucus. “Give me what’s left of that whiskey.”

Caitlin snatched up the bottle and handed it to him. He poured a small amount down the filly’s throat, then stood up and lifted her. He gave her a hard shake, and fluid poured out of her mouth and nose.

Caitlin heard a sputtering choke, and then a feeble squeak.

“Yes!” Shane shouted. “Breathe! Breathe, darlin’.” He
lowered the foal onto the straw and blew two more quick breaths into her nose.

The little horse sneezed and gave a kick with her hind leg. Then the bottlebrush tail flipped and long lashes fluttered. The foal’s eyes, large and brown and liquid, opened.

“Oh!” Caitlin cried. “Look at her.”

The filly sneezed again and shook her head. Her front legs thrashed in the straw, and she struggled to rise. Shane supported her, one hand under her chest, one under her belly. His eyes looked as moist as the foal’s.