Linda Castle (24 page)

The cold bands that had been around Clell’s heart for months loosened. He inhaled deeply, feeling a happiness so profound it was painful. “Well, what is all this nonsense about sending Brooks and Logan away just now? Logan should be told. And why is Brooks’s jaw draggin’ on the ground? This is the best news he’s bound to have heard in a month of Sundays.”

Dr. Levy shook her head and sighed. “He hasn’t been told.”

“What?”

“You know Miss O’Bannion better than I do. She is a very stubborn young woman.”

“Cussedly bullheaded, you mean.” Clell snorted.

Dr. Levy managed a smile. “Well put, Mr. McClellan. At any rate, she has once again demanded that Mr. James not know about her improving condition. She has forbidden me to tell him about her regained feeling.”

“Why would she do that? Isn’t she goin’ to be cured?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. She has some returning sensation, limited movement. The work Mr. James has done keeping her muscles in tone has saved her from an overly long convalescence, but I cannot say how much more she will improve. She hopes to enlist your help now.”

“My help?” Clell was stunned and confused.

“Yes. With hard work and dedication…I simply cannot
say how much more she will accomplish but there is a chance—”

“How big a chance?”

“I am not a gambler, Mr. McClellan. I cannot give you odds. All I can tell you is that Miss O’Bannion is determined to recover. And that is half the battle.”

“M
issy, why do you have to be so consarned stubborn?” Clell’s voice rang with exasperation. For the last hour he had tried threats, promises and plain logic, but his young adversary had refused to change her mind about her plan.

“Call me Marisa. I am using my given name now.”

“Marisa, Missy, what does it matter what I call you? You are being pure-D muley about this.” He raked his gnarled fingers through his hair and flopped down in a chair. “Why don’t you want to tell Brooks that you are gettin’ better?”

“I’ve explained to you a hundred times, Clell. I
can’t
let him know. I know exactly what he would do.” She inhaled deeply and levered her upper body into a more comfortable position in the invalid’s chair. The wicker felt like iron bands against her back and shoulders.

“Our agreement was that if I had any improvement, I would marry him. But I can’t marry him unless I am able to stand. I won’t—I can’t do it.” She speared Clell with a gaze. “You have got to help me.”

“What do you want me to do?” he asked tiredly.

“Dr. Levy has been helping me at night, but it is too
hard on her and me both to work half the night and all day, too. I can barely keep my eyes open.” Marisa yawned. “She is worn-out and so am I. There is a small cottage on the other side of the lake. We could go there and work—privately. The lake will not be as warm as the pool, but we could do it.”

“What are you going to tell Brooks?”

“I am not going to tell him anything. If you agree to help me, then we will leave now.”

“Just sneak off like a couple of chicken thieves?” His voice was ripe with disapproval. “In the rain?” He gestured to the rain-slicked glass of her windows.

“I don’t want to think of it as sneaking off.” She frowned. “And the rain is not something I planned. We will just have to work around it. Will you help me? Please?”

“Ah, hell, you know I will. I been helpin’ you since you were knee high to a banty rooster. I ain’t about to up and stop all of a sudden.” Clell managed a shaky grin. “What are we goin’ to tell Logan?”

“Nothing!” Marisa snapped. “Don’t you dare let one word slip about this.”

“You still ain’t forgiven him?” Clell glanced at the floor. The truth was he had not completely forgiven the young rascal either, but he understood why Logan had done what he did.

“No, I haven’t,” she whispered. “He never should’ve told Brooks. Things would be so much easier if Brooks had never found out where I went.” She folded her arms across her chest and scowled.

“Easier for who? You or Brooks?”

She looked up and her eyes filled with tears. “That isn’t fair, Clell. You know I love him.”

“I know you do, honey, but you have got to quit makin’ the decisions for him. He is a grown man.”

Marisa could not allow herself to consider that Clell might be right. She was afraid if she let herself see Brooks’s point of view for one instant she would weaken.

“Just this one last time, Clell, I promise. It really is the best way to handle everything.”

“I have my doubts about that,” he whispered. “Just how do you plan to get to this cottage?”

“Dr. Levy made sure the buggy that brought you and Logan waited for us,” Marisa said sheepishly.

“The two of you must’ve been pretty damn sure I would agree.”

“I’ve always been able to count on you. I knew I still could.” Marisa bit down on her bottom lip to stop it from quivering.

Clell cleared his throat and wiped his hand beneath his nose. “Don’t go all maudlin on me.” He stood up and inhaled. “All right, tell me what to start packin’.”

“Thank you, Clell.”

“Don’t go thankin’ me. We ain’t managed to get clean away yet. And I have a feelin’ this time you may be pushing Brooks too far.”

The air smelled fresh and clean. Dr. Levy had asked Brooks to leave Marisa alone for the entire morning so she could visit with Clell and then get some rest. But now, as the afternoon sun was peeking weakly through a thin veil of clouds, he was anxious to get to work. There was a clock in his head, ticking off the time he and Marisa had left on their agreement.

He strode down the hall to her closed bedroom door. It was quiet inside. Perhaps she was napping. He leaned
close and put his ear to the door. Not a sound could be heard within.

Brooks raised his knuckles and knocked, but there was no response. He waited for a few minutes and then he knocked again.

No answer. He put his hand on the knob and turned.

The door swung open to reveal an empty room. The bed was stripped and every personal item of Marisa’s was gone. A tendril of fear wrapped itself around his heart.

Brooks entered Dr. Levy’s office with all the finesse of a runaway stallion. His jaw ached from being clenched so tightly. He took a belligerent stance, his legs wide apart, in front of her desk.

“Where the hell is she?” His voice held the wrath of a jilted lover.

Dr. Levy’s dark brows shot upward at the sound of his voice. “I assume you mean Miss O’Bannion.”

“You’re damn right that is who I mean! Where is she?” Anger coursed through him.

Dr. Levy inhaled a deep breath and rearranged a pile of papers on her desk.

“And don’t give me that song and dance about patient privilege. I have had it up to here with that nonsense.” Brooks raised his palm over his head. “I love Marisa O’Bannion, and by all that is holy I am going to have her as my wife.”

“She has left the clinic,” Dr. Levy said in a voice that was not quite as calm and assured as she would’ve liked.

Brooks leaned down and put his palms on the desk. “Where did she go? There haven’t been any buggies around for days, except for the one that brought Clell and Logan.”

A flicker of something crossed her eyes.

“Ah, so she did use that buggy.” Brooks concentrated on Dr. Levy’s face, trying to read her thoughts. “You are the most conscientious of physicians. You would not have let her go alone, or very far, for that matter.”

Dr. Levy stood up. She smoothed the folds of her navy serge skirt, then straightened the front of her shirtwaist. “Mr. James, I can’t tell you anything about my patient.”

A wide grin broke across Brooks’s face, and for the first time since he had discovered the empty room, a feeling of peace settled over him. “You already have.”

“What on earth do you mean?” Dr. Levy clasped her hands together, but not before Brooks saw the slightest tremble of her fingers.

“I spent some time out West, Dr. Levy. One of the many things I learned from that old codger Thomas McClellan is how to read a man’s—er, a woman’s—eyes.” He winked. “And how to track. I will just follow Marisa’s trail.”

Brooks strode into the common room, looking for Clell and Logan. He spotted Logan by a window, sitting patiently while Judge Smith, one of the other residents, slowly dealt two hands of cards.

“Where is Clell?” Brooks glanced at the cards Logan picked up. They were good, probably good enough to win the hand.

“Dunno. I thought he might be with you.” Logan plunked down two cards. “I’ll take a pair, Mr. Smith.”

The older man clumsily managed to get two cards from the deck. He had suffered a stroke. One side of his body had been affected. When he glanced up at Brooks and smiled, only half of his face responded.

“I am getting better,” the judge said.

“Yep, Judge, you’ll be dealin’ monte by the time I
finish with you,” Logan joked. “I told you playin’ poker was good medicine.”

“Why did you think Clell might be with me?” Brooks watched the deft movements of Logan’s work-hardened hands while he tried to get back to the problem of Marisa’s whereabouts.

“I haven’t seen him, Missy or you this morning. I figured the three of you had gone off together.”

“Why?” A finger of suspicion drew a line down Brooks’s back.

“‘Cause Clell’s saddlebag is gone. He packed up this mornin’.”

“So that’s who took her,” Brooks mused, as thoughts of anger and betrayal warred within him.

Logan looked up, his dark brows pushing together in a frown. “Took who?”

Brooks grimaced and sighed. “My intended has once again left me.”

Logan grinned broadly and folded his hand, allowing the judge to win. “I swear, Brooks, the way that sister of mine acts, a body would almost think she
doesn’t
want to marry you.” Logan chuckled and shook his head. “Course, she did say yes once. Didn’t she?”

Brooks gave Logan a scowl he hoped would silence the young scamp, but all it did was make him laugh even harder.

“I’m going to go find her.”

“Need any help?” Logan asked.

“No.” Brooks took a step and then turned back. “Judge, you once practiced law, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.” His answer was a little slurred, but easily understandable. “Why?”

“Oh, I was just thinking I may have to file a breach of promise suit if this keeps up.”

Logan erupted in gales of laughter. His echoing chuckles followed Brooks through the dining hall and toward the kitchen, where he grabbed some food. He was determined he and Marisa were going to come to an understanding once and for all.

Decades of rotting leaves and brush padded the narrow wagon road, providing a soft carpet for Brooks to walk upon. He was barely aware of his surroundings as his thoughts focused on Marisa.

Logan’s crack about Marisa not wanting to marry Brooks kept intruding on his thoughts. He finally forced himself to face the question that had been gnawing at the edges of his mind.

Did Marisa love him?

He thought so. Each time he kissed her and held her close there was a smoldering look of passion in her dark eyes that made his own body tighten in response. But was it love or was it only physical desire? Perhaps he had been fooling himself.

But then his thoughts returned to the day in the park, the day she had been hurt. She’d told him she loved him then. She had given him her word.

“And if there is one thing I can count on, it is the word of an O’Bannion,” he muttered as he plucked a drooping sunflower from its sticky stem.

By noon Brooks had walked miles from the sanitarium. He stood on a low promontory and glanced around. The thick growth of trees and bushes prevented him from seeing much, but he heard water running nearby, and by following his ears found a creek not far from the road. He bent at the moss-covered edge and scooped water into his palm. The question of where Marisa was going kept nagging
him. He was unfamiliar with the countryside, but he doubted there were any towns nearby.

Could it be that she and Clell were going to camp out? Surely not. Not with her in a wheelchair. But then where?

“A cabin?” He shook himself and stood up.

In the end it really didn’t matter, because wherever she went he intended to follow, even if it was to the ends of the earth and beyond.

Marisa looked out the small window at the vibrant valley that lay below. The cottage was simple, but the rooms were large and airy. It was easy for her to push herself about by grabbing the large wheels on either side of her invalid’s chair and shoving them forward.

She and Clell had spent the morning working. The front porch railing was just narrow enough for her to grab on to, and with Clell’s help she was able to hold herself up and more or less drag her legs along. It wasn’t walking, but she was no longer flat on her back. Most of the feeling had returned to her legs, but she still wasn’t able to do more than jerk her feet forward every now and then.

The last few nights she had woke to find her legs in a completely different position than when she went to bed. It was baffling, but then most everything about her dreams disturbed her because they centered around Brooks. In one scenario Marisa saw herself running to him on legs that were strong and sure. But in another she envisioned herself as a cripple, condemned to the chair, while Brooks dutifully cared for her, denying himself the possibility of a real life.

The thought made her shiver. That was why she was here. If she could not force her battered body to respond, if she could not be whole, then she was never going to see him again. Clell had warned her that Brooks would
not allow it, but no power on earth could induce her to permit Brooks to sacrifice his chance for a normal life and happiness.

She loved him too much for that.

“I’m gettin’ hungry enough to eat a bear. How about you?” Clell asked. His gravelly voice drew her attention away from the majestic view.

“I could eat.”

“Good. I’ll go chop up some kindling for the stove. How about you mixin’ up some biscuits?” Clell was already getting the flour, bowl and other necessities together. He put them on the table where Marisa could reach them.

“They’ll be heavy enough to use for doorstops,” she warned with a grin. “You know the only thing I can make is coffee.”

“I’ll take my chances.” The door slammed behind him before she had a chance to say more.

Marisa grasped the wheels of her chair. It took a couple of tries, but eventually she had the chair positioned at the table’s edge. She could hear Clell whistling between the steady thunks and whacks of the ax. The familiar sounds reminded her of home.

Brooks stopped to have a bite of the apple he had tossed into his knapsack. He found a rock in the sunshine and stretched out his legs. The summer sun seeped into his bones and warmed him from the inside out.

He allowed his eyes to scan the country while he wondered what Marisa thought of it. It was about as different from the Territory as he could imagine a place being, but he thought she probably liked it.

“The trees…” he muttered to himself.

Marisa liked trees and water. The sound of a fastrunning
stream induced him to pull in his long legs and get up. He shoved aside blackberry vines and scrambled down a small rock-strewn ravine. At the bottom was a clear-running creek. Lichen and moss carpeted the steep bank.

He bent low and scooped up a drink. Then he heard a sound. At first he thought it was just an animal, but as he stilled and listened, he realized it couldn’t be. The cadence was steady, definitely a man-made rhythm.

Brooks stood up and finished his apple. He tossed the core to a squirrel that had been watching him from the stump of a lightning-struck tree.