Nobody's Angel (16 page)

"Jed Likens, that is quite enough!" Susannah barely had the breath to speak, but she leveled the fowling piece at Likens and held it steady. He glanced around, saw

Susannah and her weapon, and let loose with a string of curses that would have made St. Peter blush. His hands left his wife's hair. Annabeth's head fell back, and her screams turned into wrenching sobs. Weeping noisily, she implored the good Lord and Miss Redmon to help her.

"This ain't none of yer business, you old busybody! You get yerself back to yer damned church, and let me manage my family!"

"Let Annabeth up. I mean it, Mr. Likens."

"She's a lyin' bitch, and she deserves every lick she gets! Did Jeremy there run blabbin to you? You gonna pay for that, boy! Jest you wait!"

"If you so much as lay a finger on Jeremy, or any of the rest of them, again, I'll have you arrested, and so I warn you."

"Cain't have me arrested. I'm the bleedin' master around here. You spew out all them fancy words, and you don't know nothin' about nothin'. This here's my family, and I can learn em like I see fit. Ain't no concern of yours what happens to em, and I mean to see that you remember it in the future." With that, he got off his wife's body and stood glaring at Susannah, fingers flexing, an evil smile playing around his mouth.

"You take one step toward me and I'll blow you clear to the next county, Jed Likens."

"Don't you hurt her, Jed! Don't you go hurtin' Miss Redmon, now!" The wail came from Annabeth as she turned over on her side and sought to lock her hands around her husband's ankle. Likens kicked her in the stomach without even glancing down. Annabeth cried out, and curled into a little ball with her arms cradling her stomach, keening loudly.

"You won't shoot me." Likens took a step forward.

"What makes you think I won't?"

"You ain't got the stomach for it, church woman."

Susannah kept the fowling piece pointed at his middle, while inwardly she fought the urge to take a step back. He was calling her bluff, and both of them knew it. To her horror, she discovered that she could not, in cold blood, shoot the man.

He took another step toward her, then another, his confidence increasing as she didn't pull the trigger.

"I'm gonna whip your ass for you, bitch," he said, gloating.

"Oh, no, you're not," said a gravelly voice from behind Susannah. To Susannah's surprise, the fowling piece was plucked out of her hands. Connelly moved to stand beside her, the weapon cradled familiarly in his arms, its mouth pointed directly at Likens, who stopped in his tracks.

"You'd best get out of my sight in a hurry. If Miss Redmon here can't blow you to hell, I sure can."

"Who the hell are you, and what business is this of yourn?"

"I said get, and I mean get." Connelly moved the fowling piece almost casually, but the gesture's effect on Likens was galvanizing.

"I'm goin', I'm goin'!" He looked around at his frightened family, his expression ugly. He spied his hat on the ground, picked it up, and slapped it against his thigh before clapping it on his head.

"There'll be a reckonin' for this day's work," he said, his eyes fixing on Susannah for a moment before sweeping his family again. As Connelly jerked the fowling piece, he turned and shambled off.

"Ma! Ma, are you bad hurt?" Jeremy and the younger children ran to cluster around their mother. Susannah sagged, momentarily weak with relief. An arm came around her waist, supporting her, and she glanced up to find Connelly frowning down at her.

"Are you all right?"

For a moment, just a moment, she permitted herself to rest against him as she closed her eyes. He took her weight with ease, sheltering her against his side. The sheer impropriety of the situation occurred to her, and she straightened. His hand continued to ride her waist. The warm strength of his fingers was comforting, but of course she couldn't allow him to hold her like that. He was her bound man, not her beau.

"Tell me that in another minute you would have blown a hole through him." There was a roughness to his voice that made her glance up at him again.

"I couldn't just shoot him," she confessed.

His eyes darkened, and a curse seemed to hover on the tip of his tongue. "If you couldn't shoot him, then you had no business getting yourself in the middle of something like this. What do you think would have happened if I hadn't followed you over here? Hell, the bastard nearly killed his own wife."

"Don't swear," she said automatically.

"An occasion like this calls for some swearing. You could have been badly hurt, you little fool."

To be scolded was a new experience for Susannah. She had ruled the roost at home for years, with none to say her nay. Connelly's words put her back up, but they warmed her at the same time. It was a novel sensation, to have someone looking out for her.

"But I wasn't," she said quietly, and stepped away from him. As she went to help Annabeth and Cloris, she was conscious of Connelly's eyes boring into her back.

With the big-eyed children clustering about, Susannah set about putting the mess to rights. Annabeth had a cut on the back of her head and numerous bruises, but she was not seriously injured, despite the copious amount of blood that stained her gown. Cloris, who'd taken a hard blow with the sharp side of a shovel while coming to her mother's defense, was dizzy and had to be carried inside. At Susannah's direction, Connelly lifted the girl as if she weighed no more than a feather and carried her in to lay her in the middle of the one big bed. Annabeth fussed over her daughter, while Susannah sought to comfort the frightened children.

"Jed will be back, you know," Susannah said to Annabeth at last. Despite the bruises that were beginning to discolor her face and the already present black eye, from what Susannah suspected was a previous beating, Annabeth behaved as if nothing had happened, tending to Cloris, whose head was bound up in a towel, and starting supper at the same time.

"He'll be different when he does come back. He's always like that. Jed's not a bad man, Miss Redmon. He just —explodes, and then he's sorry for it."

"For your own sake, and your children's, you should think about leaving, Annabeth. You know we have those old slave cabins out behind the barn. You and the children can move into one until you can get things straightened out."

"I know, and I thank you for the offer. But I'll stay. It'll be all right, you'll see."

In the end, there was nothing to do but leave them there. Susannah only hoped that Annabeth was right about her husband's probable change of mood.

"Do you always take on everybody else's troubles?"

They were on their way home. Connelly had been mostly silent since he had called her a little fool, and

Susannah had been content to have him remain so. He was far from properly respectful toward her. Even if one totally disregarded their infamous encounter of two nights before (and how she wished she could disregard it!), he had laid his hands on her person more in the brief time she had known him than had any other man in her entire life. Yet even in so short a time as they had had together, she knew she liked him, especially when she forgot about his staggering good looks. She felt comforted to have him by her side. If he had not been there to stand between her and Jed Likens, the Lord alone knew what might have happened. But he had protected her, in a mastexful way that was quite foreign to anything she had ever experienced. How then was she to set him in his place when next he stepped beyond the line, as he was certain to do?

"Susannah."

She had known he would do it.

"Miss
Susannah," she said. They were nearing the stream. She was in front, Connelly behind. His hand on her arm stopped her. The sleeves of her dove-gray linen dress were turned back to the elbow in deference to the heat. The garment was loose, as were all her dresses. A plain white apron was pinned to her waist and covered most of her bell-shaped skirt. She wore neither bonnet nor gloves, and his hand curled around her bare forearm.

She felt the warm strength of his fingers clear down to her toes. Hadn't she, not an hour before, ordered him never to put his hands on her again? She ought to remind him, she knew, but to do so might only make him aware that she had reasons other than propriety for wanting to avoid his touch. Turning, she glanced up at him, to find that he was looking down at her intently, a frown drawing his brows together over his nose.

"Do you always take on everybody else's troubles?"

"I try to help people when I can." It was shady in the woods, and cool. Tall pin oaks draped with thick gray curtains of Spanish moss blocked the sun. The path beneath her feet was slippery with vines. Behind her the stream tinkled. Birds called overhead.

Susannah felt as though the whole world had suddenly fallen away, leaving the two of them alone.

"Is that why you bought me? To help me?"

"I bought you to work the farm." She had trouble getting the words out. He was close. Far too close.

"You made a mighty poor bargain, then."

"Maybe. Maybe not. That's up to you, isn't it?" Unobtrusively, she tried to pull away. His hand tightened on her arm, slid caressingly down to her waist.

"You have the softest skin. Almost as soft as your heart."

Susannah caught her breath, for a moment unable to believe what she had heard. His fingers circled her wrist, his thumb tracing a slow arc over the translucent skin where her veins showed blue. It was all she could do not to shiver.

"Are you flirting with me, Connelly?" she asked in her sternest voice. Steeling herself, she looked up at him with a frown.

He grinned, a wide grin that showed even white teeth and that danced in his eyes.

"Yes, Miss Susannah, I am," he said, lifting her hand to press it against the warm smoothness of his freshly shaven cheek. "Your bound man is flirting with you. So what are you going to do about it?"

Then, still grinning, he turned his head so that his lips seared her palm.

16

Susannah's breathing stopped. That warm, soft mouth crawling over her palm sent shivery tremors racing through her body. For a moment she could only stare up at him, as mesmerized by the laughter that still lurked in the depths of his gray eyes as she was by the heat coiling to life deep inside her body. Grabbing at the tail end of her good sense before it could disappear completely, she yanked her hand free.

"If you are hoping to charm me for some nefarious purpose of your own, you are wasting your time," she said jerkily. Turning about, she marched along the path that led to the house. Her back was ramrod straight, her gait steady, and only she knew how much effort it cost her to keep them that way. Her muscles were as weak as warm mush, and her knees had a most regrettable tendency to tremble.

"Susannah."

Her shoulders stiffened. There was laughter in his voice. She should turn and berate him for the familiarity. But if she did, if she looked up into his too-handsome face to find him smiling down at her in that teasing way that was probably totally calculated but was almost impossible for her to resist, she would be in danger of falling completely under his spell. That complication to her life she didn't need. What the rogue could hope to gain from charming her she couldn't imagine, but that he had some purpose in mind she was quite sure. She wasn't stupid, after all. Why else would a man who looked like Connelly be expending so much effort on a plain spinster like herself?

"Have you never had a suitor?"

The question flicked her on a raw spot she hadn't known she possessed. It was one thing to acknowledge the truth to herself and quite another to admit to Connelly that no man had ever found her attractive enough to pursue.

Ignoring him, she strode on, head high. Time enough to remind him of his place when she had regained control of both her body and her emotions. To confront him now would be an act of pure folly.

"Damn it, Susannah! Wait a minute." He caught her arm, throwing her offstride. Even as she tried to jerk free of his grasp, he turned her to face him. He held her about the elbow, his grip not hurting her but as unbreakable as a shackle. The fowling piece that he had carried tucked under one arm he very carefully set aside. His newly- freed hand slid around her other elbow, and she was well and truly caught.

Held fast, Susannah disdained to struggle. He was very close, so close that the hem of her skirt overlay his toes. She had forgotten that he wore no shoes but only her father's gray stockings, now wet and muddied almost to the knee. The knowledge that he had come after her in stocking feet might have softened her had she allowed it to. But she was thoroughly on guard against his rogue's tricks now. When her eyes lifted to his, they were as stony as the ground beneath her feet. Brought to bay, she was left with no weapon but words.

"You will address me as
Miss
Susannah, and you will take your hands off me, at once," she said in a positive fashion. He smiled at her. That whimsical twist of his lips made him appear almost impossibly handsome. She sought to cow him with the most intimidating look she could muster. It was difficult when the object of that look- was more than a foot taller than herself.

He laughed. Her lips tightened, and sparks of anger brightened her eyes.

"Does everyone do as you tell them?" he asked, grinning.

"If they're wise." She spoke through her teeth.

His grin widened. He made no move to release her. His eyes sparkled with amusement as they slid over her face.

"I never was very wise," he said, as if making an admission.

"Quite obviously not."

"I like shrewish women. Shutting their mouths can be so entertaining, especially if one goes about it in the right way."

"Connelly . . ." It was a warning.

"Ian," he said. "Say Ian, Susannah."

Had she not been on guard against his blandishments, it would have been all too easy to succumb to his coaxing rogue's tongue. As it was, she stiffened her spine and glared at him.