Now and Forever (89 page)

And it
was
a mistake. Not even a woman of limited experience like Dakota could possibly believe it was anything else. He was a gorgeous eighteenth-century misogynist and she was a chubby twentieth-century liberal. Opposites might attract, but sooner or later they'd end up trying to kill each other. Who needled the hassle?

That's what she told herself over and over as the minutes ticked by and then the hours with no sign of Devane.

Maybe he really had gone over the wall, she thought as the tall clock in the downstairs hall tolled midnight. He'd made no bones about wanting to get Abigail out of the house and up to school in Boston. His wife was dead and buried. His house had been taken over by the soldiers he hated. He had a fake wife he couldn't stand and, at least according to Cook, he was the most despised man in town.

He'd have to be crazy to hang around. He had enough money to go anywhere he wanted and no reason to stay in Franklin Ridge. Why was she wasting one moment of her precious time thinking about any of this when she should be worrying how she was going to get back home.

She climbed from the bed and went to light the candle on the nightstand, then quickly realized she had no idea how to go about it. No lighter. No matches. She considered rubbing her thighs together to make a fire but that would only encourage her cellulite and it wouldn't do a darn thing for the candle.

She thought for a moment then pulled open the drapes, and the room was flooded with moonlight bouncing off the snow. Just enough light to invade her fake husband's privacy.

"So sue me," she muttered as she walked into Devane's room and headed for the massive armoire. She'd never claimed to be perfect. She'd been born with a slow metabolism and a hyperactive sense of curiosity about things that were absolutely none of her business.

But it is your business. How else are you going to find a way to get back home
?

His room was exactly the way she'd hoped it would be: vacant. The armoire was there and Devane wasn't. Maybe she'd finally get some answers.

If only Abigail hadn't chosen that moment to scream as if the hounds of hell had leaped onto her bed and were demanding kibble for life. Dakota fought off the urge to run to the kid's side to see what was wrong.

She's not your problem, Wylie. Let someone else take care of her.

Surely Cook would come to the rescue, or one of the parlormaids still in Devane's employ. She listened at the door for the sound of footsteps on the stairs, but heard nothing except Abigail's shrieks. Not even one of the soldiers peered out into the hallway to see if there was something amiss.

What was the matter with these people? Were they deaf? Couldn't they hear the terror in Abigail's voice? Worse, didn't they give a damn?

Dakota glanced longingly at the armoire, then, with a sigh of resignation, ran straight to Abigail's side.

Chapter Fifteen

The White Horse Tavern

"Be happy to get you more stew if you have a mind for it, ma'am." The serving girl hovered by Emilie's seat, obviously intrigued to find a woman traveling alone.

"No, thank you," Emilie said in a quiet voice. "I would like some more cider."

"Pleased to oblige." The girl lingered, fiddling with the pewter knife that rested near Emilie's plate.

"Is there something else?" Emilie asked.

The girl started to say something but a burly man in the far corner of the room called out, "Molly! I ain't payin' you to talk, now, am I?"

Emilie's shoulders sagged as the girl hurried off. She forced herself to sit straight, then decided it wasn't worth the effort. She was exhausted to the point of lunacy and frozen straight through to the marrow. She'd been on the road for hours and she still didn't know where her husband was, and it didn't look as if she was going to find out any time soon. This was the tavern where Zane and Josiah were to have made the drop, and so far she hadn't seen or heard anything that would help her unravel the mystery of their disappearance.

She'd tried to find some of the members of the spy ring by visiting their usual haunts, but the storm had kept most people close to home. She'd stopped at churches and apothecaries and taverns in search of her husband and their friend, but had been met with nothing but blank looks and a frightening lack of interest.

The townspeople had more fascinating things to think about. Everywhere she went, she'd heard about the bright red ball that had floated over the trees yesterday afternoon, and with each telling, Emilie lost another piece of her heart to fear.

"Who was in the basket?" she'd asked a farmer she'd spoken to a little while ago, right outside the inn. "Two men? Three? Men? Women?" She'd heard every combination.

"Too much snow to see real clear," the man said, eyeing her with great suspicion. "Shouldn't you be home where you belong, missy?"

Of course I should be home,
she thought as Molly deposited another tankard of cider beside her plate. She should be bundled under a pile of quilts with her husband, safe and well-loved in his arms, while their children slept soundly in the next room.

A wild laugh erupted and she covered her mouth with both hands to muffle the sound. Too bad Zane didn't have a pager or a cellular phone, then all she'd have to do was dial him up and see if he was okay. Or maybe she could fax the farm and ask Rebekah if the guys had shown up in time for supper.

It was all so absurd that you had to laugh or go crazy.

That was when she started to cry.

#

Dakota found Abigail crouched at the foot of her bed, eyes wide open in terror, small hands clutching her throat.

"Honey?" Dakota knelt at her side, frightened by the look on the child's face. "Did you have a bad dream?"

Abigail clawed at her throat while she gasped frantically for breath. Tiny veins on her forehead and neck pulsed fiercely while her legs stuck straight out in front of her like legs on a cartoon character. Was she choking on something? Dakota was about to wrap her arms around the cihld's slender body and perform the Heimlich maneuver when she realized Abigail was speaking.

". . . rope . . . the big tree . . . "

She was dreaming, but dreaming with her eyes wide open. Dakota tried to remember what you were supposed to do in that situation, but the only thing she could think of was an old episode of
The Honeymooners
where Ed Norton became a sleepwalker and Ralph turned into a baby-sitter.

"You're okay, Abigail," she said softly, sitting down on the bed next to the child. Cautiously she rested an arm on the delicate shoulders. "You're only dreaming."

"No!" Abigail's cry rang out. "The hangman! The hangman is coming!"

Suddenly Dakota saw herself twenty years ago, sobbing in her father's arms because she was sure the bogeyman had her name and address in his hip pocket and was on his way.

She gathered the little girl to her and hugged her close, stroking the fine brown hair with gentle fingers, whispering words of comfort in her ear, words that Abigail probably wouldn't remember in the morning but words that made all the difference now.

#

Patrick watched from the shadows as the woman cradled the child. They did not know he stood there in the darkness, and he wished it to remain so.

He was not a man easily moved by displays of emotion or sentiment. He had been trained to hold such displays suspect, and his brief interlude with Susannah had proved the folly of revealing your heart to another.

But there was something about the scene in the darkened bedroom that moved him beyond words on a day in which he needed to be reminded that life was not always a thing of darkness.

The child was curled against Dakota's chest, her head resting beneath the woman's chin. The woman's arms were wrapped about Abigail, holding her close while she talked to her in a low, soft voice that evoked memories of dreams he'd spent a lifetime struggling to forget.

All is not as it seems.
The warning sounded in his head, but he turned a deaf ear to it. The sight before him was so powerful, so deeply compelling, that all else faded into nothingness before it.

But it wasn't for him. Not the warmth or the promise of something that went deeper even than blood. Those things belonged to other men.

Two good men, men with faithful wives who loved them, with children who looked toward them for guidance—two brave men were marked to die, and all because Patrick Devane had failed as a patriot as he had failed as a husband. . . as he had failed as a father.

One hour ago he had learned the truth from the owner of the White Horse Tavern, a man known for being sympathetic to whoever held the purse strings. The British planned to hang Rutledge and Blakelee one week hence in Elizabethtown.

He looked at the child nestled in the arms of a stranger, a woman who had already provided more warmth and affection than he had given the child in years. Was she the answer to the child's future? Would she open her heart to a stranger's child and see her safely to adulthood? He wished with all his heart that it would be so, but for all he knew, Dakota Wylie was the one who had conspired to send Rutledge and Blakelee to the gallows.

Muttering an oath, he drew back into the shadows and turned away from the light.

#

The White Horse Tavern

Thanks to the storm, the inn was filled to overflowing with travelers. In the best of times, private rooms were the exception rather than the rule, and tonight it would be six to a room.

Emilie surveyed her possible roommates. She'd sleep in the stables with Timothy's horse before she shared a bed with any of them.

"Missus." The serving girl named Molly stopped her at the door. "You can have my bed upstairs, if you'd be of a mind."

"That's very kind of you." The girl was clean and neatly groomed, which was more than could be said for most people in the establishment. "There's a gold piece for your trouble."

Molly's green eyes widened but she shook her head. "Nay, missus. I'm just looking to help."

"Why?" Emilie asked, too tired to be polite.

Molly lowered her voice to a whisper. "I heard you askin' about your friends and I—"

"Molly!" the tavern owner bellowed over the noise of laughter and clinking glasses. "To work, lass, or out into the snow with you!"

She raised her voice. "Be there directly!"

"Wait," said Emilie, placing her hand on the girl's arm. "Do you know something? You must tell me—"

"The last room on the third floor," Molly said. "I'll find out what I can."

#

Dakota stayed with Abigail until the child fell back into a peaceful sleep.

She settled the quilts around Abigail's shoulders, then smoothed a strand of silky hair from her cheek with a gesture that felt strangely familiar to her, as if she had done the same thing in just that way many times before.

Of course, that was impossible. Except for her volunteer work teaching children to read, she had little to do with kids. She'd never felt particularly comfortable with children, not even when she'd qualified as one of them. Even with her sister Janis's sons she'd felt that sense of not quite clicking—as if they spoke a language she'd never understand. Actually it was pretty much the same way she'd felt around most of the men she'd dated.

Abigail was a hardheaded, hot-tempered brat and her father was about as dangerous as they came. A woman would have to have a few screws loose to even consider setting up housekeeping with a pair like that.

So why did this feel so right? Why did she feel as if the last puzzle piece of her life had settled into place?

Because you're a sucker for hard luck cases,
she thought as Abigail's breathing settled into a slow, even rhythm.
And because you know it's safe. . . that one day soon you're going to walk away from all of this and step back into your own life . . . .

She was tired and lonely and far from home in every way she could imagine, but she'd have to be inhuman to not feel something for a terrified little girl who was crying her eyes out. It didn't mean she wanted to play a game of let's pretend and try on step-motherhood for size. This whole thing was only temporary. If she knew nothing else, she knew that for a fact.