Rachel's Choice (16 page)

Heaven help her, she wanted him with a fire that would not be banked down or smothered under the ashes of her responsibilities.

If she allowed Chance to make love to her, it would be she who faced an illegitimate pregnancy, not he. He'd be gone, leaving her to face the shame. Not that she was totally ignorant of ways to prevent conceiving an unwanted child, but the aids in her father's medical chest had been known to fail.

She should never have let things progress so far
between them. He was here to bring in her crop—nothing more. And if he didn't like it, that was his concern.

Rachel was still on edge hours later when she bid Chance good night and locked her kitchen door. More perturbed at her own foolishness than his, she climbed the stairs and flung herself facedown on her bed.

Davy was fed and sleeping; the two dogs sprawled on the floor at the foot of the steps. They slept, but she couldn't. She lay awake listening to the wind rattling the loose shutter on the back of the house.

The day, which had begun with such promise, had given way to scattered rain and impending thunderstorms. Branches growing from the big yellow poplar scraped against one chimney, and patters of rain beat an uneven tattoo against the windowpanes.

Restlessly Rachel pounded her pillow into shape and then tossed it to the far corner of the old-fashioned high bed. “I probably wouldn't have become pregnant,” she muttered. The women in her family found it difficult to conceive. Both she and her mother were only children, and she hadn't taken any precautions before Davy was born, years into her marriage with James.

She wondered if she'd avoided certain unhappiness by rejecting Chance's offer, or insured it. He'd made no promises. And if he had, what did she really know of him besides what he had told her?

There were depths of sorrow in Chance Chancellor that his laughing manner could not hide. He might not hide his pain in a bottle as James had done, but Chance was weighed down by a troubled soul.

Far off, beyond the Murderkill, lightning illuminated the sky, and a rolling cascade of thunder rumbled ominously.
Rachel raised her head and glanced toward the cherry wood cradle where Davy slept soundly.

“Why can't I be content with what I have?” she whispered more to herself than to her little son.

The only answer was the gathering force of the wind-driven rain and the slow, measured tick of her china wedding clock on the mantel.

Rising from the bed, Rachel went to her dressing table and began to remove her hairpins, one by one. The shadowed face looking back at her from her mirror seemed too full, too vulnerable to be her own reflection, but the eyes were hers and they could not hide the truth.

She wanted Chance.

Slowly, stunned, she sank into a chair and let the implications of this decision sink in.

Not for a few moments of pleasure, not even for a secret affair of passion; she wanted him as she had once wanted James … with wedding vows and gold rings and promises of growing old together. Forever.

She did. And she was willing to risk everything to have him.

The thunderstorm rolled over the farm and faded in the east. Davy woke, and Rachel fed him again and rocked him back to sleep before blowing out the candle, donning a clean linen nightgown, and climbing between the sheets herself. As she drifted off to sleep, she heard the first echoes of a second storm approaching.

Sometime later she was awakened by a loud banging on the kitchen door and Bear's deep-throated bark interspersed with Lady's incessant one.

Rachel scrambled out of bed, still half-asleep, and made her way to the landing of the front staircase without
lighting a candle. Outside, wind and rain beat against the house, and a dull boom of thunder added to the reverberating discord. She'd been yanked from a dream of the kiss she'd shared with Chance. Her pulse raced as she hurried downstairs to let him in.

Had he changed his mind? Decided that he couldn't bear another moment apart? Or had lightning struck the barn? she wondered as she crossed the sitting room to the kitchen.

“What is it, Chance?” she called out. “Quiet! Quiet!” she ordered the dogs. A brilliant flash momentarily blinded her as she yanked the bolt and swung open the back door.

A tall, bulky figure filled the doorway. Lady charged past Rachel and out into the yard.

“Chance, I—”

The collie's bark deepened to a threatening growl.

Bear's angry snarl raised the hair on the back of Rachel's neck. Sensing that something was wrong, she tried to close the door.

A man's yell was followed by a heavy thud. Lady yipped once and then squealed in pain.

A heavy weight slammed the door back, catching Rachel and flinging her against the wall as Bear lunged at the intruder.

A split second later, a pistol blast rattled the kitchen windows. Bear's roar twisted to an agonized yelp before he slumped to the floor and his whining ceased.

Head ringing, Rachel gasped for breath.

“Get up, woman! Ye ain't hurt.”

The stranger's slurred words were so heavily accented that Rachel had difficulty understanding him.

“Ya kilt her, Cleve,” declared another man. “Ya promised
me ya wouldn't do that this time.” His was a youth's voice, awkward and unlettered, but just as chilling.

Rachel crouched motionless as the pain in her head receded to a dull ache. Two of them, she thought. Two rebs had forced their way into her house. She didn't need to see them; she could smell their unwashed bodies, the oily hair, and rotting wool uniforms. And above all that she caught a scent of putrid flesh and raw whiskey.

“Ye alone here, woman?” Cleve demanded.

“Yes.” She thought she heard Lady whine outside the door, but the fury of wind and rain made it impossible to tell. Bear lay motionless. “You killed my dog, you bastard.”

“Shut yer trap or you'll be next,” the boy threatened. “That beast bit me clean to the bone.”

“You sure there ain't nobody else here?”

That was the one called Cleve, the bigger man, the one giving the orders. “Just me,” she said.

A wail from upstairs proved her a liar. And the fear welling inside Rachel turned to icy hatred. They might have gotten Bear, but she'd see them in hell before they'd harm her son.

“No one's here but me and my baby,” she covered quickly.

“Lie to us, Yankee woman, and we'll kill ya certain,” Cleve threatened.

The boy laughed. “Kill you certain,” he repeated. “Maybe kill you certain anyway.”

“Shut up, Harley.”

“Ya heard him. Cleve'll shoot you like he shot that damned devil dog of yourn.”

Another flash of lightning showed a man's outline near the stove. She heard the scrape of an iron stove plate and
then saw a faint glow of coals. The scent of a cheap cigar drifted toward her.

“Ye got a lamp, Yankee woman?”

“I do.” Her head hurt so badly that it was hard to think.

“Light it,” he ordered.

Rachel pushed her way up the wall and moved cautiously toward the table. Davy's frantic cries stiffened her resolve. No matter what happened to her, Davy mattered most—Davy and Chance. She couldn't let herself fall to pieces.

“Be quick about it,” Harley said.

Rachel's searching fingers found the edge of the tablecloth. Forcing her hands to remain steady, she located the oil lamp and her blue glass bottle of matches. In seconds a yellow light flared, illuminating the kitchen.

The hulking brute by the stove leaned on a rifle and leered at her with hooded eyes. His tattered shirt hung open to the waist; his trousers ended in rags that left both scabbed knees exposed. The crown of his head was bald, but tangled gray locks straggled down over his shoulders from a monk's fringe above his ears. His nose had been broken more than once; it ran crookedly down his face to end in a ragged red scar and shattered, green-furred teeth.

“Well, well, Harley, lookee here. We found us a pretty one, ain't we?”

“Looks like,” his scarecrow companion agreed.

Rachel spared him a glance, taking in his knife-blade face, pasty skin, and thickly bandaged hand. Seventeen, she thought, not a day older. And not likely to see eighteen if the hand wasn't tended to. He was the source of the foul stench of putrefaction. By the looks of the stained cloth wrapped around his fist, he had a raging infection.

In his good hand the boy held an old rusty pistol, barrel pointing in her direction. But she refused to allow terror to make her stupid. Armed or not, this overgrown child with the wounded wing could be dealt with. It was Cleve who worried her.

She looked back at the older man with the rifle. “What do you want? Food? Money? I've plenty of the first and none of the second. There's a horse in the barn. You're welcome to it.” She tried to smile at him. “You're greatly mistaken if you think I'm a Yankee sympathizer. My brother's serving in the Confederate navy.”

“Yeah?” Harley's mouth sagged open.

“Shut up, you fool,” Cleve said. “She's lyin' to save her own skin.”

Rachel wouldn't allow herself to guess where the two had stolen the guns or to wonder if the red stain down the front of Harley's shirt was Chance's blood.

Where was Chance? Had they gone to the barn first and murdered him? If they hadn't, had he heard the gunshot and known she was in trouble? Or had he simply believed the boom to be thunder?

Her knees felt as though they'd buckle under her; each breath was an effort, but she wouldn't let them see how terrified she was. “Are you hungry?” she asked.

“Cool one, ain't ye, Yankee woman.” Cleve slid aside the metal lid and spat tobacco juice into the stove. “Mayhap me and Harley kin warm ye up a little.”

“My husband and his brothers are due back before morning,” she lied. “You'd best make tracks before they get here. My brother-in-law is a sheriff's deputy.”

“Comin' in afore mornin',” Cleve taunted her. “Ye take us fer fools, woman? Ain't no men here.” He
glanced around the kitchen. “No men's boots, no pipe or razor strap. Just you and the young'n, I 'spect.”

He took a step toward her, and Harley chuckled.

Rachel wanted to run, but Cleve stood between her and the door, and Davy lay helpless upstairs in his cradle. “I can tend that hand for you,” she offered. “It looks festered.”

“You got whiskey?” Harley asked.

“No whiskey, but I can drain the poison and wash—”

“Maybe she wants to give ye a bath, Harley?” Cleve suggested.

“M'leg hurts worse than the hand,” the boy said. “Damn dog near chewed my leg to ribbons.”

Davy's cry tore at Rachel's insides. “I need to go to my baby,” she said.

“What you got up there?” Cleve asked. “A rifle? Shotgun?”

“Maybe one of them li'l old sissy pistols,” Harley supplied.

“Go up and fetch yer young'n down, Yankee woman,” Cleve said. “Harley, here, can trail along to see that ye don't get into nothin' ye shouldn't.”

“No.” Rachel shook her head. She didn't want Davy near them. He was safer where he was. “You leave my baby be. I won't give you any trouble.”

“Course ye won't,” the big man agreed. He took a step toward her. “Get up there and git that brat.”

Rachel lit a second lantern and walked back through the parlor and up the front stairs. The narrow kitchen passageway would have been quicker, but she hoped the intruders wouldn't realize that the small door led to the second floor as well.

She'd thought of grabbing Davy and climbing out a
window, or digging her granddad's old pistol out of the chest. But with Harley hot on her heels, she could do nothing.

Davy was screaming at the top of his lungs. Feeding him would calm his anger, but she didn't want to bare her breasts in front of these animals. When she reached her bedroom, she carefully set the lamp on a table. Snatching up a dressing gown from the chair, she flung it around her shoulders as she went to her son.

“Please,” she said to Harley. “Don't hurt my baby.”

“What's he to me? I seen many a grown man cut down. A squalling Yankee brat don't matter to me.”

“I told you, we're not Yankees. We're Southern sympathizers here,” she lied. “Lots of folks in lower Delaware are.” She gathered Davy into her arms, pulling the folds of the dressing gown around them both and cradling him against her breast. Where was Chance? she agonized. She refused to believe that he was dead.

Davy's cries subsided as he found her nipple. Rachel held him against her and motioned with her chin toward a dresser on the far wall. “There's jewelry in that box,” she said to Harley. “Take what you want.”

“Don't try no tricks wi' me.”

“A gold locket,” she murmured, “and a man's pocket watch.”

He seized the leather box and dumped the contents on the bed. Her mother's locket and chain tangled with an old copper brooch and her grandfather's silver watch. Harley scooped up everything in his hat. “Gosh dern, look at this!” he exclaimed. “I ain't never had me no watch.”

“What's takin' so long up there?” Cleve shouted.

“We're coming,” Rachel answered. And then to Harley
she whispered, “Put the watch in your pocket. Otherwise, he'll just take it from you.”

Harley loomed over her, and she shuddered from his stench. “You got money hid somewhere?” he demanded.

“Do I look like I've got money?”

He grabbed a handful of her hair and twisted it until tears welled up in her eyes. “We got waysa makin' you tell.” He groped at her with dirty fingers.

“Let go of me,” she cried, twisting away. “You'll lose that hand if it's not looked after. At least let me wash it and put on a fresh bandage.”

His grip loosened and she backed away. “You don't want to die, do you?” she asked. “You need medical attention.”