Shades of Honor (37 page)

Tom gripped Kyle’s forearm. “Keep him away from her.”

“Who?” Tom shuddered and Kyle gripped his arm. “Keep who away?”

“Tell them...I love them.” A hard shudder passed through Tom’s body and he
arched
against the dirty pine planks of his office floor. His fingers gouged Kyle’s arm. “You owe me.”

Guilt swamped Kyle. Despite Tom’s recent behavior, Kyle owed this man more than harsh words and hurtful accusations. “I’ll take care of your wife and daughter,” Kyle said, trying to ease the anxiety in Tom’s eyes. “I promise. Now stop worrying. It’s not helping you right now.”

Pain streaked across Tom’s face and a dazed expression filled his eyes. Kyle’s stomach clenched and his throat filled with denial as he realized he was watching his friend’s life slipping away. “Tom!”

Slowly, the deep lines in Tom’s face eased as his tense body relaxed on the pine floorboards.

Kyle grabbed Tom’s shoulders and shook him, trying to jar him back to consciousness. “Tom!” he shouted. Another fierce shake loosened Tom’s jaw, but no air passed his blue lips.

“Breathe
goddammit
!”

Kyle shouted the order a second time, loud enough to rattle the windows, but Tom Drake couldn’t breathe. He was dead.

Amelia Drake propped her forehead in her hand and listened to the rain pummel the windows. It echoed across her empty schoolroom in
Laona
as she read a page in her teaching handbook—for the fourth time. To her increasing irritation, the words remained a jumble of nothingness. Between the noise of the storm and her wandering thoughts, she couldn’t concentrate on her work for a minute.

The desk was distracting her again. Amelia slapped the book closed and shoved away from the massive pile of oak huddled in front of her like a mountain of secrets. She squeezed her eyes closed, but her imagination soared and fanned her private fantasies until her insides melted with longing. God forgive her, but Amelia craved the wild, reckless passion that had caused Miss
Denby
, the former schoolteacher, to toss away her teaching career and make love to a poor furniture maker on her own desk.

There would never be a Gordon
Prues
coming to rescue Amelia from the life of sameness and solitude she’d been living since replacing Miss
Denby
. Amelia would continue to spend her hours with her students, and when they went home to their families each evening, she would stay behind in a cold, empty schoolhouse feeling her youth ebbing away. To know she would never experience anything so grand or exciting as Miss
Denby’s
passionate affair tore a vicious wound in Amelia’s soul.

The bitter truth was that when she was seventeen Amelia’s own reckless actions had condemned her to this life of spinsterhood.

She should have said no when Richard Cameron had pushed her to make love with him.

A violent crack of thunder shook the building and lightning illuminated the damp, musty-smelling room. Amelia crossed to the window and rested her arms on the sill, gazing up at the angry evening sky, wishing she dared to step outside and feel the rain sting her skin, to feel free and alive for a few stolen minutes. But
Philmore
Bentley, president of the school board, and his nosy wife, Eva, lived next door. If they saw Amelia outside after dark, she would be severely reprimanded.

Life as a teacher was painfully restrictive, but it was a virtuous, respectful position that she had needed after her disastrous affair with Richard. For four years Amelia had been trying to live within the board’s strict dictates, but her true nature bubbled and spit behind her facade like a volcano on the brink of erupting.

She felt imprisoned in her small apartment behind the schoolhouse, but her teaching contract stipulated that she must live there. It was a suitable home for a single woman whose only visitors were her parents and her two dearest friends, Lucinda Clark and Evelyn Grayson, but it was stark and tiny and dreadfully depressing. Unlike Lucinda, who had three older sisters and whose house resonated with life and excitement, the silence in Amelia’s single room was deafening. It was devoid of the laughter and love Amelia felt in Evelyn’s home. No matter how many years Amelia spent here, the little box would never feel comfortable or warm.

Thunder rolled overhead and the front door creaked open. Amelia shook her head and turned away from the window. Closing the door was a lesson she’d failed to teach any of her students. No matter who left last, the door always remained ajar. With a resigned sigh, she headed toward the front of the building to close it.

The shadowy outline of a man suddenly filled the doorway and Amelia stopped in
midstep
. Runnels of rain slid off the wide shoulders of the man’s coat. He pushed the door closed against the wind, trapping her inside with him. She stumbled backward, wondering if she could make it to the door of her apartment and lock it before he could grab her.

As if the man sensed her panic, he lifted the dripping hat off his head to reveal a handsome, familiar face. Stunned by Kyle Grayson’s formidable presence in her humble schoolroom, Amelia couldn’t fathom what would bring him here, in the pouring rain no less.

Although they knew each other, and had even shared a stolen kiss when Amelia was sixteen, they had rarely crossed paths in the past several years. Kyle was a business friend of her father’s, and not long ago he’d been Evelyn’s fiancé before she’d broken their engagement to marry his older brother, but Amelia hadn’t spoken more than a polite greeting to Kyle in years. Not even during the brief dance they’d shared at a wedding a few months past. Amelia’s senses had been too stimulated that evening by the feel of Kyle’s hands on her waist, and the occasional brush of his leg against her own as they danced. It was the first time since she was seventeen years old that Amelia had touched a man, and to her embarrassment, she hadn’t wanted to let go of Kyle when the dance ended.

“You’ll need your wrap,” Kyle said, jerking Amelia’s thoughts back to why he was standing in her schoolroom. “Ray Hawkins is coming with a carriage to take you to your parents’ house.”

She searched Kyle’s dark, anguished eyes, but his expression remained as rigid as chiseled granite. Suddenly, her own heart stopped beating. She struggled to round her mouth and force her breath past stiff lips. “Who’s hurt?”

“Your father collapsed with chest pains an hour ago.”

“Oh, my God!” Amelia whirled toward the row of cloak pegs along the back of the room, but Kyle caught her arm, his grip firm enough to stop her but gentle as he turned her to face him. That he only stared at her filled Amelia with fear so thick she couldn’t breathe.

“He didn’t...I’m sorry,” Kyle said softly, his voice filled with grief. “The doctor didn’t arrive in time.”

Amelia’s body turned hot and her ears rang, but the cry echoing in her mind never left her gaping mouth. Backing away from Kyle and the horror of his words, Amelia shook her head. It couldn’t be true. Not her father. He’d started the fire in the schoolroom for her just this morning. He’d laughed and kissed her cheek before leaving to start his day at the mill. Just like he did every Thursday morning.

“Jeb and Doc Finlay took him home to your mother,” Kyle said, his eyes dark, his expression filled with regret. “They’re sending Ray down with the carriage for you. I told them I’d ride ahead and make sure you’d be ready.”

Her father? He couldn’t be...he just...no!

“I’ll stay with you until Ray gets here.”

Amelia shook her head. An unstoppable cry squeezed from her throat and tears blurred her vision.

Kyle’s lips compressed and his nostrils flared, but his hard, unblinking gaze confirmed the truth.

“Oh, God. Oh, Kyle, no!” Amelia clapped her hands to her mouth as tears streamed over her fingers.

He caught her as she stumbled into his chest.

Sobbing, she shoved against him, trying to push him out the door. “Take me home.”

“Wait for the carriage. It’s storming.”

Was he insane? What did she care about a carriage when her father...when he...oh, God...her mother needed her! And her father...her poor father . . .

She tore herself from Kyle’s arms and bolted outside. Rain slapped her face and wind ripped her hair from its prim chignon, but Amelia barely felt it as she ran to Kyle’s horse.

As she struggled to put her foot in the high stirrup, she heard the door to the schoolhouse slam shut. An instant later Kyle wrapped his strong hands around her waist. She gripped the saddle horn and hopped on one foot, frantically trying to hook her raised foot in the stirrup, but instead of lifting her onto the saddle, Kyle tugged her back.

“Buck’s too skittish right now.”

She struggled against Kyle’s grip, but he held tight. “Let go of me!”

He didn’t release her.

With an angry screech, she turned and slapped his wet face. The impact snapped his head back and stung her palm, but his look of shock didn’t stop her from reaching for the saddle horn again. She was going home, and she wasn’t waiting for a damned carriage.

The horse reared and danced away from her, but Amelia charged forward to grab the slippery stirrup. Her feet tangled in the hem of her muddy, wet dress and she stumbled into Buck’s side.

“Get back!” Kyle’s voice cracked like the loud burst of thunder as he dragged her away from the rearing horse. “Amelia! Ray will be here any second. Get your wrap and wait inside.” Like a giant handcuff clamping her waist, Kyle’s strong hands turned her toward the school.

Amelia refused to wait for a carriage or let Kyle drag her back into the building. She twisted around to face him and struck his granite chest with her fists. Then she screamed with all the panic she felt bursting inside her. Even in the pouring rain and booming thunder, her neighbors would have heard the earsplitting scream. They would come outside and distract Kyle. Then she would take his horse and race for home.

Kyle caught her chin and forced her to look at him. “It’ll ruin you if you’re found out here with me.”

“My father’s dead, Kyle! Do you think I care?” She opened her mouth, intending to scream until he released her, but Kyle hooked an arm around her waist and yanked her against him. He cupped the back of her head and pulled her open mouth into his thick-muscled shoulder.

Bound hard by his arms, and partially sheltered from the rain, Amelia felt she’d been pulled beneath the protective limbs of a giant tree. Her heart and mind hung suspended in a weird silence that amplified Kyle’s hard breathing and the sound of rain splattering against her skull.

The crack of a gunshot ripped through the night and jerked Amelia back to the present, to death, and the searing pain that shredded her heart.

Kyle’s hand shot out and snagged the reins of Buck’s bridle before the gelding could bolt.

“Unhand her this instant!”

They both jerked their heads toward
Philmore
Bentley who was marching across his soggy yard with a rifle in his hands. Eva Bentley, the strictest board member and town gossip, stood on her porch squinting in their direction.

Kyle urged Amelia away from him and the deadly end of
Philmore’s
gun, but she clung to his hand. “Help me, Kyle. I need to get home.”

Philmore
cocked his gun. “I warned you to get away from her.”

“Phil!” Kyle yelled through the rain. “It’s Kyle Grayson.”

Kyle pulled off his hat and faced Phil and his nosy wife, but Amelia yanked his sleeve. “Put me on your horse!”

“What’s going on over there?” Phil demanded, as he lowered the nose of his gun toward the grass.

Amelia could feel a scream of hysteria rising in her throat and knew if it left her mouth, she’d scream until they hauled her off to the asylum. “Now, Kyle. I
mean
it.”

“There’s been an accident and I’m taking Miss Drake to her parents’ house.” He turned to Amelia and girded her waist with his fingers. “Put your hands on my shoulders and jump when I tell you to.”

“That young lady needs a chaperone with her!” Mrs. Bentley yelled, charging off her front porch, her intent to stop them obvious in the militant thrust of her jaw.

“Jump!” Kyle whispered.

The instant Amelia bent her knees and pushed, she was airborne. The horse shifted as she hit the saddle, but Kyle held her steady.

“Hook your knee over the horn and hang on. I’m coming up behind you.”

She’d barely managed to do so before she felt the sideways shift of the saddle as Kyle stepped into the stirrup and swung himself up behind her.

“You stop right there, Mr. Grayson!” Mrs. Bentley stood below them with her fists planted on her plump hips. The rain plastered her hair to her head and her chest heaved from splashing across the school yard.

“Beg pardon, Mrs. Bentley, but I’ve brought Amelia distressing news of her father’s death and I need to get her home immediately.”

“Oh, good heavens,” she said, her expression shifting from outrage to a mixture of shock and sympathy. “I’m so sorry, dear. Phil will get the carriage and we’ll take you home right away.”

Not about to wait for Phil or explain that a carriage was already on the way, Amelia kicked the gelding’s broad side and the horse lunged forward. Kyle’s arm clutched her waist, but Amelia had to grab the horse’s coarse mane to keep herself seated.