Wyoming Bride (16 page)

“You’d have been safer back in Chicago.”

Hannah thought of the hunger and cold and the beatings from Miss Birch. “It didn’t seem so at the time.”

“How did you escape a bunch of Sioux without being killed?” he asked.

“We were sitting in the wagon when they charged at us. Hetty aimed Mr. McMurtry’s rifle at one of the Indians, who shot her with an arrow. He went crazy when I stood up beside her, I think because we’re identical twins. Josie was up front on the wagon bench. She tried to fight back, but it didn’t do any good. They took her with them when they drove the oxen away and left me and Hetty behind.

“I stayed with Hetty for a day. Then I left her in the wagon and went to find help.”

Flint leaned his hips against a breakfront that held dishes, coffee cup in hand, and stared back at her. “How badly wounded was she?”

“The arrow was stuck too deep in her shoulder for me to get it out. She lost a lot of blood and …” Hannah’s throat felt too raw to continue speaking, so she fell silent.

Flint shifted but remained where he was. At last he said, “Talk to me, Hannah.”

“I don’t—” Hannah started to say she couldn’t remember all the awful details, but that wasn’t the truth. Her eyes felt swollen and scratchy, and she scrubbed at them with her palms as the awful memories came flooding back. Her stomach knotted painfully.

She remembered
everything
.

Hannah covered her face with her hands. She couldn’t bear to tell it all. “It was horrible.” She shuddered. “Horrible.”

Her blood had curdled when the band of renegades charged toward the wagon, yelling and whooping like banshees. She’d watched in awe as Josie unfurled the bullwhip at the first Indian who tried to grab her, catching him with the vicious tip and knocking him from his pony.

She heard the laughter of the Indians as Josie held them off, screaming and cracking the bullwhip for all she was worth.

Hetty had grabbed Mr. McMurtry’s rifle, but she couldn’t figure out how to cock it. The Indian she aimed it at, who rode up to the back of the wagon, shot an arrow into her shoulder instead.

Hannah remembered the shocked look on the marauder’s face when she’d stood up to help her sister. He’d started pointing and gibbering so loudly that the other Indians had left Josie where she was and crowded around to look at the two of them together. They’d pointed from one to the other of them, and the one who’d shot Hetty screeched and flung his arms around like a crazy person.

Then Hannah heard Josie scream. She turned and saw, to her horror, that Josie had been yanked off the bench by an Indian who’d snuck up behind her on the other side of the wagon. The entire band of renegades left her and Hetty standing where they were and began cutting the oxen loose from their traces.

Hannah had eased Hetty down onto the wagon floor as she collapsed from her wound, then jumped over the tailgate to go help Josie. By the time she got to the front of the wagon, the Indians were already driving the oxen away. Josie was lying across a pinto pony in front of one of the Indians, kicking and yelling and pounding his bare thighs with her fists, as he galloped off.

Hannah ran after them for a little way, yelling for the savages to let Josie go, but they didn’t even look back. She remembered screaming to her youngest sister, “Be strong, Josie! Be brave! I’ll come and find you!”

She’d found Josie’s glasses on the ground and picked them up. One of the lenses was cracked. She’d put them on and was startled to discover they were clear glass! She wanted Josie back, so she could ask her why she’d worn glasses when she didn’t need them.

Hannah lowered her hands from her face and looked up at Flint. “How could I have forgotten about them like that? I promised I’d come back to help Hetty and to rescue Josie. I failed them both!”

Hannah thought she’d cried all the tears she had to cry, but two more pooled in her eyes and streamed down her face.

She wanted comfort. She needed it. She looked for solace, but a table—and a night of lovemaking—separated her from the one person who might have given it to her.

Instead of crossing to her, Flint headed for the stove, where he refilled his coffee cup. When he was done, he turned to her and said, “There was nothing you could have done.”

“I abandoned them. I forgot about them as though they never existed!”

“You were in shock,” he said. “You barely survived yourself.” He moved back to the table, set down his coffee, then turned the chair across from her around and straddled it.

She reached out to him across the table. “My sisters are still out there, Flint. Josie’s a captive. And Hetty …” Hannah’s whole body was shaking like a leaf, and she couldn’t make it stop.

“I’m so scared of what might have happened to them. What if Hetty—? What if Josie—?” Hannah couldn’t go on. She looked beseechingly at Flint, her eyes filled with the desolation she felt.

A moment later he had her up from her chair with his arms wrapped tightly around her. “You’re safe, Hannah. I’ve got you.”

Hannah barely heard him. She was remembering again.

She’d tried removing the arrow, but the barb was caught deep in Hetty’s flesh.

“Please, don’t,” Hetty had begged her. “Please. Don’t.”

Hannah knew Hetty would die if the arrow didn’t come out. But she didn’t know how to remove it without cutting into her sister’s flesh, and she was afraid she would only make things worse if she tried.

She recalled the last conversation she’d had with Hetty, when she’d realized she would have to leave her sister behind to seek help.

“I’ve got to go,” she told Hetty. “I have no choice.”

“No. Stay with me. Till the end,” Hetty begged.

“You’re not going to die, Hetty. I won’t let you.”

“I don’t mind,” Hetty said. “I want to be with Clive.”

“Clive is dead and gone because he was jealous and stupid. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Thank you for saying that, Hannah. But you and I both know that I got him killed. I’ve been so ashamed, Hannah. I’ve wanted to die. I’m ready to die.”

“I’m not ready to let you go,” Hannah said fiercely. “So you keep breathing, do you hear me? Fight to live, please, for my sake. I don’t want to lose the other half of myself. I’m going to find help. I’ll be back before you know it.”

She’d left food and water, but Hetty was so weak, Hannah had wondered if her twin would even be able to lift her head to eat and drink.

She’d kissed her sister’s feverish brow, aware from the heat of it how desperately wounded Hetty was. “I’m going now.”

“Don’t come back, Hannah,” Hetty whispered. “It would be a waste of time. I won’t last another day.”

“Well, that gives me a day to find help. You hang on. Please, Hetty. Please hang on!”

No matter how far or how fast Hannah had walked, she hadn’t seen another living soul. In the unrelenting darkness before the moon rose on the first night, she’d somehow moved off the trail. She ran out of water. She hadn’t imagined she’d get so thirsty. Her food was stolen by animals during the night.

After the first day passed, Hannah had known that even if she found someone, they probably wouldn’t be able to get back in time to help Hetty. Her sister had been clinging to life. Hetty had surely succumbed to her wounds. And Josie …

Hannah decided she wouldn’t allow herself to think of what might be happening to Josie. In fact, she made up her mind not to think of either of her younger sisters, ever again. She would blot out everything. Maybe that way she could die in peace.

I forgot them on purpose
, Hannah realized. She’d forgotten her sisters because she hadn’t wanted to remember the horror of Hetty’s death or Josie’s capture.

Hannah became aware she was resting calmly in Flint’s embrace. She pushed against his chest until she could lean back to look up into his face. “I want to find my twin and Mr. McMurtry and bury them. And I want to see if there’s any way to find out where the Indians took Josie.”

“If you left the wagon on the trail, passersby have probably buried the dead and helped themselves to whatever they found. There won’t be anything left to see.”

He was likely right, but she would never sleep another peaceful night until she kept her promise to return.

“If you’re right, there will be graves. I can say a prayer. Or someone might have found Hetty alive and helped her. Maybe they left a note.”

Or maybe she would find her twin’s dead and decomposing body lying in the wagon, along with Mr. McMurtry. Hannah swallowed hard. If so, at least she would be able to give them a proper burial.

She laid her fingertips against Flint’s stubbled cheek and said, “Please, Flint. I want to go back. Will you take me?”

He pulled away from her touch, and reached for his coffee cup. He took a swallow before he said, “How long did you walk after you left your wagon?”

“I don’t know. A long time. A couple of days.”

“Think. How many sunrises? Two? Three?”

Hannah stopped to think and was amazed at the answer she came up with. She’d never imagined so much time had passed. Maybe this was going to be a fool’s errand after all. She met Flint’s gaze and said, “You found me on the sixth morning.”

“I presume you walked east.”

“We walked toward the sun every morning for three months,” she said. “So that’s the direction I took.”

“Did you stay on the trail?”

“At first. But I kept walking in the dark, and when the sun rose, the trail was nowhere to be seen.”

“We can probably find the wagon,” he said. “But I don’t think you should hold out much hope of recovering the sister who was taken by renegade Indians.”

“You think they killed her?” Hannah said in a voice not much louder than a whisper.

She didn’t like the look that crossed Flint’s face before he muttered, “If she was lucky.”

Hannah’s blood ran cold. But she remembered how Josie had fought and knew she would keep on fighting. “Josie will never give up,” she said. “She was the one who defied Miss Birch at every turn.”

“Who’s Miss Birch?”

“The caretaker at the orphanage where we went after our parents died, except the word
caretaker
doesn’t fit Miss Birch. She was cruel and vindictive. If not for her, we would all still be waiting in Chicago for word from our sister in—”

Hannah’s eyes went wide. “I have more family! I have a sister and two brothers in Texas.” The words came pouring out as the memories returned. “Miranda left with my two younger brothers, Nicholas and Harrison—Nick and Harry—to become a mail-order bride to some rancher near San Antonio. But we never heard from her again after she left. We didn’t even know if she arrived safely, let alone if she married the man she went to meet.”

“How many of you Wentworths are there?” Flint asked.

“Six. And someday we’re all going to be together again,” Hannah said.

“You know the two who came west with you are both dead,” he said quietly.

“You’re wrong. We survived that hellhole of an orphanage in Chicago for three years. We Wentworths are stronger than we look. We’ve got courage and heart and—”

“Fine.”

Hannah stared at Flint, her mouth still open to argue, and realized he’d given in. “You’ll help?”

“I’ll help you locate your wagon. That is, whatever’s left of it.”

“And Josie?”

“Let’s wait and see what we find when we get there.”

Flint couldn’t believe he’d let himself get talked into a wild-goose chase. Hannah had thrown herself back into his arms to thank him, and she stood within his embrace trembling, her soft, warm breasts pressed against his chest, with only a few thin layers of cloth separating them.

He didn’t want a repeat of what had happened last night, so he edged his hips away. That was like closing the barn door after the horses had fled. His body had already acknowledged what his head was trying to deny.

He wanted her. Again.

Flint swore violently under his breath. Last night he’d only meant to comfort her, kissing her hair, her brow, kissing the tears from her cheeks. She was the one who’d raised her mouth to his. She was the one whose arms had circled his neck and pulled their bodies close. He’d protested. But not for long. He was a man, not a saint.

In hindsight, he realized that Hannah had been seeking oblivion. Last night, his mind had gone somewhere else, while his body took over, his little head doing the thinking for him. He’d craved her body, wanting to be inside her, needing to be as close as two people could be.

Anyone starved for water was going to take a drink if it was offered. His body had wanted a woman. He’d taken one when it was offered. That didn’t make him a bad person, did it? Hannah had been an entirely willing participant. When he’d made his feeble attempt at slowing the runaway train, she’d only burrowed closer to him.

There had been nothing to keep his hand from sliding up under her shirt and closing on a soft breast, from feeling the nipple bud in response to his touch. Nothing to keep his palm from caressing her rounded belly and molding the hip bones that he could feel under velvety female flesh. Nothing to keep his mouth from tasting the salty skin at the base of her throat beneath her ear. Nothing to keep his hands from thrusting into her hair and angling her head for his kiss.