Gift Of The Heart

Rachel looked up sharply, so ready to defend herself that Jamie very nearly laughed.

“I didn’t intend that as an insult, either,” he said softly. And he didn’t. He remembered the girls in Meeting as dutifully demure, shrouded in sober gowns with their eyes downcast beneath their bonnets. This one, with her vivid coloring and green eyes and swinging black hair, would have shone like an irresistible beacon in their midst, and he would have followed. He’d always had a fondness—a weakness, according to his father—for worldly women; it had brought him no end of trouble when he’d been younger, before the war, and he didn’t want to consider what could happen now if he wasn’t careful.

“I didn’t take your words as an insult,” she said quickly.

“No?”

“No.” She shook her head again for extra emphasis, loose strands of her black hair drifting about her face. “How could I? My grandmother was a very fine, gracious woman.”

“Then I’m honored that you imagined I’d be like her,” he said with the perfect degree of bland politeness.

“I did?” she asked, baffled. This man with the rifle cradled beside him on the bed had precious little in common with her peaceable, silver-haired grandmother.

“Aye, me. If you imagined I was a Friend, and the only one of the lot you seem to know well was your paragon of a grandmother, then it stands to reason that you believed that I was a paragon, too. At least, you did until I opened my eyes and my mouth.” It had been a long, long time since he’d teased anyone like this, especially a girl this pretty, and he surprised himself by doing it now. “Mightily flattering, that.”

“I suppose it is,” said Rachel faintly, not quite sure what had just happened. She’d rather thought he was flattering her, not the other way around, and the extra spark in those blue eyes wasn’t at all reassuring.

Jamie took another bite of the stew while he collected his wayward thoughts. What the devil was he doing, anyway? Was it some lingering fever from his wound, or the warm food in his belly, or the hot flush on her cheeks? He was endlessly grateful she couldn’t read his mind, or she’d realize how wrong she’d been to judge him safe simply because of that grandmother of hers. Himself, he’d been born a Friend, but hardly a saint.

He fiddled with the spoon between his fingers. “Though you flatter me, aye, you keep the advantage. You know my name, but you haven’t told me yours.”

Rachel’s cheeks grew hot. “It’s Rachel. Rachel Sparhawk Lindsey.”

He liked to see her blush, especially over something as foolish as her name, and though he knew he’d no right to do it, he held his silence a moment longer to savor her discomfiture. Strange how she clung to her maiden name, and stranger still that her husband permitted such a thing.

“Well, then, Mistress Lindsey,” he said at last, “a fine good morning to you, and pleased I am to make your acquaintance.”

Her cheeks grew warmer still. He might not say much, but what he did say seemed to disconcert her more than all of William’s grand speeches put together. Not that she intended to let him get the better of her. She couldn’t afford to do that, not for her sake or for Billy’s.

“If you wish no titles for yourself, Jamie Ryder,” she said with determined composure, “then I can live without being called ‘Mistress.’”

“As you please, Rachel Lindsey.” He liked the sound of the name on his tongue, just as he’d liked hearing his on her lips. He had guessed she’d be called something more elegant, more exotic, the way she was herself, but now he’d never imagine her as anything other than Rachel. Rachel, Rachel Lindsey. Rachel Sparhawk Lindsey. Lord, when was the last time he’d gone moony over a woman’s name?

“Rachel Lindsey, Rachel Lindsey,” he said again as he let his bemusement slide drowsily across his face. “You wanted to trust me when I was dead to the world. But do you trust me now, I wonder?”

She didn’t hesitate at all. “Not in the least.”

“Good lass,” he murmured. “Not only beautiful, but wise you are, too, Rachel Lindsey. Don’t you ever trust me, not for a moment.”

Then he smiled, his whole face lightening, and the sudden, devastating warmth of it was enough to steal Rachel’s breath away and her wits, as well. Oh, she was right not to trust him, and it had nothing to do with wars or Tories or long-barreled rifles. If he could do this to her when he was weak and ill, what havoc could he bring when he’d recovered?

Swiftly she stood and reached to take the empty bowl from him, being sure that their fingers didn’t touch.

“You will understand, then,” she said as she briskly carried the bowl back to the table and away from the tempting power of that smile, “that while you’re welcome to stay as long as you need to recover, I also expect you to leave when you’re well. If Alec guesses you were here, he may be back, and I daresay others will come, too, once they’ve heard of the reward. Hard money’s scarce in this county, especially twenty dollars.”

She swallowed hard, longing for him to say something in return. “I have to think of Billy,” she said, hoping she sounded firm, not strident. “With William away, life is difficult enough for us as it is. Surely you must understand that.”

Still he didn’t answer. Impatiently she wiped her palms on her apron and turned to face him again. “Surely you must see my—”

But he wasn’t going to see anything. His eyes were closed, and he was fast asleep, the hint of his smile still lingering on his lips.

With an exasperated sigh, Rachel collected his powder horn and bullet pouch where he’d left them beside the window and set them beside the bed. Gingerly she eased the rifle away from him and laid it, too, on the floorboards. Perhaps letting him keep the gun was not the wisest thing she’d done, but still she sensed it was in her favor. She would put off changing the dressing until morning. Sleep now would be the best thing for him. At last she drew the coverlet over his shoulders, tucking it protectively around him the same way she had when he’d been so sick.

The same, yet different, the way everything between them had changed in little more than an hour’s time. There wasn’t any “same” left now, and the Lord only knew what would happen next.

“Oh, Mama, is he asleep again?” asked Billy mournfully as he leaned over the edge of the loft.

“Rest’s the one thing now that will help make him well.” She glanced upward, wondering if the boy had been there all along as she’d suspected. “Come down and wash up for supper.”

But now that Billy had her attention, he was in no hurry to move, instead leaning on his elbows as he stared down at the sleeping man. “You said he had to go, Mama,” he said accusingly. “You said he couldn’t stay.”

“Oh, Billy, sweetheart, it’s not up to me,” she said unhappily. “I know he’s been very kind to you, but he doesn’t belong here. Once he’s better, he must return to his own family and friends. I’m sure they miss him very much, and they’ll be glad to see he’s well again.”

“Don’t want him to go,” said Billy, more wistful than stubborn. He hugged Blackie closer, resting his chin on the horse’s worn back. “He made Uncle Alec go away.”

“Not really, love. Mr. Ryder was watching, but that was all. Uncle Alec left on his own.”

“Not ‘Mr. Ryder,’ Mama,” corrected Billy patiently. “It’s Jamie. An’ Jamie made Uncle Alec go away.”

“Well, then, Jamie didn’t make your uncle go home. Uncle Alec didn’t even know anyone else was in our house.”

Unconvinced, Billy shook his head, and Rachel knew exactly what he meant. She might not trust Jamie Ryder, but she had believed him when he said he’d do all he could to keep her and Billy from harm. Why else would she have put his rifle where he’d find it as soon as he woke?

“Uncle Alec’s bad,” continued Billy steadfastly, “an’ Jamie’s good, an’ I like him, Mama, an’ I want him to stay here.”

“Oh, Billy, that’s simply not possible, you see, because he—because we—” She broke off, searching vainly for the words to explain her reasons to a child. She looked back at the man in her bed, his face relaxed and boyish in sleep. How could she hope to explain how she felt about Jamie to Billy when she couldn’t explain it to herself?

“It’s simply not possible, Billy,” she said wistfully. “Jamie must leave as soon as he can. But I like him, too, Billy. I like him just fine.”

Chapter Four

Rachel hurried down the path to the barn, her feet slipping here and there across the packed snow she’d worn slick to ice. With little clumps of ice clinging to the hem of her skirts, she balanced the lantern in one hand and the empty milk bucket in the other, the musket slung on a strap over her shoulders banging against her back. Only the scent and feel of more snow in the icy air, the threat of a new storm, could have brought her out this early at all.

She hated the dark that closed in around her, the black shadows that swallowed up the feeble light her lantern cast over the snow. This darkness that came when the moon had set and before the sun rose, the darkness of the deepest winter morning, made her heart pound and her imagination race to picture all that could be hiding in the murkiness around her.

Fiercely she tried to remind herself this was her land, her home. Nothing could harm her here. She knew every inch of this path, just as she knew exactly how many paces lay between her house and her barn. But all the fierce reminders in the world couldn’t brighten this darkness, and by the time she reached the barn she was almost running, the lantern’s light bobbing wildly and the empty bucket thumping against her thigh. With fingers clumsy from the cold, she tore at the latch, flung back the door and slammed it shut after her as if the devil himself were at her heels.

As crazy shadows from the swinging lantern danced across the walls, the hens flew squawking from their roost, flapping furiously in the air, and the cow lowed and thumped uneasily against the sides of her stall.

“Hush, now, hush, all of you!” called Rachel, her voice shaking for all she tried to hold it steady. “It’s only me, and I swear there’s nothing to be frightened of!”

Brave words, those, she thought as she hurriedly hung the lantern from a beam. How could she scold the poor hens for skittering and squawking when she’d been the one seeing demons in the dark? She sighed with exasperation at her own foolishness and tried to calm the frightened animals, murmuring nonsense to the cow, Juno, as she broke the ice in the water trough and replaced the winter straw in the manger.

She set the bucket on the floor and ran her fingers through the bristly hair between the cow’s ears. This was all Jamie Ryder’s fault, filling her head full of grim warnings and cautions, and Alec’s, too, with all his tales of Tory and Indian raids. Indians, pooh. In the eighteen months since she’d come here she’d seen only two Indians, a pair of Mahicans traveling north with an English trapper.

And as wild as it had once seemed to her, this land so close to the river was downright civilized. On clear days she could easily make out the smoke from her nearest neighbors’ chimney, and though the journey to Ethan and Mary Bowman’s house took more than an hour through the forest, by the standards of this part of New York that was only as far as the house next door was in Providence. The war that was tearing apart so much of the country was so far away as to seem unreal to her, one more thing she’d left behind in Rhode Island. She was likely safer here than anywhere else in the state.

Besides, the sun itself would rise in an hour, and banish the dark and the shadows for another day. So why, then, was her heart still pounding, her breathing still as ragged as if she’d run four hundred paces instead of forty?

Though the rooster and his hens had settled once again with only a few lingering, irritated clucks among them, Juno had not, shifting uneasily in her stall with her eyes white-rimmed.

“Hush now, my lady,” said Rachel, her own voice finally settling down. “Hush now, you silly old madame cow.”

Yet still Juno tossed her head, the most defiance a cow can show, and enough to make Rachel wish she could postpone the milking. Once she’d made the mistake of continuing when Juno was feeling out of sorts, and learned the hard way how quickly a cow can kick. She’d had the bruise for a fortnight.

Instead she pulled the three-legged milking stool back and dropped down onto it with a sigh. She couldn’t wait forever; not only was Juno’s bag heavy with milk, but Rachel herself had to be back in the house before Billy woke and missed her. And Jamie Ryder, too. When she’d left he’d been sleeping soundly enough, but she didn’t want to give him any more time than she had to alone in her home, or alone with Billy, either. Lord, how everything changed with him here!

She pressed her forehead against the cow’s side and softly began to sing, hoping that would cure Juno’s restlessness. It usually did. The more morose the song, the better, as far as the cow was concerned, and she was particularly partial to the sailors’ laments Rachel had learned long ago from her brothers.

He has crost the raging seas his Molly for to tease And that is the cause of my grief,

I sigh, lament and mourn waiting for my love’s return,

Of whom shall I seek—

Abruptly Rachel broke off, listening. She thought she’d heard a scuffling sound, almost scratching, but as soon as she fell quiet it stopped. Daft, she thought with disgust, she’d gone daft and soft brained as an old rotten log.

So farewell, my dearest Dear, until another year Then the sweet Spring I hope for to—

There, she’d heard it again. Swiftly she moved the milk bucket aside and caught up the lantern. She smacked Juno’s angular hip to make her move away from the wall, and then knelt in the straw with the lantern held low. The scuffling sound was definitely there now, like something digging against the wooden wall, searching for a loose deal. Rats or squirrels, most likely, starving from the snow cover and desperate for the grain in the barn.

Scowling, Rachel rose and grabbed her musket. She’d had to pay dearly for that grain from Alec, too dearly to let it be nibbled away by rats. She stormed out the door with her skirts flying, ready to teach the thieves a lesson.

She slipped once on the ice and swore impatiently. She’d left the lantern inside, but with the door ajar a narrow beam of light slid across the snow. She peered into the shadows where the scratching sound had come from, trying to see as her eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Something moved, something low and dark, and she kicked the door open a little farther.

The pale light washed farther over the snow, down to the corner of the barn and the stone wall beyond. The low, dark shadow rose up from the snow, startled by the light, growing larger by the second. A long tail, the sharp triangles of ears and yellow eyes glowing in the lantern’s light. No scratching now, no digging, only the deep rumbling growl as the wolf drew back on its haunches to face her.

There had been something in the dark. She hadn’t been imagining things. But a wolf, God help her. Not a rat after corn, but a wolf.

He crouched there in the snow, cornered between the barn and the wall, his lips curled from his teeth and the hair bristling on the back of his neck like some mongrel guarding a stolen bone. But the wolf was bigger than any dog she’d ever seen, and she didn’t think he was going to run off if she stamped her foot and shook her apron.

Slowly, so slowly, she raised the musket to her eye and released the lock. Her hands were shaking, making the sight tremble, and she took a deep breath to steady herself. She had to make this single shot count; it could take her a full minute, sixty seconds at least, to reload the musket, and she wasn’t sure she’d have that time.

The wolf angled sideways, closer, testing her, the yellow eyes bright and hard.

She had to do this, shoot him now, before he came any closer. She told herself she couldn’t miss at this range. She couldn’t afford to, anyway. She swallowed hard, whispered a terse little prayer and squeezed the trigger.

She heard the hammer click, the little sizzle of the pan and the bright flash, she smelled the familiar acrid puff of gunpowder, and then—

And then nothing.

No thump as the butt kicked back against her shoulder, no crack from the ball flying from the barrel. Only the flat, worthless silence of a gun that had misfired.

Somehow the animal seemed to know Rachel had lost her advantage and began inching closer. His nails clicked softly with each footfall on the frozen snow, his breath gathering in white puffs around his bared teeth.

With a muffled cry of dismay and fear Rachel dropped the musket from her shoulder, her forefinger tangling clumsily with the trigger as she fought her panic. Eight feet away, maybe six. There was no time to dear the fouled gun, no time to reload, not even time to run back into the barn, not now that the wolf was closer than she to the open door. If she turned and tried to run for the house, the wolf would surely head for the open barn and poor Juno.

Or he could choose instead to chase after her. Forty paces uphill, across a frozen path in the dark where the animal could see so much better than she, chasing after her to seize her ice-heavy skirts in his jaws and drag her down, down.

Suddenly the wolf lunged across the snow and Rachel staggered back, barely keeping from the animal’s reach. Gasping, she slid her hands down the musket to the end of the barrel and swung it as hard as she could. She felt the impact of the butt striking the wolf, and heard the startled yelp of pain. But the same sweep of the musket through the air threw her off-balance, her feet sliding out from under her on the ice, and she pitched forward hard, the musket flying from her hands to spin across the crusted snow.

“No,” she gasped as she tried to scramble away on her hands and knees. “Dear God, no!”

She saw the white fur of the wolf’s underbelly as he whirled through the air, a blur as white against the black sky as the snow she lay upon. The scream she knew was her own, shrill with fear. But the sharp crack of the rifle’s shot made no sense, not even when the wolf dropped lifeless to the snow before her. No sense, she thought, her heart pounding wildly as she crouched on the snow, it made no sense at all.

“Are you hurt, Rachel?” Jamie pulled her to her feet, his voice harsh from concern and strain. “Look at me, lass. Are you hurt?”

She stared at him, uncomprehending, her eyes still wide with terror and her breath coming in short little gasps. Her braid had come unraveled, her hair hanging half-loose around her face, and when she lifted her hand to brush it back he saw the raw scrape across her knuckles where she’d fallen on the ice. But nothing worse, thank God.

He glanced again at the lifeless body of the wolf, then slung his rifle on its strap across his back and set his hands gently on her shoulders. “You’ll be fine, Rachel,” he said, forcing her to look at him and listen. “The animal’s dead, and can’t harm you.”

“Yes,” she said hoarsely, nodding her head even as she searched his face for reassurance. “Yes, I’m quite fine. Quite.”

It was Jamie Ryder, of course, Jamie who had saved her. With the light from the open door behind him, his face was dark in shadow, but she would have recognized his voice anywhere. And who else, really, could it have been?

Yet even as she realized what he’d done, she wished it hadn’t been so. She wanted to be like all the other women in her family, her grandmother and her mother and her older sisters. She wanted to be strong, independent, able to take care of herself and Billy, and this winter, before this man had come, she’d thought she was. But then she remembered how the wolf had sprung toward her, and she didn’t feel very strong or brave at all. What she felt was weak and weepy, and if he said one more kind word to her she knew she’d shatter at his feet.

Instead she drew away from him, smoothing her hair from her face as if her fingers still did not shake, and bent to pick up her musket.

“It misfired, you know,” she explained, almost grudgingly, as she peered at the flintlock, poking the bits of snow away from it. “Else I would have made the shot myself.”

“True enough. But ‘twas a good thing my rifle didn’t suffer the same ill.”

Frowning, she glanced up at him without raising her chin. “How far were you from—from me?”

“Not far.” He shrugged carelessly, but Rachel saw how he favored the wounded shoulder. “I’d just stepped outside the house.”

“That’s forty paces, and in the dark, too.” She was impressed, as much by his modesty as by what he’d done. She’d never known another man who’d have been able to resist such an opportunity to boast. “You said you could shoot the seeds from an apple, and you weren’t bragging.”

She heard his smile without seeing it. “That old wolfs a sight bigger than an apple.”

For the first time Rachel forced herself to look at the dead animal. The sky was beginning to pale with dawn, and the gray shape of the wolf was clear against the snow, framed by the darker puddle of its own blood. Only luck and Jamie had saved her from lying there instead, stiffening on the snow, in the blood. She looked, and could not look away, any more than she could stop the trembling that suddenly racked her or the tears that blurred her eyes, and this time when Jamie reached for her, she crumpled against him, her musket slipping forgotten from her hand.

“There now, lass, I told you you’d be fine,” he murmured as he folded his arms around her. “I’ll grant you it was a close thing, but you’ll be fine.”

And she was fine, thought Jamie, fine and soft to hold against his chest, the way he’d known she would be. Her hair slid like silk across his wrists as she pressed her cheek against the fringed yoke of his linen Ranger’s shirt, her hands curled loosely together like a child’s. He’d heard once that the fringe was meant to draw rain away from a man’s shoulders, to scatter the drops where they’d shake away. Would they work the same way now, he wondered, to draw away a woman’s tears?

Instinctively he tightened his arms around her and she burrowed closer. The image of her bravely swinging the musket at the wolf was burned forever in his consciousness, along with the sickening lurch he’d felt deep inside when he’d realized what it would take to save her. And he’d done it; he hadn’t failed her. But he couldn’t remember the last time a woman had turned to him like this, and he longed to give her the comfort she needed. Aye, that was all, comfort, to ease her fears like a brother or a friend.

Like hell that was all, he thought wretchedly, as if he could ignore her womanly scent or the soft warmth of her breasts pressed against him. Like hell was exactly what it was. He’d warned her not to trust him. Why the devil hadn’t she listened?

“I thought—thought I was going to die,” said Rachel raggedly, hiccuping with her sobs. “I thought everything was—was going to end, and I was so seared, and—and oh, I’m such—such a silly coward!”

He smiled in spite of himself. “Oh, hush, that’s nonsense. Whatever else you are, Rachel Lindsey, you’re no coward.”

“No?” Her voice squeaked upward, and she pulled back to look at him, but not so far that she’d be free of his embrace. Furiously she dashed at her tears with the back of her fist. “Then why—why else am I crying so?”

“Because you’re wise enough to know you’re mortal,” he said as he gently traced his fingers along her cheek, her face so close to his. “Frightening thought, that. Because you know how sweet life can be.”

He kissed her then, and she didn’t stop him. The wolf, and the gun misfiring, and now Jamie’s lips on hers—none of it was real. Swiftly she parted her lips for his, swaying into him as she let herself become lost in his kiss. This was the sweetness he’d spoken of, the dizzying richness of pleasure and life that she hadn’t wanted to abandon.