Whoever he was, he punctuated his words with a guttural hiss and a brutal jerk of his arm across her ribs.
But his hand slipped. Not even pausing to think, Megan sank her teeth into the flesh between his thumb and forefinger and jammed her booted foot down hard along his shin at the same moment that she slammed her elbow into what she hoped was his solar plexus.
She heard him grunt with the unexpected pain, but best of all she felt him release her as he gave in to it for one brief moment. It was enough. She unclamped her teeth and twisted away from him, running even as she turned. She didn't pause to scream but gathered breath as she dodged trees and rocks and briars until she felt she had enough in her lungs to spare and then she let it go in a long, keening shriek that should have had dogs howling in seven counties.
She heard Jake's answering yell but couldn't manage to make words. Just his name, "Jake, Jake, Jake," with every puff of breath she could spare.
Jake caught her at the edge of the woods, swinging her around and holding on to her with both arms. "What happened?"
"Man," she grasped, leaning into his strength while still trying to point behind her. "Man. There."
She saw Deacon as no more than a black blur as he raced into the woods.
"You're all right?" Jake asked, running a hand over her arms, her shoulders, her back, cradling his hand against her face.
She nodded, still gasping from her run. "Just scared. I don't know where he came from. He was just there, with his hand over my mouth, pulling me off the path."
"You went out alone."
She heard the chastisement in his voice, but she also heard his fear and concern. "Later," she said, finally regaining some use of her breath. "Yell at me later. I deserve it."
"And you didn't take your gun."
"Jake." She shook her head against his chest, and then she looked at him. Really looked at him. He held that nasty-looking automatic of his in one hand even as he caressed her face with the other. And she'd never know how he managed to hold her so protectively while still standing resolute and ready to do battle with anyone or anything that had chased her screaming from the woods. "Oh, Jake," she whispered, raising her hand to his cheek to give him the comfort and reassurance she sensed he needed but wouldn't ask for.
They heard Deacon's warning bark and a series of growls and a couple of human howls mingled with thrashing noises somewhere between them and the ridge. Jake turned, raising the pistol in his hand. He'd just released the safety when Deacon yelped in pain.
"Oh, God," Megan murmured, turning toward the sound.
"Stay here," Jake commanded. "No, on second thought, I'm not letting you out of my sight again. But for God's sake be careful!"
She nodded and followed him back into the woods. After only a few yards, the sound of a nearby gunshot sent them both diving behind trees.
"Deacon?" she asked, not wanting to, and not wanting the answer she knew she would hear.
Jake, grim-faced and silent, obviously didn't want the answer any more than she did. He hesitated only until he heard the thrashing sounds of someone running through the underbrush. Then, with a sharp gesture Megan felt sure was meant to tell her to stay put, he worked his way forward.
He glanced at Deacon lying motionless beside a large rock. Megan saw the regret in his eyes, regret he had no time to show as he started after the man running recklessly down the hillside.
Megan dropped to her knees beside the dog. "Oh, Deacon," she moaned as she ran her hand over the smooth cap of his head and over his shoulders for one last time—and heard him whimper.
"Jake!"
Her cry stopped him in his pursuit.
"He's alive," she shouted, feeling laughter and tears mingling too close to the surface to be held in for long. "He's alive!"
They sat in the dimly lighted inner office of the downtown Fairview small-animal clinic: Megan, Barbara, and Jake—when he wasn't pacing down the hall to look through the viewing window into the vet's surgery. They'd moved into Dr. Stanton's private office after the fourth person had been attracted to the lights in the waiting room and stopped to see what was happening there on an early Saturday evening. Now Megan wondered if the intrusions of the friendly and just plain curious wouldn't help Jake more than the silence and the waiting.
Of course, Jake being Jake, he had insisted that Barbara examine Megan for any new injuries.
"I have a bruise," Megan said, refusing to impose on Barbara any more than she already had. "Not even a bad one. We checked that out in the ladies' room right after we got here. I'm all right, Jake," she assured him, knowing that she wasn't, knowing that her carelessness had caused this tragedy. "Unless I get rabies from the bite."
Barbara chuckled. "No, hon. You've got that backwards. For you to catch rabies, that sleaze would have to have bitten you."
When they had discovered Deacon still lived, Jake had sent Megan racing back to the house to call the vet and alert him that they were bringing Deacon in. Megan, having no idea which of the half dozen DVMs listed in the small telephone directory was the right one, had called Barbara.
It was Barbara who had called the correct veterinarian, Barbara who had met them at the clinic along with the vet, and Barbara who was maintaining what conversation there was in the tension-filled room. She walked over to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves behind a walnut desk and ran her fingers over leather-bound books, a small color television and VCR combination, and a bronze statue of a greyhound dog at rest but wearing her racing silks.
"Looks like there's almost as much money in the private practice of pets and poodles as there is in that of people," she said. "Maybe I went to the wrong school."
Megan saw no envy, no jealousy, and no regret in her expression.
"Jake, sit down," Barbara said firmly as he rose still another time and paced toward the hallway. "You're not going to help matters by wandering back there every five minutes and disturbing Tink's concentration."
"What kind of surgeon has a name like Tink?" Jake muttered.
"A damned good one," Barbara reminded him. "One who's already pulled that bag of bones and bark out of a lot worse mess than the one he's in now."
"Yeah." Jake eased himself down onto a leather wingback in front of the desk. "Yeah."
He shifted once, as the tension returned to his body, and straightened until he sat on the very edge of the chair. "Where's Patrick? I thought he was on the way?"
Barbara sighed. "I told you I left a message with his pager. When he gets his story and checks in, he'll be here. You know that."
"And where the hell's the deputy who was supposed to come over? It's not as though the five or six blocks he'd have to travel is any major obstacle."
"Now that I can't help you with," Barbara told him.
And neither could Megan. But there had to be something she could do. She'd never seen Jake like this and she never wanted to see him this way again: agitated, yes; worried for Deacon, yes; angry, yes. All of the above. But underlying it all was remorse and a completely inexplicable guilt—that he had no reason to feel.
She rose from her chair and went to stand in front of him. "He's going to be all right," she said, placing her hands on his shoulders. "Deacon's going to recover. He just has to. And I'm sorry."
Jake looked up at her. Her shook his head and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer until she stood between his legs. She felt him shudder as he buried his face against her stomach.
"I almost got you killed," he said. "With all my training and all my experience, I almost got you killed."
She slid her hands from his shoulders to the back of his head, holding him tightly against her. "You didn't send me out in the woods alone, Jake. I'm responsible for that piece of stupidity, not you. You're not responsible for sending that creep after me. And you're not responsible for the incompetence of the sheriff's department."
The muted sound of voices intruded. Megan looked up. They were alone in the room, and she sent a silent thank-you to Barbara for having given them this privacy. But Barbara's was one of the voices she heard, along with a vaguely familiar masculine one. She looked toward the doorway and grimaced.
"Don't look now," she said, bending down to whisper in Jake's ear, "but your favorite elected official has sent Dudley Do-Right to investigate the crime."
She couldn't tell whether the muffled noise Jake made was a cough, a laugh, or a groan, but he hugged her tightly one more time before releasing her to stand and turn toward the door.
"Harrison," he said, dropping his hand to Megan's shoulder as he acknowledged the deputy who stood in the doorway with Barbara.
The young deputy from the night before held his clipboard clasped under his arm and gripped his western hat in both hands. "Mr. Kenyon," he said in greeting. He dipped his head toward Megan. "Ma'am." He glanced back toward the hallway. "I'm real sorry about your dog."
"Yeah," Jake said. "Me too. And I'm real sorry that someone attacked Ms. Hudson practically in my backyard. What do you suppose your office plans to do about that?"
Charley Harrison swallowed once and turned the hat in his hands. "I know you don't like me, Mr. Kenyon, and I can understand that, I think. But I want you to know I'm trying to do my job."
Megan felt Jake's hand tighten and then relax on her shoulder, his only sign of emotion until he relaxed his pose slightly. "Maybe you are, kid," he said. "I guess I can give you that."
Charley nodded again, and he, too, relaxed slightly. "I'm going to take this report, sir." He paused and visibly drew himself erect. "I'm going to take it back to the office and file it properly. But I won't have any control over it after that."
"Fair enough, Charley," Jake told him.
"And sir?"
"Yes?"
"Maybe you'd better watch the ten o'clock Fort Smith news tonight."
"What do you mean you don't know?"
Deacon was still in surgery, and Patrick had arrived only moments before.
"I mean, Jake, that if there's going to be something on the ten o'clock news, it's something I don't know about."
"This isn't the story you were out on?"
Patrick leaned against the desk and dropped his head to his hands for a moment, then sighed as he looked across the room at Jake. "The story I was out on was the fiftieth anniversary of Mattie's niece and her husband, coupled with his family's annual reunion bash."
"Patrick Phillips was covering a family reunion?" Jake asked incredulously. "Give me a break."
"I'm sorry that Fairview isn't Beirut, Jake," Patrick said. "Or Sarajevo. Or at least it hadn't been until you came home. Now it's beginning to feel uncomfortably familiar."
"Boys." Barbara stepped between them, holding a hand out to each. "Just because you know all of each other's buttons doesn't mean you have to push them. I thought you grew out of that in first grade."
"Besides," Megan said, unfamiliar with the kind of arguing that didn't lead to all-out war, uncomfortable with the familiarity that let two long-time friends know each other's buttons, and thoroughly uneasy with confrontation. She held her arm up, pointing to her watch. "If we want to know the news, don't you think we ought to turn it on?"
It was a press conference on the Pitchlyn County Courthouse steps. Called by Rolley P. Attended by him and the district attorney, his one friendly county commissioner, his one friendly judge, and all the print, radio, and video media he could summon from Fort Smith and Tulsa.
"Son of a bitch," Patrick said.
"You didn't know."
"Hell, no, I didn't know. I'd have been there with bells and whistles on and pictures in my pocket."
Jake nodded and grimaced at his friend. "I know."
The carillon of the Methodist Church was still ringing in the background as the conference got under way. "Rock of Ages" surrendered to the sounding of the time, which the bells did three times a day: 8 A.M., noon, and 5 P.M. Jake held up a finger for each tone: five.
Rolley P could be seen to have a fine line of sweat beading his upper lip and more dotting his forehead when he removed his cream-colored western hat and stepped up to the speaker's podium and microphone that had been carried out on to the steps. Most of the reporters surrounding him were holding what appeared to be packets of information: reports, photographs, although they weren't visible to the small audience of four gathered around the television; and probably a typed copy of the statement Rolley P read into the microphone.
"While we regret the unfortunate incident that happened at the home of Ms. Megan McIntyre Hudson last Tuesday night, we of Pitchlyn County even more strongly regret the malicious rumors that have since been circulating."
"Who do you suppose wrote that?" Patrick asked.
"Shh," Barbara hissed.
"As to the report given our office last night about the reported break-in and vandalism at Ms. Hudson's house, we can only state that no evidence of forced entry was found by our investigating officer. Most of the damage appears to have been done by a shotgun fired within one room.
"According to reliable information—"
Patrick choked.
"Shh." This came from Jake.
Almost immediately a photo of Jake filled the screen, one taken since his attack, showing his scarred face and making him look more like one of the criminals he had hunted for so long than one of the good guys.
"—Jake Kenyon, who filled a short term as sheriff and who is rumored to have circulated the first unofficial complaints concerning the erroneous information given our officers in support of the search warrant, purchased shotgun shells the day before, at the same time that he was purchasing other items, ostensibly for Ms. Hudson."
"Shit!" Jake's hand came down on the desk with enough force to rattle the green-globed banker's lamp.
"Did you?" Megan asked quickly.
"Later," Jake said, frowning.
The sheriff continued. "Ms. Hudson—"
"Oh, God," Megan moaned. Now a picture of her filled the screen, one of the Barbie doll pictures, as she had dubbed them, showing her in all her innocuous fluffy Washington glory.
"—as you will recall," Rolley P droned on, still reading, "is the widow of our own Roger Hudson and the daughter of Oklahoma's United States Senator Jack McIntyre. She is no stranger to notoriety and unfounded accusations, having accused the military of Villa Castellano for the brutal attack on the clinic where her husband and his sister, Helen Kenyon, wife of Jake Kenyon, were murdered, although the best efforts of the United States Senate investigating committee were unable to corroborate those accusations. Ms. Hudson is known to have spent some time as recently as this year in a private sanitarium in Virginia."
"Oh hell, oh hell, oh hell." Megan heard the moaned words a moment before she realized they were coming from her.
"That's enough," Jake said storming across the room to the television. Megan stopped his hand as he reached for the television's control.
"No. I think we need to see it all."
He looked at Megan sadly for a moment but waited until the conference and commentary played to its end before turning off the set and returning to the desk. He rifled through its drawers until he pulled out a multicounty telephone book.
"Who are you calling?" Patrick asked.
"Your buddy, Zack Thomas."
Jake grimaced as he dialed numbers, as he waited, as he repeated his telephone credit card number for the operator and waited again.
"Slow news day?" He asked abruptly. . . ." Got it in one," he said. "You bet it's me. Did you watch your ten o'clock? . . ."
No more than two seconds passed. "Did you ever think to get confirmation on something like that? Or did you just decide it was a good day to trash an innocent civilian? . . .
"Megan Hudson, that's who the hell I'm talking about. The woman who had a dozen men break in on her in the middle of the night. The woman who had her bedroom walls filled with shotgun pellets and a dozen windows broken out during a rainstorm. The woman who'd received a threatening phone call and who, today, was assaulted in my backyard." He paused a moment.
"Yeah. That's what I'm talking about, responsible journalism. . . . No. I didn't hear the call." Jake's scowl deepened.
"No. I didn't see the assault. I did see her running away from her assailant. I did hear the man running away through the brush, and oh, yeah. Remember Deacon the Wonder Dog, the one who saved my life a few months ago, darling of the media, hero of your six and ten o'clock news for over a week? . . .
"Yeah, him. What about him? Well, he saw the assailant. Real up close and personal. We're at the vet's now. It seems a bullet plowed through his chest from the gun of this uncorroborated imaginary assailant. Unless, of course, you think I shot him, as well as that innocent bedroom wall."
Jake slammed the phone down. "Bastard."
"Feel better?" Patrick asked.
Jake glared at him.
"Imagine," Patrick said companionably to Megan. "Our friend here was once described to me as having nerves of steel and a control over his emotions and reactions that was nothing short of miraculous. In fact, I think the agency was trying to figure out some way to clone that control, or at least teach it to new recruits."
Jake looked at Megan. What was this? A grimace, scowl, glare, or moderately rueful grin? They'd all blended together tonight until she wasn't sure just what each one was.
"At least with Rolley P on the courthouse steps at five o'clock, we can be relatively sure he wasn't the one who tried to snatch you."
"I knew that already," she said.
"How?" Patrick demanded. "You said you couldn't see him and that he sounded as though he was disguising his voice."
Megan shuddered at the memory but refused to give in to it, not yet anyway. Maybe later. "It's simple," she said, trying for a grin, rueful or otherwise, of her own. "The middle I sank my elbow into wasn't soft."
"Jake?"
Tink Stanton stood in the door to his office. He'd already washed up and shed his lab coat. Megan drew herself erect and reached for Jake's hand.
"That's one lucky dog you've got there."
Jake's hand gripped hers. "Lucky would be for none of this to have happened," he said, and she heard the hoarseness he tried to hide with his rough words.
"Yes," Stanton agreed, "but it did. Have you considered he might be part cat? He certainly seems to have the proverbial nine lives."
"I wouldn't know, Doc." Now Jake grinned and extended his free hand toward the doctor, but he didn't release his grasp on hers. "You'd be the expert on that, having looked at the inside of him more than you look at most of your textbooks."
Megan shook her head and glanced at Barbara. "Let me guess," she said. "Friends since the first grade?"
Barbara laughed outright, a sound that was full of relief. "No, Tink is a newcomer. We didn't meet him until third grade. Good job, Tink," she said. "I knew if anyone could pull him through it would be you."
Tink's smile faded. "He's not completely out of the woods yet, Jake. I'll want to keep him a few days to monitor his progress."
Jake nodded his understanding. "How about his injuries?"
"The bullet did a lot of muscle damage, which I know you're much too familiar with to think it can't be serious, but it missed the major organs. And it missed his hip. Whoever did this was either in a big hurry or a really lousy shot, thank God.
"He's still under the anesthetic, and he will be most of the night. I come in at seven on Sunday mornings to check my weekend guests. Why don't you meet me back here then, and I'll be able to give you a better idea of when you can take him home."
They caravaned in their three separate vehicles to Barbara and Patrick's home. No one, it seemed, had eaten since the feast Mattie had provided for them hours before, not even Patrick, who had still been too full of Mattie's home cooking to sample the potluck specialties at the family reunion.
They all trooped wearily into Barbara's charming kitchen and dropped into chairs around the table looking at one another silently for several minutes. Jake propped his foot on a nearby chair and began massaging his thigh. When he saw Megan's worried glance, he started to put his foot down, apparently reconsidered, and continued his slow massage. Patrick's stomach groaned a protest, breaking the silence, and he patted it gently.
"That's what I was waiting for," Patrick said, "a sign to show me what I wanted more, sleep or food."
They all groaned, pushed up from the table, and began the task of gathering food, beverages, and utensils for a late-night meal. Megan set the table, and her trips back and forth from the cabinet took her past the group of pictures she had so admired, the one with the photo of the Three Musketeers and the pile of stones they had once stood beside.
She paused and looked at the photo again, at the tough little team that still worked so well together and at the flag sticking out of the pile of stones.
"When did it explode?" she asked.
"What, Megan?" Barbara asked from her hunched-over position in front of the refrigerator.
"The carbide house of Daniel Tanner. When did it blow up?"
"Don't know," she said. "Yes!" She snatched a jar of pickles from the back of the bottom shelf and turned, slamming the door of the refrigerator with a twitch of her hip. "Why?"
Megan looked back at the photo one more time. It had seemed important when she asked. Why indeed? "Don't know," she mimicked, shaking her head. But her attempt at humor fell flat. "I just—don't know."
None of them had much energy after the week they had already endured. Jake and Patrick talked for a few minutes about the slight to Patrick at the press conference, about the repercussions of Rolley P's well-placed innuendos, about the who and why of the attack on Megan, and even, in cryptic comments with curious undertones, about a conversation Patrick had held with someone that day.
Coffee was out of the question. They were wired enough already. Barbara searched for and found a bottle of wine in the back of the cabinet and poured a nightcap for each of them.
"Tell us again what happened, Megan," Patrick urged. "Though I know you damn well don't want to go over it again."
"I don't know what he was talking about," Megan said. "Because it didn't make any more sense then than now. Unless . . ."
"Unless what?" Jake asked.
"Sam Hooker," she said. "And there's no way on earth anybody but you and I and Mattie would know about that."
"Hooker?" Barbara asked. "Who's he?"
Could Barbara not know? Megan wondered. Was it possible that Mattie had never discussed with her own daughter the strange and confusing matters she had so easily shared with a stranger?
"Railroad gold? The old army payroll story?" Patrick straightened up from his elbows-on-the-table position, revealing that he, at least, was familiar with part of the story. "Why on earth would anyone drag that old rumor out?"
"See?" Megan said. "No sense at all."
"Can you remember the exact words, Megan?" Jake asked. "Not just the context, the exact words."
Megan closed her eyes to isolate herself from this warm gathering and almost instantly felt the chill of fear shudder through her, felt the hand clamped on her mouth. Determined not to give into it, she rubbed her hands over her arms and listened with all her senses for that harsh whispered voice.
" 'You know, don't you?' " she repeated slowly. " 'He told you. I said all along he did. And now you're going to tell him.' " She went on. "Something about had I already told and how he'd watched us today, and how he wouldn't get it, and then: 'It's mine. And you, bitch, are going to show me where it is. Now.' "
Only the sounds of their breathing broke the silence in the room until Barbara reached for her wineglass. "God," she said.
"Who's he?" Jake asked.
"More important"—Patrick picked up his wineglass and saluted Megan—"how could Sam Hooker tell you anything?"
"Don't," Megan said softly. "Please don't."
Patrick's wicked-looking grin slid from his face. "I'm sorry. Did I stuff my size twelves into my mouth again?"
Jake stood up and held out a hand for Megan. "Yes, but it's probably something we all need to talk about, since Mattie has made herself a part of it. But not tonight. We're all exhausted."
"Yes, we are," Barbara said. "And it's way too late for you to think about going home. Besides, you don't want to go up the hill and chase bad guys tonight. Stay here."
Jake looked at Megan for consent. She nodded. Barbara was right. She didn't want to go back to either his house or to hers tonight.
But now Barbara looked hesitant. Jake understood first. He grinned at his friend. "Give Megan the guest room," he said, answering her unspoken question. "I'll bunk down on the couch in the den."
Megan rose to go with Barbara, but she waved her back into her chair. "It will only take a minute to check out the room. Finish your wine. You too, Jake. Patrick will bring you some sheets and pillows, won't you Patrick?"
"What? Oh sure." With a quick nod, he followed Barbara, leaving Megan and Jake alone in the kitchen.
Jake had once again propped his foot on a chair to stretch out his leg. Now he dropped it to the floor and stood, stretching muscles that must be screaming in protest. But he voiced no complaint. He reached out to Megan and waited until she placed her hands in his, then tugged gently until she stood before him.
"It's been a hell of a day, Megan McIntyre. Are you going to be all right?"
Was she? She thought briefly of those few moments that afternoon when she had thought herself to be strong. When she had thought she might have a chance for a life with this man. When she had thought she could handle anything fate threw at her. But that was before the threat to herself had become even more personal than the anonymous telephone call. Before she realized that some time between waking up in Jake's arms that morning and standing now with her hands in his, she had lost the ability to defy her fear.
"What does he want, Jake?" she asked. "Why would he try to scare me into leaving and then not wait as much as a day for me to do it?"
Jake shook his head. "Mattie said something today about parallels. I thought at the time she was trying to make some point about Sam and Lydia. Now I have the feeling there's something I'm missing. Something we're all missing."
"You mean this is supposed to make sense?"
He smiled as he tugged on her hands again and pulled her into his arms. "Some of it."
"And there's no such thing as coincidence?"
"Rarely. Random acts of violence do happen. But not repeatedly to the same person, and not within a period of days. And certainly not in the backwoods of Pitchlyn County, Oklahoma."
"Oops." Barbara stopped in the doorway and shrugged. "Oh, well, since I'm already in the room." She placed the things she carried on the table. "Here's a new toothbrush, Megan. All my clothes are made in Munchkinville, so here's a Sooners' practice jersey for you to sleep in. Don't think about asking where Patrick got that. Your room is the last door on the right, and the bathroom is just this side of it. I'm out of here, but Patrick is making noises about wanting to talk to you, Jake. Shall I tell him to put a sock in it until tomorrow?"
Jake chuckled. "No. Megan's on her way to bed now, before she falls asleep on her feet. But I think I have a couple more minutes before I do the same. Thanks, Barb."
"Yeah, well, what are friends for," she muttered good-naturedly as she backed out of the room, "if not to interrupt every intimate moment?"
Jake laughed softly but waited until he heard Barbara speaking to Patrick some distance down the hallway before he spoke. "Is that what this was," he asked, "an intimate moment?"
Megan looked up at him, not even trying to keep the longing from her eyes. That's what this could have been, she realized, except for all the outside forces bludgeoning her every time she thought she might at last fight her way free of them.
No, she wasn't strong enough yet to tell Jake she wanted him. Until she was, she wasn't strong enough for him.
"Good night, Megan," he said regretfully, as he dropped his arms from around her.
He wasn't going to kiss her or tell her not to go. He wasn't going to hug her again. He was just going to stand there and let her walk out of this room without him.
"I'll come back here after I check on Deacon in the morning. Then we can decide what we need to do about your security and living arrangements."
Megan drew herself erect. "I'm going to the vet's with you."
"It isn't necessary."
"It's necessary for me, Jake. I'm responsible for what happened to him. If I hadn't gone wandering off in the woods by myself, he wouldn't be near death right now."
"And if I hadn't been fighting my rampaging hormones so that I had to leave the house to keep from crawling into bed with you, you wouldn't have been left alone to go wandering off into the woods."
Megan tilted her head to study Jake's expression. He looked almost as shocked by what he had said as she must. "Really," she said, feeling a totally inappropriate little smile stealing over her face.
"Of course, I'm responsible."
"No, no, no," she said. "The other. Did you really want to crawl into bed with me?"
"Oh, Megan." He stepped away and looked at her as he dragged his hands through his hair. "Yes."
Calm and in control, was he? Maybe once. Not now. Because that one word spoke volumes and worked wonders for her self-esteem. Not only had he wanted to then, he wanted to now. And only—only?—his sense of honor kept him from acting on that desire.
She raised up on her tiptoes and brushed her lips gently across his. "Good night, Jake." Turning, she picked up her nightshirt. "And don't even think about leaving this house tomorrow morning without me." Soon, she thought. Very soon she'd have to find a way to reconcile his honor with his desire—and hers.
I do not know how Sam convinced my father to let us be married. Nor do I care. In public he smiles at Sam and at the blooded citizens of this Nation. In private, he told me how I have dishonored him by wedding beneath my station.
If only he knew how Sam has saved us all from dishonor.
Or from public knowledge of it.
But of course I will not tell him. These are matters of which no one speaks, not even those who know the truth.
And now, after months of silence from him, after months of having suffered his displeasure and his absence, he wishes my attendance at his party: the party to show off the new carbide lighting in the house that will never be grand enough or large enough or modern enough or tasteless enough to satisfy his craving for position and power and esteem.
It matters not to him that I am convinced that his lighting is dangerous. It matters not that I am convinced his workmen were at best careless in the construction, at worst incompetent. It matters not that I cannot face strangers or those who once knew me.
Aunt Peg will not come.
I agree she will be eaten by envy, but she will not allow Daniel Tanner to see that. Nor will she grace his graceless home with her disapproving presence.
Could I hide what I have become from her?
Could I hide the sickness within me that now will not even allow me to accept small kindnesses from the man who is my husband if those kindnesses involve touch of any kind?
Could I hide from her the fear that will not allow me to leave the safety of this cabin, which will never truly be a home, or the fact that I have altered all my dresses so that I now have pockets in which to carry Sam's revolver with me at all times?
Peter has been commanded to appear. And Sam has been extended an invitation that has more of the appearance of a royal command.
Is he one of the invited guests?
I know no one believes me when I say he lurks nearby. I know that after the first few times when Sam searched futilely for some visible sign of the intruder, even he began to doubt my word.
Who is he? He is tall; I know that from the time he grabbed me. The army lieutenant? The one outlaw who escaped from the ambush? There was a tall thin one, one with a streak of cruelty that still has the power to wake me from my sleep. But surely he would know where the payroll is? And surely the lieutenant, if that is who it is, would have no reason to hide his presence from everyone but me?
Why won't he leave me alone?
I don't know anything!
I don't want to know anything!
Please, God, I just want to die.