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Gift Of The Heart. Miranda Jarrett
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Автор произведения Miranda Jarrett
Издательство HarperCollins
Because she’d taken the time to sweep her front step clear of snow she was late tending to her cow, and as she tugged the door across the little drift of snow Rachel could hear Juno lowing restlessly. At once Billy slid from her back and ran after the rooster and his hens, waving Blackie wildly at the fleeing chickens.
“Good day to you, my lady Juno,” said Rachel to the russet cow. “I trust you passed the night tolerably well?”
Yet she frowned as she scratched the cow’s velvety nose in greeting, and glanced back uneasily at the planked door. She’d been sure she’d latched that door tightly when she’d finished milking last night, yet this morning the bar had been dangling free. No wonder the animals seemed so skittish. If she wasn’t more careful she’d lose her “lady” as well as her poultry to wolves or mountain cats.
“Mama!” Billy’s frantic, frightened wail drew Rachel at once. She rushed around to the far side of the manger to where he’d chased the chickens, and lifted him into her arms.
“There now, love, all’s well,” she murmured, stroking his soft gold hair as he burrowed his face into her shoulder. “I wasn’t far. You couldn’t see me, that was all. I was here the whole time.”
But the little boy only wept harder as Rachel strove to comfort him, rocking from side to side. What could have frightened him so badly on such a bright, sunfilled morning? Finally Billy lifted his head with a shuddering sob and dared to peek around Rachel’s shoulder. What he saw made him howl again, and cling as tightly as he could to Rachel.
“What could it possibly be, child?” she said as she turned, too. “There’s nothing—oh, God in heaven!”
From where she stood the man looked dead, sprawled across the straw where he’d fallen, but still Rachel wished she had her musket with her. The man’s own rifle lay beside him where it had slipped free of his hand, and before she could change her mind Rachel put Billy down and darted forward to pick up the gun. Holding it in both hands, she felt better; living alone had given her a greater respect for firearms.
She was sure this stranger was—or had been—some sort of soldier. Though he was dressed like most men who spent their lives in the wilderness—a white blanketlike coat with indigo stripes, deerskin leggings and hunting shirt over another of checked linen, a long knife in a beaded sheath at his waist, a wide-brimmed hat with a turkey feather in the brim, and everything soaked with melted snow—the tomahawk hanging from his belt told another story.
Troubling, too, was the extra powder horn slung around his chest and another bag for shot and wadding, far more ammunition than any common trapper or wanderer would carry. The rifle in her hands was much finer, too, with a cherry-wood barrel inlaid with stars and elegant engraving on the plate. German made, she guessed, or maybe Philadelphia, but too valuable for most of the men in this part of New York.
Still the man didn’t move. Carefully she knelt beside him, Billy clinging to her skirts. The shoulder of the stranger’s coat was stained dark with dried blood, the ragged hole in the fabric doubtless matching one in him, and sadly she wondered how he’d come to be in such a sorry state.
He was younger than she’d first thought, no more than twenty-five or thirty, his jaw and mouth hidden by a fortnight’s growth of beard. His hair was long and untied, the ends curling over his collar, and the rich, burnished color of chestnuts. His features were strong and even, his nose and cheekbones marked with a scattering of freckles nearly lost on his weatherworn skin, freckles too boyish for the hard living that showed in every inch of his face.
A handsome man, admitted Rachel reluctantly, the kind of man who turned ladies’ heads with a smile and a wink. But dead or alive, he wouldn’t turn hers. She’d had enough of that with William, and she wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
“Mama?” asked Billy, all his doubts—and hers, too—clear enough to Rachel in that single word. What was she going to do with the man? Much as she wished he hadn’t come stumbling into her life, she couldn’t very well leave him here. Tentatively she reached out to touch his neck to find his pulse, if one still was there to find. She slipped her fingers inside his collar, his hair curling so familiarly around her wrist that she almost jerked away. Foolish, she chided herself angrily, foolish, foolish, to draw away from the meaningless touch of an unconscious man!
His skin was as hot as the snow in the fields was cold, and though she now knew he lived she wondered for how much longer, burning with a fever like this. As her fingers pressed against the side of his neck he groaned, the vibrations of it passing to her fingertips. Billy yelped and retreated behind the manger, and Rachel wished she could, too.
“Hush, Billy, he can’t hurt you,” she said, reassuring herself as much as the child. She bent over the man, keeping his rifle in her hand just to be sure. “He won’t be hurting anyone for a good long time.”
She had to get him into the house where the fire would warm him, and where she could tend to his wound. But though she was tall for a woman, he still looked to have half a foot advantage over her, and Lord only knew how much more he weighed. More than she alone could drag along the snowy path to the house, that she knew for sure.
“Sir? Can you hear me, sir?” she asked uncertainly. The man didn’t move again. “I want to take you back to the house so I can tend you properly, but you’re going to have to help me some.”
Suddenly Billy ran forward to the wounded man. With a shriek of bravado and indignation at being ignored by Rachel, he thumped his stuffed horse as hard as he could on the man’s chest. The man’s eyes flew open and he twisted and gasped with agony, but at the same time his hand groped reflexively for his knife.
“Billy, no!” Frantically Rachel pulled the boy away and shoved him behind her as she raised the rifle. Her heart pounding, her gaze met that of the stranger’s over the long barrel of the weapon. His eyes were blue, as blue as the sky outside, and filled now with confusion and pain. He blinked twice, his breath coming hard. He opened his shaking fingers and let the knife drop from them into the straw.
“I would not harm the boy,” he said slowly, painfully. Despite the cold, his forehead was glazed with sweat. “You must believe me.”
“I’ve no reason to believe anything of the sort.” With her toe Rachel kicked the knife across the floor. “I’m willing to help you, but no trickery.”
“You are…kind.” The man tried to smile, his mouth curving crookedly and with more charm than any man so close to death had a right to. But Rachel didn’t lower the rifle. The bluest eyes she’d ever seen and a smile to make angels weep weren’t reasons enough for her to trust him.
“And you,” he said, every word labored, “you won’t kill me with my own gun?”
With a sniff Rachel took the rifle from her shoulder. “Can you stand?”
“If you say I must.” With enormous effort and a groan he couldn’t suppress, he rolled over onto his knees and stayed there, his breath ragged. Rachel’s resolve wavered. Handsome or not, the man was weak from pain and lost blood, and he deserved her help.
Sighing, she leaned his rifle against the wall, opened the barn door and bent to slide her arm around his waist. Gratefully he put his arm across her shoulder and with a grunt managed to stand upright. Together they swayed unsteadily, the man’s weight almost too much for Rachel to manage. Having Billy clinging jealously to one of her knees didn’t help her balance one bit, either.
“Where’s your man?” the stranger asked when they’d managed to hobble to the wall for him to rest.
Rachel chewed on her lower lip, considering how best to answer. Most likely the man wanted to know if there was someone larger and more able to help him, but even weak as he was, she didn’t want him knowing exactly how alone she and Billy were.
“My husband’s not here at present,” she answered