Lydia

The mule snorted and shook its shaggy winter hide as she reined up alongside the porch. Only then did Donovan pause in his hammering to glare down at her. The contempt in his eyes froze her to the quick of her soul.

“I’ve come to see Varina and her new son,” she declared, thrusting out her chin.

“Varina’s fine,” he growled. “So’s the baby. We don’t need your kind looking in on us.”

“That’s not for you to say, Donovan.” Sarah swung out of the saddle, her medical bag clutched under her cloak. “When I hear it from your sister, that’s when I’ll leave.” She turned and strode determinedly toward the porch.

“That’s far enough.” Donovan’s sharp voice caught her like a blade between the shoulders. “Lady, if you don’t want one hell of a scene—”

“Miss Sarah!” Katy came bounding out onto the porch, her carrot-colored pigtails dancing. “I can do carries and borrows now! Uncle Donovan helped me last night! Come on in, and I’ll show you!”

“That’s wonderful, Katy.” Sarah accepted the chapped little hand and mounted the steps, avoiding Donovan’s seething gaze. How much had he told his sister? she wondered. Varina had been one of her staunchest friends here in Miner’s Gulch. But then, Varina had known nothing about her past.

Sarah stepped into the dimly lit cabin, braced for an onslaught of hostility. Varina may have gone West before the war, but its tragedy had touched her all the same. Like Donovan, she had lost a family home and a much-loved young brother. Who could blame her for hating the woman who’d had a hand in it all?

“Come on, Miss Sarah!” Katy tugged eagerly at her hand. “You can see little Charlie first! Then I’ll show you my carries and borrows!”

Little by little, Sarah’s eyes adjusted to the shadows. She could see Annie washing dishes at the counter, with Samuel clumsily drying them. In the darkest corner, Varina was sitting up in bed, nursing the baby. Sarah’s breath caught.

Varina was smiling.

“Sarah!” She reached out, beckoning with her free arm. “I was hoping you’d come today! Little Charlie and I are doing fine, as you can see. But I’m afraid I didn’t get a chance to thank you properly the other night. Come here!”

Sarah put down her medical kit and moved slowly toward the bed, tears stinging her eyes.

Donovan hadn’t told her. He hadn’t told any of them.

“Here—” Varina seized her shoulder, drawing her close in a loving embrace that almost shattered Sarah’s heart. “We owe you our lives, the two of us. I know I can never repay you, but if you ever need—”

“It’s all right, Varina!” Sarah squeezed the words out of her aching throat. “Seeing you like this, with your family, is repayment enough. I could never ask for more.”

“All the same—” Varina drew Sarah down until their gazes met on the same level. Her eyes were the same color as her brother’s, except that where Donovan’s shot icy sparks, Varina’s eyes glowed with the purest kindness Sarah had ever known.

Her grip tightened on Sarah’s arm. “All the same, Sarah, I want you to know that Varina Sutton is your friend for life. If ever you need anything from me, just ask, and—”

“Varina, I was only doing my Christian duty! It’s all right!” Sarah felt as if she were choking. She should tell her now, she thought. Tell her this minute and get it over with.

But no, it wouldn’t do. Not in this quiet moment with the children so near. Not with little Katy tugging at her skirt and Annie looking back over her shoulder with big, serious eyes. Varina would know soon enough.

The baby whimpered, squirmed and spat out his mother’s nipple, providing a welcome distraction. A tender smile wreathed Varina’s face. “It appears the little mite’s had enough. You can hold him now, if you like. But you’d best lay this cloth on your shoulder. He tends to spit after he’s eaten.”

Putting aside her cloak, Sarah draped the cloth over her shirtwaist and gathered the tiny, squirming bundle into her arms.

“Oh!” she whispered, snuggling the baby close as the sweet, milky aura enfolded her. “Oh, he’s beautiful!”

For Sarah, holding new infants never lost its wonder. She loved their softness, the incredible lightness of their little bodies, their tiny, puckered faces and clasping fingers. What would it be like to cradle a baby of her own? Would it ever happen?

But she could not even think about such a miracle, Sarah reminded herself. She was twenty-eight years old, a woman whose past would haunt her to the end of her days. No honorable man would ask for her hand in marriage. The best she could hope for was a lifetime of cuddling other women’s babies and teaching other women’s children.

Varina’s son stirred in her arms and opened round indigo eyes to gaze up at her. Sarah brushed a finger across the velvet scalp, teasing the delicate fuzz that showed promise of growing in fiery red like Varina’s hair and Katy’s.

And Virgil’s.

With cooing whispers, she lifted the infant to curl against her shoulder. Her hand gently patted the tiny back until she was rewarded by a wet little baby belch.

Varina chuckled. “I declare, Sarah Parker, you need babies of your own! You’d make a wonderful mother!”

“I seem to have my hands full just now,” Sarah murmured, muffling her words against the baby’s satin cheek.

“Listen, Sarah.” Varina’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “I should probably just be quiet and let nature take its course, but I’ve never been one to keep a thing to myself.” She leaned close to Sarah’s ear. “My brother hasn’t been the same since you were up here the other night. He’s been as restless as a tomcat under a full moon. Now, I know Donovan pretty well, and I’d say he’s taken a real shine to you!”

Sarah lowered her face, struggling to hide the hot rush of dismay that flooded her cheeks. From outside, Donovan’s furious hammer blows punctuated the pounding of her own heart. For all her stage experience, she found herself tongue-tied.

“Varina, I—”

“You what? He likes you. I can tell.”

“No.” Sarah shook her head, writhing inside. “You’re wrong, Varina. I’m not Donovan’s kind of woman at all.”

“Nonsense! You don’t know how many ladies have tried to trap that man over the years! Pretty ones! Wealthy ones! None of them seemed quite right. But you, Sarah, you’re different. You have an inner beauty that shines through your face. If you’d only show some interest in—”

Varina’s words were shattered by the crash of splintering wood and falling timbers against the outer wall. The sound galvanized both women. They stared at each other in alarm.

“Here—” Sarah thrust the baby back into Varina’s arms. “You stay put. I’ll go see what’s happened.”

Sarah gathered up her skirts and raced outside with the three children at her heels. The sight that met their eyes as they rounded the corner of the cabin stopped her heart cold.

Donovan was lying on the ground beneath a tumble of heavy beams. Lying as still as death.

“Stay where you are!” she ordered the children. “Annie, run back inside and get my medical kit. Don’t tell your mother what’s happened. Not till we know—”

Annie was gone like a streak. Katy had begun to whimper. “Miss Sarah…is Uncle Donovan dead like my pa?”

“Dead? Don’t be a little goose, Katy!” Sarah threw her full strength against the topmost beam, straining her tight corset stays as she swung the heavy end around and rolled it to one side. She had to hurry. She had to get the weight off Donovan’s chest before it crushed the breath out of him.

“Don’t let him be dead, Miss Sarah!” Katy whined.

“Be still and hold on to Samuel!” Sarah wrestled frantically with the next timber. She could see Donovan’s face now, white and still, the eyes closed. A small gash at his hairline was oozing blood.

No—with Virgil long since buried and Charlie Sutton not two months gone, they couldn’t lose Donovan, too. It would destroy Varina and her little ones. She had to get him free, had to save him…please…please…

Donovan’s head moved slightly. He groaned.

Sarah froze. As her heart began to beat again, she remembered the frightened children looking on. “Katy, Samuel, it’s all right!” she gasped, heaving the last timber aside. “He’s breathing! He’s alive! Tell Annie to hurry!”

She flung herself to the ground beside Donovan. He was alive, yes. But how badly was he hurt? He could have broken bones. He could have head injuries. He could-He groaned again as she placed a trembling hand on his chest. His skin was wind chilled, but his heart throbbed steadily against her palm. Sarah was dimly aware of Annie thrusting her medical bag into reach. Willing her emotions to freeze, she snatched it up and rummaged inside for the vial of smelling salts.

The big, stubborn fool! What business did he have trying to frame a cabin alone when he obviously knew nothing about it? He could have been killed. He could have-Sarah’s hands shook as she yanked out the stopper and waved the vial a finger’s breadth from his nostrils. Donovan’s face twitched. A shudder rippled his long, muscular body. His eyelids fluttered. Sarah held her breath as he opened his eyes and looked up at her.

For the space of a heartbeat his gaze held hers—warm and open, as if he saw into her soul and understood everything. But the bond was as fleeting as a moonbeam. His mind was clearing now. As he recognized her, his eyes glazed over with hatred.

“What the devil—?” He thrashed against her, struggling to sit up.

“Don’t try to move!” Sarah ordered in a frigid voice. “You could be hurt.”

“Blast it, I’m not—” His words ended in a grunt of pain as he collapsed back onto the ground.

“What is it? Your ribs? Keep still a minute.” Her fingertips slid over his sun-burnished flesh as she fought to detach her feelings, to make believe this was just another injured man she was touching, and not Donovan Cole.

But try as she might, Sarah could not close her mind to the manliness of his body—the finely sculpted curve of arm and shoulder, the splendor of his broadly muscled torso, the shadow of coarsely curling chestnut hair that trickled along the midline of his flat, tan belly to disappear in-Stop it! Sarah tore her eyes away from the distinctly male bulge that rose below his belt line. There was no part of a man she hadn’t seen before, she reminded herself bitterly. Donovan would be no different from Reginald Buckley, or from anyone else, for that matter.

He flinched visibly, biting back a yelp of pain as Sarah’s fingers probed along his left side.

“Hurts there, does it?” She paused, studiously avoiding Donovan’s eyes.

His sharp exhalation answered her question.

“Nothing feels broken, but you may have a cracked rib or two. How about your legs? Your arms?” Sarah tried to sound disinterested, as if it didn’t matter one way or the other. She was conscious of the three children, huddled in a worried little cluster, watching and waiting.

“My legs and arms are fine!” he groused. “Annie, Katy, you take Samuel and go back in the house! This isn’t a blasted sideshow!”

“They’re just concerned about you,” Sarah murmured as the youngsters scattered for the porch. “And you can hardly blame them, after what happened to their father.”

“Oh, damnation, don’t I know it?” Donovan sat up gingerly, blood dripping down his temple to mingle with the rough, reddish whiskers on his unshaven jaw. “I’d give anything if they’d just pull up stakes and go back to Kansas with me. But Varina’s as stubborn as that mule of yours. This was Charlie’s land, and now it’s hers. She won’t budge an inch.”

“Varina’s the finest woman I know. But you’re right, she can be stubborn. Hold still, now, while I clean up that gash on your head. Then we’ll see to your ribs.” Sarah fished a pint of cheap whiskey and a clean wad of cotton wool out of her bag. “This’ll sting some.”

He held himself rigid, wincing as she dabbed away the blood. “This doesn’t change anything, you know,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

“I didn’t expect it to.”

“You’ve still got till Monday night to be gone from Miner’s Gulch. Otherwise, I spill your treachery to the whole town.”

“Save your bluster, Donovan.” Sarah balled another wad of cotton wool and saturated it with the whiskey, hoping he wouldn’t notice her quivering hands. “I told you I wasn’t leaving. I meant it.”

His green eyes, inches from her own, narrowed like a puma’s. “If you’re gambling on the chance that I’ll back off, forget it. You’re the lying scum of the earth, Sarah Parker Buckley, or whatever your name is. I’ve hanged nobler souls than you, and I won’t have my nieces and nephews growing up under your influence. I won’t have my sister—ouch!” Donovan snarled as the stinging alcohol penetrated raw flesh.

Sarah had never realized words could hurt so much. Inwardly she recoiled as if he had struck her, but nothing showed in her face. Whatever happened, she could not let him see how deeply he had wounded her. She could not give him the satisfaction or the power.

Gulping back tears, she forced her features into an icy mask. “I’ll not have you telling me where I can or can’t make my home,” she declared coldly. “Do your worst, Donovan. It won’t make any difference. I can be just as stubborn as your sister, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“Then you’re a fool.” He stared sullenly past her shoulder as she applied a plaster to the cut. Her hands trembled where they touched his face. More than anything, she wanted to be done with this ordeal, to be back in the security of her little schoolroom with the door bolted behind her. But there would be no security anywhere for her, she realized. Not now.

“How much experience have you had framing a cabin?” she asked, breaking the weight of his silence.

Donovan’s jaw twitched, but he did not reply.

“A fortnight ago, I delivered Jemima Hanks down in the creek bottoms. Lanny Hanks, her husband, is an able carpenter. He needs work.” Sarah paused to retrieve the roll of muslin stripping she used for bellybands. “Raise your arms, now, and I’ll bind your ribs. Framing’s not a job for a lone man—not even one who knows what he’s doing.”

“Save your do-gooder advice for somebody else. I should have seen through you back in Richmond.” Donovan’s voice was a lash, but he did raise his arms, giving silent consent for Sarah to wrap the muslin around his bruised rib cage.

Sarah bent to the task, steeling herself against his nearness. Donovan held himself rigid, his whole frame radiating unspoken fury. Along his ribs, the flesh had already begun to discolor. The bruises would be painful for a long time to come.

“This wrapping will help, but you’re going to be sore. I’d advise you to take it easy for a few days.” She bent close to pass the binding around his back, swallowing a gasp as one tightly puckered nipple brushed her cheek. Donovan’s was a soldier’s body, hard, disciplined and nicked with the marks of battle. The track of a rifle ball creased his lean left flank. His right shoulder was pocked with shrapnel scars. They lay creamy white against his golden skin, oddly, compellingly beautiful.

Donovan’s lips tightened as the muslin passed around his ribs. His silence seethed, emanating ice-cold fury.

I should have seen through you back in Richmond.

The words echoed in Sarah’s ears as she struggled with the wrapping, bending close again to circle his rigid back. The memory that flashed through her mind was scalding in its pain.

Richmond…music…a waltz. Her peony pink gown afloat in the midst of the swirling ballroom. Golden epaulets blazing in the lamplight. Her lace-mitted hand, resting on the fine gray wool of Virgil’s tunic…

And Donovan, his face glimpsed through the shadows beyond Virgil’s shoulder, his mouth set in a hard line, his expression guarded and cautious, veiling his emotions.

Almost by chance their eyes had met—and in that blistering instant, it was as if their naked gazes had penetrated each other’s souls, leaving no secrets unseen. So searing was the connection that Sarah had gasped and torn her eyes away from him. For days afterward she had lived in fear, certain that he had detected her masquerade. Only now did she realize he had not. It was something else she had glimpsed that night. Something deeper.

Oh, Donovan, if only we’d been born different people, you and I. If only we’d come together in a less dangerous time…

Sarah’s hands had slowed in their task. Sensing his impatience, she hurried to finish. The children had not reappeared. Varina, Sarah realized to her chagrin, was probably keeping them inside the cabin to further her misguided matchmaking efforts.

“Leave the wrapping in place for the next few days, at least,” she said, snipping off the end and fashioning a square knot. “Promise me, too, you’ll get some help with that framing. You’ll never manage it alone, especially with cracked ribs.”

“Promise?” His wry chuckle carried the bitterness of a January wind. “I owe you no kind of promise, Miss Sarah Parker. It amazes me, in fact, that your lying lips can even speak the word.”

“Stop it!” Sarah jerked away from him, quivering with the fury of her frayed patience. “I can’t change who I am, Donovan Cole, not even for you, and I’m through apologizing for it! You gave me an ultimatum, and I gave you my answer! As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing more to say between us!”

“Nothing more to say.” He watched her through slitted eyes as she fumbled for the scattered contents of her medical kit—the scissors, the roll of stripping, the whiskey.

“Nothing more to say, Miss Sarah, except this—”

Donovan’s hand flashed out like the strike of a rattler, fingers locking on to her wrist. His powerful arm wrenched her hand behind her back, the motion pinning her against his chest.

Too startled to fight, Sarah stared up into his hard green eyes. His face was chiseled granite, his breath a harsh rasp in his throat.

“Back in Richmond, I treated you like a lady because you were my brother’s sweetheart!” he raged. “If I’d known the truth, I would have unmasked you then and there, Sarah Parker Buckley! I would have stormed your room and bedded you like the false-hearted little trollop you were—and are!”

Sarah’s outraged gasp was lost against the brutal impact of his lips. There was no tenderness in Donovan’s kiss, and certainly no trace of affection. His roughness wrenched her head backward, bowing her body hard against his naked chest. His contemptuous tongue invaded her mouth, probing, pillaging, challenging her to resist.

Head spinning, Sarah struggled in the vise of his arms. Oh, she knew what Donovan was after. He was intent on proving the truth of his own terrible words—proving to her and to himself that behind Sarah’s virtuous mask, Lydia Taggart still lived and breathed.

He was wrong. He had to be wrong. She had to show him.

She willed herself to go rigid against him, but this was Donovan. Donovan—and she had been alone too long. Her body was as pliant as tallow in his arms. Through the thin shirtwaist, her breasts had molded to the solid contours of his chest. Her lips were softening under the fire of his kiss. His tongue was a flame in her mouth, its heat rippling downward in sweet, hot waves. Sarah could feel her hips twisting against him, feel her whole being igniting like gunpowder…

No! The last vestige of reason screamed in her head. This man hated her. He was bent on her destruction. Give in to him now, and there was no hope for her.

With all her strength, Sarah shoved her arms against him. Donovan gasped at the sudden pressure on his rib cage. His grip loosened. Sarah tumbled away to sprawl in the spring mud, her skirts askew, her hair falling loose, her mouth damp and swollen from his bruising kiss.

Donovan bad collapsed against the timbers. His face was twisted in pain. His eyes flickered, half angry, half amused. Watching him, Sarah had just one wish—to be gone. She struggled to rise, stepped on her own petticoat and toppled headlong to the ground again.

For the space of a long breath she lay there, her face blazing as Donovan’s sardonic laughter filled her ears. He thought he had won, she realized. But he was wrong. By this time tomorrow he would know exactly how wrong he had been.

She clawed her way to a defiant crouch, facing him now like a wounded animal at bay. “You—you bullying bastard!” she hissed.

His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “Sanctimonious Sarah, the Angel of Miner’s Gulch,” he drawled. “What a joke! Strip away that self-righteous window dressing, and you haven’t changed a whit. Lydia Taggart is alive and well…and I just had the dubious pleasure of renewing our acquaintance.”

Sarah struggled to her feet, battling the urge to fly at him like an enraged wildcat. “Don’t think you can trifle with me, Donovan! I’ve got friends in this town, and I’m stronger than you know!”

“We’ll see about that.” His expression did not change as Sarah snatched up her medical bag and strode furiously toward her mule. In her muddy, disheveled state, she could not think of going back inside the cabin—not to see Katy’s carries and borrows, not even to retrieve the cloak she had left on a kitchen chair. The cold spring breeze buffeted her skirts, chilling her through the thin shirtwaist as she swung into the saddle.

Donovan had pulled himself to his feet. Catching Sarah’s eye, he raised his hand in a mocking salute. The insolent gesture snapped the final thread of her hard-won self-control.

“I should have just let you lie there!” she sputtered, jabbing her heels into the mule’s shaggy flanks. “I should have let you die!”

Jerking the reins, she wheeled the mule and bolted for the trees. A gust of wind caught her tousled hair, whipping it loose to stream behind her like a banner. Her spectacles dangled forgotten from the silver brooch on her shirtwaist. Tears blinded her eyes—tears she could not afford to let Donovan see.

She clung to the saddle, grateful for the mule’s sure feet as they lurched down the trail. Donovan’s mocking kiss burned her lips and seared her memory. He had all but undone her, she realized. Another instant in his arms and her defenses would have shattered.

At close quarters, she was no match for him. He was too bitter; she was too vulnerable. Her only hope, Sarah knew, lay in keeping her distance—that, and fighting him with the one sure weapon that lay within her reach.

The truth.

Chilled, now that his rage was spent, Donovan shivered in the raw spring wind. His lips stung with the memory of kissing Sarah. His cracked ribs burned like a jab from the devil’s own pitchfork.

Reaching for his flannel shirt, he slipped his arms awkwardly into the sleeves. As his numbed fingers worked the buttons, Sarah’s parting epithet rang in his ears.

I should have let you die!

His fingers brushed the ridge of the muslin bandage. It was true that Sarah had probably saved his life. A minute more under the crushing weight of those timbers, and the breath would have been squeezed from his body. She had saved him, just as she’d saved Varina and the baby.

But it wasn’t enough.

Donovan rubbed his burning mouth with the back of his hand, wiping away the taste of her deceitful lips. His jaw tightened as he forced himself to remember what she had done.

As Lydia Taggart, Sarah Parker Buckley had plotted against her friends and neighbors in Richmond—people who had welcomed and accepted her. She had used trusting young men like Virgil to betray the Confederacy. Her lying ways had killed Virgil as surely as if she’d fired the mortar shell that shattered his body. And Virgil was only one man. Who could say how many other lives her treachery had cost the South?

No, Donovan told himself, whatever good Sarah had done here in Miner’s Gulch, it wasn’t enough. It didn’t balance the scales. It couldn’t buy back Virgil’s life.

He exhaled painfully as the mule’s iron-shod hooves echoed down the gulch. Kissing Sarah had been a damn fool thing to do, he reflected. He’d started out with the idea of keeping things clean and businesslike between them. All he’d wanted was to get her out of Miner’s Gulch, away from his kinfolk. Then something in him had gone haywire.