Megan Chance (26 page)

"And you didn't tell them differently?"

Michael gave her a desperate look. "I couldn't tell them different, Sari. I didn't know." He scowled. "But I did tell them not to touch you. That I wouldn't allow it."

"But they didn't take the blackmark away."

"No, they didn't," Michael agreed.

"So is that why you're here?" she asked, and her heart squeezed with the words. "You were their assassin. Does that mean you've come to kill me? The raid on the soddy ... was that you?"

To his credit he blanched. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "There's been no raid."

"But there was," she insisted. "Onkle was beaten."

"Not by us," Michael said. "Jesus, Sari. You're my sister. It may not mean much to you, but I do love you. You saved my life; I'll do'what I can to make sure they don't take yours."

Sari felt numb. Her brother's admission shocked her; she hadn't truly believed Conor when he told her she was marked; she had believed Michael had the power to prevent it. That he didn't surprise her. That he'd had nothing to do with the raid . .. She didn't know what to think about that, wouldn't let herself think.

She stood again, backing away from him. "The sleepers are dead, brother," she said firmly. "That way of life is over. Pinkerton crushed it. It's rime you and the others understood that."

His face tightened. "You're wrong—"

"Nineteen men died—not because of Conor but because they broke the law. How many others have to die? How many, Michael?"

"It's not over," he insisted. "We have plans. There are ways...."

"I'll see you hanging from the gallows yet," Sari said. She rose and grabbed her scarf from the table, wrapping it around her hair before she turned to look at him. She saw the anger on his face, that brilliance in his eyes, and wished he were different. Wished everything were different. "I want you to understand one thing, Michael. I'm not helping you get well just so that I can watch you die. This is the last time I help you. The last time. The Christmas dance is in two days. I want you gone by then."

He eyed her steadily. The silence fell between them, stark and heavy, and then he nodded—a short, hard morion. "I understand, sister dear," he said, and there was a touch of mockery in his words and no affection at all.

Sari knotted her scarf around her chin and stepped out into the cold.

Conor struggled with the fence. The barbed wire ripped at his heavy gloves as viciously as the wind whipped at his face. Particles of ice blew off the evaporating snow on the ground, biting at what little skin wasn't covered by hat or coat or scarf, but he was sweating so with exertion that the frigid blasts almost felt good.

He paused, letting the fence sag, wiping his face with the back of his hand and staring out at the bleak gray and white horizon. This was a hard land. Harder, he expected, than most, but he was beginning to see promise in the far-reaching plains. There was something strangely peaceful about the prairie, something lonely too. He liked the way the land went right to the edge of the horizon, stopped only by the shadowy range of the Rockies that loomed up as if to say, "Stop right there. No farther for you."

He thought of how it would look when these plains were planted, when wheat and corn nodded their heavy heads in the wind. He wondered if he would like the change, and then smiled at the thought. A month ago just the idea of this land put a chill inside him, made him feel lonely and strange. Now, suddenly, he was imagining how it would look months from now. Imagining himself standing here, watching the changes.

Conor Roarke, a farmer. God, how his friends would laugh if they knew.

Conor frowned at the thought. Friends. He tried to put faces to the word and couldn't, and it dawned on him then, standing there in the freezing wind with barbed wire glinting mean and ugly in the cold sun, that he didn't have any friends. He'd had the Mollies, the men he'd laughed and played with—lied to—for two years. The men he'd turned in to the law with a sense of duty that didn't allow regret.

He'd had his father.

And he had Sari.

He wondered if she would laugh at the notion of him tilling the soil. Wondered if she ever imagined it, if she ever thought of what it would be like if he stayed.

He'd been wanting to ask her that question for days now, but he hadn't had a chance to talk to her alone. Charles was always around, and when he wasn't, Sari was mysteriously gone—out to milk the cows or tend the animals, he supposed, and wondered if he would ever know all the things that had to be done on a farm. If she even wanted him to learn.

The question burned inside of him. Lately she'd been evading his gaze; there had been an edge of tension in her body that hadn't been there before. He knew Sari well enough to know what it meant. She was having second thoughts; probably she was regretting those days during the blizzard. She had a tendency to think about things too much; no doubt she'd already decided what the future should be— and whether or not it included him.

Conor glanced down the line. Charles was farther down, working his own line of fence. Conor waited until the old man looked up, and then he waved at him and motioned toward the house. Charles waved back at him, telling him to go on, and Conor stepped away from the fence and walked toward the soddy, determined to find Sari this time, to talk with her.

He was nearly to the house when he saw her. She was hurrying from the back of the yard, her chin lowered, her face buried in her scarf. Her step was quicker than he'd seen it before, almost furtive, and she was carrying something in her arms, holding it tightly against her chest.

He smiled at the sight of her. Quickly he took the last steps and pressed against the soddy wall, waiting until she rounded the corner. When she did, he reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her against his chest.

She squeaked a scream, dropping what she held in surprise. It clattered to the ground and rolled—a bowl, he saw, splashing what was left of what had been inside across the thin snow.

"Conor," she said breathlessly. "You startled me.”

"Sorry, love." He smiled at her, and then he swooped down and retrieved the bowl, handing it to her with a flourish. "Feeding someone?"

"The... the birds," she said. She motioned limply to the back of the soddy.

"Oh?" He raised an eyebrow, teasing her. "They like stew?"

"Yes." The word came out on a rush of sound. She backed away from him, clutching the bowl again to her chest. Her brown eyes shifted—to his feet, to his chest, to the wall behind him. "You aren't working on the fence?"

"I'm taking a break," he said. "It occurred to me it's been some time since you and I were alone together."

"Oh." She laughed slightly; there was a nervous edge to it that he found endearing. "Yes, I guess so."

"So how about making me a cup of coffee? It's a cold day, and I've been working hard."

"Of course." She took a deep breath—so deep, he wondered if the air burned her lungs—and stepped to the door. He followed her inside. The warmth of the soddy felt good, the smells of corn bread baking and beans and ham fragranced the air. He closed the door behind them and leaned against the wall, watching as she laid the bowl aside, and then unwound her scarf from her hair, leaving tendrils loose and dangling against her neck, curling to her shoulders. She took off her coat and hung it on the peg beside the door, and then she went to the stove and picked up the enormous tin pot that always stood at the ready, full of hot coffee.

Conor unbuttoned his duster and took off his hat, feeling warmed by the very sight of her. Such grace she had, the way she poured coffee, with her neck bowed to reveal that soft skin of her nape, the way the muscles in her arm flexed as she set the heavy pot aside. The way she turned....

She met his gaze; her cheeks colored. "You're staring at me," she said.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you're so beautiful." He took the cup from her and set it on the table, and then he curled his arms around her, settling his hands on her waist, pulling her close. He nuzzled her neck; she smelled of icy air and coffee. "I've missed you these last days, love."

Her hands pressed against his chest, a subtle pressure. "I've missed you too," she said, though he heard something else in her voice and felt the tension in her body.

He'd been an operative too long, he thought. He read people too well. There were times, like now, when he wished he didn't, when he would have preferred to live in ignorance about how someone else was feeling, what she was thinking. But now, all he felt was that tension in Sari, that pushing away.

He stepped back and looked into her face. She looked at his chest. Conor cupped his hand beneath her chin, bringing it up, forcing her to look at him.

"What is it, Sari?" he asked softly. "What's bothering you?"

Her eyes widened in feigned innocence. "Nothing."

"Don't lie to me. You haven't looked me straight in the eye for days. What's wrong? Have I done something? Said something?"

She shook her head. "No. You've done nothing."

"Then what is it?"

She pulled away from him. Her hands fluttered in a half-finished gesture as she turned to the stove. "It's just... it's nothing."

He frowned.

"I've been thinking about the Christmas dance," she said. "That's all. I don't... have anything to wear."

He thought of the cloth he'd stolen from her trunk. The cloth that he'd had Charles take into Woodrow with him that night of the blizzard. Mrs. Landers could sew, Sari's uncle had promised him. Mrs. Landers could make the dress Conor envisioned. But it wasn't done yet; it wouldn't be done before the dance tomorrow night.

"You could wear sackcloth and still look fine," he said. "And I don't believe that's what's bothering you."

She looked at him over her shoulder. That faint blush still stained her cheeks; she looked breathless and distracted. "Well, it is," she said defensively, and then she turned all the way around and stepped purposefully toward him. She grabbed his hands in hers and leaned into him, kissing him hard on the lips, molding her mouth to his.

"I've missed you," she whispered again, and there was a power in the words that convinced him.

Conor smiled. He pulled her closer, spoke against her mouth. "You'll be beautiful at the Christmas dance whatever you wear," he said. "You can't tell me there'll be anyone else dressed as fine."

She laughed. "Calico and gingham most likely."

"Well, at least I have fancy teacakes to look forward to," he teased. "And lemon punch."

"Stack cakes and cider," she teased back, kissing him again. "And a fiddler playing ‘Turkey in the Straw.'"

"No waltzes?"

"I believe the preacher is still calling it the devil's invention," she said. "He's only about fifty years behind the times."

"Well, for innocent girls I can see how it could lead to a life of sin. All that... touching." Conor shuddered in mock horror.

Sari laughed out loud. The sound of it jangled like bells through his soul. "I believe all those years in a Catholic parish have surely left their scar upon your spirit. No doubt you'll go to heaven after all."

"And after all the time I've spent trying to prevent it."

She tapped his mouth lightly with her finger. "Well, you've failed miserably, I'm afraid."

"I'm too much of a worldly soul," he said. "Because all I can think is that heaven is right here— where you are."

He was half teasing, half serious, but the words changed her. He saw it immediately; the way she tightened up again, the stone-solid set of her shoulders. She pulled away, looked away, and there was such seriousness in her face, along with a desolation that flitted through her eyes so quickly, he was left wondering if he'd seen it at all.

He reached for her, feeling that desperation inside of him, the fear that she would retreat too far, that he wouldn't be able to find her. His hand closed around her wrist, tightened around those fine, slender bones. Her gaze snapped to his.

"Sari," he said, and he heard that desperation in his words, that strange breathlessness. "Sari, love, we have to talk."

He thought for a moment that she would deny the truth of it, that she would pull away and go back to the stove and tell him no, but she didn't. She looked at him for a long moment, and then she said, "I know." She disentangled herself from him, wrapped her arms around her chest, and he saw something that looked like fear—or, not fear, but a loss of hope, a loneliness, that made his heart feel swollen and sad.

"But not today," she said. "There are ... things ... I need to think about."

"Things?"

She gave him a small, sad smile. "Just things, Conor," she said gently. "Please."

He nodded, though her answer took away the lightness he'd been feeling for the past days, added a weight to the hope that had started inside of him. He looked beyond her, to the mildewed newspapers on the walls, the darkness barely held at bay by the lamp, the steam rising from the heavy iron pot full of beans. It felt damp and dark suddenly, and the day seemed to have soured around him.

"Something's wrong," he said again.

She shook her head—a little sadly, he thought. "Go back to the fence," she said. Then that odd smile again. "Go be a farmer."

"A farmer," he repeated. "You think I could be?"

"I don't know," she said. "Can you?" And then she turned away from him, grabbing her apron from the hook beside the stove and tying it on, leaving him completely even though she didn't quit the room. Leaving him with the question dangling in his ears, and the strange, unfamiliar thought that she didn't care about the answer. That she already knew what it was.

"It
is
helping," Sari corrected him. "You already sound better."

"I don't feel better."

"You were nearly passing out last night. Surely you feel stronger today."

He smiled at her, and though it wasn't as brilliant as usual, it was still warm and charming. Sari felt herself responding, just as she always did, with a smile of her own.

"That's the way," he urged hoarsely. "That's the Sari I know."