Authors: Lydia
She paused to tighten the sash of her tattered silk wrapper, her hair and clothes exuding a rich aura that blended sweat, cigar smoke and cheap eau de cologne. “Faye Swenson’s the name,” she declared, extending a man-size hand. “An’ I guess you’d be Mr. Donovan Cole.”
Donovan accepted the woman’s powerful handshake. “I’m glad you came,” he murmured, tugging her toward
the bedroom. “Sarah’s not doing at all well. She’s burning up with fever, and Satterlee wants her out of here by sunup.”
Faye’s muttered sentiment echoed Donovan’s opinion of the storekeeper, but her breath caught in a gasp as she touched Sarah’s cheek.
“Willow bark tea,” she grunted. “It was Miss Sarah herself told me about it. Old Injun remedy. Best thing for fevers. But first we got to get this poor lamb out of here. From what Zoe heard, MacIntyre an’ his pals might be cookin’ up more devilry. We can’t let them bastards find her.”
“If you know of somewhere safe—”
“We got a spare room upstairs. Safest place in town, long as we can keep Smitty from knowin’ about it.” She glanced at Donovan with watery blue eyes. “She’s a real angel, that Miss Sarah. Most folks don’t know she was friends with the likes of us. But Greta and Zoe and me, there ain’t nothin’ we wouldn’t do for her.”
Donovan glanced down at Sarah’s fitfully sleeping face.
The Angel of Miner’s Gulch.
His own mocking words came back to haunt him now. Angel or devil—who was this woman?
“Best we move her now, afore it gets light,” Faye was saying. “Then we’ll need you to go down by the creek and strip some willows for the tea. Leave the bark by the back door—we’ll find it all right.”
Nodding his agreement, Donovan scooped up Sarah, sheet and all, and strode with her toward the door. She was weightless in his arms, her hot body as limp as death. His throat tightened with concern.
Faye had gone ahead to scout. Now she came creaking back up the stairs. “All clear—but hurry!” she whispered.
Donovan followed her across the alley, through the thicket of blue spruces, up the hidden back staircase and into the cloyingly scented darkness of the upper rooms.
Sarah hung in his arms, moaning softly as he shifted her position to accommodate the narrow hallway.
“Here—” Faye had lit a candle and opened a doorway at the far end of the hall. Donovan carried Sarah into a dim, tawdry room furnished with a wardrobe, a dresser and a stripped-down bed. He remembered, now, hearing that one of Smitty’s girls had died of consumption. This, he realized, would be her room.
“Hold her another minute while I throw a clean sheet on the mattress,” Faye said. “Then you’d best be off after that there bark. Sooner you can get some back to us, the better.”
Donovan cradled Sarah against his chest, torn by a strange reluctance to let her go. He could only hope that Faye was right about the willow bark, and that she was as capable as she appeared. He could not bear the thought of Sarah spending the last hours of her life in such a godforsaken place.
Sarah moaned and stirred slightly, her head falling back against his sleeve. Looking into her lovely, ravaged face, Donovan was struck by the realization that he could never allow himself to see her again. His feelings for Sarah Parker were a betrayal of everything he had ever stood for—his family, his principles, his loyalty to the defeated South. For his sake and hers, they would have to remain apart. They would have to remain enemies. Otherwise, even under the best of circumstances, his bitterness would seep out and destroy her.
“One thing, Faye,” he ventured as if the thought had just occurred to him. “Miss Sarah doesn’t exactly have a high opinion of me. She might not take kindly to the idea of my having nursed her. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention my part in this.”
Faye’s shrewd eyes, pale in the candlelight, flashed their understanding. “Don’t worry, we won’t say nothin’ about it,” she grunted. “Here, you can put her down now.”
Donovan laid Sarah tenderly on the bed, battling the urge to bend down and kiss her soft lips. “Get well,” he whispered. Then he forced himself to turn away. The darkness waited outside, and the creek, with its life-giving willows. There was no time to lose.
S
arah was aware of the scent even before she opened her eyes. She knew it at once—that pungent blend of smoke, perfume, incense and carnality that she had long since come to associate with the rooms above the Crimson Belle.
Her nostrils twitched as her limbs stirred sleepily. How weak she felt, as if every cell in her body had been drained of its substance. Even her eyelids seemed incapable of movement. It required the full concentration of her willpower just to raise them to the faint reddish light.
The light…
She gasped as she came awake to the dim glow of sunshine through threadbare velvet curtains. She was in Marie’s familiar scarlet-walled room, in the very bed where Marie had died. Yes, there was the wardrobe on the far wall, the perfume bottles and rose glass lamp on the dressing table, the tarnished brass spittoon in the corner.
Only Sarah herself was out of place.
For a long moment she lay still, scarcely daring to breathe as the questions churned darkly in her mind. She had no memory of coming here, no recollection of what had brought her to this room. But one thing was certain. She needed answers. Now.
Straining with the effort, she worked an elbow under her body and managed to raise her head and shoulders. Her
free hand moved instinctively to brush her long hair from her face.
Her
hair.
Sarah clutched at her shorn head as the shock of memory slammed home like an explosion. The shattered door. The sickening odor of tarPanic surged through her ravaged body. This was a dream, one of her nightmares, that was all. But now she had to get up. She had to prepare her schoolroom for the day, the children would be comingLurching out of bed, she took a single wobbly step, swayed, then crumpled to the faded Persian carpet with a helpless cry. The sound brought Greta pounding into the room.
“Ach! What are you doing out of bed? Lie down, before you make yourself sick all over again!”
Too dizzy to protest, Sarah allowed the plump, blond woman to boost her back into bed and tug the blankets up to her chin. She lay quivering with agitation as Greta’s white hands, glittering with cheap rings, smoothed the sheet evenly over the top edge and tucked the edges neatly under the mattress. Sarah was warm, too warm. Her nightdress was sticky with sweat.
“Greta—” Her voice emerged as a rasp from her dry throat. “What’s going on? Stop fussing and tell me!”
“Ja, I will tell you. But first some good, hot soup!”
“But I need to know everything—”
“No, first you eat. Then we talk.” Greta bustled out of the room, her heavy footsteps creaking down the narrow hallway as Sarah sank back into the pillows. Yes, it was coming back now. She’d gone to deliver Betsy Mae’s baby and fallen into the swollen creek. And she’d awakened later with a fever. That was when she’d seen the flames outside-Sarah clenched her teeth as quivering spasms racked her body, leaving her breathless. It wasn’t the fever this time. The sweat that soaked her nightgown told her plainly that
the fever had broken. No, it was something else. Something so fearful that her memory would not let her open its doors more than a crack.
“Here you are!” Greta had come bustling back with a bowl of steaming chicken soup. “Now, eat. Build your strength, meine kleine maus. Ach, so ill you have been! For the first two days we feared you might not live!” She dipped a generous spoonful of the soup, blew on it and thrust the lip of the spoon between Sarah’s dry, cracked lips.
“Greta—”
“Eat!”
The hot liquid shocked Sarah’s mouth for an instant. Then, suddenly, it was as if she could not get enough. She sank back into the pillows with hungry compliance and, for the next few minutes, simply allowed Greta to spoon-feed her like a baby.
“Ja…” Greta’s thickly rouged face creased in an approving smile. “That’s right. The fever made you weak. You must eat, eat to grow strong again!”
Sarah closed her eyes as the warm nourishment curled pleasantly into her stomach. She could feel its strengthening heat radiating into her limbs. She could feel stirrings of life in a body that felt as if she had not eaten in days.
Days…
Sarah’s eyes jerked open. “Greta, how long have I been here?”
“Five days. Eat.”
“Five days!” She sat bolt upright, knocking the spoon from Greta’s hand. It clattered to the floor as she seized the woman’s fleshy, braceleted arm. “My classroom—my students—I have to get back—”
“Nein.”
Something flickered in Greta’s face as she bent to pick up the spoon. “No more classroom for you. You cannot go back to that place. Ever.”
“I don’t understand—” Sarah kicked her legs over the edge of the bed in a frantic struggle to get up. But Greta’s
strong hand, shoving insistently against her sternum, was all it took to flatten her once more against the pillows.
“Listen to me,
liebchen.
You cannot go back to your little school. You cannot show yourself anyplace in this town.”
“What—”
“The people—they think you went to Central City and got on the Denver stage. That’s what they were told. It was the only way to keep you safe.”
“But, my things—”
“Your things are packed in your trunk, in the storeroom.” Greta bent closer, her voice a wine-saturated whisper. “In a few more days, when you are strong enough, then we will help you find a way to leave—at night, when no one will see.”
“Oh—” A despairing moan escaped Sarah’s lips as she sank back into the bedclothes and lay staring wretchedly at the ceiling, crushed by her own awareness.
She had wanted so desperately to redeem herself here in Miner’s Gulch. She had tried so hard. But she had failed. The years of hope and backbreaking effort had come to nothing. Now, in the end, she would be forced to sneak out of town like a common fugitive.
Sarah had always detested self-pity. But now, weak and bewildered, she allowed the ugly emotion to seep into her system, allowed its black weight to drag her down. She had come so close to finding a life here. Then Donovan Cole had come storming into her world and made a shambles of it all. His unforgiving anger had stripped away her mask. His hatred had spread like an epidemic, and in the end…
Sarah’s fingers crept furtively to her scalp, probing and exploring, as if to make certain the nightmare was real. Her hair would grow in time, she reminded herself. But it was hopeless to think she could ever put Richmond behind her. And even if she lived to be an old, old woman, nothing she did would atone for the sins of Lydia Taggart. Donovan Cole had seen to that.
Donovan.
His image flashed vividly before her, the acuteness of memory so sharp that she almost cried out. If only things had been different. But no, it wouldn’t do to think of Donovan now. Donovan was her enemy. He had brought about her downfall. She had to accept the fact that she would never see him again.
Hardening herself to the challenge, Sarah erased his features from her mind—the luxuriant chestnut hair that curled at a touch, the smoldering green eyes, the stonechiseled nose, cheeks and jaw, the passionate mouth that had caressed and cursed her. No more Donovan. Ever.
And no more wallowing in her own emotions! There were new questions now, bubbling to the surface in her seething, confused mind, demanding answers.
“Greta, how did I get here? Who brought me?”
“You don’t remember?” Greta had turned to the pointless task of rearranging Marie’s jumbled perfume bottles on the dresser.
“No.” Sarah tottered on the edge of a black abyss. “I don’t remember any of that part.”
“What do you remember?”
“Waking up sick and seeing the fire. Smelling the tar. Trying to hide…” She had begun to shake again. “I know there’s more. It’s as if part of me doesn’t want to remember.”
“Then don’t try.” Greta bent over her to tuck the stray covers around Sarah’s chin. “Rest and eat and keep warm, that’s all you should do until you’re stronger. Remembering is
verboten,
ja?”
“What do
you
remember?” Sarah persisted recklessly. “What did you see?”
Greta’s massive breasts quivered with her shrug. “Nothing. Smitty was afraid we would try to help you. The old devil ordered the three of us to the wine cellar. He locked us up till it was over.”
Sarah exhaled forcibly and tried to relax. Greta was right. Until she was stronger, the memory was best left alone. Why not just let it be?
But something was driving her, edging her beyond the point of risk. There were things she had to know.
“Someone must have talked, someone must have told you what happened,” she said, dogging the evasive Greta.
“Enough!” Greta had clearly been pushed too far. She spun back toward the bed, scowling like a rouged mastiff. “The butchers chopped off your hair and tore away most of your clothes before—before they were stopped. You were not tarred—and, as far as we know, not raped—” She gathered up the bowl and spoon from the nightstand. “Rest, now. Close your eyes. And no more thinking about what happened. Not till you’re stronger.”
Drained of will for the moment, Sarah did her best to obey. Closing her eyes was easy. In fact it had become all she could do to keep them open. But shutting down her mind was impossible. She lay there pretending to sleep, her thoughts a whirlpool of disembodied faces, words and memories.
…before they were stopped.
Sarah’s throat constricted sharply, trapping her breath as she struggled with the implications of what she had heard.
Who stopped them? Who brought me here?
The questions shrieked to be heard and answered, but Sarah’s tongue would not obey the urge to speak.
And that was just as well, because Greta had turned away and left the room.
The crescent moon lay like an abandoned bangle in the late-night sky. Against its wan light, the towering spruces loomed stark and black as Donovan stole down the alley toward the rear entrance of the Crimson Belle.
The door opened at his first light tap. Faye, wearing an old military coat over her tattered silk wrapper, slipped out to join him in the shadows.
“You brung the cash?” she whispered.
“It’s right here.” Donovan drew a sealed, brown envelope from under his jacket. “This should be enough to get her wherever she wants to go.”
Faye hefted the envelope with a practiced hand. “Good thing she don’t know it’s from you, or she wouldn’t take it.”
“That’s just why she mustn’t know.” Donovan bit back a surge of bitterness. He knew from earlier conversations with Faye that Sarah blamed him for her ordeal—and rightly so. It was his determination to see her gone that had triggered the whole hideous chain of events. In her eyes, he might as well have led the mob of drunken rowdies that had battered down her door and dragged her screaming into the street.
Now she despised him. But that was just as well, Donovan swiftly reminded himself. Let her hate him. Let her hatred take her away to someplace beyond the reach of his desire. That way, maybe they would both be safe.
“She still doesn’t remember anything?” he asked.
“’Bout you takin’ care of her?” Faye shook her frizzy, red hair. “We done like I promised you. Far as Miss Sarah knows, somebody comin’ up the street scared the buggers off, an’ she managed to git to our back door afore she keeled over.”
Feeling the weight of the lie, Donovan nodded his assent. “How’s she faring otherwise? When do you think she’ll be strong enough to leave?”
“A few more days, I reckon. She’s out of bed now, eatin’ passable. An’ she’s gittin’ mighty restless cooped up in that little room. ‘Course, she knows she can’t go nowhere on account of Smitty and the customers seein’ her.”
Faye’s mannish voice had trailed off. Her eyes, Donovan suddenly realized, were no longer looking directly at him. Something, he sensed, was wrong.
“What is it, Faye?”
“I…don’t rightly know,” she answered in a voice muffled by emotion. “Miss Sarah looks pert enough, all right. But somethin’ about her ain’t the same. Ain’t none of us up there can put a finger on it.”
“What do you mean?” Donovan battled a sense of foreboding.
“You knowed her. You knowed what an angel she was, always ready to help out, not an enemy in this world—”
“That’s changed?”
“Miss Sarah—she’s like a different person now. She don’t seem to care much about nobody or nothin’. Not that she’s bad, mind you. But the angel in her is gone, Mr. Cole. It’s almost like them dirty buzzards killed it!”
Donovan could not meet Faye’s eyes. He stood looking past her into the black-shadowed trees, remembering how things had been when he’d first come to Miner’s Gulch. Sarah had been happy then. The townspeople had accepted her. Her services had been valued and needed.
Then
he
had stepped in. Donovan Cole, so quick to judge, so determined to see justice carried out. And in his zeal, he had touched off the avalanche of hate that destroyed her.
The mocking, off-key notes of the piano twanged on the night air. From an upstairs window came the sound of a lusty snort and a shrill, feminine giggle. Faye stirred in the darkness.
“I got to go back in,” she said wearily. “Smitty’ll be lookin’ for me. But don’t you worry none about your money, Mr. Cole. I’ll keep it safe for Miss Sarah.”
“I know you will,” Donovan murmured. “And thank you. You’re a good woman, Faye Swenson.”
She responded with a bitter chuckle. “Now that’s one line I ain’t heard much in my life. G’night, Mr. Cole.”
With a swish of faded silk she was gone, leaving nothing behind her but the lingering aura of smoke, whiskey and cheap cologne, which was soon blown away on the night wind.
Thrusting his hands into his pockets, Donovan strode back up the alley toward the main street. Above Amos Satterlee’s store, the windows were dark and empty. Mrs. Eudora Cahill had taken over Sarah’s precious school, and the daily classes went on there as before. But no one lived in the rooms now. By night, the place was as bleak as Donovan’s own spirit.
As he rounded the corner and tramped past the saloon, he kept his eyes focused on the ground. There was no sense in looking up at the windows and wondering about Sarah. She was gone from his life for good now; even though he felt like hell about it, he knew their separation was for the best.