Elizabeth Lane (9 page)

He glanced pointedly at Sarah, who stood rooted at his elbow, her body frozen in an attitude of determination.

“As for you, Miss Sarah Parker, I’m prepared to offer you a bargain. You tell us the rest of your story, and I’ll promise to see that you walk out of this chapel in one piece. All right?”

Sarah nodded, her throat twitching as she swallowed her fear. Her eyes were like a fawn’s, huge and wary in her pale, thin face. Donovan backed away a few steps and sat down. He had done all that could be expected. Now she was on her own. It was up to Miss Sarah Parker to talk her way out of this mess.

Her hands clenched nervously, fingers bunching the fabric of her skirt. She looked small and scared and vulnerable, Donovan thought. Was this an act, too? Was there any part of this woman that was real?

Her voice rose thinly, like a child’s, in the silence. “I was still in Richmond when the city fell to Grant. Luckily for me, the general knew who I was. He even gave me an escort to Washington. My servants stayed behind and staged the death of the woman I had been….” Her eyes flickered toward Donovan. “I was told they’d even made a grave for her, with a fine headstone…in the parish cemetery.”

Sarah’s words faltered. For a moment, Donovan feared she would break down and cry. Then she rallied and, with a tremulous little half smile, took up her story like a piece of knitting she had dropped and retrieved.

“Many people must have felt lost after the war. For me, it was almost as if I no longer existed. I was dead in Richmond, and dead to my family in New Bedford. The theater—perhaps the one setting where I might have found a home—was closed to me as well, out of the fear that someone might recognize me onstage.

“The government had granted me a small pension, so at least I was able to live. But the day came when I knew I had to decide who—and what—I would be for the rest of my life.

“I tried making a new start in St. Louis, but even there, I lived in constant fear of discovery. Worse—infinitely worse—I was haunted by memories of my years in Richmond, of the good people, the kind neighbors I had known and betrayed. The awful nightmares—I still have them, the nightmares—”

This time Sarah did break. Her shoulders sagged like an abandoned marionette’s. She buried her face in her palms, her body quivering with silent sobs.

Donovan watched her with a cynical eye. “Bravo, Sarah,” he muttered under his breath. “We could set you up on a stage over at Smitty’s, and you could give nightly performances!”

He glanced around at the congregation. They were leaning forward in rapt attention. Good Lord, she’d done it again! She had them!

Slowly Sarah lowered her hands. Her face, splotched with red now, was plain, almost ugly in the harsh light that struck her from an upper window.

“Someone—someone I met by happenstance—told me about Miner’s Gulch—told me about the people here. I knew this place was the answer to my prayers. A chance to find a life, to serve, to forget myself—”

A single violent sob racked Sarah’s body. Donovan could feel her battling for strength, and for an instant, he, too, was with her, pulling for her to win. But no—he brought himself up with a mental slap. Sarah Parker had the devilish gift of making a man believe anything she chose to put into his head. He could not afford to be taken in by her wiles, least of all now, with the future of Varina’s family at stake.

Fighting for composure, Sarah forced herself to go on speaking.

“All I’m asking from you is a chance. A chance to stay and try to make up for what I’ve done. A chance to be your neighbor and friend, to find my own peace—”

She bowed her head in silence. Donovan expected her to say more, but no words came. Sarah had finished speaking. She stood like a prisoner on trial, her fate in the hands of the jury.

In the small chapel, tension crackled like the leaden clouds of an oncoming storm. No one moved. No one spoke. Every eye was fixed on Sarah as they waited.

S
arah stood drained and trembling, one hand gripping the end of the pew. Her heart pounded erratically in her ears. Her stomach felt as if it were about to reject her breakfast—except that she’d been too nervous to eat that morning.

Her eyes were fixed on the floor, but she could feel the congregation staring at her, its judgment hanging like a sword above her head. It was done, she told herself. The truth was out at last.

But at what cost?

Donovan’s square-toed brown boots jutted into a corner of her vision from where he sat at the end of the next pew. If she glanced that way, she knew she would meet his eyes, but she could not bear the thought of what she would see there. Twice that morning he had leapt to her rescue. But he would not be her champion again. She could feel the wall he was building against her as he remembered Richmond, remembered Antietam, remembered Virgil dying in his arms.

The only sound in the chapel was the leaden tick of the meetinghouse clock. She counted the beats, slowing her jerky breaths to match their cadence. Thanks to Donovan, she no longer feared for her life. But could the people of Miner’s Gulch find it in their hearts to forgive her? Could they weigh her past against the neighborly service she had
given, with an added measure of understanding to tip the scales?

Sarah stood with her head bowed, praying for a miracle.

At last someone stirred. That someone was Eudora Cahill. She rose imperiously to her feet, smoothed her skirts and, with a summoning nod to her husband and two daughters, glided out of the pew like a steamboat leaving port.

Sarah held her breath as Eudora paraded up the aisle, her plump chin thrusting ahead of her stride. Eudora’s reaction was critical. It would set the example for the rest of the town.

Only last winter, Sarah remembered, she had nursed the entire Cahill household through a bout of influenza. Eudora had thanked her profusely. But would the woman remember that now? Would it be enough?

The distance between them was closing. Sarah stood her ground, hoping desperately for some gesture of acceptance. As Eudora came abreast of her, Sarah raised her eyes and forced herself to look directly into the woman’s face.

What she saw there froze her heart.

Eudora Cahill’s expression was as rigid as a granite slab. Her cold, blue eyes looked straight ahead, as if Sarah Parker did not even exist.

A half-spoken plea died on Sarah’s lips. It was already too late. Eudora had passed her without so much as a nod. Now her daughters, both of whom Sarah had schooled, were doing the same. Even the easygoing Sam Cahill knew better than to defy his formidable wife. He crept past Sarah, his eyes carefully averted.

Another couple had risen near the front of the chapel. Sarah recognized them as Mattie and Roy Ormes. They had a young baby she’d delivered last fall and a little boy who attended her classes above the store. But Mattie had lost a father and brother at Chancellorsville. She followed Eudora’s example and led her family past Sarah without so much as a glance.

Sarah’s worst fears had come true. The Southerners of Miner’s Gulch had forgiven her being a Yankee. But they could not forgive her for being a spy.

Widow Harley was next, followed by the Fieldings, the Camps and the Gordons. Sarah stood like stone as each family passed her in icy indifference. Behind her stoic facade, her spirit twisted and withered. Hanging would have been a kinder fate, she mused bitterly. At least the ordeal would have been swift to end.

Slowly the chapel emptied, the customary hymn and closing prayer forgotten as the congregation filed out. Sarah watched them go—mothers she had saved, babies she had birthed, children she had taught to read and cipher…and the men who had always tipped their hats and addressed her respectfully as “Ma’am” or “Miss Sarah.” Now, those who acknowledged her at all cast looks of such contempt that they might as well have spat in her face.

At last she stood alone. There was no one left—no one except Donovan and the two little girls, who hung close to their uncle, glancing up at Sarah with frightened, puzzled eyes.

Donovan had been seated in a nearby pew. Now he rose to his feet, his muscular height looming darkly above her. When Sarah gathered the courage to look up at him, she saw that his face wore the same mask as the others—contemptuous and coldly angry. His eyes were as as hard as jasper. But then, what else could she have expected? He had even more reason to hate her than the others did.

Sarah’s heart shuddered and sank.

He cleared his throat, an awkward sound, startlingly human in the silence of the church. “I’ll hire a wagon and driver to take you as far as Central City,” he said coldly. “After that, you’re on your own.”

“Save your money, Mr. Cole.” Sarah’s voice wavered, then rose steel-edged from the pit of her humiliation. “If there’s one thing I won’t be needing, it’s a ride out of here.
I told you I was staying in Miner’s Gulch, and I meant it. This is my home.”

Something flickered in Donovan’s eyes, only to vanish like the flash of a trout fin in a deep green lake. “Then you’re an even bigger fool than I thought!” he growled. “And I won’t protect you from your folly! I only hope you live long enough to change your mind!”

Flinging the words at her, he turned away, caught up his nieces with either hand and stalked out of the church. Annie’s bewildered gaze darted frantically back over her small, sturdy shoulder. Then the doors closed behind them, and Sarah was alone.

For a long moment she stood where they had left her, her emotions frozen against an anguish that was too painful to bear. Then, little by little, the thaw began. She pictured her little classroom, the benches empty, the slates untouched. She pictured the women who had been her friends—fine, strong women like Eudora and Mattie and Varina, who would turn their backs now when they saw her coming. And the babies—so tiny and soft and perfect. Would she ever be summoned to deliver a baby again?

The Angel of Miner’s Gulch—that
was what Donovan had so mockingly called her. Sarah’s knees weakened as the irony of his words sank home. She had been so smug, so satisfied with the pitiful service she had rendered here. She had truly believed this poor, backward town needed her.

Needed
her. What a joke. The need had been hers—to serve, to belong. The people had indulged her need. They had tolerated her interference and her odd Yankee ways. They had allowed her to live among them, to be of use. Only now that it was too late did Sarah realize the worth of what they had given her.

In the days ahead, Miner’s Gulch would get along fine without her services. The parents would school their children at home. The women would aid each other, as women had done since the beginning of time. Miss Sarah Parker would scarcely be missed, let alone needed.

But what would she do? What would she do without the children, the women, the babies?

What would she do without her town?

The somber cadence of the old pendulum clock filled the empty church. For the space of a dozen ticks, Sarah stood needle straight, willing herself to be strong. But the effort was too much for her. Slowly her chest crumpled. Her face dropped to her hands as her shoulders quaked with savage, tearless sobs.

Up the slope from the Ordway place, the trail forked like a rattlesnake’s tongue. The lower branch cut another half mile through the aspens to Varina’s cabin. The upper one, Donovan had been told, followed the ridge to some longabandoned mining claims along the crest.

After setting his nieces on the path for home, Donovan had turned up the steep, rugged ridge trail. He could not go back to the cabin and face Varina. Not while he was so churned up inside. He needed some settling-down time and some good, hard walking to work off steam and collect his thoughts.

So far, however, the strenuous trek wasn’t helping. He had covered a good three-quarters of a mile at a pace that left his body dripping sweat beneath his leather coat. He had cursed and muttered most of the way, struggling to purge his spirit and regain his sense of purpose. Even so, when he closed his eyes, all he could see was Sarah.

He cursed again, remembering the woman’s maddening display of courage and brutal, reckless honesty. In all his life, Donovan had never seen a performance like it. He had planned to be discreet, to give her a chance to leave quietly without exposing her past. But Sarah had more than called his bluff. She had wrenched the truth from him and made it her own.

She had left him powerless.

Donovan’s boots spat mud as he forged his way through the pines to mount the ridge top. Oh, Sarah would pay. He
was sure of that. The people of Miner’s Gulch had already turned their backs on her. Sooner or later they would force her to leave.

Wasn’t that what he had wanted all along? To see her shamed? To see lying Lydia Taggart brought to her knees?

Donovan stripped off his coat, his cracked ribs screaming as he flung it over his shoulder. The breeze was icy through the dampness of his shirt. He let it chill his skinas if its coolness could quench the fever that raged like a forest fire inside him.

Sarah’s mouth, soft-blown satin, damp where his tongue probed, and sweet
as the heart of a rose. Her body melting
to
his heat, stirring with the promise of hidden hungers…

Cursing the image away, Donovan kicked at a stone, sending the melon-size rock bounding down the slope to crash into the trees. The impact set off an explosion of crows. The big, black birds scattered in a squawking flurry, spreading their wings to soar free against the clear spring sky. Snow-crested peaks glittered in the sun. Their serene beauty mocked Donovan’s anger.

With a long sigh, he yielded to their spell and sank down on a lichen-covered outcrop. A piñon jay scolded him from the branch of a pine, to disappear in a brilliant indigo flash as Donovan turned his head. The air sang with the smells of spring, the whisper of the wind and the gurgle of melting snow.

A little ways up the ridge, Donovan could seen the tailings from the old mines—shallow affairs, shoveled out in an effort to find the source of the gold that sparkled in the mountain streams. He thought of the backbreaking labor that had gone into those diggings, the dreams that had dwindled and died when the gold veins played out. There was plenty of gold left, someone had told him. But it existed in minute granules, locked into hunks of solid white quartz like the ones that littered the mountainside.

Mildly curious, Donovan peeled back a tuft of moss from the rock where he was sitting. The clean stone glittered
with tiny gold flecks. Hell, he could be sitting on a fortune right now—except for one problem. There was no way to separate the blasted gold from the rock. That was why Miner’s Gulch had died.

Donovan gazed out over the rugged mountains, his thoughts drifting gloomily from the dying town to poor, dead Charlie Sutton; from Varina’s bleak outlook to his own. Back in Kansas, nothing waited for him but a lonely room in a boardinghouse and a grim, dirty job. Packing a gun for the rest of his life was a joyless prospect. He had seen too many men shot and hanged, and he was sick of death. Worse, even, was the loneliness. But there wasn’t much cure for that. Sharing a life as dangerous as his was more than a man could ask of any woman.

Maybe he ought to take Varina’s advice and turn in his badge. But what could he do here? Mining Charlie’s worthless claim would be a fate worse than prison. And he sure as hell was no builder. He’d proven that much to Sarah Parker back at the cabin. Maybe he ought to look up that carpenter she had mentioned, the one she said needed work. It was pretty clear he’d never get that spare room built on his own.

Sarah.

Donovan swore as he realized how his thoughts had circled back to her. She was always breaking in where she had no business, always getting in his way. Blast it, when was he going to put her out of his mind?

Stretching his long legs, he eased himself to his feet. It was time he was getting back, he told himself. Being up here alone wasn’t doing him any good. Besides, it was anybody’s guess what kind of mixed-up story his nieces had told their mother by now. The sooner he arrived to straighten things out, the better.

The little girls had peppered him with questions all the way back from town. But he hadn’t felt like talking about their precious Miss Sarah. His answers had been mostly evasions, the sort of thing Varina would never settle for.
She would demand the whole truth, and she would get it, he promised himself. She would hear the whole miserable story, from beginning to end.

He moved swiftly down the trail, knees held loose to ease the jarring on his ribs. His mind churned as he pieced together the thread of what he would tell his sister.

He would be patient and gentle, he promised himself. Varina, he knew, would take it hard. Sarah Parker had been her friend. But Varina was a Southerner and a Cole. In the end, Donovan had no doubt where her loyalties would lie.

He reached the fork in the trail where he had parted company with Katy and Annie. As he turned toward the cabin, he glimpsed a lean female figure in a cloak, striding toward him through the budding aspens.

For the space of a heartbeat, he thought it might be Sarah, and his heart leapt into his throat. But no, it was someone else. It was one of the women he’d seen in church. Yes, she had also hiked up the gulch to see Varina a couple of days after the baby came. Donovan
remembered
her well now. Mattie, that was her name. Mattie Ormes.

He hailed her as she came closer, but Mattie did not even look at him. Her freckled young face was a study in grim outrage, the mouth set in a thin line. Her dark gabardine skirt switched like the tail of an angry cat as she stalked down the path, leaving Donovan no alternative except to move aside, tip his hat and let her pass.

What in blazes was going on?

Donovan’s long legs ate up the distance to the cabin. He burst into the clearing expecting some kind of trouble, but nothing there seemed amiss. Samuel was on the porch, playing an imaginary game with a pile of wood chips. Katy was in the front yard, gathering more wood for the stove. The savory aroma of hot rabbit stew wafted out through the half-open doorway.