A Stockingful of Joy (31 page)

Before the echo of her voice died away, Morgan's face was back to its usual expressionless state. He released her and drew back instantly, and she felt bereft in a way she didn't understand.

"I can't… we have to… he's out there all alone, and probably scared, Morgan."

He leaned back against the rock. "I know."

"I'm so worried. The snow's not letting up, we really can't see, and when we find him, I don't know how we'll find our way back, and—"

He lifted his arm, hesitated, then put it around her again. "We'll find him. That's all that matters."

"I should have just let him put the silly lamp in the window, it wouldn't have hurt anything—"

"It's not your fault," he said, sounding grim. "It's mine. I shouldn't have turned on him like that."

Faith nearly shivered again at the pure emotion in his voice, this man who never let down his guard but had now done so twice: once when he held her in his arms, and now, when he was castigating himself over Zach.

"He… needed to hear it," she said.

"But not like that."

"Perhaps. But it needed saying, and I don't know if I could have said it at all."

"You would have," he said, with what she could have sworn was a sigh. "And you would have done it… with kindness. Not anger."

He spoke as if it were a memory. "Is that how it was done to you?" she asked softly.

He laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. "Exactly. And then I do it to that boy. Makes me no better than her, doesn't it?"

She didn't have to ask who the "her" was. But, anxious not to talk about what had just passed between them, she asked instead, "Was she so very awful?"

"She was—is still, for all I know—a very… righteous woman. I suppose it was all she had."

She took a deep breath before saying something that had been preying on her mind for some time now. "I… think I understand now what you were trying to tell me, before."

He hesitated, and she wondered if he was deciding whether to answer at all, or just go on in the safe silence he preferred. When he finally spoke, she felt as if each word were a small treasure handed to her.

"I never meant to hurt you," he said. "I just… Aunt Abigail had a beautiful sister everyone loved, just like you did. But she… she became bitter, grew to hate my mother. And when she was gone, she switched that hate to me. And did her best to make sure everybody in Hartford felt the same way, and she was a powerful voice around there."

"That's awful, Morgan," she said, not sure what to say in the face of such hatred where there should have been love.

"I reckon it wasn't really her fault. She wasn't as strong—or as loving—as you are. I know you loved your sister. That's the difference between you. And Zach will see it, too, when he gets his grieving done."

The simple but clearly heartfelt words nearly stopped her breath in her chest and gave her hope where she'd nearly given up. Perhaps she
could
still reach Zach. When they found him, and got him home, she'd try again. And again, and again, however long it took.

"Thank you," she whispered. He shrugged. "Don't," she said. "It
does
mean something, it is important, that you… cared enough to say that." She felt him go still as she said the forbidden word, and hastily went on. "We'll find him, and tell him that people you love may never come back, but if you love and remember them, they're never lost forever."

Morgan made a disparaging sound that told her what he thought of that idealistic statement.

"Your aunt, is she… still alive?"

It was all she could think of to say. After a long moment when she thought he wouldn't, he answered.

"I don't know. I left the day I turned twelve, and I've never been back."

"Twelve? So young?"

"No point in staying. I knew by then she'd never change her mind about me."

"But… where did you go?"

"West. Made it to Denver just after they changed the name. It got too big too fast, so I headed south." His tone turned wry. "Then they hit gold at Pike's Peak, and it got crowded there, too." His voice turned oddly wistful. "Thought about going back to the states, when the war started. But I hated the place, and everybody who looked at me the way my aunt did, so I didn't see any point in fighting and maybe dying for it. Idaho Territory was new then, so I hit out for there for a while."

"You've been… everywhere, it seems."

"Been around," he agreed.

"And you never stayed anywhere?"

Again that hesitation, and she sensed it was almost a physical effort for him to go on. But he did.

"Never found anyplace that made me want to stay. Or come back."

Or anyone.

Faith's mind provided the answer her heart didn't want to hear. No one would ever hold him, no one would ever bring him back to someplace he'd already been.

She lapsed into silence; there was, it seemed, nothing more to say. Morgan remained silent as well, and the only sound was the occasional snap of the wood, and then the loud crack of a branch, apparently breaking under a too heavy load of snow.

She looked toward the sound, even knowing she would see nothing but the night. But there was a strange glow in the distant trees, much as she would imagine their little fire would look from there. It vanished, and she would have thought she'd imagined it had not Morgan gone still beside her, his head turned in the same direction.

"Did you see it?"

He nodded, but put a finger to her lips to hush her. She felt a little jump of her pulse at the touch, and he pulled his hand away so swiftly she wondered if he'd felt the same little jolt she had. But he said nothing, just stared.

So did Faith, and after a moment she saw it again, a faint light, gold like reflected fire in the snow.

The snow. "How can we see that, when the snow is coming down so thick?" she asked, looking in another direction and realizing she still couldn't see beyond a few feet.

"I don't know," Morgan said, but he was already on his feet before the last word left his lips. "Stay here."

"No," she said quickly, "it might be Zach, maybe he managed to build a fire."

"Maybe." But it could be somebody else as well. Stay here."

"No," she repeated determinedly, scrambling to her feet. She ran to Espe, and untied the slicker Morgan had put over the mare.

"Faith," Morgan said warningly. She turned on him.

"Zach is mine now. I love him, and I will not leave him to anyone else, especially if he's in danger. Not even you."

His eyes widened at her last words, but she didn't explain. She couldn't; she wasn't even sure what she'd meant herself. Instead she tugged her cloak tighter around her and started toward the light. She heard Morgan mutter something she guessed she was glad not to hear. In a moment he'd mounted and caught up with her.

"At least stay close," he said. "I don't want to be hunting for you, too."

A sharp retort rose to her lips but she bit it back, thinking she'd best save her energy for riding rather than waste it arguing.

She didn't realize for several minutes that the light didn't seem to be getting any closer. She looked back over her shoulder, and their own fire had vanished behind the thick veil of snow.

"I don't understand," she said after they'd gone farther and the light still hadn't changed.

"Neither do I," Morgan said, sounding grim.

They kept on. The snow got thicker. It began to swirl around them as the wind picked up. And the light never seemed to get any closer. It was as if they were following some phantom, forever ahead of them, leading them on some foolish chase… or to their doom. Faith shook her head, trying to rid herself of the ghastly images.

The stallion snorted as Morgan reined in suddenly. Morgan's hand shot out to Faith's shoulder, and she pulled Espe to a halt beside him.

"What?"

"I thought I saw something… there!"

He pointed to a thick stand of trees. Faith leaned forward, peering through the snow. And she saw the little shape of Zach's pony, head down, rump to the wind. And beside him, a smaller shape huddled on the ground.

"Zach!"

They got to him in a matter of seconds. Fear clawed at Faith, but eased when the boy opened his eyes.

"You came," he whispered.

Faith gathered him up in her arms, heedless of the snow and chill. "Of course I did," she said, hugging him tightly. "I love you, Zach. And we're all we've got now, baby. We have to take care of each other."

Any other time she was sure Zach would protest that "baby," and the fact that he didn't—and that he was hugging her back—now told her how scared he'd been.

Morgan took the boy up on the black, leaving Faith to lead the pony. She watched as he wrapped his coat almost tenderly around the child, who was so pale it frightened her. He seemed groggy, and she feared it was from more than sleepiness. She needed to get him home, into a warm bed with some warm liquid in his belly.

But she didn't know where home was. She didn't even know where their fire and meager shelter was.

"The light," she began, looking in the direction where the golden glow seemed to paint a path through the falling snow. "What
is
it?"

"I don't know, but it's in the right direction," Morgan said. "Let's go."

They slogged on through the night and the cold and the snow. Faith's hands grew numb, until the only way she could be sure she still held the pony's reins was to turn and look. Espe plodded on steadily, her staunch courage never faltering, step after step after step down the strange path of light.

It seemed endless, and as Faith grew colder so did her hope. The light was some cruel kind of torture, taunting them, always retreating, never to be reached. Or perhaps they had already died, she thought a little wildly, and this was their hell, not the fires of the eternal pit, but an endless chase through the snowy night.

As if in answer, a gust of wind sent a wet mass of snow into her face. She ducked her head, amazed that anything could feel any colder than she already was. She kept her head down, her weary body moving instinctively with the mare's slow but steady walk. It was no more than she deserved, she supposed. She was a fool, and had been acting the part ever since Morgan had arrived. Dreaming silly dreams, thinking wicked thoughts. She'd been tempted by the fire, so it was fitting that she die in the ice. Without ever knowing what it was she'd hungered for when he'd kissed her, without ever knowing—

"Faith."

Morgan's voice came out of the night toward her. She was too tired to even lift her head.

"Faith, look."

Some strange note in his voice energized her. She looked up. He was staring ahead of them, and she turned her head.

It was the house.

And in the window, casting a golden glow across the snow in a razor-straight path, was Hope's lamp.

"He's sound asleep," Faith said as she pulled the curtains closed. "And he doesn't seem to be feverish."

From where he stood by the window, Morgan glanced at her, nodded, then turned his gaze back to what he'd been staring at.

A lot of impossible things had happened here, he thought. He'd stayed when he'd wanted to go. He'd found himself talking to a child, and pouring his guts out to a woman. He'd lost his customary detachment and couldn't seem to find it again. He'd been listening, and talking, and worst of all feeling.

And he'd found what he never expected to find, a woman with both a gentleness of soul and a wildness of spirit, and with more quiet courage than he'd ever seen before.

But even more impossible was the thing sitting right in front of him; a small, china lamp sitting where it could not be, the glass chimney whole as it could not be whole… and casting a light far beyond its reach, far enough to guide them home through the snow.

And that was the most impossible thing of all, that when he thought of this place, when he thought of Faith, home was the word that came to his mind.

She came up behind him, quietly. He felt her warmth, and was seized by the memory of her mouth beneath his, soft and warm and sweeter than anything he'd ever tasted. He didn't look at her, didn't dare. In that moment she seemed more impossible than the lamp before him, and her light seemed as bright. He felt as if he were teetering on the edge of a precipice, and he could either retreat, with the knowledge that he had run like a coward, or leap off and hope he could fly.

"Maybe Zach was right," she said softly. "Maybe Hope really was here."

"If you believe that, you're as big a fool as the boy." But he felt a shiver as he spoke, for he had no other explanation for glass that had been broken and was now whole, for a tiny lamp that had impossibly cast a lighted path through a storm.

Her voice was calm. "Perhaps I am."

He turned on his heel then, and walked over to where his Winchester lay on the table. He picked it up, then turned to look at her. "I'm leaving," he announced baldly.

"I know." She eyed the weapon. "You don't need that to convince me."

Taken aback by her tone and the odd light in her cinnamon eyes, he stared at her, brows furrowed.

"I know you'll leave, Morgan. I never expected anything else, not really. But you don't have to leave… now."

His fingers tightened on the stock of the Winchester, until he knew without looking his knuckles were white. And then she took a step closer, looking up at him, and what he saw in her face made his gut knot as tightly as his hand.

"Stay tonight," she whispered. "With me."

He groaned, his body suddenly as hard as the knot in his belly. "Faith." It came out low and husky, and he couldn't go on.

"Out there it seemed like you weren't… repelled," she said hesitantly. "I know it wouldn't be… real, not from love, but it doesn't have to be for a man, does it? You kissed me, so…"

He made a sound that was half laugh, half groan. When he spoke, his words were purposely rough. "Lady, I was so damn hard, and you were so hot in my hands, you're lucky I didn't take you right there in the snow."

"Then… even though I'm plain—"

"God, Faith, don't." All the things she was to him rushed to his lips, and biting them back was one of the hardest things he'd ever done. "Why are you doing this?" he asked, barely able to get out the words past the aching tightness in his throat.