Banner O'Brien (17 page)

Heedless of his uncombed hair and unshaven face, he grabbed a coat from the pegs near the door and left the house.

*  *  *

Christmas was a mockery for Banner Corbin. She gave gifts, she accepted them, she ate sumptuous food that lay like sawdust in the pit of her stomach.

Adam was gone, and while his family didn’t seem particularly concerned, Banner grieved.

Once in a while during that hectic day, she considered standing up and saying that she was Adam’s wife now, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. If
he’d
thought the marriage a trick and a sham and all but called her a prostitute, what would their reaction be?

*  *  *

Jeff was annoyed. Blast it all, it was Christmas and Banner was downstairs looking like someone had drawn her soul out through her great, green eyes.

Where in blazes was Adam?

Pausing outside his brother’s bedroom door, Jeff sighed. Adam would have to decide, once and for all, whether he wanted Banner O’Brien or not. If he didn’t, his younger brother was more than willing to step into the breach.

After drawing one deep breath, Jeff rapped at the heavy door with the knuckles of his left hand. There
was no answer, but that didn’t mean anything—Adam often ignored such things, especially when he was brooding.

Prepared for a surly objection, Jeff opened the door and stepped inside. Adam wasn’t there, but he had been. The bedclothes were churned into knots, the pillows were on the floor. . . .

Jeff surveyed the wreckage uneasily. He scanned the room again, and that was when he saw the certificate, lying forgotten on the rug nearest the bed.

A muscle strained in the base of his stomach as he bent to take the document into his hand. It seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, that gaudy bit of paper, and a small eternity passed between the time Jeff picked it up and the time he read it: “This will certify that Dr. Adam Corbin and Miss Banner O’Brien were joined in marriage, this twenty-fourth day of December . . .”

Jeff closed his eyes, crumpled the certificate without knowing that he did so. She’d said she loved Adam, and he’d felt the fire between Banner and his brother.

Why, then, was it such a brutal surprise to know that they were married?

Muttering, Jeff Corbin flung the wadded marriage license onto the bed and turned away from this most wounding proof of his brother’s victory.

Closing the door of Adam’s room with a gentleness that was totally foreign to everything he was feeling, he decided that, weather permitting, the
Sea Mistress
would set sail that very day.

*  *  *

Banner lifted the snow-glass and turned it upside down and then right side up again, so that the little specks of white inside showered down around a miniature unicorn with silver hooves.

“That’s pretty,” said Katherine, in a soft voice that invited confidences.

Banner smiled wanly. “Jeff gave it to me.”

Katherine helped herself to a cup of hot chocolate
from the china pot resting on a sidetable and sat down beside Banner, her eyes fixed on the quiet splendor of the Christmas tree. “I’m rather a good secret keeper, you know,” she remarked. “Is there anything you would like to tell me?”

Banner’s vision blurred, and she set the lovely snow-glass aside with a thump. “It’s Christmas,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to spoil it.”

“You couldn’t do that, Banner. Even with Adam away, it was a grand day.”

Banner’s throat was thick with unshed tears. Adam hated her, and he was probably on the mountain, with his woman, at that very minute. As far as she was concerned, the day had been an unqualified disaster.

Katherine’s hand came to rest on hers, gentle and reassuring. “He’ll be back, Banner.”

A surge of anger went through Banner, despite her tender grief. “I hate him!” she blurted. “I hate Adam and I don’t care if he never comes back!”

Having made this foolish announcement, Banner Corbin burst into tears.

Katherine set aside her chocolate and drew the younger woman into a motherly embrace. “There, there—you don’t hate him at all, and that’s the problem, isn’t it?”

“Yes!” wailed Banner.

“I declare,” breathed Katherine, her arms still around the woman she didn’t know was her son’s own wife, “I love my Adam with every speck and fiber in me, but sometimes I’d like nothing better than to take a buggywhip to him!”

Banner sobbed harder, and at the windows, a drizzling rain washed away the scalloped trimming of snow.

*  *  *

By morning, the world was an ugly place, dressed in mud and the occasional tatter of dirty snow. Jeff had gone the day before, without so much as a fare-thee-well, and Melissa was packing to board a steamer for
Seattle, where she would stay with friends and attend a dizzying round of holiday parties. Keith planned to leave within an hour of his sister, though he was bound for Tacoma, where he could catch a train over the mountains to Wenatchee.

Katherine would remain in the house until after New Year’s Day, and then she, too, would be gone. There was much lobbying to do in Olympia, and after that she was scheduled to tour the territory with several other staunch advocates of suffrage, to make speeches and hold rallies.

Just the thought of that house being empty made Banner feel bereft.

Adam had not returned the night before—she could imagine why—and the corridors of Banner’s spirit echoed with the beat of his absence.

Few patients came to the hospital, and those who did were suffering more from overindulgence than any compelling malady.

At midday, the marshal arrived, in search of Adam. Four bodies had washed ashore near the Klallum camp, he said, and even though they were “only Chinks,” Dr. Corbin was county coroner and he had to view the remains and make a report.

Banner had been all but suffocating in the quiet despair that surrounded her, but examining the bodies of four drowning victims was hardly the respite she’d been hoping for.

“If you’re the doc’s assistant,” the marshal allowed, his hat in his hands, his gaze baleful, “I reckon you’d do. I got the corpses in one of my cells, and the papers gotta be signed before I can get rid of ‘em.”

Banner shuddered, even as she gathered up her cloak. Distasteful as the task was, she would have to do it—the rules of professionalism dictated that much.

The bodies were all Chinese, just as the marshal had said. They were bloated and bits of their flesh had been eaten away by the fish.

After covering them with their shared tarp again and signing the necessary papers, Banner walked out of the courthouse with brisk dignity and quietly vomited in the alleyway.

Once she’d recovered herself, she climbed into the buggy she had imposed upon one of the Corbin stable hands to hitch for her and took up the reins. To keep her mind off the horrors she’d just viewed, she concentrated on her outrage.

The marshal’s attitude toward those poor men had been insufferable. Again and again, he’d referred to them as “Chinks” and said the town was better off that they’d drowned. Finding out why they’d died was the furthest thing from his mind.

When Banner had pressed him he had speculated that the men might have been smuggled in from Canada, as hundreds of them were every year, now that strict limits had been set on their immigration, and dumped into the sound at the approach of a government ship.

Those who survived the journey were absorbed into the Chinese community and rarely, if ever, deported.

When Banner reached the Corbin house again, and the stables in back, there was no one around to help her unhitch the horse and buggy, so she performed the task herself.

After hanging the lightweight harness on a wall peg, as she had seen Adam do, she led the horse back to its stall, where grain and fresh water already awaited it. She was just closing the stall door and working the metal catch to secure it when a devastatingly familiar voice demanded.

“O’Brien!”

“I’m here,” she answered, in tones that were neither pleasant nor sharp, as she stepped out of the shadows.

Banner was prepared to be indignant, but Adam looked so haggard that she felt tenderness shafting through her instead, like rays of strained sunlight.
His clothes were rumpled, and his hair needed washing and a beard of several days’ growth shadowed his face.

“How was your woman?” she asked, to keep from flinging herself at him in a fit of despairing welcome.

The powerful but now slightly stooped shoulders moved in a shrug. “I don’t know, Shamrock. How was she?”

Banner had no idea how to reply to this, so she didn’t. She simply folded her arms across her chest and waited.

All around, horses nickered companionably, and the scent of stored hay was pungent in the air. The light, filtered through the sieve of a winter sky, made it difficult for Banner to read her husband’s expression.

“I’m sorry,” Adam said, finally, in a low, hoarse tone.

“That is undeniable,” Banner retorted.

He laughed, though whether the sound was one of amusement or resignation, Banner could not discern. “Did you tell my family about our—marriage?”

Color ached at Banner’s cheekbones. “Of course not. Under the circumstances, it hardly seemed appropriate.”

Adam came one step nearer, paused uncertainly. “O’Brien—”

Banner retreated. “What?”

“How the hell am I supposed to apologize if you keep backing away? I treated you very badly and I’m sorry.” Adam folded his arms, assessed her with shadow-veiled eyes. “Are you wearing drawers?”

Banner swallowed a shriek of rage. “Yes I am, Adam Corbin, and don’t you dare come one single step closer!”

There was a white flash of a grin, followed by, “May I remind you that you are my wife?”

“That doesn’t give you the right to order me not to wear undergarments or fling me down wherever—”

A weary chuckle escaped him. “I know, O’Brien. I know. I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”

Banner fought back tears. Wasn’t that the way with all men? They would say awful, dreadful things to a person, leave them alone at Christmas, not knowing whether they were a wife or what, and then come back expecting to make things right with a simple “I’m sorry”!

“Bastard,” she said.

Adam spread his hands, as if to concede the point.

And Banner was so annoyed that she strode across the small space that separated them and slapped Adam’s face as hard as she could.

He turned his head slightly, then caught her shoulders in his hands. For a moment she knew wild, fathomless fear, but this passed when she saw the broken, defeated expression in his eyes.

“Don’t be afraid of me, Shamrock,” he pleaded softly. “I’ll never hurt you. Never.”

From a physical standpoint, Banner knew this to be true; Adam was not the sort to beat a woman. But she was so very vulnerable to him in other ways, and the agony of the night and day just past was proof of that.

She lifted her chin, too proud to let him know how she had already suffered. “We could annul the marriage,” she suggested.

Adam shook his head. “Oh, no. For one thing, it’s been consummated—deliciously so. And for another, I have absolutely no intention of giving you up.”

Banner’s tired heart leaped within her, in a dance of hope, and then sank again. Adam had not once said he loved her; his reasons for refusing the annulment were not so romantic. By marrying Banner, he had acquired not only a partner for his practice but a bedmate. She was a convenience.

“Where have you been?” Banner demanded, with a bravado designed to hide her broken heart.

Adam’s fingers were kneading her shoulders, stirring
paradoxical needs within her. “I can’t explain that, Shamrock. Not now, at least. Were there any medical disasters while I was gone?”

It was a moment before Banner could assemble the dignity to speak. “One. Some Chinese men were drowned—four of them. The marshal said the Klallum found the bodies.”

“My God—Royce again.”

Banner searched Adam’s face. “Temple Royce? You mean, you think he had something to do with—”

Suddenly he released her, turned away.
“Damn
that son-of-a-bitch—”

Banner caught hold of one of his arms, afraid and confused. “Adam?”

Her husband faced her, ran one hand through his hair. “Did Marshal Peters have any idea what happened?”

“He said that they were probably smuggled in from Canada—the Chinese men, I mean—and dumped overboard when a government ship came. D-Do you think Mr. Royce—”

“I
know
it was Royce.”

“If he’s a smuggler, and a murderer, why hasn’t he been arrested?”

Adam made a bitter, exasperated sound. “His money is good, O’Brien. By laying it across the right palms and throwing the occasional load of contraband overboard, he gets by.”

Distractedly, Banner lifted an index finger to trace the stubbled outline of her husband’s jaw. “Why on earth do the Chinese take such a risk? Why would they even board a ship when—”

Adam caught her hand, caressed the inside of her wrist with a gentle thumb. “They’re desperate, O’Brien. They want to work in the territories, join their families. They not only take the chance that they’ll be flung into the sound, they pay a hundred dollars and more for the privilege.”

Banner tugged, trying to free her hand, but the effort was gently forestalled. “You aren’t going to tell me where you’ve been, are you?”

“No.”

“Fine.” If he wasn’t going to talk about his woman, she wasn’t going to explain about Sean and her divorce again. Let Adam wonder, as she wondered. “You need a bath.”

Adam laughed and pulled and Banner found herself imprisoned against the lean, forbidding length of him. “I know. You’ll help me, won’t you—Mrs. Corbin?”

Mrs. Corbin.
Was he mocking her? “Of course I won’t help you. You’re a grown man, perfectly capable of—”

He silenced her with a hungry, consuming kiss.

Banner’s traitorous heart quickened within her, and her blood raced through her veins like lava. Damn him for daring to do this, she thought wildly. Damn him for turning to her after a rendezvous with his mountain woman!

But was she, herself, any better? The awful truth was that she wasn’t. She not only wasn’t resisting him, she was enjoying this fierce, quiet travesty of her pride.