Bone Deep (33 page)

The End

About the Author:

Whether you're a fan of contemporary, paranormal, or historical romance, you'll find something to enjoy. My style is very personal and my characters will feel like well-known friends by the time you've finished reading. I'm interested in flawed, often damaged, people who find the fulfillment they seek in one another. Stop by my web site,
http://bonniedee.com
or
f
or future updates on my books, join my Yahoo group,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bonniedee/

Blurb from A Hearing Heart, another historical with an unusual hero.

The heart conveys messages beyond what ears can hear.

After the death of her fiancé, Catherine Johnson, a
New York
schoolteacher in 1902, travels to
Nebraska
to teach in a one-room school and escape her sad memories. One afternoon, violence erupts in the sleepy town. Catherine saves deaf stable hand, Jim Kinney from torture by drunken thugs.

As she takes charge of his education, teaching him to read and sign, attraction grows between them. The warmth and humor in this silent man transcends the need for speech and his eyes tell her all she needs to know about his feelings for her. But the obstacles of class difference and the stigma of his handicap are almost insurmountable barriers to their growing attachment.

Will Catherine flaunt society’s rules and allow herself to love again? Can Jim make his way out of poverty as a deaf man in a hearing world? And together will they beat the corrupt robber baron who has a stranglehold on the town? Romance, love and sensuality abound in this jam-packed, old-fashioned tale with plenty of heart and some deeply sensual sex.

Excerpt from A Hearing Heart:

Broughton
,
Nebraska
, 1901

Catherine Johnson stepped out of the general mercantile onto the wooden walkway, adjusting her mesh shopping bag on one wrist and the brown paper-wrapped parcels in her other arm. A stiff breeze cut through
the fabric of
her
dress
and twisted her long skirt around her legs. Grit scoured her cheeks and stung her eyes. At least the road wasn’t muddy, but she faced a long walk back to the McPhersons’ farm carrying all her purchases. She’d be glad when her stay there was
over
and she moved in with the Albrights in town. Shuttling from home to home was one of the
more u
npleasant aspects of teaching in a one-room schoolhouse.

Sometimes she wished she’d never left
New York
to come to
Nebraska
. On a Saturday afternoon in
White Plains
she
’
d be strolling along a brick path in the park
with
fountains and flowerbeds gracing the way. Here in Broughton she fought the ever-present wind and choking dust while her shoes tapped an uneven rhythm on the warped boards of the sidewalk.

The town was quiet for a Saturday, the street nearly empty. She was
almost
to the last building on
Main Street
, where the dusty road became prairie, when several men erupted from the saloon in front of her. The swinging doors
crashed
against the wall.

Catherine stumbled backward, dropping one of her packages
, heart pounding

A raw-boned man with no chin and his stocky, black-bearded partner dragged a man between them. Behind them staggered a burly fellow with heavy-lidded eyes. He was shouting curses, using words Catherine had never heard. The only man
in the group
she recognized was the one the others gripped by the arms
. He was
Jim Kinney, the deaf-mute man who worked at the livery stable.

Jim
glared at his captors through a fringe of dark hair. The burly man moved in front of
h
im and plowed a fist into his stomach. The stable hand doubled over with a whoosh of air.

The
skinny
man hauled him upright and the
bearded
one punched his jaw, snapping his head to the side. Jim cried out, a hoarse, wordless sound.
Bracing himself against the pair holding his arms, he
kicked
out with both feet
at the man who’d hit him, landing a solid blow to his chest.

“Tie him up,” the droopy-eyed man slurred. “Teach him some respect.”

Catherine stood rooted to the spot, horrified but too shocked to react as one of the men grabbed a rope from his horse’s saddle at the hitching post. When he began tying Jim’s hands, she finally found her voice.

“Stop it! Stop!” She dropped her parcels and bag on the sidewalk and ran toward them. “Leave him alone!”

For a second, Jim’s dark eyes met hers
, and then
the men dragged him out to the street, whooping in drunken glee and ignoring Catherine as if she was voiceless.

“Stop!” she yelled in frustration, her hands clenching
helplessly
at her sides.

The black-bearded man
blocked her
way, and s
he pushed past him, the sour stench of sweat and alcohol wrinkling her nose.

The leader mounted his horse and wrapped the end of the rope around the pommel of his saddle. Jim struggled to free his hands until the rope stretched taut and jerked him forward, forcing him to keep pace with the horse. The rider kneed his mount and it
moved
from a walk to a trot.

Jim ran behind, stumbling as he tried to keep on his feet.

Catherine screamed for help. A few men came from the saloon wh
ile others stepped out of store
s along the street.

“Help!”
she cried
again, panic swelling in her chest. “Somebody help him.”

Jim couldn’t keep up with the speed of the horse. He tripped, fell and was dragged along the ground. Spooked by the creature on its heels, the horse whinnied and plunged ahead. A cloud of dust from its hooves concealed the body bumping over
the
ruts
behind it
.

The rider pulled the horse’s head up, turned and rode back toward where his companions stood laughing and shouting encouragement.

People emerging from the barbershop, the mercantile and feed store all stood watching. No one was going to interfere, risking the drunken men’s anger.

The horse
cantered
toward Catherine. Without a thought beyond stopping
the stable hand’s torture
, she ran into the road, waving her arms and shouting. The animal reared on its hind legs, dumping its rider to the ground. For a moment all she could see was hooves flailing and the chestnut body rising
high
above her. How very tall a horse was when standing on two legs. The inane thought flashed in her mind before the animal came down on all fours.

She seized the bridle and her fingers grazed its warm jaw. The horse blew hay-scented breath into her face with a soft chuffing sound.

“Sh. Easy. Easy,” she crooned, stroking its neck. She moved alongside and reached for the rope tied to the pommel. Even standing on her toes with her chest pressed against the horse’s heaving flank she could barely reach it, and the knot
was
so tight she couldn’t loosen it.

Catherine glanced at Jim’s dusty body sprawled in the road, and the
horse’s rider
staggering
to his feet, cursing as he brushed off his clothes.

Now that the crisis was past, a couple of men from the feed store came out to the street and grabbed the leader of the thugs, while someone
else
ran to get the deputy. A few patrons of the tavern collared the other two roughnecks. Mr. Murdoch, the saloonkeeper knelt in the road beside Jim and untied his wrists.

Catherine walked over to the prone body of the stable hand and watched Murdoch feel his limbs for broken bones.

“Is he alive?” She squatted beside
the dust-covered body
, her skirt pooling around her. The man’s eyes were closed and blood seeped from abrasions on his
dirt-streaked
face.

“He’s unconscious, but I think he’ll be all right. Damn! If only he’d kept out of their way
,
”
Murdoch said.

“He needs the doctor.”

“Already sent someone to get him.”

Catherine pulled her handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at the blood on Jim’s f
orehead
. “What happened?”

“Drunken fools called for another round. Shirley was tending another table so they shouted at Jim to get their drinks. Of course, he couldn’t hear ’em. He’s there to push a broom, not wait tables. They started yelling, grabbed him and dragged him outside.”

Catherine bit back her question of why it had taken him so long to
come to Jim’s aid
. Pushing back a lock of
the man’s
dark hair, she examined the wound at his temple. “I thought Mr. Kinney worked at the livery stable.”

“Works there too. Has a room back of the stables. Christ! Where’s the damn doc? Pardon the language.”

A young woman ran up to them, her skirts held high enough to show striped stockings all the way to her knees. Her red hair straggled from the bun in back to frame her round, red-cheeked face. The neckline of her dress revealed most of her bosom, which rose and fell as she panted. “Doc’s out on a call, Mr. Murdoch. Is he okay?”

“Damn! Hope to hell there ain’t anything broken. Guess all we can do is carry him back to his room.”

Several men had gathered around, and three of them lifted Jim’s body. He groaned, and his eyes opened, his gaze focusing on Catherine.

She smiled. “It’s all right. You’ll be all right.”

He blinked, but she didn’t know if he’d understood. She’d only seen the man once or twice since she’d moved here
. P
eople said he was slow as well as deaf and mute.

Walking beside the men carrying him, she kept her gaze locked
on
his in an attempt to offer encouragement. The eyes that stared back at her were focused and intelligent. She could almost see his thoughts busily flickering in them, but with no voice to give substance those thoughts remained locked inside. Catherine realized he wasn’t mentally impaired at all.

The men carried him through the doors of the livery stable, and Catherine lost eye contact with Jim. Her stomach churned
and her nerves jangled
,
uns
urprising since a rearing horse had nearly trampled her. The deputy would probably have questions for her as the main witness of the altercation, but for now she was intent on seeing what she could do to help Jim Kinney. She followed the men into the livery.

* * * *

His body ached in a thousand places. Every bone hurt. Every inch of exposed skin was shredded. He felt like he’d been dragged down the street behind a horse. Jim smiled at the
sarcastic thought
, then groaned as one of the men carrying him jarred his right side.

T
hree faces
hovered
above him. Murdoch frowned. His mouth moved beneath his handlebar moustache as he said something to John Walker from the hardware
store
. Jim recognized the third man from the feed store. Their faces were strained with the effort of carrying him and their fiercely gripping hands hurt like hell. He wished they’d set him down and let him get himself back to his room. Even if he had to crawl it would be less painful.

Jim glanced past Walker, who was
carrying
his legs, and tried to catch another glimpse of the schoolteacher. She must’ve left.

He wondered if any of his bones were broken, wondered if someone was gettin
g the doctor, and how he’d pay the man
. How soon would he be able to work again? If his body failed him, he was in trouble. That’s why he always took good care of himself, careful to keep healthy and steer clear of dangerous situations. From a lifetime of practice, he’d become adept at avoiding drunks or bullies who wanted to show their manliness with their fists and found him an easy target.

But today he hadn’t been alert. He’d been thinking about Shirley Mae and what she’d done for him the previous night. He’d only paid for a hand job. It was all he could afford, but he was desperate for something more than his own touch. Shirley had given him a blowjob for free. She’d pointed to the rhinestone comb in her hair, the one he’d found one day while sweeping the bar and returned to her, then she’d bent her head and taken
his cock
in her mouth. With that memory in mind, he hadn’t
even
been aware of the three drunken men until they grabbed him.