Candace McCarthy (28 page)

“What happened between you two?” Jack Keller stood in the smithy, watching Daniel hammer a tool into shape with skill but with a vengeance he’d never seen before in his friend.

“Nothing happened between us,” Daniel grated out between hammerblows.

“Sure, nothing much,” Jack mocked. As Daniel continued to hammer metal that had cooled—a fruitless and noisy step in properly manipulating steel, Jack sighed, then he went over to pump up the bellows to heat up the forge fire.

Without comment, Daniel transferred the metal to the fire for warming, then returned it to the anvil and went back to work.

“Nothing, my arse, “Jack muttered darkly, with concern for his friend.

The blacksmith stopped. “What?” he said. “Did you say something?”

“I said,
‘Nothing, my arse.’”
He didn’t allow Daniel’s scowl to upset him. “You watch the woman as if you want to either shake her or kiss her senseless. The latter, I think … while Amelia gazes at you with longing and fear.”

Daniel tensed. “She doesn’t gaze at me with longing.”

It was Jack’s turn to scowl. “All right, then she looks
at you with fear. Is that what you want to hear? Me, I don’t believe that,” he said. “Oh, it’s not that I don’t think she isn’t afraid of something … but it’s not you. Perhaps of losing you …”

Jack’s gaze narrowed as his friend looked away. “Did you do something to make you think she fears you?” He felt a flicker of surprise when he saw Daniel blush. “What did you do?”

Daniel glared at him then. “None of your damn business!”

“Fine!” Jack threw his hands up in the air and started to walk away.

“Wait,” Daniel said, his voice suddenly gone quiet. “I’m sorry. I’m angry with myself, and I’ve taken it out on you.”

Jack nodded. “You’re so much in love with her, it’s eating you up inside.”

“I don’t deserve her,” Daniel said. Then, he managed to smile when he caught his friend gaping at him. “I don’t,” he said.

“Hell, Dan. Who’s to say who deserves whom?”

“I didn’t bring back Amelia’s father.” Daniel whacked the metal with his hammer, then cursed when it raised a mark in it that would need to be worked out.

“You tried, Daniel,” Jack said quietly. “You tried.” He paused, felt something kick in his gut as he got a mental vision of a woman with cropped blond hair and a blue gaze filled with pain. “And you brought back Jane,” he said so softly his friend couldn’t hear him.

“But trying isn’t enough, is it?” Daniel returned shortly. “At least not for me, it isn’t. And I’m sure it’s not for Amelia either.”

“Is that all that’s keeping you two apart? John Dempsey’s disappearance?”

Daniel couldn’t admit to his friend about the other thing that had happened between him and Amelia Dempsey … when he’d loved her until he’d burned and shivered … and had known that he was hopelessly in love.

“Isn’t that enough?” he said.

“If the man came back, then you’d talk with her? Ask her to marry you? It is what you want, isn’t it?”

With all his heart, Daniel thought. “I’d talk with her,” he said.

“You’d have to promise that you’d talk with her if you expect me to believe you mean it. Or are you too cowardly to do such a thing?”

Daniel became angry. “I said I’d talk with her, and that’s all I can promise.”

“If her father came back,” Jack said. When Daniel nodded, his friend grinned, a stupid grin that had Daniel raising his eyebrows.

“What?” Daniel growled.

“He’s back.”

Daniel blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I said John Dempsey has returned safe and sound.” Jack looked smug. “If you don’t believe me, go to the mission and see for yourself.”

“When? How?”

“The Sioux had him, but apparently they were friendly Sioux. John Dempsey had once helped save one of their young sons. It was by chance that the band of Indians met up with the others and recognized our good doctor.”

Chance?
Daniel wondered, reeling from the impact of the news.
Or fate?

“He’s all right then?” he asked, his thoughts, his concerns with Amelia.

“He’s fine,” Jack said. He jerked a thumb to the smithy
doorway. “You’d best get moving, Trahern, so you can just ‘talk with her’ before it gets too late.”

Daniel stared at his friend, then down at the misshapen tool on the anvil. He laid his hammer beside the cooling black metal and grinned over his shoulder as he headed toward the door. “I reckon you’re right. I’d best be on my way.”

Daniel approached the missionary infirmary building with his heart thundering in his chest and his hands clammy at his sides. He knocked, then held his breath as he waited for someone to open the door … for Amelia.

To his disappointment and pleasure, it was John Dempsey himself who answered his knock.

“Mr. Trahern!” the doctor exclaimed. “How nice to see you! Come in. Come in!”

“How are you, sir?” Daniel said as he entered the front waiting area.

“Fine, fine,” the man enthused. “I must say I had my moments of fear, but all in all I was all right.” He grinned. “Am all right. See? I’m as healthy as a horse.”

The doctor’s comments made the younger man smile.

“My daughter says I have a great deal to thank you for.” John’s brown gaze, so like Amelia’s, met Daniel’s. “You rescued her, took her into your home. In fact, you rescued her twice.”

Daniel broke away from that gaze. “I did nothing.” He couldn’t take credit for what came naturally … just as he couldn’t take credit for loving Amelia … for loving her came naturally to him as living and breathing.

“I didn’t rescue you.”

John snorted and waved that notion aside. “Can’t be rescuing what you can’t find to rescue,” he said. “Besides,
son, you tried.” His voice lowered. “You tried,” he murmured, sounding grateful.

The man’s gratitude made Daniel feel ashamed. He knew the last thing the doctor would feel was gratitude if he knew what Daniel had done to his lovely daughter.

“Sir, may I ask where Amelia is?”

John’s gaze grew sad. “I suspect she’s walking about the compound, probably toward that little stream she loves so much. The one in the forest behind the church. She’s got something on her mind. A decision to make.”

Daniel’s stomach clenched. Was it safe for her to be out walking?

“She’s not far. I’m sure you’ll be able to catch her.”

Daniel suddenly recalled hearing something about a decision. “A decision, sir?”

The man nodded. “As much as it will pain me to lose her, I’ve suggested to Amelia that she return East to live with her sister and aunt. I’m an old man, and I’ve learned from this experience that I’m not very good at taking care of her. And since she has nothing to hold her here, but me …”

Back East.
Daniel panicked. Amelia going back to Baltimore?

“No!” Daniel caught himself protesting the idea out loud. He saw that John was watching him strangely, almost with expectation. He drew a deep breath as he made the decision to tell the man how he felt. “I’m in love with your daughter.”

John smiled, a warm smile that gave Daniel encouragement, hope. “Then, son, I suggest you get to her before she makes her decision final.”

Daniel nodded and felt himself grin. “Yes, sir.” He turned to leave.

“Daniel?”

The blacksmith froze and glanced back.

“Don’t take no for an answer, do you hear?”

Daniel’s teeth flashed. “No, sir. I mean yes, sir.”

Then, he hurried toward the stream with fear in his heart that the woman he loved would never forgive him.

It was a lovely autumn day with a soft breeze rustling the treetops, carrying with it the scent of dried leaves and damp earth. Amelia walked along the stream, listening to the trees and the soft burbling of the water that rushed by her.

Back to Baltimore.
She had a decision to make. Should she go or stay? Go, return to her aunt’s house and a life that held no meaning for her? Or stay, where she could see Daniel and experience a surge of pain each time she saw him and realize what she’d lost?

It wasn’t really much of a decision, actually. Amelia had known soon after her father had suggested the move that she wouldn’t go. Couldn’t go. If all she could have of Daniel was a brief glimpse on occasion, it was better than nothing. Better than not ever having the chance to see him again, hear his voice … watch him work. As a customer even, she’d be able to indulge herself in watching him work.

She should be happy. Her father was back, healthy and alive, and so were the other women captives and children, having been returned at John Dempsey’s request.

Amelia thought of her father’s tale with amazement. Apparently, Runs-with-the-Wind, the father of John Dempsey’s late-night patient—the little injured Sioux boy, Little Cloud—had been among the band of Indians who’d traded for John Dempsey. The grateful father, a firm believer in the doctor’s healing ability, had taken John to
another patient, a young Sioux woman who had contracted some strange white man’s disease.

The first thing her father had done was quarantine the woman to keep the others from contracting the illness. Then with patience, prayer, and the right medicines, he’d helped see the woman through the medical crisis, thus earning the Sioux’s gratitude once again.

With the woman cured, John has asked to be returned to the mission and for help in finding Amelia and the other missionary captives, who, once found, would be returned as well. Runs-with-the-Wind had agreed, and it had taken until just recently to find those who had survived the ordeal. All but Amelia. It wasn’t Runs-with-the-Wind’s men who’d attacked the mission, a fact that Amelia had already learned after the business of Richard Milton.

Amelia sat down on a rock near the stream’s edge and trailed her fingers in the water. She should have been happy, she thought. And she would have been, should have been, since her decision to stay had come so easily to her. But the decision didn’t alter the fact that Daniel hated her, that he desired her but would never love her as she wanted to be loved.

Not that I can blame him.
He’d been hurt so much. First by Pamela. Amelia felt intense anger as she thought of Daniel’s dead wife. Next when he’d lost his sister. And because of her, he’d nearly lost not only his sister for the second time, but Susie, Jane’s child. The little girl Daniel loved like a daughter.

“I love you, Daniel.” She closed her eyes and sought comfort for her tears in the wind and the sounds and the scents of her surroundings. “I love you.”

“Amelia.”

She gasped and shot to her feet. “Daniel.” Her pulse
began to hammer wildly. Her skin burned, and her spine tingled as she shyly met his gaze.

He stared at her intently, his blue eyes burning with some emotion that Amelia didn’t recognize but feared. “I saw your father,” he said. His expression softened. “He told me you were here.”

She nodded. Had he heard her declaration of love? No, she decided. She didn’t know, couldn’t tell what was on his mind, but she was certain it wasn’t worry that the woman he distrusted loved him.

“You’re going back to Baltimore,” he said.

Amelia was intrigued. It had sounded more like an accusation than a statement.

“I’ve been thinking about it.” It wasn’t a lie, for she had been thinking about it. Thinking about it and dismissing the idea. She decided to be truthful. “But I’m not going.”

His blue gaze flickered. “You’re not?”

Gazing at him, wondering what she saw, she slowly shook her head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I, ah, have things here that matter to me.”
And people,
she thought.
You.

He approached until he was only inches away. “Amelia,” he murmured. He reached out and, studying his own actions, touched her face. “I’m glad.”

She felt surprised. “You are?”

He nodded, then leaned in closer until she could barely breathe. He turned her head so she could feel the soft whisper of his breath against her neck and ear. “Do you know you have a little mole here behind your left earlobe?” he asked.

She frowned. “I do?”

He drew back so she could see him nod. “A little tiny
one. And you have a larger one at the base of your spine.” He reached around her, placed his hand at the small of her back, and rubbed her through the fabric. “A brown mark. Like an angel’s kiss.”

He smiled. “Do you believe in angels?”

Staring at him, caught up in his mesmerizing blue glance, she could only nod.

“Me, too,” he murmured as his gaze fastened on her mouth. His head loomed closer. “Angels are fragile,” he said huskily. “You must be careful with them. Treat them with care.”

His breath hitched before his head lowered and he kissed her gently on the mouth. Startled, then fascinated, Amelia wanted harder kisses and more.

“Angels are wise,” he said. “You must always trust that angels will never hurt you. Trust them. They act in good faith, and one must never forget that.”

Amelia began to tremble as he cupped her behind the ears, used his thumbs to caress the sensitive areas. She tingled. She burned. She closed her eyes and wondered if this was a dream, a cruel dream that would be punishment for her sins when she awakened.

But it didn’t feel like a dream when his mouth captured hers in a hot, searing kiss that rocked her to her toes and made the hair at her nape stand on tingling end. Nor did his blazing blue gaze look angry … the flame in his eyes was desire.

Daniel released her mouth to bury his face in her neck, where his lips worked their magic on her shoulder and throat.

He raised his head. “Angels are special. You have to care for them.” He paused as his hand cupped her throat and felt the throbbing pulse there at the base.
“Love them.”

His expression changed. He looked suddenly concerned,
wary. “Angels are rare. If a man is lucky, he’ll find one only once in a lifetime.”

His face cleared as he studied her, apparently pleased with what he saw in her features. “Angel. Amelia,” he murmured. “Coincidence that both words begin with
a?
I think not.”

He kissed her then with unconcealed longing. She felt the mindless pleasure, lifted her hands and sank her fingers into his hair to hold him still. While he ravaged her mouth, she gave back to him, and their guttural groans filled the tiny hidden forest glade.