MB01 - Unending Devotion (13 page)

An ache of weary gratefulness rose up his throat and stung his eyes. “You’re alive.”

“Connell,” she whispered, her eyes drinking in the sight of him in a way that sent warmth first to his belly and then to his arms and legs.

Her long thick lashes fell to her pallid cheeks, and her breathing faded. From the limpness of her body, the color of her skin, and the shallowness of her breathing, he knew he didn’t have time to take her all the way back to Harrison.

He had to find a way to warm her body back up. Immediately. Her life depended on it.

A fresh spurt of panic ripped through him.

He tore through his pack for the blankets. With shaking hands he managed to bundle her within them. Even as he situated her in front of him on the horse, he knew his feeble efforts weren’t enough. He turned the mare back toward Harrison, his mind scrambling to calculate exactly where he was and which lumber camp was closest.

Did he dare leave the railroad track and attempt to find a camp? What if he got lost?

The denseness of the blowing snow had the makings of a blizzard. Even if he stumbled across a narrow gauge and followed it to one of the camps, his gut told him Lily wouldn’t make it that long.

But maybe there was someone or something else closer. A deserted Indian lodge? An old trapper cabin?

For a long moment, his thoughts traveled back over every inch of the Pere Marquette, adding each mile, searching for anything. “The Sweeny hut,” he finally said with a jolt of renewed energy.

If his estimates were correct, he’d come exactly 4.3 miles. The old Sweeny hut would only be another eight hundred feet up the railroad and then fifty feet to the east of the tracks.

He struggled to turn forward and urged his horse. He clung to Lily with one arm and his lantern with the other, hoping the oil would hold out until he found the hut. And he desperately prayed his computations were correct. If he was off by just a few feet, they would end up lost in the forest.

By the time he guided his horse off the railway, his arms and back ached from holding Lily, and his thighs burned with the effort of gripping his beast. But he forced himself to keep going, measuring each step with precision, knowing their lives depended upon it.

Finally, when he’d gone fifty feet he stopped and slid down from the mare. He held the lantern high but couldn’t see anything that even remotely looked like a hut.

A sliver of fear sliced through him. Had he made a wrong calculation somewhere?

Lily’s limp body had grown heavier. She didn’t move. And he couldn’t tell if she was still breathing.

He was running out of time.

With a growl of frustration, he crunched forward through the heavy snow, working his way around a ten-foot radius until finally the flickering lantern light revealed a snow-covered hovel.

It was nothing more than a rudimentary shack, eight feet by eight feet wide, part dugout and part logs, not more than four feet high. The early land cruiser Bill Sweeny had constructed it when he’d first come to Clare County ten years earlier to scout for the best pine, pace off sections of land, and establish boundaries.

A quick inspection revealed a sagging roof and a door hanging half off the frame. It was in bad shape, but it was still something.

As Connell ducked inside and deposited Lily onto the cold earthen floor, he hoped he wasn’t too late to save her life.

Chapter
10

B
lessed warmth surrounded Lily.

She lay on the brink of heaven, knowing the warmth must surely come from the reflection of the sun, the golden streets, and perhaps even from the very presence of God himself.

Angel wings enveloped her.

She sighed with contentment.

Why had she been so afraid to die? Especially when paradise was so perfect?

She nuzzled her nose into the angel, catching the faint scent of pine and woodsmoke.

The strong wings developed hands that pressed against her, one spanning the place between her shoulder blades and the other splayed across the small of her back.

When the angel gave a soft moan, her heart lurched and her eyes shot open.

She found herself gazing at a wide expanse of a man’s chest.

Her entire body froze with fear. And the horror of her nightmare returned. Her numb feet that would no longer work to keep her walking. Her icy fingers that she couldn’t keep warm no matter how many times she’d blown on them. The snow that stuck to her eyelashes, blinding her.

When she’d finally fallen to the ground in the absolute darkness of the snowstorm, she’d known she couldn’t get up, that she was going to freeze to death, and that she would be buried in a coffin of snow.

And all she’d been able to think about was how foolish she’d been, that she should have paid more attention to the change in the weather and turned around when it started to snow. That now no one would rescue Frankie. No one would care about Daisy. If she died, the two girls would be trapped forever.

Lily shuddered.

The thick arms surrounding her pulled her tighter.

She couldn’t make sense of where she was or what was happening. But then she lifted her eyes.

Connell’s face was only inches away. His eyes were closed. Weariness creased his forehead. And his breath rose and fell with the steady rhythm of exhausted slumber.

He’d come after her. For the first time in her life, someone had cared enough to rescue her.

A surge of gratefulness rose up swiftly and brought an ache to her throat.

She had the urge to lift her fingers to his cheek and brush the tips along the day-old scruff that had grown over his normally clean-shaven skin.

At the crackling of the fire behind her, she became aware of the heat against her back and the fact that she was warm—something she’d thought would never happen again. From what she could tell, she was lying on the floor, bundled under several blankets with Connell, and wrapped in his arms.

Her gaze dropped again to the view directly before her eyes, and her mind registered what it hadn’t before: Connell was not fully clad. He’d stripped off his shirt and trousers and wore only a wool union suit.

Her body sparked with the acute reality that she was partially unclothed too, that Connell had taken off her dress and left her in only her camisole and drawers.

She knew why. Her coat and dress had been damp from the snow. And of course, being the considerate man he was, he’d shed it to save her. And he’d discarded his garments to give her his body heat, to warm her frozen body back to life.

But she sucked in a hiss anyway, knowing she was in a completely improper, indecent situation, and that she should move away from him as fast as she could. She was plenty warm now, and there was no reason to continue to lie next to him.

She began to wiggle away, but then stopped. He was likely exhausted. If she moved, she would wake him. For an agonizing moment, she held herself rigid, the uncertainty and embarrassment of the situation paralyzing her.

Through the dim light, she found herself gazing at the contours of his chest visible through the tight single-piece undergarment.

She closed her eyes, trying to keep from staring at him but found herself leaning in and breathing in his warm pine scent. The solidness of his body and the security of being so close to him sent a tiny shiver of pleasure through her.

She drew in another deep breath and then stopped.

What was she doing? Had the cold frozen her brain so that she couldn’t think straight?

He gave a soft sigh and she pulled back, mortification dashing through her.

She held herself motionless for a long moment before daring to peek at him. His eyes were still closed, and his breathing even with the heaviness of his slumber.

A whisper deep in her soul told her she should move away while she had the chance, before she did something she would regret later. After all, she’d prided herself on her purity. She hadn’t ever paired off with boys like so many of the girls at the orphanages had.

And now, she couldn’t let the emotion of the moment control her.

Even as her soul warned her, she allowed herself one more look at the span of his chest. Her heart swelled with the longing to inhale one last breath of him before she moved away.

She bent her face toward him. At that moment he shifted and her nose bumped against the tautness of his chest. “Oh” came her nearly soundless gasp.

His hands against her back tightened.

Had she awoken him?

One of his hands slid up into the thick strands of her hair and dug through the curls. Gently he tugged her head back so she was forced to look into his eyes.

The green was dark, and when his gaze fell upon her lips, his pupils widened, making his eyes even darker.

Was he thinking of kissing her?

Sweet innocent anticipation wafted through her. She’d never been kissed by a man—never wanted to be kissed. She’d always kept herself far above any loose behavior.

With a groan, he closed his eyes, almost as if he were trying to block out the sight of her.

In one cold moment, he let go of her and rolled away.

He scrambled up and turned his back to her.

She shuddered from the blast of air that rippled across her skin.

Without looking at her, he grabbed his shirt, which he’d stretched out near the fire. His fingers fumbled to tug the garment over his head, his arms getting tangled in his haste to clothe himself.

“How are you feeling?” he asked without turning around. He jammed his arms into the sleeves.

The chill on her skin soaked into her flesh and worked toward her heart. What had happened? She’d seen desire in his eyes, hadn’t she?

With his back toward her, he snatched his trousers from the ground and hopped on one leg and then the other as he worked them over the long material of his union suit. Hunched under the low roof, he snapped his suspenders over his shoulders and then finally chanced a glance her way.

She hadn’t moved, hadn’t the energy, hadn’t the desire for anything but being next to him.

When his gaze landed upon her thin camisole, he hurriedly turned his eyes to the blanket. “Are you warm yet?” He reached for the blanket and draped it across her.

She couldn’t get her voice to work but instead watched him, wondering why he’d pushed her away so quickly, wishing she didn’t feel the sting of his rejection.

He hovered above her as if sensing her hurt. His fingers lingered on the blanket, and desire flitted across his face again.

“I’m sorry, Lily,” he said hoarsely, ripping himself away from her. He glanced everywhere in the small hut but at her. “You have to believe me. I wasn’t trying to take advantage of you. I was just trying to save your life. That’s why we were the way we were . . .”

“It’s all right,” she whispered.

He cleared his throat and reached for a piece of wood out of the pile next to the door. “I didn’t mean for things to get so . . . so intimate.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” He’d only done what he’d had to. She couldn’t fault him in the least.

He moved toward the fire, once again turning his back toward her. He added the log and used the blade of his ax to stir the coals. When he finally sat back, he’d put obvious distance between them.

“I won’t take advantage of you, Lily.” Again his voice was hoarse with emotion. “It wouldn’t be right.”

She grasped the blankets closer. She shuddered to think what could have happened if any other man had found her. And her heart swelled with gratitude that Connell was such a good man.

“You’re an attractive woman.” His voice was almost a whisper.

His words sent a fresh burst of warmth over her skin.

He stared at the flickering flames, and the muscles in his jaw worked up and down. Finally he spoke. “My mam taught me that I’d show my admiration best if I used restraint and respect. She told me a woman needs to be cherished, not used for the pleasure of the moment.”

Was he telling her he admired her?

The warmth slipped into her blood and sent a different kind of tingle of delight throughout her body.

He’d always acted decently and honorably toward her. And even though part of her longed to be back in his arms, another part of her liked him even more for his strength and determination to show her respect.

She settled back against the hardness of the ground, and the strain eased from her limbs. She tried to adjust herself into a comfortable position, one in which she could still see him, but she noticed for the first time the crudeness of their shelter.

The roof was a sagging mess of rotten boards with holes that appeared to have been hastily patched with tree branches and pine-seedling boughs. The log walls were crumbling away, the gaps stuffed with a fresh mixture of leaves and boughs. Even the shabby door was propped closed with a large branch.

She could only imagine the hardship he’d endured to find her and get her to this place—wherever it was. And from what she could tell, he’d likely spent hours attempting to save her life while also having to make the shelter safe from the storm.

“Thank you for coming after me,” she said softly, her mind beginning to comprehend the magnitude of what he’d done and the risks he’d taken—even putting his own life in jeopardy—to find her. “I don’t know what I would have done without your help.”

“You’re welcome.” A slow smile worked its way up his lips. The flames from the fire reflected on his face, highlighting his pleasure at her words. “After all the times I’ve had to bail you out of trouble, I have to admit, it’s kind of nice to hear you finally admit you needed my help.”

“
All
the times?”

“Yes,
all
the times.” His grinned widened. “Starting from the first night you stepped into the Northern Hotel.”

“If I remember right, I didn’t do such a bad job taking care of myself.” A smile twitched her lips. “But I suppose if it makes you feel like a knight in shining armor, I’ll let you take the credit for saving me from doom.”

“Oh, come on, admit it.” His voice was low and edged with laughter. “You know for a fact I’m your knight in shining armor.”