Robin Lee Hatcher (12 page)

Gavin groaned as consciousness returned, bringing with it a terrible throbbing in his head. Was that straw scratching his face? Yes, it was. Why was he lying facedown in the barn?

He rolled onto his back. A horse snorted nearby. Then he remembered.

“If I didn’t need you to pull the wagon,” he said through gritted teeth, “I’d plug you between the eyes right here and now.”

It wasn’t the first time the big workhorse had kicked at him. It
was
the first time the gelding had connected — a glancing blow to the head that had actually knocked him out.

The barn spun around him as he sat up, another groan escaping his lips.

“You’d make great buzzard feed.”

The piebald looked at him with unrepentant eyes.

How long had he been unconscious? Long enough to feel the cold in his bones. And from the sound of the wind outside, the storm hadn’t let up any. Gingerly he touched the back of his head, finding a hoof-sized lump with his fingers.

“I may shoot you yet.”

Emily tightened the rope around her waist as she repeated the instructions Dru had given her. “Two tugs mean I need you to pull me back. Four tugs means I’m in the barn and you can tie off the rope for us to use to find our way back when Gavin agrees it’s safe.” She tried to sound confident.

She wasn’t confident, of course, but she had to go out into the blizzard anyway. Gavin had been outside too long now. They needed to know why he hadn’t returned. They all needed to know — Dru, Sabrina, Petula, and Emily.

She tightened the knitted scarf around her head and pulled open the door. Snow stung her cheeks as she leaned forward and stepped outside.

“We’ll be back soon,” she called over the wind.

A few steps was all it took for the house to disappear from sight. Emily was surrounded by nothing but white. She held onto the rope for all she was worth as she forged ahead. Her feet sank into drifts of snow, and she stumbled more than once. All sense of direction vanished. There was no up or down, right or left, forward or back, night or day. There was only snow. Snow, snow, and more snow.

Was she still going in the right direction? What if she was lost out here? Panic rose like bile in her throat.

Turn back. Turn back now!

She couldn’t turn back. Dru and the girls were counting on her. Maybe Gavin was counting on her too. She had to reach the barn. She had to find it soon.

For courage, she silently quoted one of Maggie’s favorite verses:
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love,
and of a sound mind.

She pressed on.

The barn seemed to loom out of nowhere, mere inches away by the time she saw it. She felt almost giddy with relief as she touched it with her hands, making sure it wasn’t a mirage. Then she pressed her forehead against the board siding and whispered, “Thank you, God. Thank you.”

Drawing a steadying breath, she felt her way toward where she thought the door should be. Not finding it, she turned and moved the other direction until her hand fell upon the latch. She pulled on the door, but the snowdrift was too high. It wouldn’t budge. She would have to clear away the snow before she could open it enough to slip inside. Using both hands, she scooped and tossed, scooped and tossed, scooped and tossed. It took forever. Despair threatened, but she wouldn’t allow herself to give into it.

By the time she opened the door and stepped into the dark, pungent air of the barn, her hands were stiff with the cold.

“Mr. Blake?”

She remembered to give the four tugs on the rope to let Dru know she was in the barn. Then she untied the rope from around her waist and secured it to a rail near the door.

“Mr. Blake?” she called again.

No reply. Where was he? Could he have tried to return to the house and been lost in the storm? Her heart raced with fear at the thought.

She made her way slowly toward the stalls that held the animals, the dim light of the barn making it difficult to see. She found Gavin in the third stall, his back against the rails.

“Mr. Blake?”

He didn’t answer. Didn’t look at her.

She knelt in the straw beside him and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Gavin?”

He groaned, his eyes closed.

She gave him a little shake. “Gavin? What happened?”

At last he looked at her, but his eyes seemed unfocused.

“What happened to you?”

“Nothing much,” he answered slowly. “I just got the sense knocked out of me . . . by a horse.” His eyes rolled back in his head, and she had to catch him in her arms before he could topple over into the straw.

Twelve

Emily wasn’t sure how much time passed before he regained consciousness again. It seemed like forever. The silence of the barn and the whistling wind from beyond it made the waiting sheer agony. She didn’t know what to do for Gavin. He was obviously hurt or sick, but she had no way of knowing what was wrong. So she continued to hold him, his head on her shoulder, and waited.

At long last he stirred, releasing another long groan.

“Be careful, Mr. Blake,” she cautioned.

He drew slowly back from her, his eyes filled with confusion and surprise. “What happened?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

Another groan, then, “I’m gonna kill him.”

“Kill who?”

“Patch.” He turned the back of his head toward her. “How bad is it?”

She leaned closer and saw that his dark hair was matted with blood. “What did Patch do?”

“I leaned down to pick up the bucket, and he kicked me in the head. Knocked me out cold.”

She gingerly moved his hair out of the way so she could see the wound.

He grunted but didn’t pull away from her.

“It’s hard to tell in this light, but I don’t think you’ll need stitches. Head wounds always seem to bleed a lot. My nieces and nephews taught me that.”

Gavin pushed himself up from the floor. “I take it it’s stopped snowing.” He steadied himself against the top railing of the stall.

“Not yet.” She stood and brushed the straw from her skirt. “The wind is still driving the snow very hard. At least it was when I came to the barn.”

“You came out here through that blizzard?”

“I had to. We knew something was wrong when you didn’t return.”

Moving with care, Gavin walked across the barn to the door. Reaching it, he saw the rope tied to the rail and looked back at Emily.

“We tied it around my waist so I wouldn’t get lost. We can follow it back to the house.”

With a nod, he lifted the latch and tried to open the door. It barely moved.

She followed him across the barn. “I cleared away the snow so I could get in. It can’t be covered over already.”

“You’re wrong about that, Miss Harris.” He looked toward the loft. “We’ll have to go out through the loft.”

“Through the loft?” Her heart thudded as she sank onto a nearby storage bin, her frantic pulse pounding in her ears. He couldn’t possibly expect her to jump from up there.

Gavin hadn’t seen a snowstorm like this one this early in the year since he’d settled in Idaho. In December and January, plenty of times, but never in October.

He closed the loft door and returned to the ladder, stopping at the edge to look down. Emily hadn’t moved from the storage bin. Even from up here he could see her shivering as she hugged herself.

“No sign of it stopping yet.” His head throbbing, he lowered himself down the ladder. “And my guess is that rope of yours is under a foot of snow already.”

She nodded, misery written on her pretty face.

“Come over here,” Gavin said, motioning with his hand. “We need to warm you up.”

She rose from the bin and moved toward him, her arms still folded across her chest. When she reached him, he placed his hand on the small of her back and steered her toward the stall holding Sabrina’s calf.

“Wait here,” he commanded.

In the tack room at the back of the barn, he grabbed several saddle blankets. On his return trip, he took the lantern from its hook and carried it with him to the stall.

“Hold this.” He handed her the light.

With his boot, he kicked straw into a pile in the corner, then made a nest in the center of it. Afterward he placed one of the blankets over the bed of straw and smoothed out the wrinkles as best he could.

“Come on in.”

“Mr. Blake, I — ”

“Don’t argue with me, Miss Harris. Look at you. You’re shivering so hard I can almost hear your teeth rattle.”

When she drew near, he took the lantern from her. She lifted her eyes to meet his, and he felt his gut tighten. Vulnerable. Sweet. Uncertain. Fearful. There was something about her that made him want to —

He gritted his teeth and willed the incomplete thought away. “Go on. Sit down on that bed of straw and pull those other blankets over you.”

She skittered away from him.

Smart girl.

When she was covered with the saddle blankets, Gavin hung the lantern on another hook nearby, turning up the flame as high as it would go, then led the calf over to Emily. With a little encouragement, he got the calf to lie down close to her.

“He’ll throw off some body heat,” he explained without looking at her. “It should help warm you.”

The blustering wind whistled around the corner of the barn. A horse blew dust from its nostrils. Another stomped its hoof. The calf curled into a tight ball, making the straw rustle as he buried his nose against his belly.

Gavin felt their isolation. They might have been the only two people in the world. One man. One woman. Alone together.

He moved to the opposite side of the stall and slid to the floor, hugging his arms around his chest. If he were a praying man, he would definitely be asking God to bring the storm to an end — and soon.

Emily was cold and scared. Scared of staying in the barn while the storm raged. Scared of the thought of being lowered out of the hay door in the loft or worse, having to jump.

“It’ll be all right, Miss Harris.”

She looked across the stall at him. His face was hidden in shadows — the light from the lantern falling upon her and not him — but she took comfort in his presence. She took even more comfort knowing he hadn’t fallen unconscious again.

“I’ve waited out my share of blizzards. It won’t last much longer.”

How could he be sure? Still, she appreciated his attempt to reassure her.

“Put your hands on the calf. That’ll help warm them, and then the rest of you will start feeling warmer.”

She did as he suggested. “I hope Dru won’t be too worried about us.”

“That woman’s got a lot of faith in her God. I imagine she’ll trust him with us too.”

Emily nodded, drawing even more comfort from that thought than from Gavin’s presence. “I guess I should do the same, shouldn’t I? I’m sorry for letting my fear take over.”

“I’d say you didn’t let fear take over, Miss Harris. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be out here in this barn, and I might still be unconscious.”

Warmth at his unexpected praise spread through her.

He chuckled softly. “I bet you didn’t foresee anything like this when you decided to take a job as governess.”