Miranda Jarrett - Gift Of The Heart

“The only thing you’re trying, Rachel, is my patience.” With a grunt he swung his leg over the saddle and dropped heavily to the snowy ground. “You’ll thank me when you learn why I’ve come.”

“If it’s more of your self-styled help, Alec, I want none of it.” Though she didn’t dare look away from her brother-in-law, she could feel how Billy shrank uneasily against her leg.

“You wanted it readily enough last year,” said Alec, his breath coming in great gusts in the icy air as he trudged through the snow. “And this past autumn, too. Who saw to it that you’d firewood to last through the snows, eh?”

“Only half of what you promised,” she declared, but grudgingly she rehooked the catch on the flintlock and lowered the gun. Though she hated to admit it, she wouldn’t have survived last winter without his assistance. It was what he’d expected in return that had made his charity so loathsome, and her position so complicated now. “What is it this time Alec?”

He stopped a half-dozen paces away and smiled with the full force of his considerable charm. “A chance to gild our pockets, Rachel. Twenty dollars, all going begging. You won’t say nay to that when times are so hard now, will you, sister?”

“No one lets gold go begging, hard times or not,” answered Rachel suspiciously. “Especially not you. The truth, Alec, plain and simple.”

Seeing how little charm was getting him, Alec jammed his hat squarely on his head and spat into the snow. “The truth, Rachel, is that one of those bloody Tory Rangers lost his head in the middle of a battle, quarreling over a woman or some other plunder. Shot an officer dead without so much as a by-your-leave. At least, that’s what they’re saying at Volk’s.”

“Oh, my, what’s said at Volk’s,” she scoffed. “Why do you think I’d care about your tavern tattle?” But despite the scorn she poured on his words, she did care. She cared very much, more with every second as she waited with dread for what Alec would inevitably say next.

“Because Colonel Butler himself’s put a price on the poor bastard’s life,” said Alec with obvious satisfaction.

The chill that swept through Rachel had nothing to do with the snow. As isolated as she was from the war, she still had heard of Walter Butler and the hellish pact he’d made with Joseph Brant, the chief of the Mohawk nation. Together Butler’s Rangers and Brant’s braves had cut a ruthless, bloody swath through to the east in the name of the king.

But, God help her, how could the man with the summer blue eyes, the man whose smile had haunted her loneliness as she’d drawn him back from death—how could this same man be so heartlessly cruel?

“They’re offering twenty dollars,” continued Alec. “Double the usual rate for a white man’s scalp. Of course, Butler’d rather have the man alive to deal with properly, but Brant and the rest of his savages aren’t inclined to be overnice with traitors.”

Rachel swallowed her revulsion, imagining all too vividly the stranger’s long, chestnut hair trailing from the belt of some Seneca brave. “I still don’t see what this has to do with me. This land here belongs to the Americans, not the British.”

“Only this, you foolish chit. Butler swears the man was shot before he fled, and in this weather he wouldn’t go far. If you find him on your land before the wolves do—or even after they have, as long as you can take his scalp—then we can claim the reward.”

Appalled both by his suggestion and that he’d make it before Billy, Rachel stared at him. “What kind of woman do you think I am, that I would use some wounded stranger so cruelly?”

“Oh, I think you’re a decent, loyal woman who loves her country and the sweet cause of liberty,” said Alec, his sarcasm unmistakable. “You wouldn’t want people thinking otherwise of you, would you? Whispering that you’ve forgotten your husband and gone over to the king? You’d learn soon enough how short tempers are in this county, Rachel, you and the boy both.”

“But I couldn’t—”

“You can do anything if your life depends on it,” said Alec firmly. “You’ve skinned game. Taking a scalp’s not much different. A tall man, they’re saying, name of Ryder, with coppery hair and a bullet in his shoulder. Shouldn’t be too hard to mistake, eh, sister?”

But to her dismay she felt Billy begin to shuffle and tug at her skirt. “Mama?” he began, unable to contain himself any longer, “Mama, why—”

Instantly she crouched down to the child’s level, praying that her voice alone could silence the damning question. “Hush, now, Billy,” she said urgently, resting the musket in the crook of her arm as she brushed her fingers across his cheek. “Mama’s talking with Uncle Alec.”

“And she’s not done talking to me yet.”

Before she realized it Alec was beside her, seizing her arm and dragging her to her feet so roughly that the musket slipped free and fell with a soft swoosh into the snow. She gasped with surprise, but didn’t fight him or struggle to free herself, instead going perfectly still. She wouldn’t give Alec that satisfaction, nor did she wish to frighten Billy any more than he already was, his fists locked tight around her knee.

“What in God’s name do you think you’re doing, Alec?” she said as evenly as she could. Lord, how had she let herself be so careless? “This is ridiculous!”

“Not as ridiculous as you pointing that damnable musket at me,” he said, his face near enough to hers that she could smell the rum and stale tobacco on his breath. “Perhaps next time you’ll remember that I don’t like to be kept out in the snow at gunpoint like some gypsy tinker.”

“There won’t be a next time, not if I can help it!”

“But there will, Rachel.” For a moment that was endless to her, Alec’s grasp seemed to turn into a caress that burned through her sleeve before his fingers tightened once again. “I swore to William I’d look after his pretty little wife, and look after you I shall.”

“I never asked you for that!”

“You took my food and my firewood when I offered it, didn’t you?”

“Because you were my husband’s brother!” she cried, her bitter anguish still fresh after so many months. “You were all the family I had for hundreds of miles, and I trusted you!”

“Then I’ve every right to be here, haven’t I? You can’t order me away, Rachel, not for wanting to offer you advice and comfort.” He let his gaze slide boldly down her throat to her bodice, and chuckled as Rachel self-consciously clutched the front of her cloak together. “The whole county knows what I’ve done for you and the boy. I’ve made quite certain of that. And if in return I ask some small favors, some little indulgences, why, there’s none but you who’d begrudge me that.”

“‘Small favors’!” Unable to bear his touch any longer, Rachel finally jerked her arm free, rubbing furiously at her forearm as if to wipe clean some invisible stain. “What you ask, Alec, what you expect—William would kill you if he knew!”

“We’re discussing my brother, Rachel,” he said with insolent confidence, “and I’m not so convinced that he’d mind at all.”

And neither, thought Rachel miserably, was she. With William, she never did know for certain. In humiliated silence she watched as Alec fished her musket from the snow where she’d dropped it. Slowly he brushed off the snow that clung to the stock before he held the gun out for her to take.

“I’ll be back, Rachel,” he said softly. “Be sure of that. And mind you keep your eyes open for Ryder. I wouldn’t want the talk to start about my brother’s wife.”

Rachel snatched the gun away from him, her eyes blazing with shame and anger. “Just leave, Alec,” she said. “Leave now. ”