Elizabeth Lane - Lydia

He walked faster, steeling his emotions against the hot rage that boiled up inside him every time he thought of her. Laughing, lying Lydia, the very essence of treachery. Even last night-But last night counted for nothing. It was prim, shy Sarah Parker who had attracted him. A phantom. A stage role—no more real than Lydia Taggart herself had been.

He broke into a sweat as the question penetrated his mind. Who was this woman? Was she Lydia Taggart? Was she Sarah Parker?

Or was she someone he did not even know?

He had reached the outskirts of town. Slowing his pace to a deliberate walk, he tried to calm himself by studying each building he passed. The two-story hotel had been boarded up for years, its faded green paint peeling like a bad sunburn. The assay office, too, was closed, but Varina had mentioned that Satterlee, the storekeeper, did assay work at the rare times it was needed. The barbershop was open only on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the barber, a Mr. Watson, doubled as official undertaker and set an occasional broken limb. Sarah Parker doctored the few women and children.

Even the sheriff’s office was empty, except for dust and pack rats. There seemed to be no laws worth breaking in this town, nor anyone who cared one way or the other.

The street was a quagmire of slush and mud. In front of the saloon, stepping boards had been laid from the hitching rail to the door. The saloon, in fact, was the only establishment in Miner’s Gulch that still appeared to be thriving. Even at midday, idlers were meandering in, drawn by the lure of whiskey, the tuneless tinkle of the piano, and the shopworn women who lounged in the overhead rooms, framed like jaded portraits in the second-story windows.

Donovan avoided raising his eyes as he passed. Ordinarily, he didn’t mind the company of whores. Some of them possessed a warmth and honesty that he found lacking in so-called decent women. But this town was his sister’s home, and people were bound to talk. Neither he nor Varina needed that kind of trouble. Besides, right now, he had a very different kind of whore on his mind.

Satterlee’s General Store was two doors down from the saloon. Three upstairs windows, curtained to eye level with flour sacking, faced the street. Donovan risked a tentative upward glance, hoping for some indication that Sarah was there, but he could see little more than the reflected glare of the bright spring sky. Swiftly he turned away. It wouldn’t do at all for her to look down and see him standing in the street, gazing up at her windows.

He was wondering what to do next when a motley gaggle of children came trooping around the store through the alley that led to the back. Seeing his two nieces among them, Donovan realized that Sarah had just dismissed school.

He felt something tighten in his chest. Yes, she would be there. This was as good a chance as he was going to get.

“Uncle Donovan!” Little Katy had spotted him and was weaving through the crowd of children, dragging her big sister by the hand. “What are you doing here? Did you come to walk home with us?”

Donovan sighed. Fishing in his pocket, he dug out a pahnful of small change. “Here,” he growled, giving the coins to Annie. “Go on into the store and buy some peppermint sticks for yourselves and Samuel. Then start for home. I’ll catch up when I’ve finished my business here in town.”

“Thank you.” Annie counted the money carefully while Katy danced around her like a pup anticipating a bone. She tugged her sister toward the front of the store, splashing mud with her small, prancing boots.

Donovan waited until they’d gone inside. Then, taking a deep breath, he turned and strode deliberately down the alley, toward the back stairs.

For the past three years he’d tried to believe that the war was really over. But he’d been wrong. There was one battle left to fight. He would fight it here and now.

Sarah was wiping sums off the blackboard when she heard the sharp, heavy rap at the door. She knew at once who was there and why he had come.

For an instant she stood frozen, her heart in her throat. Every well-honed survival instinct screamed at her to leave the bolt in place and hide until he went away. But it would do no good, she realized. Donovan had seen the children leaving. He knew she was here, and he was quite capable of forcing his way inside.

The knock sounded again, louder this time, and even more insistent. Sarah willed her feet to move toward the sound. She had been expecting Donovan. And she had already made up her mind not to run away.

Once more she heard the angry thud of his big, rawboned knuckles on the wood, and his voice, chilling her with its cold contempt. “I know you’re in there, Lydia. And unless you want a scene this town will talk about for the next decade, you’d better open that door!”

Lydia.

Sarah’s ribs strained against the rigid stays of her corset. Her breath came in shallow gasps as she paused before the door, marshaling her courage. One hand rose instinctively to check her pince-nez spectacles. They were in place, perched firmly on the bridge of her nose. She hesitated, then deliberately removed them and laid them on one of the benches. The glasses were part of her masquerade—stage props, fitted with flat lenses that had no effect on her vision. It was time to put them aside. As far as Donovan was concerned, at least, the masquerade was over.

Donovan’s anger seemed to emanate through the heavy door planks. Sarah fumbled with the bolt, her icy fingers betraying her panic. In the course of the war, she had braved enough dangerous situations to fill a whole shelf full of dime novels. But never before, until now, had she faced the blistering rage of a man like Donovan Cole.

Steeling her resolve, she tugged at the door. It swung inward with an ominous groan of its weather-dampened hinges.

Donovan’s towering bulk filled the frame. His presence crackled like the air before a thunderstorm as he stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him. Suddenly everything else in the room seemed small.

Sarah’s throat was as dry as field cotton on an August afternoon. Fighting the impulse to run, she forced herself to stand straight and proud. He loomed above her—as he loomed above nearly everyone—his eyes searing in their unspoken indictment.

“Hello, Lydia.” His voice was thin with contempt.

Sarah spoke calmly, as if she were reciting lines from a play. “My name isn’t Lydia. It’s Sarah. Sarah Parker Buckley.”

The emotion that flickered across his face could have been anger, dismay or disbelief. “They told me you were dead. I saw your grave.”

“Lydia Taggart is dead. If you saw a grave, it was hers.”

His hand shot out and seized her upper arm, his fingers almost crushing bone in their powerful clasp. “No more riddles, Sarah, or Lydia, or whatever the hell your name is! I want answers. I want the truth about everything that happened. And once it’s out, I want you packed up and gone.”

Sarah glared up into the granite fury of his eyes. “You’re hurting me,” she whispered.

His grip eased slightly, but he did not release her. “I’ve never done physical harm to a woman in my life,” he growled. “But heaven help me, if some things don’t get cleared up fast, I’ll shake you till your teeth fall out of your lying little head!”

“Let me go.” Sarah thrust out her chin in regal defiance, like Antigone, or perhaps Medea. Her theatrical training had served her well, she assured herself. Donovan could not possibly know that she was quivering like jelly inside.

“You’ll talk?”

She felt the hesitation in his fingers, the reluctance to trust her enough to let go. “I’ll answer any questions you want to ask me,” Sarah replied coldly. “But you might as well know right now, I have no intention of leaving Miner’s Gulch.”