Duncan's Bride (15 page)

“He said you wouldn't take sides.”

“That's right, I won't. It would be a no-win situation for me, and I don't waste my energy.”

He lay awake long after she was sleeping quietly in his arms. It was a way to instant financial security, but it would require that he do something he'd sworn never to do: risk ownership of the ranch. He already had a mortgage, but he was managing to make the payments. If he took an investor he would be paying off the bank but taking on another debtor, at a price he might not be able to meet. The big lure of it was that, perversely, he wanted to give Madelyn all the luxuries he would have been able to provide before.

To take care of his wife as he wanted, he'd have to risk his ranch. He didn't miss the irony of it.

T
HE DAY AFTER
Robert left, a big weather system swept in from Canada and it began snowing. At first it was just snow, but it didn't stop. The temperature began dropping like a rock, and the wind picked up. Reese watched the weather build into something nasty, and the weather reports said it would get worse. While he still could, he herded the cattle into the most sheltered area and put out as much hay as possible, but he wasn't certain he'd had enough time to get out as much as would be needed.

On the way back to the barn it started snowing so heavily that visibility dropped to about ten feet, and the wind began piling up drifts that masked the shape of the land. His own ranch became an alien landscape to him, without any familiar landmarks to guide him. All he could go on was his own sense of direction, and he had to fight to ignore the disorienting swirl of snow. His horse picked its way carefully, trying to avoid the snow-covered holes and indentations that could easily cause it to fall and perhaps break a leg. Icicles began to form on the horse's nose as the warm vapor of its breath froze. Reese put a gloved hand to his own face and found it coated with ice crystals.

A ride that normally took twenty minutes stretched into an hour. He began to wonder if he had missed the barn entirely when it materialized out of the blowing snow, and even then he would have missed it if the door hadn't been open revealing the gleam of yellow light. A brief frown creased his face; he knew he'd closed the door, and he certainly hadn't left a light on. But it had
been too close a call for him to be anything but grateful; another half hour and he wouldn't have made it.

He ducked his head and rode straight into the barn. It wasn't until he caught movement out of the corner of his eye that he realized Madelyn had come out to the barn and was waiting for him, literally with a light in the window. She struggled against the wind to close the big doors, her slender body leaning into the teeth of the gale. The cow bawled restlessly, and the cats leaped for the loft. Reese slid out of the saddle and added his weight to Madelyn's, closing the doors and dropping the big two-by-eight bar into the brackets.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” he asked in a raspy voice as he grabbed her to him. “Damn it, Maddie, you can get lost going from the house to the barn in a blow like this!”

“I hooked up to the tension line,” she said, clinging to him. Her voice was thin. “How did you get back? You can't see out there.”

He felt the panic in her, because he'd begun feeling some of it himself. If he'd been five feet farther away, he wouldn't have seen the light. “Sheer blind luck,” he said grimly.

She looked up at his ice-crusted face. “You have to get warm before frostbite starts.”

“The horse first.”

“I'll do it.” She pointed toward the tack room, where he kept a small space heater. “I turned on the heater so it would be warm in there. Now, go on.”

Actually, the barn felt warm to him after being outside; the animals gave off enough heat that the temperature inside the barn was above freezing, which was all that he required right now. Still, he went into the tack room and felt the heat envelop him almost unbearably.
He didn't try to brush the ice from his face; he let it melt, so it wouldn't damage his skin. It had actually insulated his face from the wind, but too much longer would have resulted in frostbite. He'd had mild cases before, and it was painful enough that he'd rather not go through it again.

Madelyn unsaddled the horse and rubbed it down. The big animal sighed with pleasure in a way that was almost human. Then she threw a warm blanket over it and gave it feed and water, patting the muscled neck in appreciation. The animal had earned it.

She hurried to Reese and found him knocking chunks of snow off his heavy shearling coat. That shocking white layer of ice and snow was gone from his face; what was almost as shocking was that he already seemed to have recovered his strength, as if the ordeal had been nothing out of the ordinary. She had been in torment since the howling wind had started, pacing the house and trying not to weep uncontrollably, and finally fighting her way out to the barn so she would be there to help him if—no,
when
—he made it back. Her heart was still pounding. She didn't have to be told how easily he might not have made it back, even though she couldn't bear to let the thought form.

“It won't be easy getting back to the house,” he said grimly. “The wind is probably gusting up to sixty miles an hour. We'll both hook on to the line, but I'm going to tie you to me as a safeguard.”

He knotted a rope around his waist, then looped and knotted it around her, with no more than four feet of slack between them. “I want you within reach. I'm going to try to hold on to you, but I damn sure don't want you getting any farther away from me than this.”

He put his coat back on and settled his hat firmly on
his head. He eyed Madelyn sternly. “Don't you have a hat?”

She produced a thick woolen scarf from her pocket and draped it over her head, then wound the ends around her neck. They each got a length of nylon cord with heavy metal clips on each end and attached one end to their belts, leaving the other end free to clip to the line. They left the barn by the small side door; though the line was anchored right beside it, Reese had to grab Madelyn by the waist to keep the wind from tumbling her head over heels. Still holding her, he grabbed her line and hooked it overhead, then secured his own.

It was almost impossible to make headway. For every yard they progressed, stumbling and fighting, the wind would knock them back two feet. It tore her out of his grasp and knocked her feet out from under her, hanging her in the air from the line at her waist. Reese lunged for her, yelling something that she couldn't understand, and hauled her against him. It was obvious she wasn't going to be able to stay on her feet. He locked her against his side with a grip that compressed her ribs, almost shutting off her breath. She gasped for air, but couldn't manage more than a painful wheeze. She couldn't have yelled to make him understand, even if she'd had the breath, because the howling wind drowned out everything else. She dangled in his grip like a rag doll, her sight fading and her struggles becoming weaker.

Reese stumbled against the back steps, then up onto the porch. The house blocked some of the wind, and he managed to open the back door, then reach up and unhook both their lines. He staggered into the house and fell to the floor of the utility room with Madelyn still in his arms, but managed to turn so that he took
most of the shock. “Are you all right?” He gasped the question, breathing hard from exertion. The wind had gotten worse just since he'd made it back to the barn.

She didn't answer, and sudden fear brought him up on his knees beside her. Her eyes were closed, her lips blue. He grabbed her shoulder, shouting at her. “Maddie! Madelyn, damn it, what's wrong? Are you hurt—wake up and answer me!”

She coughed, then moaned a little and tried to curl on her side, her arms coming up to hug herself. She coughed again, then went into a paroxysm of convulsive coughing and gagging, writhing from the force of it. Reese pulled her up into his arms and held her, his face white.

Finally she managed to wheeze, “Shut the door,” and he lashed out with his boot, kicking the door shut with a force that rattled it on its frame.

He unwound the scarf from her head and began opening her coat. The rope around their waists still tied them together and he hastily pulled the knots out. “Are you hurt?” he asked again, his face a grim mask.

Coughing had brought color to her face, but it was quickly fading, leaving her deathly pale. “I'm all right,” she said, her voice so hoarse she could barely make a sound. “I just couldn't breathe.”

Realization hit him like a kick by a mule. He'd almost smothered her with the force of his grip. His face grim, vicious curses coming from between his tightly clenched teeth, he laid her back on the floor as gently as possible and stretched out his leg so he could get his knife out of his pocket. Her eyes widened as he snapped the blade open and began slicing through the pullover sweater she wore under the coat. Beneath the sweater was a shirt, but it buttoned down the front and there
fore escaped being cut off. When her torso was bare he bagan carefully feeling her ribs, his face intent as he searched for any sign of give, his eyes locked on her face to see the least hint of discomfort. She flinched several times, but the ribs felt all right. Her pale skin was already becoming discolored with bruises.

“I almost killed you,” he said harshly as he lifted her in his arms and got to his feet.

“It wasn't that bad,” she managed to say.

He gave her a violent look. “You were unconscious.” He carried her up the stairs and to their bedroom, where he laid her on the bed. He shrugged out of his own coat and let it fall to the floor; then he very gently but implacably stripped her of every stitch and examined her from head to toe. Except for the bruising across her ribs, she was fine. He bent his head and brushed his lips across the dark band as if he would absorb the pain.

Madelyn put her hand on his hair, threading her fingers through the dark strands. “Reese, I'm okay, I promise.”

He got to his feet. “I'll put a cold compress on it to stop the bruising from getting any worse.”

She made a disbelieving sound. “Trust me, I can't just lie here and let you put an ice bag on my side! You know how ice down your shirt feels, and besides, I'm cold. I'd rather have a cup of hot chocolate, or coffee.”

The strength of her tone reassured him, and another critical look told him that the color was coming back into her face. She sat up, rather gingerly holding her side but without any real pain, and gave him a wifely survey. “You're soaking wet from riding in that blizzard. You need to get out of those clothes, and then we'll both have something hot to drink.”

She got dry clothes out for both Reese and herself
and began dressing while he stripped and toweled off. She looked at her ruined sweater with disbelief, then tossed it into the trash. Reese saw her expression and smiled faintly. “I didn't want to move you any more than I had to until I knew what was wrong,” he explained, rubbing a towel over his shoulders.

“Actually, I was a little relieved when the sweater was all you cut. For a split second I was afraid you were going to do a tracheotomy.”

“You were talking and breathing, so I ruled that out. I've done one before, though.”

“You've actually taken your pocketknife and cut someone's throat open?” she demanded incredulously, her voice rising.

“I had to. One of the hands got kicked in the throat, and he was choking to death. I slit his trachea and held it open with my finger until someone brought a drinking straw to insert for him to breathe through. We got him to a hospital, they put in a regular trach tube until the swelling went down enough for him to breathe again, and he did just fine.”

“How did you know what to do?”

“Every rancher absorbs a lot of medical knowledge just in the ordinary workday. I've set broken bones, sewn up cuts, given injections. It's a rough life, sweetheart.” His face darkened as he said it. It had almost been too rough for her. He could so easily have crushed her ribs.

He pulled on the dry underwear and jeans she had put out for him, watching as she brushed her hair and swung it back over her shoulder with a practiced toss of her head, every movement as graceful as a ballet. How could she still look elegant after what she'd been
through? How could she be so casual about it? He was still shaking.

When she started past him on the way downstairs, he caught her and wrapped his arms around her, holding her to him for a long minute with his cheek resting on top of her pale hair. Madelyn circled his waist with her arms and let herself revel in his closeness; he was home, and he was all right. Nothing was said, because nothing needed saying. It was enough just to hold each other.

Reese paced the house that day like a restless cougar, periodically looking out the window to monitor the weather. He tried a radio station, but nothing came through the static. Around dusk the electricity went off, and he built a roaring fire in the fireplace, then put one of the kerosene heaters in the kitchen. Madelyn lit candles and lamps, and thanked the stars that the water heater and stove were gas-operated.

They ate soup and sandwiches by candlelight, then brought down quilts and blankets and pillows to sleep in front of the fireplace. They sat on their bed of quilts with their backs resting against the front of the couch and their legs stretched toward the fire. Madelyn's head was on his shoulder. He could almost hear her mind working as she stared at the fire, and he decided he might as well get it started before she did. “A flag with a swallow-tail end is called a burgee.”

She gave him a quick look of delight. “The small flag carried in front or to the right of marchers to guide them is called a guidon.”

“You want to do flags? Okay, we'll do flags. The study of flags is called vexillology.”

“The United States flag has seven red stripes and six white.”