glow of torch and lantern, he could barely make out his out-
stretched hand as he skirted along the wall. Glisks of yellow light
and the twang and twee of the fiddler tuning his instrument
keeked between the chinks in the stockade. Tom stopped dead at
the scrunch of feet coming his way and called out, “Is that you
Maggie? Maggie Duncan!”
“Quit yer gallie-hooin’, Tom. There’s no more’n three yards
betwixt us.” Maggie stepped out of the shadows, hand in hand
with Jamie Raeburn.
The sight of her so casually comfortable with another man
rankled worse than a full-blown blister on both heels. Like a bull
on the charge, Tom rushed forward and gave Jamie a sharp shove
to the shoulder. “And what are you after, out here in the dark?”
Maggie pushed between the two men. “None of yer concern,
Tom Roberts.”
“Time to go home, miss.” Tom grabbed Maggie by the arm
and pulled her along.
Maggie dragged two long furrows in the dirt. “
Let go!
Let go,
ye brute! Ye hold no dominion over me.”
“I promised your master I’d see you home.” Tom resolutely
jerked Maggie along with him. “And I aim t’ keep my word.”
Maggie wailed, flopped down to the ground, and fl ung one
arm wide, imploring Jamie to save her. “
Jamie!
”
Jamie stepped forward. “She’s with me, Tom. I’ll be taking her
home . . .”
Tom let Maggie loose and grabbed two handfuls of Jamie’s
shirtfront, lifting the man up onto his toes. Their faces but inches
apart, he snarled, “I’m in a bad skin, Raeburn. Fool with me and
there’ll be a new face in hell tomorrow.” He flung Jamie to land
in a sprawl against the stockade.
“Get up! Get up, Jamie, and give him what for!” Maggie
leaped and shouted as Raeburn rose to stand, brushing dirt from
his hands.
Midwife of the Blue Ridge
135
Even in dim light, it was plain to see Jamie’s fair face had gone
as white as a freshly plastered wall. Tom cocked his elbows,
clenched his fists, and moved forward. “Best make your feet your
friends and scuttle off, for I intend to come down on you like an
anchor chain!”
Inside the fortyard, the musicians struck up a rousing jig that
happened to keep perfect time with Jamie’s footfalls thudding off
into the darkness. As Maggie’s champion ran off, she cupped
hands to her mouth, shouting,
“Bloody English COWARD!
Tuck tail and run, that’s all yer fi t for!”
She kicked a clod of clay
to smithereens. “I dinna need ye anyway, Jamie Raeburn!” Mag-
gie turned and speared her finger into Tom’s chest. “An’ neither
do I need you. I’ll make my own way home in my own good
time.”
Smirking, Tom caught her by the arm as she tried to push past.
“You go right ahead, miss, and the she- bear I was tracking this
morning will be licking your tasty bones by day bust.”
“
Why?
” Maggie put on a face like a mule eating briars. “Why
do ye plague me so?”
“Fetch your things. I’m taking you home.”
H
Carry ing Maggie’s big basket in one hand, Tom led her by the
other along the ridge trail back to the Martin homeplace. That
morning’s dewy, shade-dappled path had transformed into a sin-
ister tunnel, filled with the flap of winged predators and wisps of
night webs strung across the path, sticking to faces and arms.
Maggie held a lantern aloft, but the candle glim seeping through
the pierced tin barely illuminated their path.
Tom’s silence was the heavy lining to the cloak of night. He
didn’t speak but to offer Maggie a warning now and then to
watch her step over one obstacle or under another. Plodding
through menacing darkness, Maggie quickly developed a fron-
tier sense for the worth of a man’s protection. And although she
bristled thinking on his behavior, she had to admit feeling very
136 Christine
Blevins
safe with her hand in his. After more than a mile with only night
noise and the scrush of their moccasined feet on the forest fl oor
for company, Maggie gave in. “Why’re ye so quiet?”
“I figured you’re vexed with me . . . have a care
here,” he
warned. “Careful over this snarl.”
“I am vexed. I’m unused to being treated like a fool.”
“Well then, maybe you shouldn’t act a fool.”
“I suppose it’s better to skulk, wallowing in a pint, glowering
at one and all. Or strut about with that . . . that Bess Hawkins
dangling from yer arm like snot from an old drunk’s nose.”
“You shouldn’t be wandering into the dark with the likes of
Jamie Raeburn,” Tom countered. “You don’t seem to under-
stand, Maggie. A fella like that—hell, every fetchin’ fella back at
the station for that matter—they all have but one thing on their
minds—and that thing dwells beneath that pretty striped skirt.
Mind your reputation, miss.”
“Ha! A sermon from a rogue who cavorts with a married
woman . . .”
“Be quiet!” Tom ordered.
“Dinna dare speak so to me . . .”
Tom tossed her basket into the brush. He stepped behind Mag-
gie, wrapped one arm about her waist, and clapped the other
hand over her mouth. Maggie kicked, squirmed, and squealed.
He breathed in her ear, “Somethin’s on our trail!”
Maggie ceased struggling and then she felt it, too—a muffl ed
thud-ump, thud-ump
—reverberating along the soft bottom of the
trail. Tom put a finger to his lips. Maggie nodded, wide-eyed. He
released his grip and took her by the hand. Slipping under boughs
and through bracken, they left the trail to duck behind a large
chestnut. Tom leaned around the tree, his every sense peeled sharp.
Maggie crowded behind him, the tin lantern still lit in her hand.
“Dowse that light!” Tom snarled through clenched teeth.
Maggie fumbled to open the catch on the tiny door. The hot
Midwife of the Blue Ridge
137
metal scorched her fingertip and the lantern toppled to the ground,
the fl ame snuffing itself in the process. As her eyes adjusted to the
starlit night, emerging shadows settled in varying values of purple
black and deep blue gray. Tom remained so statue-still and quiet,
Maggie laid a hand on his shoulder to reassure herself that he was
truly there.
“A bear, maybe?” she asked.
Tom drew several long breaths in through his nose. “I’m not
nosin’ any bear.”
Maggie stretched to peer into the blackness beyond Tom’s
shoulder. A lonesome laurel-blossom breeze rustled in through
the leaves, sweeping over the warm spot where her hand met his
shoulder. “Probably naught but the wind playin’ tricks with our
ears,” she whispered.
Tom’s body shifted, and even though Maggie could not make
out his features, she could feel the reproach of his gaze. “Can you
hush?”
In absolute stillness, they continued to listen. Maggie slipped
her hand to rest square between Tom’s shoulder blades. She
could feel his breath regular and steady as a bell tolling midnight.
His muscle beneath her thumb twitched.
“There’s nothing out there. Let’s go.” Maggie’s impatient whisper
hissed and cut the silence like cold water drizzled on a hot pan. She
stepped around Tom to scramble back up to the trail. He caught
Maggie by both arms and pushed her up against the tree trunk.
“Stay put—I’ll be right back.”
Before Maggie could squeak out a protest, he was gone.
She waited, shifting from one foot to the other, restless as the
tip of a cow’s tail. Startled by pinching tree-bark fi ngers grasp-
ing the hair she’d twisted into a loose knot at the base of her
neck, she gulped back budding panic and squelched the urge to
call out for Tom. Maggie loosened the two silver pins, freeing
her tresses to spill over her shoulders and roll down to her hips.
138 Christine
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She hugged her hair like a blanket, comforted by its smooth silk
against her skin.
Then she heard them. Voices carried on the breeze. Male
voices in concert with the slow drum of hooves hitting the dirt. A
shadow loomed out from the black hole to her right and Maggie
gasped as Tom stepped in front of her and placed two fi ngers to
her lips. He leaned in and whispered, “Hush.”
The travelers approached the point on the trail directly parallel
with Maggie and Tom’s position. The fecund smell of horse
wafted on the breeze. Hoofbeats plodding forward grew distinct,
accompanied by the clank of tin on tin, equine snorts and snuf-
fles, and the random creak of leather tack. Tom settled a hand on
Maggie’s hip and bent his head to the place where the curve of her
shoulder met her neck, his warm breath on her skin, saying, “Two
on beastback.”
The rhythm of predictable hoofbeats was interrupted by what
sounded like a sack of buckshot being poured into a tin washtub,
and suddenly the air was filled with the clatter of man and beast.
“Whoa!”
both horsemen shouted at once. Their mounts reared
squealing, snorting spurts of mucus and stamping agitated
hooves. After a frantic moment spent calming the horses, a pair
of heavy boots descended on the trail.
“Thatch, thistle, thunder, and thump!”
one man cursed. “God-
damn it, Jeremiah! Your Gunter’s chain has come undone again.”
“All right, Geordie. I’m coming to lend a hand.” Another pair
of boots landed with a thud and crunched along the trail. “I do
detest night riding.”
“Then let’s camp here,” Geordie suggested with a noisy yawn.
“I’m all drug out and saddle sick.”
“Na . . . we can get a few miles in yet. You know as well as I,
Cavendish will flay us alive if we fail to record the plats by week’s
end. Hand me the sack.”
“Cavendish.” Geordie spat out the name. “How I despise that
nancy little bugger . . .”
Midwife of the Blue Ridge
139
“Aye, but bugger all, how you love his silver.” Jeremiah chuckled.
“That I do, Jeremiah, that I do—but right now I would gladly
trade it all for a tall pint of March beer and the company of a
good- natured woman—the kind who, when you ask her to sit
down, will lie down instead.”
“I hear you, brother—and that in a nutshell is why we two
will never be rich men.” Jeremiah laughed in tune to the smooth
sound of iron chain slinking its way back into a canvas sack.
“There—grab ahold the other end. On the count of three . . .”
After securing their cargo, the two men remounted and con-
tinued up the trail. Maggie and Tom stayed quiet and still as the
sounds of Geordie and Jeremiah dissipated in the wind.
“Surveyors plotting Portland’s grant . . .” Tom mused.
“Surveyors, eh?” Maggie acknowledged. “I wondered what
business drew Cavendish men here.”
“Cavendish . . . isn’t he the Englishman who offered Seth forty
pounds for your contract?”
“Aye. He’s the one.”
“He’s Portland’s agent?”
“He’s Portland’s son, the ne’er-do- well they shipped off to the
Colonies. Aboard the
Good Intent
, he fancied me and I blacked
his eye with my fi st, drunken lout. I had to spend the better part
of the journey hiding down in the tween—” Maggie sighed. “I
was certain he’d win my contract at auction—he’s a man of
means, ye ken? Och, I shudder t’ think . . .”
Tom leaned down, his mouth at her ear, so close his three- day
beard rasped the soft skin on her jawbone. “I’ll allow no harm
come to thee, Maggie Duncan.”
Those spare words whispered in the dark loosened the taut
wire of wariness she’d strung from her brain to her heart. Mag-
gie wrapped her arms around Tom’s waist and pressed a cheek to
his chest. Tom found her lips in the dark. He kissed her once,
twice—tender and warm.
Twining one hand in her hair, his other at her hip, he pulled
140 Christine
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Maggie in, kissing her deep and
long—a kiss that made her
moan and feel as if as a stream of liquid silver had slipped
through her and pooled molten between her legs. Maggie rose up
on tiptoes, feeling his full length pressing hard against her thigh.
Tom broke the kiss with a growl and took a step back.
“What’s th’ matter?” Maggie reached out.
Heaving a huge sigh, Tom took her by the hand.
“I’d best get you home. Danger lies on this trail.”
11
Fences Are Down
The thud of Seth’s maul echoed from behind the stable and kept
company with the clack of split logs being tossed onto the woodpile.
Naomi gazed up at the sun, which seemed like an angry fi st pound-
ing the bright blue sky—a hot, still day, without even the slightest
puff of a breeze to cleanse the heat from the back of her neck.
Naomi sat on a rag rug centered in a smidge of shade under
the lone tulipwood in the dooryard, her legs tucked tailor style.
Six long strings of beans dried in the pod were piled on one side.
Battler, sprawled on his back, lay asleep on the other. After
shooing a horsefly from the boy’s face, she continued stripping