Promises Keep (The Promise Series) (10 page)

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Mara drifted slowly out of the darkness. She took a deep breath, relishing the scent of simmering stew and freshly brewed coffee. It’d been so long since she’d had a good meal and a cup of real coffee. Her stomach cramped with persistent hope.

To distract herself from hunger pangs, she focused on her surroundings. She was in a bed. She didn’t have to open her eyes to know it. She could feel the softness of a mattress beneath her back. Not a corn shuck mattress, but an honest to goodness feather mattress. From the angle of her body, she concluded at least four pillows were stacked behind her shoulders, and something as soft as a cloud covered her body.

She kept her eyes closed tight, not wanting to lose the luxury, but the thought that she didn’t remember changing gowns kept nagging at her, nipping at her peace until the memories started to howl.

The last thing she recalled clearly was Doc pouring something vile down her throat. There was a vague recollection of voices, and of someone touching her intimately. And pain. She frowned, trying to bring the memory into sharper focus, because, somehow, it had been different.

“You’re safe now.”

Mara opened her eyes and stared at the plump woman who stood by the bed. Safe from what? From being kidnapped? From being used again. She didn’t think so.

“You are safe,” the woman repeated. She leaned forward. Mara felt like a fool for flinching when all the woman did was tuck the quilt a little tighter around her.

“I don’t think so.” Mara looked toward the door. Cougar McKinnely had to be on the other side. He’d brought her here, for what purpose, she didn’t know, but he’d gone to too much trouble to simply disappear. She looked back at the woman and a piece of the puzzle fell into place. “I’ve seen you around,” she said, taking in the woman’s square face with its rounded cheeks and friendly looking dimples. She attempted to shift higher on the pillows. Pain lanced through her body, and she gave up on the plan with a small sigh. “I don’t remember your name, but you’re Doc’s wife, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I’m Dorothy.” She shook out her gingham apron, and smoothed her red-blonde hair back into the bun at the nape of her neck. “Dorothy McKinnely.”

Mara didn’t bother to fuss with her appearance. She knew she looked a fright. “I suppose you know who I am?”

“Yes, but I have to admit it’s nice addressing you face to face, Miss Kincaid. I’m more accustomed to speaking to the back of your head.”

There was a time when she would have blushed for being chided so on her manners. Now, she merely shrugged. “I didn’t want to take a chance on you being one of those ‘good citizens’ who wants to run me out of town.”

“No chance of that.” Dorothy rested the back of her hand against Mara’s brow. “Good, you don’t have a fever.”

“I’m fine,” Mara fiddled with a loose thread on the brightly colored quilt covering her bed. She twisted the thread around her finger. “How bad is it?”

“Your injuries?”

The thread broke loose. She stared at it, dangling from her finger. “Yes.”

“Your ribs are bound, but Horace doesn’t think they’re broken. And you’ve got three stitches in your head, but any scar will be hidden by your hair.”

Dorothy tucked the quilt under Mara’s other side. “You’re going to be as right as rain in no time.”

And Hell was scheduled to freeze over tomorrow. “Thank you.”

Dorothy crossed to the dresser and put away the shiny instruments lying on top. Mara wished she could put away her own troubles so neatly. She was so tired of being afraid.

Dorothy’s brusque movements slowed. “Did you know Cougar’s my son?”

“I’ve heard talk.”

The last instrument fell into the drawer with a soft clank.

“Did you know that Cougar isn’t my real son? That Horace and I adopted him when he was thirteen?”

Dorothy fussed some more with the drawer’s contents. Mara wished she had something equally distracting to do with her hands.

“I figured something like that from his appearance.”

Dorothy looked over her shoulder. “Just because he isn’t my flesh and blood doesn’t mean I love him any less.”

“I never thought you would.” Actually, she’d never thought about it at all. She pulled the thread straight, measuring its length against the size of the quilt squares. It came up short.

“His happiness is very important to me.” Dorothy added.

Mara pulled the ends of the thread. Hard. “I’m sure it is.”

The drawer gave a soft thump as wood met wood. “Just so long as we understand one another.”

“I understand perfectly, Mrs. McKinnely, but I’ll assure you just as I’ve assured every other woman around here. I have no intention chasing after your son or your husband.”

The thread snapped in two.

“Now that’s a picture,” Dorothy laughed. “You carrying on with my Horace.”

Mara blinked. She’d been expecting outrage, not humor. The thread finally broke into pieces too small to be distracting. She dropped the remains on the quilt and brushed off her hands. “I don’t understand you.”

“No. I don’t suppose you do, but if you ever decide to go after Horace, I think there is something you should know.”

“What?”

“If you can take him, you can have him.” Dorothy lifted her brows at her. “But I think you’ll find it harder to take him than you think.”

Mara bit back an impatient exclamation.
God! Would any of them ever listen to her?
“I don’t want your husband.”

“I know.” Dorothy smoothed her apron down as she approached the bed and stated matter-of-factly, “I’m more concerned about my son.”

“You’re worried I’m going to hurt him,” Mara sighed wearily, wondering how many times she was going to have this conversation with women over the course of her life.

Dorothy shrugged. “Frankly, yes. You’ve been through a lot, and you’re not recovered yet.”

How do I recover from being sold and raped? How do I know when I’ve gotten better?
She put all the confidence she could feign into her response. “I’m working on it.”

Dorothy stood by the bed, looking at Mara, the way people did when they wanted to say something. Beyond the door, Mara could hear the murmur of men’s voices. Chairs creaked, footsteps sounded. There was the clank of metal on metal as something was shifted on the stove. And still Dorothy stared.

“What?” Mara finally asked, folding the sheet over the quilt, unable to bear it.

“You do know it was Cougar who took you out of that place, don’t you?”

She carefully smoothed out a crease in the sheet, just below the fold. “Today?”

“No. Two months ago.”

She was afraid she meant that. “No. I don’t remember much besides killing Cecile.”

“There was a woman who needed killing.”

Maybe, but Mara wished she wasn’t the one who had to live with the memory of her hand sinking the knife into the brothel owner’s flesh. The desperate thrust that had earned her freedom demanded a high price, turning her dreams to nightmares where everything good drowned in a relentless, blood-red tide. She fought back the tight band of nausea constricting her throat.

“Cougar is the one who brought me to Doc?” Mara asked.

“You didn’t know?”

“No.” There wasn’t much about that night she had tried to remember.

“Well, Cougar is the one who brought you here. He was down in the saloon when he heard a woman scream.” Dorothy set the glass on the table and tightened the strings on her apron. “He killed Cecile’s henchman Aleric.”

“He did?” She finally subdued the crease. She glanced up. “Why?”

“Cougar doesn’t hold with men mistreating women.”

“I’ll be sure to thank him.” There was a bulge in the quilt next to her left thigh.

“I don’t think he believes you owe him any thanks.”

“The man risked his life to save mine.” She patted the bulge flat as she added, “Not once, but twice.”

“He doesn’t feel right about the last two months.”

Mara froze, her hand in the middle of the red square, fingers splayed, a sick feeling welling. “Excuse me?”

“He feels responsible for you, Mara.” Dorothy shrugged. “We all do. You walked away from that brothel without a backward glance and then froze off anyone who tried to get close enough to give you a hand up.”

Mara pushed herself up higher. “I didn’t accept any help because I didn’t need any.”

“That, young lady, is pure bull.”

“I don’t think so.” Mara countered, anger creeping past her gratitude. “The one thing I’ve learned this last year is that a body has to count on herself if she doesn’t want a whole ton of greedy creditors suddenly appearing at her door.” She yanked the sheet over her midriff. “I’ll pay my debt to you, Doc, and…Cougar. After that, I have no intention of being beholden to anyone again. Ever.”

“You’re setting yourself up for a fall, young lady.”

“It’s my fall.”

“No,” Dorothy countered, taking two steps toward the bed. “It isn’t. If you go down, you’re going to take good people with you, including my son.”

“Don’t worry,” she sneered bitterly, “I have no intention of stealing your son from you.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Then why don’t you just say what you mean?” Mara pressed her hand to her aching head.

“I was trying to approach the subject delicately, but since you insist,” Dorothy snapped her apron straight. Mara felt like a bug pinned to a box under her stare. “Did you ever wonder why no one from that brothel ever showed up to drag you back?”

“No.” She’d been too busy being grateful for the fact.

“Well, maybe you should have.”

She had a sneaking suspicion Dorothy was right. She was sure of it as words kept rolling over the older woman’s lips in an avalanche of truth.

“The only reason the new ownership of the Pleasure Emporium,” Dorothy’s upper lip curled over the name, “didn’t drag you back is because Cougar convinced them it wouldn’t be in their best interest.”

“It was Doc who got me the room at the boarding house,” Mara countered quickly. With every word out of Dorothy’s mouth, her debt to McKinnely grew to intolerable levels.

“And hated doing it,” Dorothy agreed grimly. “Everyone knows Gertie wants a slave, not an employee.”

“That’s why I took the job at the restaurant, so I wouldn’t be trapped with no money.”

Dorothy ran her hand over her hair, sat down on the side of the bed, unclenching Mara’s hand so she could take it in hers. “That was your scariest move to date.”

Mara braced herself. No one’s demeanor softened that quickly unless they were getting ready to deliver a blow. “Why?”

“Because of your boss.”

“Mr. Dawson?”

“Shorty Dawson is the biggest lecher this side of the Mississippi.”

Mara pictured the rotund little man with the twinkling eyes in her mind. “He looks like an elf!”

“Well, if he’s an elf, he’s an excessively randy one and not too particular about how he goes about getting his way.”

Mara eyed Dorothy suspiciously. “He never bothered me.”

“I don’t suspect he would after Cougar held his knife to the old goat’s privates and warned him he’d be doing without them should Cougar even suspect him of thinking about you that way.”

Mara slowly withdrew her hand from Dorothy’s. The things the older woman had said whirled through her mind. There had to be a reason McKinnely was doing all this. There had to be, so she forced herself to ask, “Why?”

Instead of answering, Dorothy avoided her gaze. >From the other room came the sound of a chair scraping across the floor. It was the hopeful, almost desperate look Dorothy cast in the direction of the sound that clued Mara in.

“Oh God!” she rasped, staring at Dorothy as the horrible truth dawned. Cougar McKinnely wanted her. Oh no. Oh God! “No.”

Chapter Six

“You had to know,” Dorothy said, standing up. “You’ve been taking too many risks. You had to know…”

“That Cougar McKinnely wants me?” Mara interrupted. “That what Cougar McKinnely wants, he gets? Pardon me, but I’ve heard all that before and it’s still a pile of manure.” She tried to swing her legs to the floor, but Dorothy blocked her. Mara pushed at her restraining arms. “I’ve got to get out of here!” Pain tore up from her ribs. It was nothing compared to the pain in her soul. “God! I never learn.” His kindness had been a trick. And she’d fallen for it. She yanked at Dorothy’s arms. “Let me go!”

Dorothy didn’t let go, she didn’t move, and she didn’t speak. She just stared at Mara. The silence grew heavier and heavier until, finally, Dorothy broke it on a weary sigh.

“I can see from your expression, you’re determined not to hear what I have to say, so I’m going to tell you this much and then I’ll leave you be.” She released Mara’s arms. “You’re here in my house. You are going to stay here until you are healed. And no one is going to hurt you again.”