Forever in My Heart Page 26

  One of Connor's dark brows kicked up. "Only you," he said, his mouth curving in dry amusement. He turned away and started searching the pantry for something for Maggie to eat.

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means," he said patiently, cracking some eggs in a bowl, "that you've got a talent for understatement. You've stared down death most of the day and you describe it as 'trying'. That's not exactly what I would expect from one of New York's social princesses."

  "That isn't who I was." She picked up his mug and took a sip from it. "And it was the same for my sisters. We were John MacKenzie Worth's daughters... his bastard daughters. I never wanted for anything, but outside my own home, I was never wanted anywhere." Maggie saw Connor's hand momentarily slow as he beat the eggs. That small hesitation on his part made her feel listened to. "I don't think my life was exactly as you've imagined."

  Connor stopped beating the eggs. He put a black iron skillet on the stove and added a bit of bacon grease. "And how do you think I imagined your life?"

  "Filled with social engagements. Private schools. Invitations to the theatre and skating parties and masked balls."

  "Skye talked about all those things."

  Maggie sighed. "At the dinner party," she said. "I know. Skye told me she rattled on about anything she could think of to be sure you knew she was an empty-headed twit."

  "She was convincing."

  "That's Skye." She smiled wistfully, recalling her sister's earnest description of her behavior that night. "The truth is, Skye charges ahead rather fearlessly. She forces people to take her in or tell her bluntly that she isn't wanted. She's had more invitations than the rest of us combined, but she does it just to make a point, not because she really cares for it, or believes that she's really accepted. We went to the parish's parochial school, not exclusive academies, and none of us is particularly welcome in certain homes along Fifth Avenue, even to fill the empty chair at a dinner party."

  "So what did you do?" Connor added the beaten eggs to the skillet and stirred them with a wooden spoon.

  "I read."

  "That's all?"

  "Mostly." Maggie sipped from Connor's mug again. "Mary Francis left the house when I was twelve so she was never really a companion. Michael and Rennie had each other. Michael wrote a lot and Rennie talked about trains all the time. Skye dragged me around when she could, but mostly I just read."

  "Where?"

  Most people would have asked what she had read, not where she had read it. "In the library, in my room. Sometimes, when I was trying to get out of chores, I would slip up to the attic or out on the back porch roof. Mama would send my sisters out to hunt me down." She looked at him curiously. "Why do you ask?"

  "I wondered if you had a tree house," he said. "With a rope ladder that you could pull up to keep everyone else away."

  Her eyes widened faintly. "I used to ask Jay Mac for one. He said no one would ever hear from me again."

  Connor lifted the skillet and spooned the eggs onto a plate. "He was probably right." He put the plate and a fork in front of Maggie. "Eat up. Do you want bread?"

  She shook her head and picked up the fork. "Thank you."

  Connor sat at the table. "Why a doctor?"

  "It never occurred to me to want to do anything else. I told you once I never thought about marrying."

  "Children?"

  Maggie swallowed hard. "No," she said softly. "I never thought about children."

  "So," he said heavily, "you gave in to a single impulse just once in your life, joined your sister in a game that you would rather have ignored, and found yourself accosted, prostituted, and—"

  "Pregnant," she finished for him.

  "With no memory of any of it."

  "Little of it," she corrected.

  Connor nudged the plate in front of her, encouraging Maggie to eat. "Little?" he asked.

  "I remember some things," she said softly, avoiding his eyes. "The sailor... Harlan Porter..." The way Connor touched her. The hungry exchange of kisses as his mouth slid over her cheek, across her jaw, and made a damp line along her throat. His hands on her skin. His palm cupping the underside of her breast. The heat he infused in the center of her. "...there was a girl with a broom. She chased Harlan away."

  "That's all?"

  "That's all." She concentrated on her eggs. "I don't know anything about your money."

  "I wasn't thinking about the money."

  Maggie took a bite of food rather than respond to that. She hoped the heat in her cheeks hadn't given her away. "Dancer should be back here soon. Do you think something's happened to him?"

  "Dancer can take care of himself." Connor gave a cursory glance out the window. "Who knows about the baby, Maggie?"

  She should have known better than to think she could have sidetracked him. Maggie pushed away her plate and put down her fork, her appetite gone. "Dancer."

  "Dancer?" Connor frowned. "You mean you haven't told anyone else? Not your mother? Not Michael?"

  "No one. I didn't want anyone to know. Did you think I singled you out because you're the father?"

  "It occurred to me."

  "Well, I didn't," she answered testily.

  "When do you plan to tell your family?"

  "I don't know. Probably when I tell them about our divorce."

  Connor looked at her pointedly but refused to be drawn in. "And when were you going to tell me?"

  Maggie shrugged.

  "Maggie?" he persisted.

  "I had no plans to tell you," she admitted impatiently. She looked at him sharply. "Does that satisfy you? It's what you suspected, isn't it?"

  "It's what I suspected," he said, his tone weary, "but not what I wanted to hear."

  "Then why do you ask me these things?" she said, exasperated. "Why do you—" She stopped. The baby kicked her hard under the ribs and it brought her upright. Her face softened as she placed her palm over the spot where she felt the kick.

  Connor watched Maggie anxiously. "Does he hurt you?"

  She smiled, shaking her head. Her expression was shy, her green eyes veiled by thick lashes. "Would you like—" He was already leaning forward in his chair and extending his hand. She took it and laid it over her abdomen. "Wait," she whispered, matching her voice to the awe of the moment. "She'll do it again. There! Did you feel it?"

  Connor nodded but he didn't remove his hand. "Are you sure it doesn't hurt?"

  "It's mostly surprising."

  The baby kicked two more times before Connor withdrew his palm. "You look well, Maggie." What she looked was beautiful. Her skin glowed, her hair was lustrous, her delicate features animated. Her hand, when she had taken it in his, was rough, the pads of her fingers calloused, but it was the only outward sign he recognized of any hardships she had endured.

  He wanted to cradle her cheek, touch its softness. He wanted to place his thumb against her lips, feel the dampness of her breath as her mouth parted. "It looks as if everything about your life agrees with you."

  "You mean the pregnancy."

  "I mean everything." He gestured to the cabin. "This. What you're doing here... the work with Dancer. And yes, I meant the pregnancy, too."

  "I'm not unhappy," she said softly.

  He thought it was an odd way of phrasing her satisfaction. "The baby must be due in December."

  "Just before Christmas."

  "Don't you want to be with your sister in Denver?"

  "No. I'm where I want to be. Dancer will help me with the delivery."

  "He knew about the baby from the very beginning, didn't he? That's why you were so certain he'd take you in."

  She nodded. "He didn't understand why I wanted to be here. I'm not sure he agrees even now, but he wasn't about to turn me out." Maggie hoped that hadn't changed with Connor's arrival. She glanced at the window again, looking for Dancer. A curtain of moonlight still draped the surrounding trees. The prospector was nowhere in sight.

  "Do you want me to look for him?"

  Maggie
was only partially successful in masking her anxiety. "Would you mind?"

  Connor got to his feet. "This won't take long." He went to the door and opened it. "In the meantime, think about our sleeping arrangements for tonight, and understand that I'm not bedding down with Dancer Tubbs." He shut the door in time to miss the mug Maggie threw at him.

  * * *

  Dancer Tubbs heard Connor coming when he was still a distant mile off. He shot off his gun to guide him, then he rolled on his back again, groaning as his leg twisted under him. Freado's body lay a few feet from him, face down on the rocky ground. There was no movement nor any chance there would be now. The thief's neck was broken and Dancer had paid for it with a broken bone of his own.

  Connor saw the two horses milling around on the hillside before he caught sight of Dancer. He urged his mount up the hill. Stones shifted beneath its hooves and the horse stumbled. Connor managed to stay in the saddle but he proceeded more cautiously.

  "What the hell happened to you?" Connor asked as he rode up to the prospector. He dismounted and knelt beside Dancer.

  "Got careless myself," he said tightly. "Shouldn't have expected that Freado would stay sleepin' forever. He woke up, realized what was goin' on, and led me a merry chase up this damn hill. I knocked him off his horse."

  Connor sent Freado a cursory glance. The odd angle of the man's neck told its own story. "Is that how he broke his neck?"

  "That's how."

  "And what about you?"

  "I just fell," he admitted hoarsely. He flinched when Connor began examining him. "Dammit, be careful how you move my leg!"

  "I'm going to have to set it."

  "Like hell. You don't know—" Dancer's intelligible speech vanished as he let loose a string of curses that nearly heated the air around them.

  "All done," Connor said, ignoring the prospector's threats. "I'll find some wood for splints."

  Dancer had recovered a measure of his dignity by the time they reached the cabin. Connor helped him down from the horse and supported him as they went inside.

  "It seems like Dancer's solved our sleeping dilemma," he told Maggie as she rushed to assist. They put him on the narrow bed after Maggie turned down the quilts. "I have to take care of the horses now." His quick exit this time spared him from Maggie's sour look.

  Dancer didn't miss it. He laughed shakily. "Half expected you two would have made up or killed each other by now."

  "We're too stubborn to do either." She straightened from the bed. "White willow tea?" she asked. "It will help the pain."

  "Hard liquor would help me more. Pour me some of that 'shine."

  "White willow tea it is," she said.

  Dancer made a disgusted sound. "I just had a feelin' that some day I'd regret teachin' you about healin'." He propped a pillow under his head, careful to move slowly, and watched Maggie go about making the tea. "He says you sent him out after me, girl."

  "I was worried."

  The prospector snorted this time. "You ain't my nursemaid, you know. Been a long time since someone worried about me."

  Maggie kept working at the stove, placing the bark in a jar to steep once the water was hot.

  "Can't say I like it," Dancer said. "I been takin' care of myself for more years than you got candles on a cake."

  "Do you have a point?" she asked softly.

  "If your husband wants you with him," he said gruffly, "then don't make me an excuse to stay here. I ain't no one's excuse for sheer wrong-headed foolishness."

  Maggie's busy hands grew still and she turned away from the stove to face Dancer. "Are you telling me to git?" she asked. She saw his puzzled look. "When you took me in you told me that when you said 'git', I was supposed to git. Is that what you're telling me now?"

  Dancer had to look away from the quiet anxiety in Maggie's eyes. She wasn't pleading with him, but there was a calm resignation in her expression that made him feel as if he were betraying her. "I'm sayin' what I'm sayin'," he said. "If Connor says go with him, then don't let my leg here stop you. That clear enough?"

  It was clear enough. She returned to her work and slowly let go of the breath she had been holding. "How would you take care of yourself?"

  "That's my affair."

  Maggie wasn't satisfied with the answer but Connor walked into the cabin. "Have I interrupted something?" he asked.

  "No," they said simultaneously, for entirely different reasons. Maggie didn't want to open the discussion to the subject of her leaving; Dancer didn't want to talk about the fact that he might need help.

  Connor raised one eyebrow as he looked from one to the other. "Liars," he said without malice. He kicked out a chair and sat down, stretching out. "How's your leg?" he asked Dancer.

  "I've had worse."

  "I'm making him something for the pain," Maggie said.

  Connor nodded. His eyes drifted to the loft, then back to Maggie. He wondered if she had given their sleeping arrangements any more thought. As she turned in her work his attention was caught by her rounded profile, her full breasts, her swollen belly. He wanted to feel her against him again, feel the baby move under his hand, touch her breasts, and know the curve of her against his flesh. He wanted to hold her.

  She caught his stare, the curious warmth in his usually remote eyes. She flushed and looked away. It was because of the baby, she thought, that he was looking at her with the kind of interest that made her shaky inside. It was only because of the baby.

  Maggie poured the boiling water into the jar and let the bark steep. It would be an hour before the tea was ready for Dancer. She didn't know quite what to do with herself or her hands. She leaned back against the stove and crossed her arms in front of her. Her posture emphasized the distention of her belly and when Maggie realized it, her arms quickly dropped to her sides. "I'm sorry I drank the last of the tea," she said to Dancer. "I should have made more right away."

  He brushed the comment aside. "You didn't know I was going to fall off my horse. You needed it for your back."

  "Your back?" asked Connor. "What's wrong with your back?"

  Dancer didn't give Maggie an opportunity to answer. "It aches her fierce most days."

  "Not fierce," Maggie corrected. "It just aches."

  Connor pointed to the chair opposite him. "Sit."

  "I'm fine."

  "Sit."

  Shooting Dancer a reproving look when he chuckled, Maggie sat. "There's nothing wrong with my back," she said to Connor.

  Connor ignored her and spoke to Dancer instead. "Has she been working like a ranch hand all summer?" he asked.

  "More like a field hand," he said. "She ain't exactly been bustin' broncs or digging post holes. Not that I don't think she coulda done it. There just ain't no coddlin' her."

  Maggie grinned, feeling rather good about Dancer's description. Her smile faded when she saw Connor's disapproving glance. "Did you think I came here to be waited on?" she asked him. "Of course I worked. I'm not incompetent, incapable, or an invalid."

  "Now you got her dander up," Dancer said to Connor. "And you ain't even said anything."

  "I noticed," Connor said dryly.

  Giving them both an impatient look, Maggie left the table and went outside to the porch. She sat on the step, leaning one shoulder against the rough-hewn pine support. She didn't turn when the door opened and Connor stepped out. She felt him just behind her. He stood there for a long while before he reached down and touched her shoulder. The pressure of his fingers urged her to move down one step. She did so without protest and then he was sitting behind her, pulling her between his splayed legs so her head rested against his chest.

  "Better?" he asked softly.

  Surprisingly, it was. She had thought she wanted to be alone, but she hadn't, not really. She didn't think she wanted him so near, but she had accepted him easily. "Better," she said.

  His fingertips touched the gentle curve of her temple. He brushed back a lock of her hair, but once it was out of the way his fingers strayed back
to the spot, stroking her so lightly it was like a breeze against her skin. "Dancer says you've learned everything he has to teach you," he said.

  "He tells me that, too. I'm not certain I believe him."

  Connor heard what she wasn't saying, namely that she wasn't sure she was ready to leave. He wasn't going to be drawn into that argument. He changed the subject instead. "Have you written your mother?"

  Maggie nodded. "Every day, not that she knows it. Dancer's only been to town once since I've been here. He posted some letters then, but I have another box full. Perhaps you could mail them when you go."

  "Perhaps I could."

  Maggie closed her eyes. His caress whispered across her cheek.

  "I thought a lot about you," he said. "I didn't think I would, but it happened anyway. I wanted you to know that." The admission was made reluctantly, as if he was trying to hold back the words and they were being drawn out by a force more powerful than his will.

  "I thought about you, too," she said.

  It was the most either one of them was prepared to say. They fell silent. Connor's fingers threaded through her hair. The back of his hand brushed the nape of her neck. His touch raised a tingle across the surface of her skin. Maggie turned into him slightly so his fingers made the same movement again. He traced the exposed line of her throat and felt her racing pulse beneath his calloused fingertips. He bent his head and touched his lips to the crown of hers. Her hair smelled like lavender. He unwound her braid and released more of the fragrance. His hand dropped to her shoulder but the pressure was light, urging her upward, not holding her down.

  When he stood, Maggie came to her feet with him. He was on the step above, towering over her, yet she felt no fear, only a sweet yearning that made her lift her moon-washed face and hold his gaze with her wide, expressive eyes.

  "Come with me, Maggie," he said gently, a shade urgently.

  She knew he wasn't talking about tomorrow or forever—he was talking about what he wanted now. He was talking about what they both wanted. She put his hand in his and let him lead her away from the cabin.

  They paused briefly at the stream. Maggie had waded through it most every day since she had come to Dancer's. This time was different. This time Connor scooped her up and carried her across it and kept on carrying her, through the curtain of moonlight into the canopy of pines.