Mountain Laurel Read online

  After a moment he spoke to her gruffly. “Here, lean back.”

  She hesitated, but she was so tired that she couldn’t help leaning back against him. Her head fit exactly under his chin.

  “Who was with you during all these years of travel?” His voice was still full of anger.

  “John. John Fairlie, my manager, was with me.”

  She could feel the front of him against her back, feel the anger that still raged in him.

  “Where’s all the money you’ve earned? For that matter, who takes care of the money you’ve earned in the gold camps?”

  “I don’t know,” she said sleepily. “John took care of money. Frank does now or maybe Sam does. I don’t think Edith does.”

  “How much do you know about the three of them?”

  “Could you please stop asking me questions?”

  He didn’t answer her, and his silence gave her peace to close her eyes and relax against him.

  She was asleep in his arms within minutes, but she jolted awake when he stopped. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, but Butter’s tired, you’re exhausted, and I wouldn’t mind some sleep too.”

  She was more tired than she wanted to admit, and when he put up his arms for her she slid into them. He stood close to her for a moment and removed a leaf from her hair. “You are a damned infuriating woman. You know that?”

  She was too tired to argue. “I knew you’d find me. You are the most persistent man I have ever encountered.”

  “I guess you’re used to men losing sleep to find you. I guess your manager came after you when the Russian students took you?”

  “No, he didn’t. He had a nice dinner and went to bed. John always thought I was able to take care of myself. Which I am. They would have returned me before long.”

  “Maybe,” he snapped. “But who knows what could have happened?”

  She felt herself swaying toward him. Maybe it was the moonlight. “I am not your responsibility.”

  “Yes you are. I have orders from the army.” Supporting her, he put his arm around her shoulders and led her to a little clearing. When he told her to sit down and be quiet, she didn’t bother to protest, but leaned against a tree, hugged her arms about her, and closed her eyes.

  She wasn’t about to tell him so, but the miners’ abduction of her had frightened her. It was some time after they’d burst into her tent before she realized that they’d only wanted her to sing. Had she known they were merely drunks looking for someone to entertain them, she might have protested, but she had been afraid they were from Laurel’s captors.

  When she’d realized they’d merely wanted her to sing, she’d been furious and had then just sat and waited, waited for Captain Montgomery to find her.

  She sat up with a start when he touched her shoulder and handed her a cup of coffee.

  “I didn’t bring much to eat. I left in a bit of a hurry.”

  She watched him as he tended to the fire and his horse, then spread blankets on the ground for a bed. He gave her a couple of the horrible dried army crackers called hardtack to eat, and when she’d finished, he took her by the hand and led her to the blankets.

  “Where will you sleep?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m not the one who gets into trouble every five minutes.”

  “I wasn’t in trouble. I was perfectly safe. I—”

  “But none of us knew that, did we? Sam had blood running down his neck, and you ought to feel the size of the lump on my head. My head still hurts so bad I can hardly see straight, while you just say that you weren’t in danger. You—”

  “Let me see,” she said, interrupting him. Anything to make him shut up. She sat down on the blanket and motioned for him to bend to her. She put her hands in his thick, dark hair and immediately felt an awful lump and she also felt somewhat guilty. She hadn’t meant for anyone to get hurt because of her.

  On impulse, she leaned forward and kissed the lump. “There, does that make it feel better?”

  “Not much,” he said, and when she looked at him he was still frowning.

  “Really, Captain, don’t you have any sense of humor at all? I apologize for causing you so much trouble, but, may I remind you that I never have yet asked for your help or your interference. I’ve never wanted, or felt I needed, an army escort. You are free to return to your post at any time you want.”

  He turned toward the fire, sitting not a foot from the blankets. “And who would protect you?” he asked softly.

  “Sam and—”

  “Ha! You’re better at protecting yourself than they are.”

  “Was that a compliment? If it was, I want to mark it down in my diary.”

  “I’ve complimented you. I told you I like your singing.”

  She frowned into the fire. “True, you like my singing but you’ve said nothing but dreadful things about me as a person. You call me a liar and—”

  “As far as I can tell, most of what you say to me is lies.”

  “Don’t you understand that there are sometimes reasons why a person must lie? Or has your life always been so easy that you’ve never found a lie necessary? Are you perfect, Captain Montgomery, utterly perfect?”

  He was quiet so long that she turned to look at him, and by his face she knew she’d hit some chord in him.

  “No, I’m not perfect,” he said. “I have fears just like everyone else.”

  “Such as?” she whispered. At the moment they didn’t seem like an army officer and his captive, but just two people, alone, sitting by a campfire, surrounded by darkness. “What do you fear?”

  He opened his mouth to speak but closed it again. “When you’re ready to tell me your secrets, I’ll tell you mine. Until then, let’s keep this on a different plane. Now, Miss Whatever-your-true-name-is, get between those blankets and sleep.”

  He stood and walked away into the darkness, allowing her some privacy as she made herself ready to sleep. When the miners had burst into her tent she’d asked to please be allowed time to change out of her nightgown. She’d dressed as hurriedly as possible, not bothering with her corset, but without it she couldn’t fasten her skirt and was glad for the concealing tail of the jacket she’d slipped over her blouse.

  It was cold in the mountains at night so she snuggled under the top blanket fully clothed, put her head on Captain Montgomery’s saddlebag, and went to sleep. As a child, she’d slept this way often, with a campfire crackling and stars overhead.

  During the night she was awakened by a voice and, startled, she sat up abruptly.

  Captain Montgomery came to her and pushed her back down on the blanket.

  “I was dreaming,” she murmured. “I was with my father.”

  “He’s not here now, so go back to sleep.”

  He started to move away, but Maddie caught his hand. “Worth,” she whispered.

  “Worth what?”

  “My last name is Worth. Madelyn Worth.”

  “Ah, yes, the M.W. on the trunks.”

  She yawned and turned on her side away from him. “Thank you, Captain, for coming to my rescue even if I didn’t need you.”

  “I just hope I don’t have to do it again.”

  “Me too,” she murmured, and went to sleep.

  ’Ring went back to his place against the tree. He was cold and since he’d given her the last of his hardtack he was hungry, so what sleeping he did was very light. For the most part he spent the night watching her and trying to put together all the pieces.

  His head and back still ached in the morning and his mood felt worse. “Get up,” he snapped. “This isn’t the Paris opera house, where you can sleep late.”

  She stretched and yawned. “You certainly got up on the wrong side of the bed.”

  “I wasn’t in any bed to get out of.”

  He didn’t know it, of course, but Maddie had spent a great deal of her life around men and knew when one was in a sulk. “What’s the matter, Captain? Angry because a woman won’t do what you wan