Twin of Fire Read online

  “My father lied to you because I told him to!” Lee snapped.

  She took a step backward. “Lied? So you admit it? What would take you away on our wedding night? There was no medical emergency. I somehow doubt that your mysterious Mr. Smith actually exists, so where were you?”

  Leander didn’t answer for a moment, as he turned to look back at the distant forest and eat his sandwich. He wasn’t going to compound his problems with another lie. “I can’t tell you,” he said quietly.

  “You won’t tell me.” She turned away, heading for the cabin.

  He caught her arm. “No, I can’t tell you.” His face showed his rising anger. “Damn it, Blair! I’ve not done anything to deserve your mistrust. I was not out with another woman. Lord, but I can barely handle one woman, much less two. Don’t you realize that it had to be something important, something dire, to take me away on my wedding night? Why the hell can’t you trust me? Why do you believe my father, who was lying on my behalf, and that bitch in there who makes her living by stealing?”

  He dropped her arm. “Go on, then. Go ahead and believe her. That’s just what she wants. I’m sure she’d like nothing better than to see us at each other’s throats. It’d be much easier for her to escape one captor than two. If she keeps on, and you continue believing her, another couple of hours and you’ll help her escape just to get the two of us apart.”

  Feeling quite weak, Blair sat down on the grass. “I don’t know what to believe. She seems to know so much about you, but then I have no right to expect you to be faithful. You didn’t want to marry me in the first place. It was only a competition.”

  Leander grabbed her upper arm and hauled her to her feet. “Get back to the cabin,” he said with teeth clenched, then turned his back to her.

  Blair was bewildered by everything. Her head down, her feet dragging, she started back to the cabin. One time Aunt Flo had complained to her husband that Blair knew nothing about life. “If a man told her she’d broken his heart,” Aunt Flo said, “Blair’d look in some medical text to find out how to sew it back together. Medicine is not all there is to life.”

  Blair stopped and turned back toward Lee. “Have you really never been to Florence?” she asked softly, but the sound carried in the silent forest.

  He took a moment before he turned to look at her. His face was unyielding. “Never.”

  Cautiously, Blair took a step toward him. “She’s not really your type, is she? I mean, she’s too skinny and doesn’t have enough on top or bottom, does she?”

  “Not nearly enough.” Still, his face didn’t change as he watched her approach.

  “And she wouldn’t know a hernia from a headache, would she?”

  He watched her until she was standing in front of him. “I wouldn’t have made a fool of myself in front of the town if I’d loved someone else.”

  “No, I guess you wouldn’t have.”

  His rifle in one hand, he held out one arm to her and she snuggled against him, her head against his chest. His heart was beating wildly.

  “You owe me a wedding night,” she whispered.

  Suddenly, he grabbed her hair, pulled her head back and kissed her deeply, his tongue touching hers.

  When Blair turned her body to his and pressed her knee between his legs, he let her go, gently pushing her away.

  “Go back inside,” he growled. “I need to keep watch and I have some thinking to do—and I certainly can’t think with you near.”

  Reluctantly, she moved away from him.

  “Blair,” he said, when she was no longer touching him, “I’m beginning to come up with a plan. I haven’t worked it out yet, but don’t let her”—he nodded toward the cabin—“know that you know she’s lying. Pretend that you believe what she says. I think I can use your anger.”

  “I’m glad to be useful,” she muttered before returning to the cabin.

  Jealousy was a new emotion to Blair. Never before had she experienced it. She sat in that duty little cabin and listened while Françoise recounted her grand passion with Leander. Part of her wanted so badly to believe Lee, but part of her was sure this awful woman was telling the truth. Blair had to sit on her hands or she would have leapt for the woman’s throat. She did her best to think of other things.

  After a while, Blair got herself under control enough to realize that what Françoise was saying was very general.

  “And your sister…,” Françoise was saying, “ah, her name is…”

  “Charlotte Houston,” Blair said absently, wondering where Lee could have gone on their wedding night if it wasn’t to another woman.

  “Yes, Charlotte,” Françoise was saying. “I had to fight Charlotte for many months, but then when she married Taggert…I imagine Lee felt obligated—.”

  “He must have discussed her with you at length,” Blair said, suddenly alert.

  “When he could get away. The truth is, I am already married, and we thought my husband would never release me, but he will. You see, I found out that I was going to be free on the night he married you.”

  “So, he left me to go to you,” Blair said. “Of course, now I’m free and you’re shackled to the post, but I’m sure it’ll work itself out. Excuse me, I think I’ll get a breath of air.”

  When Blair walked out of the cabin, she felt as if she’d lost twenty pounds. She felt light and happy and free. No matter what Lee’d said, there’d been some doubt about his relationship with the Frenchwoman. But now, Blair was sure he’d been telling the truth.

  As she stood on the porch and breathed deeply of the clean, cool air, an iridescent hummingbird came up to inspect the red insignia on her shoulder. Blair held very still and watched the little bird hovering about her, smiling at it before it realized that she was nothing edible and flew away. Still smiling, she walked down to where Leander hid in the grasses.

  She sat down beside him without saying a word, listening to the wind in the aspens overhead.

  “She didn’t know Houston’s name,” she said at last, and when he looked at her with curiosity, she continued. “I haven’t always been a part of your life, but Houston has. I don’t imagine anyone you’ve ever known hasn’t heard her name, if for no other reason than for the sheer quantity of letters that Houston wrote you.”

  Lee put his arm around her, chuckling and shaking his head. “You don’t believe me, but you do believe her. I guess I’ll have to take whatever I can get.”

  She leaned against him and they just sat there together, listening to the wind, not saying a word. Blair thought how close she’d come to missing this moment. If she’d had her way, she’d be in Pennsylvania with Alan right now. Alan who was so small, Alan who wasn’t even a doctor yet, and would probably never be as good as Leander was, Alan who didn’t know which end of a gun to hold, Alan who would have probably gone to the sheriff and would never have rescued his wife on his own.

  “Thank you for rescuing me,” she said, and she meant for rescuing her from more than just her kidnappers.

  Lee moved to look at her, then pushed her away, as if she had turned to poison. “I want you to go sit by that tree,” he said, and there seemed to be a quiver in his voice. “I want to talk to you, and I can’t do it with you so near me.”

  Blair was so flattered that she moved to all fours and put her face in front of his. “Maybe you regret leaving on Monday night,” she said, her lips almost touching his.

  Lee drew back from her. “Go!” he ordered, and there was a threat in his voice. “I can’t keep watch and do what I want to do to you at the same time. Now, get over there and be still.”

  Blair obeyed him, but his words were sending little chills up and down her spine. In a few hours, Taggert would have the sheriff in the mountains and they’d take the outlaws and Lee could hand over Françoise, and then they’d be alone. She thought of their one and only night together, and when she looked up at him through her lashes, she heard him catch his breath.

  She was very pleased when he looked away.