4

Despite the approach of dawn, blackness hovered over the valley. Joseph sat awake in a hard-backed chair and stared with aching eyes at the bedroom door and the bar he had fixed over it. He’d hardly slept a wink all night. He should have listened to Andrew. The man usually spoke wisdom, except for when it came to farming−he being a gentleman and pastor and having no experience whatsoever. But no. Joseph had wanted things done his way. Now he reaped the consequences.

Not only did he feel awful for the shades of purple spread across the girl’s jaw, but he’d left her in the smokehouse much longer than intended. He’d planned to curry Hunter and put him in the pasture, but then the cow had reminded him that she was ready to be milked again. One chore led to another, making procrastination far too easy. Especially because he didn’t know what to do with her. When he’d finally returned for her, what had he done? Locked her up again without proper care to her wound.

Not that she’d wanted his help.

He’d always been clumsy with his fingers and would have probably done as much harm as good. Joseph groaned. He’d been just plain clumsy yesterday, but something about the girl unnerved him—something beyond the war paint marring her features.

Maybe it was the fact he still had no idea what to do with her? She’d come into the valley with Otetiani’s raiders for who knew what reasons. After all the bloodshed and burning, he’d be a fool to trust the petite warrior. Given the opportunity, would she hesitate to kill him and burn down the cabin while he slept—leaving his children without any parents?

Yet, despite her sharp tongue−and her incredible use of the English language−the girl had an innocence about her. A vulnerability in those pale brown eyes. And a familiarity.

He leaned forward and scratched his fingers through his hair. Fields to plant. Land to protect. Children who needed their father. “What was I thinking?”

After he finished chores, he’d go discuss plans with Andrew…and Rachel. Perhaps even Benjamin. Anyone who’d take responsibility for the girl. Joseph laid his head back and closed his eyes. And woke to a thunderous pounding in his head.

No. Not just in his head but resonating through the whole cabin. He groaned and pushed up. Pain burned across his shoulders and down his back. He tried to stretch the knotted muscles, but with little success. Not that he had time with the banging of something solid against the bedroom door.

Wrestling sleep’s overwhelming hold, he staggered across the room and lifted the beam. Dawn lit the small window and cast a glow over the Indian girl in her rustic garb, tangled hair streaming past her shoulders. Something clanked to the floor, and he glanced to the object she had dropped. Pa’s pistol.

“Be grateful you don’t store your powder in here.” Her lips curled with the hint of a smile as she pushed past him.

“Whoa! You can’t go.”

“Trust me, you do not want to stop me.” She continued out the front door, letting a blast of cool air into the cabin.

Joseph blinked away the last of his need to sleep, the breeze lending a hand. He rushed after her. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“All you need to know, is I won’t go far or for long.” She threw the words over her shoulder. With only the fabric of her sleeves warding off the spring chill, she hugged herself and hurried toward the nearest stand of trees. “And it would be ungentlemanly of you to follow.”

Joseph took three more steps before stumbling to a halt, his brain fully awake now. He turned and folded his arms. Part of him almost hoped she would keep walking and un-complicate his life. Within minutes, however, she stalked right back past him and into the cabin. By the time he caught up, she crouched in front of the fireplace, blowing life back into yesterday’s coals.

“Now what are you doing?” There was no way he trusted her near fire.

“I’m cold.”

“Then wrap up in a blanket.”

She stomped back into the bedroom−an impressive feat with soft buckskin padding her steps.

Joseph looked in to see her perched on the edge of the bed, Fannie’s side, as she hauled a quilt over her. She shivered and wrapped it tight around her shoulders. Her back remained arrow-straight.

Frustration, doubt, and guilt sat heavy in his empty stomach. He would be a fool to let his guard down, but he’d been too harsh. Joseph picked up Pa’s pistol and turned out of the room. He closed the door, but didn’t bother with the bar. Not much point to it now that his eyes were open. He might as well brew some coffee for them both. Hopefully it would warm her up. And keep him awake.

She didn’t acknowledge him when he brought her a steaming mug and some biscuits, so he set them aside on the chest that contained all his and Fannie’s clothes, and a few baby things. Well hidden away. Any other proof of children and a wife had been stripped from the room, taken by Rachel for the use of his offspring. He wasn’t sure if the effect made it easier not to dwell on how good their life had been…or added to the emptiness.

This time when Joseph retreated, he dropped the bar back over the door. He would get an early start on his chores. Busy hands helped ward off the loneliness.

~*~

Where was that man? Hannah paced the small room for hours. She eyed the window. Within a mile sat her family’s homestead and whatever secrets it held. So close. Only a thin pane of glass away.

She paced.

If she discovered nothing there, Joseph was her best hope of finding out more about her brothers. Would he stop avoiding her long enough to speak with?

Sunlight shone through the small window. The sun had already reached its highest point and here she remained, trapped.

Hannah spun on her heel and strode back across the room. She’d never liked being contained. Never liked sitting still. And with home and possible clues to finding her brothers lingering just out of reach, this confinement drove her mad.

Enough waiting.

Hannah cleared off the chest and collected the tall wooden candleholder from a bedside table. She climbed onto the chest. Braced against the wall, she turned her head away and rammed the base of the candleholder against the pane. Glass shattered. Careful of her fingers, Hannah cleared out the remaining shards. Folded through the window, a thick quilt from the bed shielded her from any remaining slivers. Her injured arm screamed as she pulled herself up. She had to wriggle her shoulders through at an upward angle, but her waist slid forward easily enough. Until her hips wedged against the solid boards framing the opening. No. She squirmed with no effect on her position.

“No!”

She tried to push upward, to go back inside, but her injured arm spiked with renewed agony, and warmth trickled past her elbow. Fresh scarlet soaked her bandage.

~*~

Joseph straightened the sack, slowing the stream of wheat seed. He wasn’t sure what he’d heard from the direction of the cabin. As much as he wanted to ignore the nagging in the back of his mind, he also wanted his home to remain intact. He tied off the sack and rounded the barn. All was quiet, but he would check on the girl anyway. He swung open the door and stopped short, biting back harsh words. “Did you need to make another trip into the woods so bad that you could not wait for me?”

Her muffled retort and the momentary flailing of her buckskin clad legs pulled at the corners of his mouth. Until the jagged fragments of glass glinted up at him from the floor. Mama’s window. “I should leave you there.” He huffed out a laugh. “You don’t look as though you’re going anywhere.”

“Only because of my arm.” Her voice tightened, whether from the constriction of her lungs or pain.

“If you hadn’t attacked me, you wouldn’t have been shot.”

“I didn’t attack you! You yanked me off the horse.”

“My horse. That you were trying to steal.”

“Because you and your friends…” She gasped a breath.

“My friends and I were trying to preserve life and homes. Your friends were the ones burning the countryside.”

“You Patriots started the burning.” Her voice lost strength. “You started this war.”

“And we shall finish it.” Joseph stepped to the chest. He didn’t want to think of war or the lives lost to raids. Not when he had to figure how best to get her back in. “You and your people need to go home and leave us be.”

“Home?” The word came with a gust he almost mistook for laughter.

Joseph frowned. She appeared quite wedged in place. He climbed onto the chest, and one of her legs bent up, almost clipping him in the chin. “Hold still.”

She kicked out at him. “I don’t want your help.”

Joseph caught her around the knees and held fast, while averting his gaze. It was wrong for a young woman to be clothed in such tight leggings without the proper tunic to hide her form. Best he think of her as the boy he’d first believed her to be. A difficult task as he slid his hand around her slender waist.

She gasped and froze.

Releasing her legs, he braced against the wall and pulled her upward. He lifted her backwards, and she rotated toward him. Her hand gripped his sleeve and her head appeared through the window. He held her with both arms, steadying her on her feet and against him.

Her eyes widened as they rose to his. Light brown eyes. Surprisingly so, with irises the color of pine sap and framed with long, black lashes.

Her gaze darted away, and she wriggled from his hold.

The force sent Joseph from his already precarious perch, and he dropped off the chest and stumbled back until he fell onto the bed. “You could have said thank you.” He pushed up on his elbows and narrowed a glower at her.

She cradled her injured arm. Fresh blood reddened the fabric wrapping it. “Why would I thank you for locking me in here?”

Joseph pushed any guilt away with the sight of his broken window. Pa had brought the glass all the way from Boston for Mama, and he had no way of replacing it without going as far as Albany. What would it cost? “If you want to leave that badly, go ahead.” He rolled to his feet. “I don’t have time for this.” He had work to do.

A muscle ticked in her cheek, and her eyes sparked. She spun and strode out the door.

“Don’t go near any of my horses,” he shouted, and then huffed out a breath as his anger abated. Couldn’t very well send her away with nothing. He hurried to the table and shoved a handful of Rachel’s biscuits into a sack with a chunk of soft cheese, but by time he made it outside there was no sign of the girl. The barn sat silent. Hunter and the black filly he had traded for a year earlier grazed in their separate paddocks. No sign that his life had been disrupted.