5

Her struggle in the window had been unkind to her wound. Hannah tried her best to ignore the live coal planted just above her elbow and the sticky wetness down her arm…and the memory of Joseph Garnet’s arms around her as he’d braced her against his chest. He’d smelled of fresh turned soil and a wheat field ready for harvest—a fragrance that lingered in her thoughts and confused her. She wasn’t a young girl anymore watching her neighbor’s son groom the horses or plow a field. Her heart shouldn’t race, and her stomach should have held steady. She’d had a chance to face him, to beg him to tell what he knew of her brothers’ fates.

Instead, she’d lost her mind and ran.

As Hannah neared the homestead where Papa had settled their family, thoughts of Joseph faded. A strange sort of nostalgic excitement tightened her insides. A lifetime had passed since they’d been forced from their precious valley.

The afternoon sun warmed the chill from the air but not from the breeze as Hannah stepped into the small clearing where she had worked beside Mama and played with her siblings. Tall grass and weeds already claimed the once well-tamped path leading to the cabin Papa had so painstakingly constructed for his Mohawk wife and their four children. Now only blackened boards and smoke-stained stones of the fireplace marked what had been home.

Hannah’s steps slowed. Ash. Only ash. What had she expected to find? Her brothers had been taken away the night the Patriots had set torches to the cabin. They were old enough to serve the rebel cause and would be compelled to do so. Old enough? Yes, Myles had been almost a man at sixteen, but Samuel was two years her junior. What sort of brutes forced a mere boy into their army?

Joseph Garnet.

Memories of him rose despite her attempts to push them back. He’d ridden with the men that day, along with his father. But James Garnet’s face had worn a different, kinder look. He hadn’t been there to evict a woman and her children from their home. Joseph, however, had looked down at her family with his blue eyes glazed with cold disinterest.

So similar to the look he’d worn when she’d fled his cabin.

Hannah climbed through the charred ruins. She sank to the black and crumbling beam that had held up the roof, facing what was left of the fireplace, eyes clamped closed against reality and the utter loneliness burrowing through her. She’d been foolish to return here. Nothing was left.

Nothing that would help her locate her brothers.

Doubt strangled her. After so many years forced to fight a war, what were the odds Myles and Samuel were even still alive?

Hannah swiped a trickle of moisture from her chin. She didn’t try to keep her cheeks dry. Though only five or six when Papa built this cabin, she remembered him taking his time to fit the logs tight so little chink was needed. He’d always hungered for adventure, and maybe that was the reason he had gone to fight for the King, but his skill had been with wood. Now, most everything he’d created for his family was reduced to ash. Even the doll and cradle he’d made her, and she’d passed to her little sister.

In the shelter of the meadow, the sun’s heat beat down on Hannah’s head without the interruption of a breeze. She opened her eyes to blackened hands and wiped them across her shirt. Time to say goodbye and begin her search in earnest.

At the river’s edge, Hannah washed the black from her hands, the paint from her face, and the blood streaks from her arm. Her shirt and leggings still wore the dirt and grime of three days’ travel. The glistening water beckoned. She gasped at the cold as she waded out to her knees in a cove protected from the main current. She was in no condition to swim. Shivers worked through her body as she submerged herself, clothes and all, in the icy embrace.

Though well over a month since the last of the snow had melted, the sun had little effect on the temperature of the water. She scrubbed out her shirt and hair as quick as she could with one hand, but by the time she stepped back onto the bank, her body trembled like a frightened colt and her teeth chattered. She rested on a rock in the sun for a few minutes to warm, before turning back toward the Garnet homestead. As much as she didn’t look forward to facing Joseph again, he was her best hope of finding her brothers.

The twitter of birds and soft whoosh of her feet on the littered ground followed her to the acres of cleared field lined with the deep furrows Joseph planted. Shirtsleeves billowing and his cocked hat nestled low on his head, he dropped seed with steady rhythm from the sack looped over his shoulders.

Hannah hesitated at the edge of the woods though her heart continued racing. She would not blame him for running her off, but she needed to leave her pride and anger behind. She squared her shoulders and started toward him, her focus alternating between him and not rolling her ankle as she made her way over the deep ridges of earth. The closer she got, the harder it became to look away from him, the breadth of his shoulders and the wheat-blond locks tied at the nape of his neck. If possible, the last few years had only made him more handsome. But they were enemies. And he had married Fannie.

Joseph’s head jerked up, and he narrowed a look at her.

Hannah stopped and braced for what he would say.

Waited for it.

From the top of her wet head, to her moccasined feet, he studied her. Then, with only a bit of a grunt, he twitched his head toward the cabin.

She reminded herself of a skittish foal as she scampered past. This time she would wait until he was ready to talk. Only a few paces from the door, she dodged out of sight.

The jangle of harnesses and thudding of hooves accompanied a wagon as it turned onto the property. She peeked around the corner of the cabin to make out the gentleman from the day before, and a woman, babe in arms, on the seat beside him.

Rachel Garnet—or whatever her name was now—and her family.

Hannah darted into the cabin and pressed the door closed. How had the years and this war changed Rachel? Though probably not as informed as her brother, perhaps she would make an easier ally.

The ends of Hannah’s hair dripped water down the back of her shirt. A man’s shirt. And a man’s leggings. She would have more success winning over the sister if she didn’t still look like a member of a raiding party.

~*~

Joseph stood in place, his fist closed around a handful of seed, the image of the Mohawk maiden frozen in his mind. She was the last thing he had expected when he’d raised his gaze to the horizon. A deer, a hare, or fox scurrying over his freshly plowed field. Any rodent would have made sense, but instead she was there, wending her way toward him.

Why?

She’d wanted to escape bad enough to wedge herself in a broken window. Why return?

And why was there a familiarity about her−even more so now her face was clean.

Joseph emptied his hand back into the sack on his shoulder. No doubt she had made it as far as the river and gained an appreciation of her predicament. Had she actually tried to swim with her arm as it was? What else would account for her saturated appearance? While his conscience eased, his gut tightened with the fact he still didn’t know what to do with her. And that she’d looked far too beautiful.

Joseph groaned and pressed his fingers into his temples. The last thing he needed was to acknowledge any attraction to the girl. He’d already given his heart to a woman—a kind, wise, beautiful woman he still yearned for. The months had only numbed the ache, not removed it from the hole in his chest. He turned toward the cabin and compelled his legs to carry him in that direction. He only made it as far as the barn when the chatter of voices met him.

Rachel. And the children.

Joseph dropped his load inside the barn.

“I am no longer accepting of your decision, Joseph.”

He swung to Andrew as he rounded the side of the barn. “What? Why on earth did you bring Rachel here?” Not that he didn’t agree she needed to be informed, but he wished Andrew would have respected his initial request.

“As much as I attempted to let it alone, this whole situation has not ceased to torment me. It is most imprudent, Joseph. You are a single man, and she is a young woman. For you to remain here alone together−”

“Surely you do not think I would take advantage of her.” He bristled at the insinuation. “As far as I am concerned, she might as well be the boy she is clothed as.” And yet he couldn’t forget the shapely form of her legs undisguised by leggings, or the way her wet shirt had molded to a distinctly feminine figure, her long hair draped over her curves. Joseph looked at Andrew, only to find his penetrating gaze narrowed at him. “What?”

“I think you should to come to the cabin with me and tell your sister.”

“Is that why you brought her?” No doubt she would gladly step in and tell him exactly what to do with their guest. And most likely, as with Captain Andrew Wyndham, she would be correct. And he would be wrong. And the situation would again be out of his hands.

“Joseph, I have not ceased praying since I left you yesterday.”

Now even God was against him. “So you’re speaking as my pastor?”

“And as your friend and brother.”

“Very well.” He had already decided to tell Rachel anyway. Hadn’t he? He’d been so back and forth it was hard to remember his final thoughts. He waved Andrew toward the cabin.

It appeared Rachel had taken the children inside, so the introductions may have already been made. What would his sister make of the wild girl?

Joseph slid to a halt at the open door.

Rachel, his baby girl on her hip, wrapped her free arm around a young woman in a pale yellow gown. Fannie’s gown. Moist dark hair had been twisted up on the back of her head, revealing a slender neck…and too much of the dark bruise he’d laid across her fine jaw.

“However did you come to be here, Hannah?”

Joseph jerked to his sister. “Hannah?”

Rachel returned his stare. “Why is she here if you don’t remember who she is? And surely you remember the Cunninghams? They were our neighbors until…” Rachel’s mouth tightened, and she glanced to the younger woman.

“Cunningham? Hannah Cunningham?” Joseph sounded like a fool repeating her name, but he couldn’t help himself. “Hannah Cunningham.” How had he not recognized her? They’d been neighbors for almost three years, and she’d always been here, leaning over the fence to watch the horses. He walked to the table and deposited his pistol there. He needed to distance himself.

“I came to visit my family’s old homestead.” Hannah’s lips curved, and her eyes twinkled with mischief. “Joseph was kind enough to give me a place to spend the night.”

Rachel smiled. “He has learned a few manners over the years.”

A jolt of laughter broke from Joseph. It was only a matter of time before Rachel noticed the brace for the bar he’d built over the bedroom door. Or questioned the bruise on Hannah’s cheek.

His sister gave him a searching look, and then reached out to squeeze Hannah’s arm. “I’m just glad to know you’re safe. What they did to your family—”

A shrill screech broke off Rachel’s sentiment.

Hannah bit down on her lip, her hand hovering over her covered wound.

“I’m so sorry. What happened to your arm?”

Hannah waved her away with a sideways glance at the two men. “I gouged it on a branch.”

Andrew moaned and stepped forward. “Let us not heap lies upon our wrongdoings.”

Rachel twisted to him and hitched the baby higher on her hip. “What wrongdoings?”

He looked to Joseph, his eyes showing a degree of panic.

Joseph shook his head—he already had enough to answer for—and motioned for Andrew to continue.

“Will anyone tell me what happened?” Rachel demanded.

Andrew brushed his knuckles along his jaw and faced his wife. “I shot her.”

“You shot her?”

He winced. “At the time, I believed her to be making an attempt on your brother’s life.”

Joseph took that as his cue to come to Andrew’s defense. “Which I am quite certain she was.” He indicated the thin remains of the scratches down his cheek. “And I had no way of knowing she was a woman at the time.”

“It’s true, Rachel.” Hannah’s voice wavered, and she cleared it. “I−”

A yelp of pain echoed from the bedroom. James. In a room still littered with broken glass.