Rachel awakened with a start. She bolted upright in bed, blinking in the darkness, wondering if she’d dreamed the noise or if she’d actually heard something. Still so tired and her eyelids heavy, she knew she couldn’t have been asleep too long.
She sat perfectly still, listening for what seemed like a long time, then she exhaled. Nothing. Relaxing, she lay back down again and yawned, unable to remember the last time she’d had that vivid of a drea—
There it was again. She sat up. A definite thud this time, then the shuffle of footsteps. Perhaps one of the boys was up. Or maybe it was Rand. What she heard next propelled her from bed. The sound of something—or someone—falling.
Reliving one of many nights following Thomas’s passing, she grabbed her robe and hurried down the hallway, not bothering to light a lamp. She’d awakened before to the same sound—of Kurt having a nightmare. And more than once, he’d fallen from bed. She’d thought he’d grown beyond having these awful dreams. Or at least she’d prayed he had.
After Thomas died, Kurt would awaken screaming, terrified something was outside the cabin trying to break in and get him. At times he’d been so frightened, so convinced he’d heard something, she’d hardly been able to go back to sleep herself.
The boys’ bedroom door was ajar, as she’d left it. Shadows draped the room in darkness, but she could just make out the contours of their sleeping forms. “Kurt?” she whispered, waiting for the telling rustle of sheets or those deep, choking breaths. He didn’t stir. Neither did Mitch.
A loud thunk came from the front room, followed by the sharp fracture of breaking glass, and she turned back to the hallway.
“Mama? Is something wrong?” Mitch stirred and sat up.
She crossed to his bed and brushed a kiss to his forehead. “No, everything’s fine, sweetie.” She glanced behind her, hoping that was true. “I was just checking on you and your brother. Go back to sleep.”
Not needing to be told twice, Mitch nestled his face back into the pillow.
Rachel closed the boys’ door behind her and only then realized how cold the floor was on her bare feet. A draft of air whooshed down the corridor and up her robe. She pulled it tighter, shivering as she picked her way down the darkened hall.
Peering around the corner into the parlor, she tried to see if Rand was still on the sofa, but the room was pitch black, the curtains drawn. “Rand?” she whispered. She took another step and tripped over something. Nearly landing on all fours, she regained her balance, her shin throbbing. She bent and groped in the darkness before her. One of the rail-back chairs lay on its side. “Rand?” she said louder, righting the chair with more force than necessary.
Still no answer, and her concern mounted.
She made her way to the bureau by the hearth, located the oil lamp kept there, and struck a match. Pale yellow light stretched out across the room, and her concern escalated.
The sofa was shoved back from its place, the cushions disheveled, some on the floor. A crystal vase, a family heirloom and gift from her mother on her wedding day, lay shattered. And the front door stood wide open. No wonder it was so cold.
She peered into the kitchen. Rand wasn’t there. Maybe he’d gone to the outhouse. But why would he leave the door open? Or maybe he’d decided to return to town . . . and failed to check the latch? That didn’t seem like something he would—
Labored breathing came from just beyond the front door.
“Rand?” Her voice tight, it barely broke a whisper. She raised the oil lamp, but the darkened porch lay beyond the light’s reach. “Rand, is that you?”
Noiselessly as she could, heart pounding, she retraced her steps to the bureau, her attention never leaving the doorway. What was she doing living so far from town with two young boys? Unable to deal with that question right now, she shoved the thought aside and opened the top drawer, wincing at the scrape of wood on wood.
She rummaged beneath the embroidered tablecloths and linen napkins until her fingers brushed the cold steel of Thomas’s Smith & Wesson. Revolver in her grip, she flipped the safety lever, wishing she could take the lamp too. But she’d fired this gun before. She would need both hands.
She inched forward. Her right hand trembled and she steadied it with her left, correcting her aim and targeting the area she imagined would be chest level on most men. James had taught her at a young age how to shoot and defend herself, and what he’d said most often was that the decision to shoot couldn’t be an afterthought. Once she made the decision to pull the trigger, she needed to be committed to it.
Thinking of her sons lying asleep in the bedroom down the hall, she thought she could pull the trigger. But what if Rand was out there? She couldn’t risk shooting him.
Almost to the door, she heard footsteps on the porch and a bolt of fear sliced through her. Senses sharpened, she gathered her courage and peered outside. A shadow moved to her right at the edge of the porch. She leveled the gun and took aim.
“Rachel! It’s me!” Rand dared not move for fear the woman’s aim was as accurate as her stance promised it would be.
“Rand?” she said, her tone incredulous. “What are you doing out here!”
Hoping to avoid that explanation, he held up a hand, his breathing still unsteady. When he’d awakened to absolute darkness, full panic had set in and was taking its time to abate. “I’ll explain, but would you mind not aiming that at me, please?”
She hesitated, as though only now realizing she still held the gun on him. She lowered her arm. “Why didn’t you answer me! I’ve been calling you!”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.” Though he had no problem hearing her now.
“You didn’t hear me?” Her sharp exhale communicated doubt. “You about scared me to death, Rand Brookston!” She took a step closer, pointing back to the house. “What happened? Are you all right?”
The pressure in his temples made his head feel like it was about to split open, and the shrillness in her voice didn’t help. The last thing he wanted to do was tell her why he was standing on her porch in the middle of the night, much less have her see him this way— shaky, unable to catch his breath. She was already going to brand him a fool for agreeing to work with Brandon Tolliver—though he hadn’t had much of a choice in the matter. Once she discovered he was afraid of the dark . . .
He shook his head. He’d be quite the man in her eyes.
He worked to keep the edge from his voice. “I said I’m fine, Rachel. If you’ll just go back inside and—”
“You don’t sound fine to me. And my parlor doesn’t look fine. What on earth happened in there?”
He glanced past her to the open door, where a faint but precious hint of light glowed warm. He hoped he hadn’t done any damage. He remembered awakening, groping in the darkness, determined to find a way out. He’d tripped over something—he did remember that. Maybe a chair . . . “I’m sorry about the mess. I-I’ll clean it up before I go.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his temples, willing the ache to subside. “Just . . . give me a minute, please.”
“Rand, I don’t care so much about the room—just tell me what’s going on. Why are you out here in the middle of the night? And why is my front door standing wide open?” She took a step closer. “You’re shivering. . . .” Her voice softened. “Are you ill? Is that it?” She tried to touch his forehead, but he brushed her hand away.
“Rachel, please . . . go back inside.”
“I want to know if you’re ill.”
“I’m not ill!” He dodged her hand again, his nerves—and pride— stretched thin. “You are the most stubborn woman I’ve—”
“I’m stubborn?” She gave a disbelieving laugh. “I walk into my parlor in the middle of the night to find it in shambles, then come out here to find you lurking on the—”
“Lurking?” he repeated.
“Yes, lurking! And you won’t even tell me why. And you won’t let me check to see if you have fever when you’re obviously sick!” She shook her head. “And I’m the one who’s stubborn?”
“I’m a doctor, Rachel.” He gave a dry laugh. “I think I’d know if I had fever.” He saw her stiffen and knew he’d said exactly the wrong thing.
“Do you have any idea, Rand, how arrogant that makes you sound?”
He stared, unable to see her expression, but easily imagining the fire in her eyes. This lady could get downright riled when she put her mind to it—and when she had good reason, which he’d just given to her in spades.
She walked back into the house, leaving the door open.
He dragged a hand across his face and sighed. The evening had gone so well until this. . . .
He followed her inside and found her stowing the gun in the top bureau drawer. He walked up beside her. She didn’t look at him. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I shouldn’t have said that. And you’re right. It was arrogant and uncalled for.”
She closed the drawer harder than he imagined was needed. “It scared me . . . finding the room this way, and you gone.”
Instinctively, he touched her arm. She moved away, and he didn’t blame her. “I’m not sick, Rachel. I just—” He didn’t want to lie, but he also couldn’t tell her the truth. Men were supposed to be the brave ones, the protectors, the ones brandishing guns.
He looked at her standing by the fireplace, her back to him, her bare heels peeking out from beneath her robe. Beautiful hardly described Rachel Boyd. Her dark hair fell about her shoulders in disarray, and the way she’d cinched her robe about her waist— modesty her intent, no doubt—only drew more attention to the soft curves of her hips and thighs he remembered so well. . . .
He thought of her late husband and a sense of trespass resonated within him. Somehow it felt wrong, him standing here in the home Thomas Boyd had built, desiring the woman Thomas Boyd had loved. But what he felt for Rachel was so much more than desire alone.
He needed to give her an explanation for his behavior and knew by her demeanor that she was waiting for one. He only hoped a portion of the truth would suffice. He crossed to where she stood, mindful to keep distance between them.
“Sometimes, at night,” he started, finally giving up on gaining her attention, “I wake up and . . . I can’t remember where I am. And I get to feeling a little . . .” He shrugged, hoping to make it sound more casual, less terrifying than it actually was. “A little closed in, I guess. That’s what happened tonight.” He swallowed, the half truth bitter on his tongue and pricking his conscience. Only then did he realize she was watching him.
A keenness sharpened her gaze, one he might have considered engaging if he weren’t trying to hide something.
“A little closed in,” she repeated. Her eyes narrowed the slightest bit. Not so much with suspicion, he thought, as with curiosity. “Does it ever hurt, still?” she asked softly.
He frowned, not following what she was saying. She lowered her gaze, and he became aware that he was fingering the scar at his throat. He lowered his hand. His face heated. “No . . . not anymore.”
“Would it be rude if I ask what happened?”
Her tentative tone encouraged his equally tentative smile. “It’s from the war.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Where did it happen?”
“The last night of the battle in Nashville,” he said quietly. “December sev—”
“Seventeenth,” she said along with him, her expression awash in memory. “James fought there. Thomas too,” she whispered, looking openly at his scar now. “It’s a wonder a wound like that didn’t cost you your life.”
“It did . . . in a sense.” The lingering question in her expression touched something inside him, and reminded him that events from that night twelve years ago were not all horrific. At least not the final outcome. “I would never have become a doctor had it not been for this.” He briefly touched the scar again.
He vividly remembered the searing hot lead of a minié ball ripping through his neck, then the metallic taste of blood. He lay on the battlefield, for how long he didn’t know, his mind telling his lungs to fill only to have them respond with sluggish, hindered obedience. He must have lost consciousness, because the next time he awakened was on a cot in a surgeon’s tent, and the next . . . to the darkest night he could ever remember. And would never forget. The memory was still horrifying.
And yet, looking back, the field surgeon pronouncing him dead had given him new life.
“So you became a doctor because of your wound. . . .” Her voice was quiet yet held singular interest. “But why one specializing in obstetrics?”
Rand eyed the rustic hand-hewn mantel before them, taken aback by how much the heart could remember, even when the mind couldn’t. He couldn’t recall the exact nuances of his sister’s face, nor that of her infant daughter, but he recalled with painful accuracy the rending feeling of separation at their passing. His feelings had mirrored those Marietta had described to him after she’d knelt by his graveside the evening following the Battle of Nashville.
Aware of Rachel’s stare, he pulled his thoughts back. “My younger sister . . . Marietta,” he whispered, a lifetime of memories accompanying the name. “She died while giving birth to her first child . . . a daughter, who died not long after.”
A soft gasp. “I’m so sorry, Rand.”
He ran his thumb along the smoothed edge of the mantel, where wood had given way to a knife’s sharp edge, and imagined Thomas Boyd doing much the same as he’d fashioned it for his home. “I was already a year into my medical training at the time and hadn’t yet decided which area of study interested me most. When Marietta and her baby died, my decision became clear.” He winced, recalling the events leading up to his sister’s and niece’s deaths. “Marietta’s baby came early and her body wasn’t prepared to deliver the child.” He stared down at the cold hearth. “The doctor didn’t know how to perform a—”
“Cesarean delivery . . .” Rachel nodded, her voice falling away.
He nodded.
A moment passed before she spoke again. “Last fall . . . when I helped you deliver little Jo . . .” She shook her head. “That must have been so painful, so frightening. Yet you didn’t look it in the least.”
He gave a soft laugh. “I was scared to death . . . on the inside.” Oh, how he wished he could tell her the truth about his reaction tonight. He felt as if God himself were opening a door for him to do just that, and yet Rand couldn’t bring himself to walk through.
Aware of the lengthening silence and of the condition of Rachel’s parlor, he gestured to the sofa and pillows. “I’ll straighten things up before I leave.” He took a step and something crunched beneath his boot. Looking down, he felt a fresh wave of regret. He held out an arm to make sure Rachel didn’t step in the shards of glass. “Did I do this?”
“Don’t worry,” she said softly. “I’ll clean it up.”
He knelt and picked up one of the larger pieces of broken glass. Or crystal, he decided on closer inspection. “I’m sorry, Rachel.” He hoped it wasn’t something Thomas had given her.
“It’s all right.” She bent down.
“No . . . it’s not.” Renewed shame cut through him. Somehow, he had to learn to conquer his fear. He’d lived too long within its grip. “Was this special to you?”
“No,” she answered, a second too late for it to have been the truth. “It was just a vase.”
“I’ll replace it.”
She briefly touched his arm. “You don’t need to, Rand.”
“I want to,” he said softly, seeing the trust in her eyes and wishing he’d had the courage to tell her the whole truth.