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“He looked just like Emma. Fair and sweet, but he had my energy.” His low chuckle was filled with joy and hurt. “I loved him more than anything else. I thought Emma felt the same…Hell…I knew she felt the same. When they were taken I did not rest, Sheridan. I swear I didn’t. When I reached them, my horse collapsed and never rose again…but I was too late.”
His hands tightened on her hips painfully but she did not protest.
“It has been three years and I still dream of them often. I have seen horrors in the war. More deaths than I can stomach. But nothing haunts me as much as how my son’s tiny lifeless body looked crumpled, with that gaping wound across his throat.”
Sheridan wrapped her arms around Elijah, and he glided his hands up her back and hugged her in return. She could only imagine the fear Emma must have felt…from what Miguel had told her, it had been over twenty Indians, and the horror stories of what they were capable of was rife in the West.
“I dream of Nathan calling me…crying for me stranded in a deserted wasteland. Emma is always there as well…and lately you have been right there beside them.”
Sheridan clenched her eyes tight and swallowed unable to say anything. They stayed like that for long minutes, with the gently tapping rain on the roof the only sound in the night. There were no words she could find to offer as comfort. And the depth of how much he feared having a woman like her in his life was made apparent. Never had she felt so close to him, outside this moment, as he unburdened himself to her, but never had they been so far apart either.
How was she to fight such nightmares?
Chapter Fourteen
The air was heavy with rain, and the smell of damp grass. Shadows crept up, and the night slinked away down the mountains. Elijah was going hunting. The men that thought they could take Sheridan with such brutal force would not know when he would come for them. They were men of violence and most of the time that was all they understood. Violence. It was something he could deliver.
He slipped out into the dark of the night, the starless night blanketing him in cool shadows. He followed the sound of the hooting owl to behind the horse’s corral.
“Took you long enough.” A low voice drawled in amusement. “I have been hooting for over an hour.”
Elijah grunted and moved to stand beside his brother, Joshua.
“What is your take on Sullivan?” Elijah wasted no time in getting to the heart of the matter. If he had been a few minutes later, they would have raped Sheridan in a God-damn alley with the town’s citizens a stone throw away.
“What happened?” Joshua asked. “I only got a message you have need of me. I rode out right away. Mother sends her regards.”
Low voiced, Elijah told him what had happened. There was a tense silence after he recounted how they had accosted Sheridan.
Joshua sighed. “Sullivan calls himself king in these parts and he goes nowhere without his gunmen around him. The stories of the number of men he’s had killed vary. Some said he has killed eight men, some said two, some said none. What matters is that he has done enough to be dangerous.”
Elijah glanced sideward at his brother. Joshua had an instinct for judging the abilities of men. Powerful, fierce, and ruthless himself, he knew fighting men. Knew when a man had honor, when he was a coward, and when he was willing to kill.
He met his brother’s gaze with an iciness that he knew Joshua would understand. “I do not want Sullivan to see us coming.”
Joshua nod, slowly rolling his cigarette papers into a smoke. “Do you want to kill him?”
Elijah considered. “It is not our way to murder in cold blood,” he finally responded.
“It is not our way to leave men that trouble and terrorize our women folks, either,” Joshua returned coolly.
Elijah observed his brother silently. Joshua had that wicked rough-edged look to him. Nobody would mistake him for a kind, gentle man. Elijah could not see how his brother had crossed paths with Beth for her to have a son by him. Even though he supposed her son could instead belong to Noah. But Elijah doubted it. The eyes were all Joshua, a deep-sea green with flecks of gold. Elijah and Noah had similar eyes, but with no golden flecks. “How do you know Beth Hardin?”
Elijah’s gut clinched at the stillness that came over his brother.
“Bethany Hardin?”
“Yes. She is here.”
Joshua’s gaze shifted to the cabin, his face suddenly intent.
“Not here in the mountains,” Elijah corrected.
“She is at the Whispering Creek?”
“Yes.” Elijah watched him wondering if he knew about the baby.
“I had wondered where she went,” Joshua mused softly.
