Page 57 of Heart on the Line

“All you have to do is answer my question, Grace, and the pain will stop.”

She couldn’t. It would put Emma in danger. She just had to hold on until help arrived.

If it arrived.

No. When it arrived.

Amos would have noticed her disappearance. He would have informed the marshal, and the two of them would be searching for her.

But would they get here in time?

Please, Lord. Help them find me.

Because as much as Dunbar enjoyed playing the nonchalant businessman, he was running out of time, and he knew it. His cocky smiles had grown ragged around the edges, his questioning more frequent and pointed. When he’d first snagged her wrists on the hook, he’d seemed content to let gravity and her imagination do the convincing for him. Every time she moaned and shifted her weight to a different leg or rolled her neck in an effort to stretch her aching muscles, he’d offer to let her down, just as he was doing now.

And like all the previous offers, Grace refused this one as well, with a shake of her head and pressing her lips into an uncompromising line.

The way his eyes narrowed in response worried her as he dragged his last piece of cornbread through the chicken grease on his plate and shoved it into his mouth. His patience was thinning.

Yet it was the thinning of her resolve that truly had her concerned. The weakness in her body was wearing on her mind.

All at once, Dunbar lurched up from his seat and hurled his plate against the wall, mere inches from her head. Grace yelped and twisted away from the shattering stoneware, closing her eyes against the shards that peppered her face.

Rough fingers grabbed her cheeks and jerked her head forward. Her eyes flew open. Dunbar glared down at her, his painful grip tightening to the point that her teeth ached. “Where are the documents, Grace?”

She said nothing.

“Tell me!” Still gripping her cheeks, he slammed her head back against the wall. Grace cried out as pain ripped through her skull. Tears welled in her eyes, but she held her silence. Dunbar cursed and released her, tossing her head backward as he did so. It bounced off the wall a second time, and Grace whimpered.

She could last a little longer. She had to. For Emma. For her father.

Give me strength, she begged. At the same moment the prayer lifted from her heart, a promise from scripture settled in her mind.

“‘Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them.’” The words fell from her lips of their own volition. “‘Because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.’”

Dunbar scowled. “What?”

Grace lifted her head from where it lolled against her chest and spoke again. Louder. “‘Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.’”

Dunbar turned away from her and stalked toward the milking stool. “I guess we don’t have to pretend anymore, do we?” he scoffed. “You’ve gone mad for real.”

She smiled, feeling more powerful in that moment than she had ever felt in her life. The fact that she was bound, bruised, and fettered to a barn wall didn’t signify. She had a weapon. A sword. The Word of God. And the Lord had just unsheathed it for her.

“‘The foolishness of God is wiser than men,’” she quoted, “‘and the weakness of God is stronger than men.’”

Dunbar gave a dismissive wave. “Keep telling yourself that, honey.”

Oh, she planned to. Over and over.

“‘In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.’”

“You should be,” Dunbar growled. “I can do quite a lot unto you. None of it pleasant.”

He reached for the knife sheathed at his waist, but when his hand closed around the hilt, he hesitated. Then he smiled, his arrogance surging back to life as he lifted his hand away from the blade and stalked back toward her like a jungle cat ready to toy with its prey.

“Not only can I do unto you,” he purred, “but I can do unto those you care about.”

Grace flinched before she could stop herself.