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“Can you talk, boy—girl?” He frowned at his own slip of the tongue. It was going to be hard adjusting.
She brought her head up and looked Wade directly in the eyes. There was a lot of pain and mis
ery reflected in their dark depths. There was also sorrow. He ignored it. “Well? Can you speak, or is that a lie as well?”
She instantly looked away. Wade frowned, then cursed. Kathleen shot a glance at him and he offered a quick apology, forgetting momentarily her presence. Hell, for that matter, the presence of another female.
“What’s your name?”
Her face grimaced, but no words came forth.
“I asked you a question. What is your name?”
She shook her head and he thought she was going to cry but her eyes remained dry.
Kathleen took pity on the girl and went over to place a hand on her arm. “Can you speak?”
The girl shook her head and Wade became impatient. Turning heavily on his foot, he went and stood by the window looking out over the valley toward the mountain.
“Were you able to speak at one time?” Kathleen’s soft voice drifted across the room. With his back to them, he could not see the girl’s response, however he knew it from his sister’s reaction.
“Dreadful. Did something happen to you that caused the loss of your voice?”
He turned around then and saw Kathleen standing over her. She was much taller and more elegant. It was difficult to believe the boy was a girl. Nowhere did she have the grace and beauty his sister possessed or for that matter any female he knew.
“Lift your chin, girl. A lady is talking to you,” he barked.
Her chin snapped up and a look of hurt shot across her face, before she quickly got it under control.
Her heard Kathleen sigh. “Wade, your boy is not a girl, nor is your girl a girl. She’s very much a woman.”
He frowned, hardly seeing the difference, then looked at the girl standing before his sister. She looked trapped and frightened and reminded him of the cows when herded into their holding pens. He left the window to come stand next to Kathleen. “How much do you remember of the incident in your village?”
Prescott stood up as well, piqued by the question.
The girl shook her head in earnest, trying desperately to relay the message she had not lied on that account. A sudden image came to Wade’s mind. The skulls of the dead women in her village. Christ, he had thought as a boy she had endured hell. He couldn’t even comprehend what had happened up there from the point of view of a girl. Or woman.
“What’s going on?” Kathleen demanded. “What village? What incident?”
Wade sighed and looked at his sister. “I told you the boy was lost. He wasn’t lost. He was hiding.”
“From what?”
He looked at the girl and a look of distress stared back. “That, my sister, is where the mystery lies.”
“Is that why you disguised yourself as a boy?”
She nodded and looked up at Wade. He looked away.
“Good God.” Kathleen looked upset. “What you must have went through.”
“You should have told us from the start you were a girl,” Prescott said. “We would have protected you. Wade would never have let anyone hurt you.”
“What’s done is done,” Kathleen said and offered the girl a warm smile. “We’ll get you out of those ridiculous clothes and get you a proper dress.”
The girl’s eyes lit with alarm.
“I’ll go have a word with the constable,” Prescott added, looking at his sister who nodded her approval. “It’s best he hears about this. He’s still investigating the incident in the mountain.”
