Page 27 of A Dangerous Heart
Clare gulped down some coffee, set her cup down carefully, and held her breath, waiting for Isaac’s answer.
“I did the same thing Eli and David did. Found a tall tree and scrambled up it, pronto. Stayed up there almost all night with the sound of the howls running through me.” He paused, letting the gravity of his situation hang in the air.
“It wasn’t my fast gun that saved me. It was my brothers—took all three of them to chase the pack away. They’d been out all night lookin’ for me.”
A faint smile touched his lips but didn’t quite reach his eyes. Clare saw the way his fingers tightened around the coffee cup. There was a fleeting look of pain in his eyes before he masked it with a distant stare. Clare felt that pain, a throbbing ache in herchest as if her heart were being gently squeezed by an invisible hand. She quickly changed the subject.
“We saw some trout in the river,” she said a little too brightly. “Tomorrow we’ll spend time fishing. There’s nothing like fresh fried trout. Eli loves to fish.”
“You ever shoot a man?” Eli ignored her shift in subject.
Isaac’s face went white. Clare glared at Eli. A chair scraped against the wood floor. Before she could say another word, Isaac was out the door.
Clare and the boys did the supper dishes in silence. Eli’s angry defiance still festered in his eyes as they prepared for bed.Blood will tell. Tears welled in her eyes. She blinked them away. Tears never solved anything. Another lesson her father had taught her well.
Clare skirted around the straw tick on the floor of the loft. The boys lay elbow to elbow on top of the quilt. She knelt beside Ben in the cramped space, keeping her voice to a whisper.
“I know this is confusing, but we have to keep up our charade. Everyone needs to believe that your father is?—”
“But Isaac likes us,” Ben piped up, his voice innocent. “He’ll protect us from the bad guys. He was a marshal.”
Eli sneered. “He doesn’t want us here. I want to go back with Pa.”
“You’re lying, he likes us.” Ben jostled Eli, who shoved him back.
Clare moved closer to Eli, seized his shoulders in a tight grip, and gave him a look designed to peel his hide. “Eli Ferguson Barlow. How can you forget what your father did to you? Worse, what he did to your mother.” She swallowed hard. “He’s a bad man. And the life they live on the run? How often do you think you’ll have a warm bed like this? Or food in your stomach. Who’s going to provide that for you? Victor? You know better. And what about Ben? Who’s going to take care of him?”
Eli fought to keep his jaw tight, but he couldn’t hide his tears.
“What do you think your father will do if he finds me?” She hadn’t spoken the words aloud until that moment. Hadn’t wanted to face the fear they brought.
He jerked himself out of her grip and turned his face to the wall.
She took in a shaky breath and let out an aching sigh. She had to get through to him. She hated to be so harsh.
She sat in silence until both boys were asleep. Climbing down the ladder, she sensed Isaac’s presence before she glimpsed his tall form in the doorway. A new, fluttery feeling formed in her chest, and suddenly it was hard to get a full breath. She paused with one foot on the last rung of the ladder as the door closed softly behind him.
“Boys okay?” he asked.
She stepped down from the ladder, turned, and nodded, finding it hard to breathe through the sudden tension that settled between them.
“And you, Clare. You all right?”
“Of course” was all she could manage.
“It’s a little nippy out there.” Isaac’s voice cracked slightly. He cleared his throat. “I could use a few more blankets.”
“Let me get them for you.” She scooted to the chest under the loft ladder.
He moved to the hearth, stoked the fire, and added a few more logs while she removed a couple of quilts, folding them over her forearm.
“Should last until early morning,” Isaac said, leaning the poker against the stone wall. He turned and stepped toward her.
They’d be toasty in the cabin until the wee hours of the morning. But he’d be in the lean-to with no fire. It’d been a long time since anyone, especially a man, had sacrificed his own comfort for her. She met him in front of the door.
“Thank you,” she murmured, her voice barely audible. The firelight cast a warm glow on his face, emphasizing his chiseled jawline and the small dimple in his chin that she found so appealing. She handed the quilts to him. As he took them, their gazes caught for a breathless moment, and something else passed between them—an undeniable spark, an unspoken understanding that lingered in the charged air of the room. His lids dropped over his eyes, and he lowered his head. Without another word, he left the cabin.
As the fire softly popped and hissed in the hearth, Clare settled on the narrow cot, a quilt warmed by the fire tugged around her neck. The boys were safe. No one would find them here. Isaac hadn’t sent them away. Instead, he’d brought them to his cabin.
