Page 73 of A Dangerous Heart
Pain and nausea overtook her. She curled into a ball. A long, breathy moan escaped her lips. Yet the truth settled inside her like a numbing anesthetic.
“Maybe I’ll never really be a McGraw. But one thing I know for sure—I’m not a Barlow either.” She placed her hand over her heart. “I’m a daughter of the living God. The One Anne believed in until her dying day. I’m His. And that’s enough for me.”
Victor’s face contorted. He drew his gun so quickly she was looking down the short end of the barrel before she could blink.
A calm courage filled her. She would play this out till the end—come what may.
“You can shoot me,” she said with quiet resolve, raising a defiant chin. “But then you’ll never find out where I buried the blasting caps. And Victor? I took every. last. one.”
Isaac’s frustration mounted as he lay on his belly in the damp grass, trying to peer through the dark and make out Victor’s camp. If only he had his field glasses. In the hazy glow of a dying central fire, he could make out the outlines of four tents. What he couldn’t determine was the number of scouts prowling and men sleeping in the tents. Or which tent, if any, Eli was in.
Isaac crept forward carefully, drawing nearer to the cliffs and using the brush as cover.
He’d started to ride away from Converse County entirely. Leave his family behind. Leave Clare. He’d gotten as far as the foothills and turned back. He couldn’t do it—couldn’t just ride off into the sunset.
He wasn’t the hero Clare needed, not the hero any of them needed. But he had to do something.
He was still trying to work out his next move when he heard a movement in the brush behind him. He swiftly rolled to his side and drew his gun.
His oldest brother’s head and shoulders appeared through the underbrush.
“I never could sneak up on you.” Drew smiled grimly. He glanced over at Bullet, standing with the pack horse Isaac had snuck out of the barn.
Isaac’s eyes followed the trajectory of Drew’s stare and caught sight of the soft brown shawl with its wispy fringe. He’d tied it around his saddle horn.
Clare’s shawl.
Isaac wasn’t proud of it, but he’d found the shawl in the barn and taken it. He couldn’t even say why he’d done it—only that he’d wanted a piece of her with him, even if he didn’t deserve her.
Drew’s glance swept the rest of the empty clearing, and he moved toward Isaac, eventually crawling on his belly to lie shoulder to shoulder with him. Drew raised a pair of field glasses to peer out over the camp. He pulled the strap over his head and handed them to Isaac. A rush of gratitude swept through him.
“What are you doing here?” Isaac asked, eyes on the camp.
“Same thing as you. Getting Eli back. Capturing Barlow.”
Isaac’s stomach knotted. Drew wasn’t finished, and his face was as serious as Isaac had ever seen it.
“Nick brought back Danna and reinforcements. Ed rode out and rounded up several neighbors. Got a baker’s dozen riding with us.”
Isaac let that settle on him. Thirteen riding with the McGraws. For so long, he’d tried to keep himself isolated from his family. From friends. Had tried to punish himself. And still, they’d come.
“I’m a little surprised to find you out here,” Drew said quietly. “Looked like you were leaving for good.”
Isaac lowered the field glasses. “We both know the family would be better off without me.”
“What?” Drew snapped.
“I’m not a hero.” The words cost him. He turned his face so Drew wouldn’t see the emotion he couldn’t keep from his expression. “Not the man Clare needs. Not the brother I should be.”
Drew shifted closer. “What exactly do you think a hero is?”
Isaac thought of Deputy Nerat. “A man who stands alone, protecting the innocent and leaving a town and its people better for him having been there.”
Drew put a hand on Isaac’s shoulder. “Look at me. I’ve got something to say to you. And I’m going to say it looking you straight in the eye. A hero isn’t some dime-novel character with a shiny badge and a pistol. A hero is a man like Ed, working from sunup to sundown during calving season to help provide for the family. A woman like my Kaitlyn, who comforts Tillie when she wakes up from a nightmare. And it’s you, Isaac, showing those Barlow boys what it means to be an honorable man.” Drew’s words felt like a relentless assault on everything Isaac believed. He wanted his brother to be right.
Isaac lowered his gaze and shook his head.
Drew squeezed his shoulder. He wasn’t done talking. “You were working a mission with the Marshals when Amanda left me.”
