“But you came back,” he told her forcefully.
“Bret brought me back. Taught me to love, to trust, and I gave him everything that I ever was or would be.”
She paused, seeing the turmoil in his black eyes.
“Parmelee shot Bret down in front of me. I still can’t remember what was going through my mind while Parmelee had me tied to the bed. I have a vague memory of the pain and violation, but mostly all I recall is a weird, savage scream howling in my head. Didn’t matter that I opened my mouth and filled my lungs. I just … couldn’t … get it out.”
She shook her head, taking another bite. “It’s still there, George. Way down deep. Can’t hardly hear it at all these days, but it’s there.”
“You know I’ve had people looking for him.” George smiled. “One of my sources who works for the Helena Herald sent word he was in Montana earlier this year but couldn’t confirm it.” His eyes sharpened. “Now, if I was to kill him for you, would that be proof enough of my devotion?”
She arched an eyebrow. “One day he’ll show up here full of anger and revenge. After I’ve shot him dead, you could show your devotion by disposing of the body.”
George laughed from deep down in his belly. “By God, Sarah, you are a woman after my own heart. Marry me!”
“Not a chance, George. I might have you bedazzled for the moment, but your true love is power. You mean to make yourself the richest man in the Rockies no matter who you have to kill, bully, or intimidate.”
“Would it be so bad to stand at my side when I become that man? You could have anything you wanted. Wealth, property, or—”
“I mean to have them on my own.” She gave him a conspiratorial wink.
“Marry me, and you’ll have them sooner.”
“George, I’m a momentary obsession, just like so many of your mines and properties have been. But once acquired, they’ve vanished into your vast holdings. Forgotten, but for the money they make.” She shook her head. “I will not marry you.”
Nichols pushed back, his black eyes seething like heated cauldrons. “Don’t spurn me, woman.”
“Never, George.” Careful now! She met his stare with her own. “But if we were to marry? Given what I want and what you ultimately want? One or both of us would be dead within a year.”
“What if I can’t take no for an answer?”
“You’ll have to.”
“No one has ever told me no before.”
“You could abduct me. Carry me off and rape me. You wouldn’t be the first. But the magic would be gone.” She hesitated, heart racing as she fought for the right words to mollify the black anger in his eyes. “Too many people would be looking for me. Would you kill the magic?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sometimes, George, the only way you can win a woman is by accepting who she is, and letting her go.”
“That’s your final word?”
“It is.”
His face like dark granite, he pushed his chair back and stood. Wheeling, his heels beat on the spruce floor as he stalked from the room.
Sarah dropped her head into her hands. Dear God, I’ve played hell.
103
April 1, 1868
“Philip?” Her voice woke him from a sound sleep.
Doc blinked awake, fragmenting dream images splintered and fell away. Images of James huddled on a bunk in the Camp Douglas barracks, of a young man’s pain-glazed eyes as they laid his bullet-shattered body on the table in that farmhouse at Shiloh, of maggots crawling through damp muck on the prison camp hospital floor.
He stared up at the darkness, taking a second to remember where he was: home. His bedroom in Denver. A faint beam of moonlight angling down from above the curtain rod and across the foot of his bed.
“What is it?”
Bridget took a deep breath. “I’m bleeding. Don’t know when it started, but the bed’s a mess.”
Doc sat up, puffed in the cold air, and reached for the matches. Striking a Lucifer, he lit the lamp and adjusted the wick. “Let’s take a look.”
Bridget had thrown back the covers, and as Doc turned, his soul froze. Her cotton nightgown was soaked at the crotch, the blood bright red.
“Dear Lord God,” Philip cried.
Bridget’s eyes had gone wide, her mouth dropping open. She seemed frozen, propped up on her elbows as she stared over her protruding belly at the spreading gore. Her hair lay in tangles around her shoulders.
Doc ripped off his nightshirt, then pulled Bridget’s hem up above her waist. She’d been bleeding for a while, lines of blood having caked on the inside of her thighs. As she spread her legs for him, Doc used his nightshirt to wipe away the blood. A thin stream of bright red continued to seep past her labia.
“Is there any pain?” Doc asked, using his fingers to press around the swell of her distended abdomen.
“No,” Bridget told him in a weak voice. “I just felt funny. It was the wetness that woke me up. I don’t hurt at all.”
Doc’s heart began to race. Fear made him want to knot his hands.
“What is it, Philip?” Bridget asked him, her eyes searching his face. “You’re scared.”
“No pain. Sudden onset bleeding late in pregnancy. I think it’s placenta previa.”
“Is it bad?”
Doc hesitated, the platitude rising to his lips. But he couldn’t lie. Not to Bridget. “It’s bad.”
“Can you fix it?”
Doc rubbed his hands to stop the sudden shaking. “I saw this once as a student in Boston. The placenta is in the wrong place. Over the cervix. It’s torn loose, which is why you’re bleeding.”
She closed her eyes, face ghost-pale, her cheeks hollow in the light. “Am I going to die? Is the baby?”
“Not if I can help it.”
Doc wadded his nightshirt and used it to absorb the blood. “Just stay there and don’t move.” He tugged on his pants and shirt, found his boots. Looking at his watch, he saw it was a little after three. Where in hell would he find a carriage
