The humor left his face and his eyes blazed fire. “I’m not a thief! I need a few coins to buy us a place to stay the night, and some food. You can keep the rest.”
She reached into the satchel by her leg and pulled out the bag of money that Uncle T.C. had given her. She couldn’t help pausing for a moment as she remembered when he’d put it in her hand. He and Hope were so far away now.
“Do you mean to keep it all night?” the Scotsman snapped at her.
She wanted to throw the coins in his ungrateful face, but she held back. “How much do you need?”
“A dollar or two should do it. Now, will you stay here and wait or will you run to the authorities? I need to know what to expect when I return.”
Part of her wanted to go to the local sheriff and say she’d been kidnapped by this man, but the larger part of her knew she couldn’t do that. She’d never be able to face Uncle T.C. again. “I need a pen and paper and ink,” she said. “I must send a letter to my family letting them know I’m all right.”
“Do you plan to lie then?”
“I beg your pardon.”
“You’re under the care of a man who was one day from being hanged. I don’t think your family will see that as ‘all right.’”
Cay didn’t want to think about her father’s anger or her mother’s tears. She especially didn’t want to imagine what her brothers would do to search for her.
“If you mean to weep again I’ll have to get the hanky.”
Cay sat up straight in the saddle. “I am not going to cry and I’d rather blow my nose on my sleeve than use that filthy rag you gave me.”
“Wise choice,” he said, his eyes again crinkling at the corners. “Now stay here, be quiet, and wait.”
“I will if I feel like it,” she said defiantly but knowing that she just wanted to stop moving.
Again she saw the corner of his mouth twitch, as though he was holding in laughter, and he turned his horse and headed east.
When she was alone, Cay thought that she should get down, if for no other reason than to show him that she wasn’t going to be ruled by him. But she didn’t have the energy. Instead, she let her head drop forward, and she fell asleep instantly.
When Alex returned, that’s how he found her, sitting on her horse, still holding the reins, and sound asleep. Leaning forward, he peered into her face. She was a pretty little thing. The beads on her fancy dress reflected onto her small chin, and she looked no more than twelve years old. What in the world had T.C. Connor been thinking when he’d sent this child into the middle of the hell that Alex’s life had become?
There was a part of him that wanted to turn himself in and be done with it—done with life. There wasn’t one moment when he didn’t remember the vision of seeing the woman he loved lying beside him, her beautiful throat one bloody cut.
Everything that happened after that, the way he’d been treated in jail, the trial, all of it, had seemed to be what he deserved, not because he’d harmed her, but because he’d failed to protect her.
So now, T.C. Connor, the only man who’d been his friend during the ordeal, had put another woman under Alex’s care—and he was ill equipped to shield her from the dangers that were all around them.
Carefully, he took the reins from her tired hands and led her horse forward. He watched to make sure she didn’t fall out of the saddle, but she held steady as they rode the distance to the barn where he’d bought them shelter for the night. The old man who owned the place, Yates, had driven a hard bargain, so Alex was glad he’d had little money with him. If the old man had seen the girl in her expensive dress, he would have demanded everything they had. Or worse, he would have put two and two together and gone to the sheriff.
Alex knew that the two of them were such an incongruous pair that they’d arouse suspicion wherever they went. The girl was young, and there was an air about her that proclaimed that she was rich. From her hair, which fell about her shoulders in thick, lustrous curls, to her tiny feet encased in silver slippers, she shouted “money.” She reeked of wealth and class, education and refinement. He wondered if she’d ever drunk tea from a homemade mug. Or did she only use porcelain?
As for him, he was the opposite. His clothes were torn and filthy, his body emaciated from the weeks he’d spent in prison. When T.C. came to visit he brought a box of food every time, but the guards had so delighted in “searching” the contents that by the time it reached Alex, the food was almost inedible.
He’d been allowed no shaving materials, no washing water. The people of Charleston hated him for what they thought he’d done and had responded accordingly. He’d been treated worse than any animal.
So now Alex had the care of this innocent young girl, and he had no idea what to do with her. Should he coach her in a lie that she could tell her family? She could say that she’d been kidnapped by an accused murderer and he wouldn’t let her go. But he doubted if she could carry that story off. If T.C. had somehow tricked her into going to meet an escaped prisoner, that meant she had a good heart but no sense of self-preservation.
Besides, how was she to get back to her family on her own? How could he release a girl like her to her own protection? One glimpse of her fancy dress under that huge cloak and every thief from here to Charleston would be after her.
No, he liked T.C.’s plan, where he was to join an exploration group and travel down into the wilds of Florida. The plan had been for T.C. to draw what they saw, while Alex was to be a wrangler. He was to handle the horses, to bring in game, and to help in any way he was needed.
Today, on the way south, when he’d asked the girl why T.C. hadn’t shown up, she’d told Alex that T.C. had broken his leg. Just that morning, T.C. had climbed a ladder to the roof and fallen backward. Alex had muttered to himself about the stupidity of doing that on the day he was to help an escaped prisoner—but he’d kept his voice low. That the girl could understand him even in his heaviest accent had shocked him. When Alex first arrived in America, no one could comprehend a word he said. For the first six months, he’d had to pantomime everything. But he’d begun to learn the American way of speech and how every word was pronounced exactly as it was written. Personally, Alex thought that was boring and totally uncreative, but he managed it.
By the time he met Lilith, the woman he was to marry, he spoke as clearly as most Americans. It was only in times of great stress, like when he escaped from prison and found a wee girl waiting for him, that his heaviest accent returned.
It took just minutes to reach the dilapidated barn of the man Yates, and when Alex saw the old man’s face peering out of a dirty window, he placed his body in front of the girl’s and was glad he’d thought to cover all her hair with the hood. From this angle, no one would be able to tell if she was a girl or a boy—which he wanted, as Alex had said he was traveling with his young brother.