ring he was saving for your wedding. The last word he spoke was your so-called name—Lydia.”
Donovan took a step toward Sarah. She fought the instinct to back away as he loomed above her, a tower of smoldering rage. “Did you love my brother, Sarah Parker?” he asked in a low, hoarse voice. “In your lying, mercenary heart, did you care for him even a little?”
Sarah forced herself to meet the raw hatred in his eyes. She was trembling inside, but she would not lie, she resolved. She was through with lying forever.
“Virgil was as fine and gentle a young man as I’ve ever known,” she answered softly. “I was fond of him. But I couldn’t allow myself to love him. I was not in a position to love anyone.”
Donovan wheeled away from her with a snort of disgust. “That’s all I want to know.” He glanced up at the clock. “I see my time is up, so I’ll be taking my leave.”
He strode to the door. Sarah stood like a pillar, her impassive face masking the shambles he’d made of her emotions. Never, in all her life, had anyone spoken to her with such contempt. And to have it be Donovan-”One thing more.” He had paused in the open doorway, one hand gripping the frame. “I want you out of this town, away from my sister and her family. Be gone within one week, and I’ll keep quiet about your past. Otherwise, the whole gulch is going to know what you did. And I’ll wager there are people here who won’t take kindly to it.”
Sarah drew herself up with an air that would have done credit to Queen Victoria. “Do your worst, then, Mr. Cole,” she said crisply. “But your allowing me the week won’t make any difference. Miner’s Gulch is my home. No matter what you might say or do, I have no intention of leaving.”
Surprise flickered across Donovan’s face, but he was quick to recover. “Then heaven help you, Sarah Parker Buckley!” he snapped. “At least you can’t say I didn’t give you fair warning. Remember that after it’s too late to change your mind!”
Sarah did not reply. She stood like stone as Donovan turned his back on her and stalked outside, slamming the door brusquely behind him.
Only when the echo of his boots on the wooden stairs had died away did Sarah allow herself to react. Her throat constricted as if squeezed by an invisible fist. Her knees went liquid. She sank onto a bench, her heart pounding a tattoo of fear against her ribs.
It was not too late, she reminded herself. Donovan had given her a week to be gone. She could take her time—invent some pretty story about a new position or an unexpected inheritance back East. She could pack at her leisure and hire a wagon to drive her to Central City, where she could catch the stage for Denver.
And then what? Another masquerade someplace else, with more lies and the inevitable discovery? A retreat to the safety of New England, where nothing could follow her except those black, tormenting dreams?
No, Sarah concluded, gulping back her fear. Running was not the answer. She had worked too hard at building a life here, with the Southern children she taught and the Southern women who had come to depend on her. In recent months, she’d even experienced some nights of restful sleep, when the nightmares did not come.
Her only hope of peace lay here, helping the people she had betrayed—and had come to love.
Resolutely she rose, brushed the chalk dust from her skirt and began tidying up the classroom for tomorrow’s lessons. She would go on as if nothing had happened—as if Donovan Cole had never come to her with his threats. She would show him what Sarah Parker was made of. She would show them all.
Squaring her shoulders, she chalked the new sums across the board in an order that began with the simplest problems and progressed to the most complex. Maybe nothing would happen, she speculated, trying to be cheerful. Maybe Donovan’s threat to expose her had been an empty bluff.
But no, she knew better. Donovan was no bluffer. He was as blunt and honest as nature itself. Whatever intent he stated, he would carry out as surely as winter followed autumn.
The chalk slipped from her fingers and dropped to the floor, shattering as it struck. Sarah let the pieces lie where they had fallen. She clutched at her arms, trembling as if an icy wind had blown into the room.
Walking to the window, she gazed down at the passersby in the muddy street. The people of Miner’s Gulch were her friends now, but the war had touched almost all of them. Many had lost friends and relatives. More than a few had lost property. They had forgiven her for being a Yankee, but how could they forgive her for being a spy?
If she’d been caught back in Richmond, she would have been tried and summarily hanged. What would happen to her here, in an angry little town with no law?
Closing her eyes, Sarah pressed her forehead against the rough-sawed frame of the window. Only moments ago she had convinced herself she was strong enough to face the past. But now she felt her courage slipping away, leaving her weak, frightened, and more alone than she had ever been in her life.
Donovan’s long-legged strides ate up the ground. Mud spattered beneath his boots as he drove his energy into putting as much distance as possible between himself and Sarah Parker Buckley.
She had not even denied it, he fumed as he stalked past the boarded-up assayer’s office. She had played Juliet, she said, and Ophelia, and Lady Macbeth—and oh, yes, Lydia Taggart, the belle of Richmond! Lord, she’d almost seemed proud of it! She’d admitted to everything, even the part about not loving Virgil.
Donovan fed the fire of his anger as he mounted the trail. Sarah Parker was a woman without a conscience. She deserved to be ridden out of town on a timber. She deserved to be tarred and feathered, even hanged. Back in Richmond, in fact, she would have been hanged. The gallows had been standard punishment for spies during the war.
Donovan’s breath eased out in a ragged sigh. In truth, he had no stomach for that sort of violence, especially where females were concerned. That was why he’d allowed Sarah time to make a clean getaway. Some people might not view it as right, letting her go like that. But surely it was what Virgil, in his gentle, forgiving way, would have wanted.
As for Sarah, she might be stubborn, but she was no fool. Given a few days to think things over, she was bound to take the sensible way out. There’d be no need to go through the ugliness of exposing her past.
But if she refused to leave on her own—Donovan’s jaw clenched with the force of his resolve. He would do whatever it took to get Sarah out of Miner’s Gulch. And if that meant laying her treachery bare to the whole town-His breath stopped for an instant as he remembered the sight of her face, tilting toward him like a proud flower. His mind retraced the quietly defiant eyes, the determined thrust of her dimpled chin, the silkily parted lips that seemed to be made for a man’s kiss…
Damn her! Lydia Taggart was still working her cursed magic, and he had already learned that he was not immune. If he wavered, even for an instant, he would be vulnerable. He could not afford to let that happen.
He walked faster, charging up the trail as if the devil were pursuing him with the most enticing bundle of torments ever devised. He would stay away from Sarah, he resolved. Varina’s cabin needed plenty of work, more than enough work to keep him busy for the rest of the week. He would return to town only when the time limit was up. By then, if she had any sense, the woman would be gone.
But if she chose to remain—yes, he would be strong enough to make her pay. Sarah Parker Buckley would get no
