glanced over his shoulder. Kneeling on the floor, her cloak a cloud about her crouched form, she plumped the pillow she’d brought for him.
She caught him looking and shrugged. “It’s a tight space. Won’t take much to heat it.”
“It’ll be fine. I’ve slept in worse places.”
Curiosity leaped to life on her expressive face, but she didn’t put voice to it. Standing, she folded her hands primly. “Thank you for staying. My sisters are unnerved by what’s happened.”
“I have three sisters of my own. I know what it’s like to want to protect them.”
Her brows inched up. “Are you the oldest?”
He nodded. “There are two years between me and my next youngest sister, Tabitha.”
She opened her mouth to say something, then bit her lip to halt the words.
Pushing to his feet, he brushed his hands against his trousers. “You’ve had no problem speaking your mind in the past. Go ahead and say whatever you’re thinking.”
The firelight flickered over her noble features and made her eyes gleam like coals. “I find it difficult to reconcile the fact you were raised in a house full of females with your cavalier treatment of the local ladies. I would think you’d be sensitive to their feelings. You speak of protecting your sisters. Why doesn’t that sentiment extend to those outside your family?”
Ben slouched against the wall and crossed his arms. “I don’t see how the term cavalier applies to me. Am I friends with a number of marriageable women? Certainly. Have I given any of them reason to believe I’ve a serious interest in courting them? Absolutely not.”
The Smith sisters’ disappointment mocked his claims, as did Veronica’s surprising mention of marriage. Uncertainty took up residence inside him.
“You’re a shameless flirt.”
“I like to think of it as harmless teasing.” Everyone knew he wasn’t looking for commitment. He’d made sure that bit of gossip rode the grapevines as soon as he relocated here.
But what if that wasn’t enough?
“Harmless?” She shifted her stance, her cloak’s hem swaying around her boots. “You call dashing hopes and breaking hearts harmless?”
“I’m a game to them,” he countered. “It’s a competition, and they view me as some sort of lofty prize. I promise you not one of them would rejoice if they actually won me.”
She gaped at him. “And I thought I was the cynical one. What happened to set you against commitment? Were your parents unhappy? Did your father indulge in indiscretions?”
“On the contrary, my parents are the best of friends.”
“You were in love with someone, then. She spurned you. Or worse, deceived you.”
Wistfulness clawed at him, regret and helplessness over his plight on its heels. He hoped the indistinct lighting hid those tumultuous emotions from her. She was perilously close to the truth. Marianne had indeed spurned him the moment she learned his diagnosis. His overwrought fiancée had sputtered words that hadn’t yet lost their potency. Words like damaged and useless and abnormal. What good are you to me? she’d railed. Indeed, to any woman?
Until that confrontation with Marianne, he’d had a flicker of hope that she’d be able to come to terms with his new reality. “Why must there be a reason? Why can’t I simply desire to be free and independent, like you?”
She narrowed her eyes, studying every inch of his face. What did she see? The push and pull of denial and acceptance he wrestled with on his weaker days?
He surged off the wall and would’ve paced if there’d been enough space. The curious impulse to divulge his secret to Isabel threw him. She was the last person he should share his most private disappointment with.
“It’s been my experience that infatuations shift as often as the weather. The girls here are no different than the ones back home. Sally Hatcher is a prime example. Mere weeks ago, she claimed to be in love with me. Didn’t take her long to take up with someone new once she figured out where we stood.”
Isabel snapped her mouth shut. If she felt the tiniest bit sorry for him, she didn’t show it. He wished he could’ve foreseen how quickly she would develop a full-on infatuation. He’d truly enjoyed spending time with Sally—as friends.
A thud on the stoop vibrated the door. Immediately on alert, Ben maneuvered Isabel behind him and reached for his gun.
Shielded by Ben’s strong, muscular body, Isabel’s only thought was that he was going to be shot again because of her. Her heartbeat drummed in her ears. They were trapped in this tiny building, which meant they’d have to shoot their way out. The curious sadness she’d glimpsed in Ben moments earlier faded from her mind.
Had he been right all along? Had the frustrated robber tracked her here in order to silence her?
“Stay behind me,” he ordered.
Weapon drawn, he edged forward and eased the latch open. His tension leached into the air around her. From her limited view, she saw the cords of his neck stiffen, and his jaw was locked in steely determination. She didn’t doubt his ability to keep her safe. Ben MacGregor was many things—a coward wasn’t one of them. He’d lay down his life to protect her. Hadn’t he already taken one bullet for her?
Isabel offered up a fervent plea for his safety.
The door’s hinges groaned as he inched it open. In a sudden movement that had her gasping aloud, Ben pivoted into the opening, his finger on the trigger.
No rash of gunfire rained down on them. No ambush from a vengeful outlaw.
Instead, the water’s familiar music, trickling over the wheel in a full spin and gently splashing back into the stream below, greeted their ears. Then came an unusual sound, out of place on the Flores farm—a child crying.
Isabel pressed close to Ben’s back and gripped his arms. He stilled and angled a glance over his shoulder.
“Are you hearing the same thing I am?” he whispered.
Pushing past him, she ignored his hushed objection and rushed onto the porch. Unrelenting darkness cloaked the countryside. The hut, positioned between the gristmill and cabin, blocked what little light might be shining from the windows.
Ben’s hand clamped on her waist. He would’ve pulled her back into the hut if she hadn’t locked on his fingers and squeezed.
“Wait! Listen.”
She heard the plaintive cry again, a heart-wrenching sob that filled her with urgency and the need to soothe hurts. She left the cover of the stoop and tiptoed around the corner. Ben was right behind her, so close she could feel his breath on her nape.
They spotted the small form huddled against the
