Her Dearest Enemy

Turning away from the fire, he seized her icy hands—not out of affection or sympathy but in an effort to hold her captive while he pummeled her with the truth. Her thin, cold fingers were all but lost in his big fists. Instinctively they sought the warmth of his flesh, pressing into the hollows of his palms, even as her eyes blazed resistance.

Heat and emotion had brought the color back to her face. With the wind-tossed mane of her hair framing her aquiline features, she reminded Brandon of some wild, mythical bird goddess, held to earth only by his determined grip. Let her go and she would fly away, back into the storm that had brought her here.

Lowering his eyes, he forced his mind back to reality. When he looked at her again it was dowdy, stubborn Harriet Smith he saw. Harriet Smith, his enemy, dressed in his own robe and a pauper’s gown that gapped between the buttons.

He pressed her hands so hard that she winced. “Didn’t your brother talk to you?” he rasped. “Didn’t he tell you about the ungodly thing he’d done to my Jenny?”

“What?” She stared at him, caught off guard. “Will told me he’d changed his mind about going to college. We quarreled…” Her voice trailed off. Her eyes widened in horror as the realization struck her.

“Yes!” Brandon crushed her hands in his, wanting her to feel the kind of pain he was feeling. “Your no-account brother has gotten Jenny with child. She gave him the news yesterday, and now he’s skipped out on her, slunk off like the filthy coward he is!”

He watched her crumble then, like a mud figure in a deluge—first her face, then her head and shoulders. Even her fingers seemed to dissolve in his hands.

“No,” she murmured dazedly. “Will’s always been such a good boy, so upright and honorable. He wouldn’t do such a thing, especially to someone he cared about!”

“He would and he did,” Brandon snapped, releasing her hands. “I’m only thankful that he’s finally out of Jenny’s life for good. The young scapegrace has caused her enough grief.”

“No!” Harriet was sitting straight now, leaning forward, her eyes like twin flames in the darkness. “Tonight at supper, Will said he wouldn’t leave her— that he would never leave her. He must have been trying to tell me about the baby, but I refused to listen. I just—”

She halted in midsentence, the color draining from her face. When she spoke again, her voice was taut and strained. “Where is your daughter?”

“In her room where she belongs,” Brandon growled impatiently. “I checked on her before I went to bed. She was sleeping like an angel.”

It was only a half truth. Jenny had cried herself into silence behind the closed door of her room. Later, when Brandon had passed her door on his way to bed, she had not answered his discreet knock. He had left her in peace, resolving to settle things in the morning.

Only now, as he gazed into Harriet’s stricken face, did the truth leap like chain lightning from her mind to his.

Not that! Dear God, anything but that!

Knocking over a footstool in his haste, Brandon dashed for the entry and seized the lantern from the table. Harriet sprang to her feet and plunged after him, clutching her skirts as they pounded up the stairs.

Brandon was not a religious man, but he found himself silently praying as they reached the door of Jenny’s room. Please let her be here. Let her be safe….

But it was too late for prayers. Even as he fumbled with the knob and flung the door open, he knew what he would find.

Chapter Four

As the door to Jenny’s room swung open, light from the upraised lantern cast Brandon’s features into craggy relief. Harriet watched from the shadows as waves of raw emotion swept across his face—first disbelief, then despair, then a tide of helpless fury, as if he were biting back a howl. She had never seen a man look so angry, or so wretched.

Harriet braced herself for a tirade against her brother, but it did not come. He only stood in rigid silence, one white-knuckled hand gripping the lantern, one taut muscle twitching in his cheek.

No words were needed. His expression made it clear that when Brandon caught up with Will, there would be hell to pay.

Tearing her eyes away, Harriet stared past him into the silent room. The pretty little bedchamber was in perfect order, as if young Jenny had given it a farewell tidying before she’d vanished into the stormy night. The pink satin coverlet had been carefully smoothed over the canopied bed, with ruffled pillows arranged against a headboard of inlaid mahogany. A lacy afghan, crocheted in shades of rose and mauve, was draped over the back of a carved wooden rocker. Its colors matched those of the oval rug, hooked in an intricate pattern of cabbage roses, that lay on the polished wooden floor.

It was the kind of room Harriet had dreamed of as a child, and never possessed. The kind of room a father would want to provide for a little girl he loved.

Two exquisite French dolls, with mohair curls and bisque porcelain faces, decorated the top of a bookshelf. A third doll, with golden ringlets like Jenny’s, sat in a miniature copy of the rocking chair, dressed in a gauzy pink princess gown and holding a tiny doll of her own. Harriet had never seen such elegant dolls. The cost of any one of them would probably be enough to keep a poor family in beans and bacon for an entire winter. Now they sat like abandoned children, their glass eyes wide and vacant, silent witnesses to everything that had taken place in this child-woman’s bedroom.

From the far side of the room, a flutter of movement caught Harriet’s eye. Her taut nerves jumped— but it was only a lace curtain, blown by a sliver of wind that whistled through a crack beneath the sash. Jenny, it appeared, had not quite managed to close the window when she’d climbed out into the darkness.

Crossing the floor, Brandon shoved the window down with a snap that rang like a gunshot in the room. Harriet saw him turn, then hesitate abruptly as his gaze fell on a sheet of notepaper that lay on the dresser, anchored in place by the weight of a silver- framed looking glass.

Still gripping the lantern, he snatched up the paper with his free hand. A lock of sleep-tousled hair tumbled over his brow, casting his face in shadow as he scanned the page.

“What does it say?” Harriet’s question broke the tense silence.

He flashed her a contemptuous glance, then deliberately crumpled the paper in his fist and flung it to the floor. “Read it yourself if you’re so damned curious!”

Harriet bent forward, then checked herself. Brandon Calhoun’s insufferable pride demanded that she grovel at his feet. But even now, while her whole being screamed with the urgent need to know what Jenny had written, she could not afford to give him that satisfaction.

Straightening, she took his measure with emboldened eyes. Any other man would have looked ridiculous facing her down in his nightshirt and slippers. But Brandon Calhoun was as fierce as a mythological giant roused from sleep. The sight of his bloodshot eyes, tousled hair and whisker-shadowed jaw triggered a leaden sensation somewhere below Harriet’s stomach. She willed herself to ignore it.

“Stop behaving like a peevish child,” she ordered in her sternest schoolteacher voice. “I’m just as upset about this situation as you are. What makes you think I want my promising eighteen-year-old brother saddled with a wife and baby?”

He glowered down at her, his lips pressed into a thin, hard line.

“Blaming me is only going to make matters worse!” she declared, thrusting out her chin. “Right now, nothing matters except those two foolish youngsters, their safety and their happiness. Either you accept that and we work together, or, heaven help me, I’ll walk out of here and leave you to unravel this mess by yourself!”

Brandon’s countenance was icy. Harriet searched his face for any sign that his resolve was crumbling. But she could detect no change in him. Like a wounded animal, he was masking his pain with tightly reined fury. The pain was real; but so, Harriet sensed, was the danger.

The ticking of the tiny porcelain clock on Jenny’s nightstand echoed in the stillness of the room. From outside, Harriet could hear the rubbing of a bare sycamore branch against the window—a nerve-grating sound, like the scrape of fingernails against a blackboard. Her damp clothes felt clammy beneath Brandon’s robe—the heavy, satin-lined robe that had enfolded his naked body countless times and carried his essence in every fiber. Its richly masculine aroma surrounded her, swimming in her senses, filling her mind with forbidden images and unnamable yearnings. Suddenly the little room seemed too warm, his looming, male presence much too close.

Harriet tried to swallow, but her throat was as dry as chalk dust. Her lips parted but the power of speech had fled. At the very time when she should be defending her brother, she stood like a tongue- tied schoolgirl, riveted by the raw power in those cobalt eyes.

She willed herself not to avert her gaze or to back away. Brandon Calhoun was the enemy. If need be, for Will’s sake, she would fight him like a tigress.

“The…note.” She forced the words out with the effort of a six-year-old writing them on a slate.

His eyes darkened in the lamplight. Then, with a weary exhalation, he bent, scooped up the crumpled note and shoved it toward her. “Here. Go ahead and read the damned thing. It won’t tell you anything you don’t already know.”

Still numb with cold, Harriet’s fingers fumbled with the crinkled folds. Tilting the paper to the light, she scanned Jenny Calhoun’s round, girlish script. As she read, her hands trembled, blurring the letters on the page.

Dearest Papa,

By the time you read this, I will be Mrs. William Smith. Please forgive me. I tried to make you understand, but you wouldn’t listen. Will and I love each other. We want to be a family and raise our baby together. This is the only way. I know you’ll be angry, but Will is a good man. In time, you will come to like and respect him. Please know how much I love you.

Your Jenny

The paper slipped from Harriet’s fingers and fluttered to the rose-patterned rug. When she looked up at Brandon, his narrowed eyes were the color of gathering storm clouds, grim and dark and angry.

“The county line’s about fifteen miles north of here.” His voice was drained of emotion now. “Johnson City’s just the other side of it. On the way into town, there’s a justice of the peace who’d marry a coyote to a mule if they had the money to pay him. That’s where your brother will likely take Jenny—unless I can put a stop to this foolishness once and for all.”

“What are you thinking?” Harriet stared at him, alarmed by his cold resolve.

Brandon picked up the note and crumpled it in his fist. “Jenny didn’t expect me to come in here and find this until morning. If I leave now and travel fast, I might be able to catch up with them.”

“And then what?” Harriet clutched at his sleeve as he turned to leave the room. “What do you intend to do?”