Page 15 of A Forgotten Heart (Wind River Mail-Order Brides #5)

E lsie watched the street from the second-story loft’s window. Rebekah had remained in the bedroom as the men left, and that meant Elsie was left to her own thoughts.

Nick had wanted to kiss her. She was familiar with that intent, fiery look in his eyes. And he’d seen what she’d been too weak to hide—she’d wanted to kiss him too.

Thank goodness his brother had been there. Or maybe that made it more of a disaster.

Nick’s memories were trickling back. How much longer before he remembered she meant nothing to him?

Agitation had her turning away from the window.

Rebekah was bustling around in the bedroom. Elsie could see her moving back and forth through the open doorway.

“I’ll be just a minute,” Rebekah called out.

This was Elsie’s moment to make a quiet escape. But her feet carried her toward the bedroom doorway. What was Rebekah doing?

It hadn’t been long since Elsie had been in this room earlier, but now the entire bed seemed to be covered in brown-wrapped packages. Christmas gifts.

A carpet bag sat open on the edge of the bed.

Rebekah was folding up a spare dress. “With everything that’s happened, Ed will want to go to the homestead. We’d already planned to be there over Christmas. Now we’ll just go earlier than planned.”

Rebekah seemed calm, while Elsie was tied up in knots.

Rebekah put the folded dress in the bag. “The McGraws are a close-knit bunch. Nick is especially close with his nieces and nephews. They’ll have him singing carols and performing tricks with his dog.”

Elsie could easily imagine Nick in the boisterous family gathering Rebekah described. There was a time she’d prayed to be a part of the McGraw family too.

“Will you take the train home for Christmas?” Rebekah looked up from her packing.

“No. Not this year.” Elsie’s quick answer made Rebekah’s brows draw together.

Even before Arnold’s letter, Elsie had planned to stay in her rented room after Christmas. Alone.

Back home, the weight of her parents’ expectations felt suffocating.

The crinkle of paper in her pocket reminded her of Arnold’s expectations too. What was she going to do?

Rebekah moved across the room to a shirt hanging from a peg, took it down. “You said you and Nick had only just met. I suppose Merritt introduced you.”

Rebekah’s gently prying words hurt. Elsie had known Merritt for years. They’d met when Elsie was twelve and Darcy had brought Merritt home during a semester break. Merritt and Darcy had inspired Elsie to become a teacher herself.

“No,” Elsie said softly.

“No?” Rebekah echoed. “I thought Nick had asked Merritt to help him find a bride?—”

She must’ve seen the words hit. Elsie felt them like a physical blow.

“I’m sorry. I just assumed?—”

Elsie whirled, heading straight for the stairs. It was far past time to leave.

“Wait!” Rebekah called out, but Elsie kept on, grabbing her coat from the back of the chair, taking the stairs two at a time.

In all the wild fantasies she’d conjured in the past twenty-four hours—even the most plausible ones where Nick raged at her for letting him get close—she’d never considered he might be courting someone else. Engaged. Smitten.

She burst out onto the boardwalk, the door slamming behind her. She couldn’t breathe, not when the cold slammed into her. Not with tears choking her.

She shoved her arms into the sleeves of her coat.

Dusk was falling, only a few stragglers out.

She stepped off the boardwalk and onto one of the shoveled paths tunneling through the drifts toward her rented room, but she slowed to a stop.

She didn’t want to be alone in her meager room. She needed to talk to someone.

Wind pelted her in the face, making her teeth chatter.

Merritt. Merritt could help her process the past few days.

She only hesitated a moment on the thought that Merritt was Nick’s cousin.

She hurried down the street, conscious of its emptiness. How the snow muffled her footsteps.

She scanned the street as the hair on the back of her neck rose. A gust of wind swirled the snow into a mini cyclone.

Her mind must be playing tricks on her. Replaying the terror she’d lived through. It was not much farther now…

Just before the turn to Merritt’s street, she caught sight of two figures. In the distance.

Nick and Ed. They bent over the snow in front of the land office. Patch wandered, sniffing around the snow.

Her heart pinched. This might be the last time she saw Nick.

Patch barked and started to dig at a spot in the snow. Ed said something to Nick, then joined the dog and scooped away snow from the spot.

She licked her wind-chapped lips. “Goodbye, Nick.”

She couldn’t shake that awful feeling of impending doom. She knew it wasn’t real, but she couldn’t bear it. She must go.

Just then, Patch began an incessant bark that grabbed her attention.

She glanced back, and the sunlight glinted on something on the saloon balcony.

What was that?

The barrel of a rifle reflected the light.

It was aimed directly at Nick.

“Nick!” she screamed. “Look out!”

Nick whirled her direction. She threw her arm out and pointed at the balcony.

It was only when she looked again that she realized the shooter’s face was directed at her. His sharp gaze cut through the distance.

In a blink, his gun barrel pivoted, redirecting toward her.

Nick shouted something, the words not registering.

Run! The word pulsed in her head.

But she couldn’t seem to make her feet move. Until the crack of the rifle split the air.

Time slowed as Nick watched the gunman aim his gun toward Elsie and fire.

No!

Nick sprang into motion, but the inches of snow slowed his steps.

“Elsie! Run!”

She’d already disappeared between two buildings by the time he got the words out. He hadn’t seen. Had she fallen? Been shot?

“Nick, get down,” Ed shouted from behind him.

Ed was right.

There was an entire block between him and the spot Elsie had disappeared. The streets were empty, and Nick made an easy target out in the open like this. He couldn’t help Elsie if he was dead.

Head pounding, he ducked into the alley.

Bullets ricocheted off the walls behind him, not two feet away. A volley of shots answered.

Ed? Nick hadn’t seen where his brother might’ve taken cover.

Pain flamed down his arm from the stitches in his shoulder.

He had one thought. Get to Elsie.

He ran down the alley to the narrow passageway behind the businesses.

Please let her be okay.

That bullet had been meant for him. If Elsie hadn’t called out, he would have been shot. Was she all right?

He turned the corner. Down at the end of the street, Elsie huddled next to the shop wall.

Relief blasted him as he ran toward her. “Elsie!”

Face pale, eyes wide and terrified, she looked up at him as he heaved. He didn’t hesitate to pull her into his arms.

She folded against him, shaking. Her hands trembled as she gripped onto his coat.

He didn’t want to let go but put a few inches between them to scan her black coat for any sign she’d been shot. “Are you hurt? Did he hit you?”

“I don’t think so.” A haunted look shadowed her eyes.

His eyes slid closed. Thank You, Lord.

They needed to find safety, but a swell of emotion paralyzed his legs. His hand came to cup her cheek. “What were you thinking? Calling out like that.” He fired the words at her.

She flinched.

The Nick I knew would never speak so cruelly.

The words knocked the breath out of his lungs as the memory surfaced.

“I couldn’t let him shoot you,” she said, her voice choked with tears.

At her words, he blinked back to the present. He needed to get her to safety. Quickly.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead “Come on. Let’s go.”

Grabbing her hand, he pulled her through the snowy alley, Patch at their heels.

The safest place to go was the marshal’s office. If Marshal O’Grady was in town, she’d have heard those shots. And Ed would look for them there.

He glanced back to check on Elsie, who still looked terrified. Was she all right?

Another memory rushed in. An image of Elsie with tears streaming down her face. Within the memory, he felt satisfaction that he’d hurt her.

He blinked rapidly, almost tripping on a snow-covered crate. The memory stuck.

A wave of dizziness hit him as darkness slipped over his vision, bringing another memory.

A living room full of overdone Christmas decorations. He heard himself say, I guess we never really knew each other at all.

“Nick?”

Elsie’s voice sounded as if she were far away. He felt the tug of Patch pawing his leg.

A sharp pain pierced his brain, and he leaned his shoulder into the nearest wall.

You didn’t really want to marry me. You were simply desperate.

Images of a hurt Elsie, a furious Elsie, swam through his mind.

I would’ve at least fought for you. Which is more than what you did for me.

She hadn’t fought for him.

You can’t just waltz back into my life and pretend it never happened.

A wave of resentment assaulted his senses as memories began to overlap one another.

“Nick! Are you hurt?” He felt her tuck herself into his side, pull his arm over her shoulder, just like she had at the doctor’s office. “Lean on me. How much farther to the marshal?”

The marshal. Someone shooting at them. They had to go. He allowed her to lead him even as another wave of memories bombarded him.

He pressed his palm against his aching head.

You’re the teacher.

Elsie was Calvin’s teacher. She held the job that was supposed to be his. The lifelong dream that had started when his favorite teacher handed him a copy of Around the World in Eighty Days shattered in a moment. All because of Elsie.

He wasn’t a teacher.

How could he love her and resent her all at the same time?

The next few moments were fragments of running, a terrified Elsie, his memories revealing the truth.

There were no more shots as he and Elsie rounded the corner to the marshal’s office and climbed onto the boardwalk. He didn’t hesitate to throw open the door, pulling Elsie inside. They’d made it. But a bitter feeling overtook him.

Elsie looked around at the empty space, walked to the desk. Picked up a sheet of paper.

Transporting Prisoner. Return Unknown.

A growl tightened his throat. Now what?

His head swam. His stomach churned.

He barely reached a trash barrel before he lost his dinner.

Elsie tried to come near, but he threw out his arm so she’d stay back.

She pushed a chair noisily across the floor to him. “Here, you need to rest.”

He twitched away from her when she reached for the bandage at his head. “Leave me alone.”

The words shoved out of his mouth. Uncontrolled. Raw.

Elsie flinched, watching him with a confused, hurt expression. It only banked his anger.

Patch’s claws clicked on the floorboards as he came up to Nick.

Nick’s shoulder throbbed with fiery pain. Had the stitches come undone while he’d been running?

Everything from their past, the fight on the boardwalk, the past three days all swirled together inside him.

Elsie’s sweet kisses. Everything he’d wanted five years ago. Her betrayal. Getting kicked out of normal school.

All I wanted was to be noticed.

She’d told him more during those hours stranded in the blizzard than she’d revealed in the entirety of their months-long relationship. Imagining Elsie as that lost, hurting little girl moved him. But nothing could make up for what he’d suffered.

“How could you let me act a fool during the blizzard?” he demanded wearily.

He looked up to see Elsie trembling, the fingers of one hand pressed against her lips. He saw it in her eyes. She’d guessed his memory was back.

“You lied to me for three days straight.” He couldn’t contain his fury, and she flinched.

A sheen of moisture brightened the green within her hazel eyes. Her lips firmed. “The doctor told me to do anything I had to in order to keep you quiet and still. He said you could die if you went out into the storm with a head wound like yours.”

The fire in her voice told him she was telling the truth. Or at least that she’d believed the doctor.

“Besides,” she went on. “You were the one determined to keep me close.”

Boot steps pounded on the boardwalk, and then Ed stomped through the door, looking harried. Relief crossed his expression when he saw Nick and Elsie.

Elsie turned her back, but not before Nick saw her hands swiping at her cheeks.

“Where’s the marshal?” Ed seemed to sense the tension in the room, his eyes bouncing between Elsie and Nick. “Everyone all right?”

No one answered him. Ed strode to the desk, looked at the note. Muttered something low. “It was Quade doing the shooting. I saw him clearly before he ducked into the saloon.”

Nick had only seen the shooter’s profile, and from too far away to identify him. Elsie had been closer.

Realization prickled down his spine.

Nick looked at Elsie, who still stood with her back to him. “Did you see his face?”

She gave a curt nod, but didn’t turn.

Fear rolled over Nick.

If she had been close enough to see Quade’s face, he’d definitely seen hers. What would Quade do to silence her?

Ed sent Nick a grim look that said he’d had the same realization.

And it was Nick’s fault Elsie was in danger. He couldn’t stand to look at her, but it was his obligation to protect her. But he couldn’t guard her and his heart at the same time. He needed space.

Ed went to the window. “It’s not safe to stay here without the marshal or her deputies. Quade will be looking for us.”

Nick pinched the bridge of his nose. The room was spinning again, and a sudden wave of exhaustion hit him.

“Could you help me get back to my rooms?”

Nick looked up, but Elsie’s words were directed at Ed, who flicked a look at Nick.

“You can’t go home, Elsie,” Nick said. “You’d be far too easy to find there.”

For a moment, the same terror hit that he’d felt when he’d thought the gunman had shot her.

“I’ll go to Merritt’s, then. Surely Jack can keep me safe enough.”

It was a decent suggestion, but Ed was shaking his head. “You’ll be safest at the McGraw spread with us,” he said gently.

“No.” Her voice quivered. “I can’t?—”

“We don’t have a choice,” Nick bit out. He pushed himself to stand, glad when the room only wobbled a little.

She still wouldn’t look at him, but he said it anyway. “You just witnessed attempted murder, Elsie. You’ll have to come with us.”

She shook her head slightly.

“Quade tried to shoot me,” Nick said. “And then you.”

Ed had gone quiet, finally realizing things weren’t right between Nick and Elsie. “He won’t let this go,” he said now.

Nick saw when the realization slumped her shoulders. Her life depended on returning to the ranch with them.

But how was he going to survive with her underfoot?