Page 23 of A Forgotten Heart (Wind River Mail-Order Brides #5)

S hock held Elsie immobile for a moment as the two boys rushed inside, making about as much noise as two boys could. They stamped the snow from their feet and shucked their coats.

Nick was right behind them. Patch followed, then shook and skirted into the front room, probably to the warmth of his blankets.

Nick’s eyes met hers as a wave of relief swamped her. He took her in at a glance, one eyebrow rising when he registered the rolling pin in her hand. She quickly thrust it onto the counter. He stood rigid, the tight set of his jaw betraying his upset.

Rebekah was moving toward the boys. “What in the world?” she asked at full volume.

Footsteps approached from the living room. Perhaps Clare was coming to reprimand everyone. It was as if they’d forgotten the rest of the household was asleep.

“We went to help Uncle Nick,” Eli said with an almost belligerent tone and a jut of his chin.

“They snuck out,” Nick said gravely.

Clare appeared in the doorway, mouth set. She must’ve heard what he’d said. “Eli Barlow!” There was no mistaking the fury in her voice, and Eli wilted a bit.

David ducked his head.

Was this the reason for the tension in Nick? Surely if he’d had to track down two energetic, ornery boys, he was half frozen and likely frightened for them.

Elsie moved toward the stove. Coffee. A pot of hot coffee would warm Nick up and maybe erase the tightness around his mouth.

“We helped!” Eli protested, though it was a little weaker than his first statement.

Water. Coffee beans.

Elsie listened even as she checked items off on the list in her mind. She bent to check the fire in the stove, stirred it a little.

“Can you douse the lamp in the other room?” Nick asked Rebekah, and the sense of urgency in his voice sent the other woman scurrying to do what he’d asked.

“What’s wrong?” Elsie asked Nick.

His eyes flicked in her direction, but then he spoke to Clare. “They did help,” he said grimly. “There were men on our property—more than one and in more directions than I could scout.”

Eli’s chest puffed out now. “We sneaked up on ’em and watched a couple of riders out past the gully.”

Clare stood with one hand pressed against her mouth. Elsie couldn’t tell from the way her eyes had narrowed whether she was frightened or angry. Perhaps both.

David piped in. “Then another guy came, and we followed him for a while too.”

Rebekah rushed back into the room.

Elsie’s heart was pounding in her throat, the coffee momentarily forgotten. There were men on the McGraw property? At night?

“Go upstairs and wake your sisters,” Nick told David. “Tell them to get their shoes on.”

“Want me to get Ben?” Eli could hardly contain his excitement, oblivious to the tension between the adults in the room.

“Fine,” Clare murmured with a wave of her hand. The boys raced out of the room. Clare followed at a walk.

Rebekah looked to Nick. “It wasn’t your brothers?”

He shook his head tightly. “Can Kaitlyn ride?” he asked her.

Rebekah shook her head. “She’s been nauseated all day. Can’t keep much down. She’s weak and she’d probably get dizzy in the saddle.”

And a fall from the back of a horse could injure both her and the baby.

“A wagon is too slow,” he murmured to himself.

The coffeepot began to boil with a slight rattle, and Elsie turned by rote to take it off the stove and pour water into the cups she’d already set out.

Her mind was racing. If Nick wanted Kaitlyn to ride, that meant he thought they should run away. Terror made her hands shake as she imagined riding through the night in complete darkness.

Clare returned to the room and laid two rifles on the worktable. As Elsie watched, she pulled several bullets from her apron pocket and dropped them on the table with a tinkling rattle.

“How many men?” Clare asked as she used a lever to open the chamber of one of the rifles and began feeding a bullet inside.

“At least eight, if the boys counted right.”

Clare’s lips were pressed into a tight line. “I’m not finished being angry with you for putting them in harm’s way.”

He didn’t look away from the fury in her low voice. “I wish I hadn’t had to.”

Elsie felt the beat of shame that matched the tone of his voice. Nick couldn’t move fast enough, not with his injuries. He couldn’t be in two places at once.

“We can’t stay here,” he said.

“Kaitlyn can’t go,” Clare said. “You want to leave her behind?”

“No!”

Everything was moving too fast. Elsie sagged against the counter, fear making her quail.

“It’s you and Elsie they want, isn’t it?” Clare asked in a matter-of-fact manner. “Why don’t the two of you make a run for it?”

“No,” Nick repeated, this time with a stiff jaw.

“You can get help?—”

“I said no!” This answer was thunderous, and Elsie felt as shocked as Clare looked.

Elsie had never heard Nick raise his voice before.

His eyes flicked to Elsie for only a brief second, and she felt the connection between them in that heartbeat.

Rapid footsteps sounded overhead. The girls were up.

Rebekah called downstairs, and Clare gave Nick a worried look before she left the room.

Elsie grabbed one of the cups of coffee and moved to Nick’s side, offering it to him.

“Slow down and think,” she said quietly. “You’re one of the most intelligent men I know. You can figure this out.”

His jaw tensed. “If I take time to think, then we’ll all be dead.”

She pushed the cup into his hand, though she didn’t know whether he really registered that he’d taken it. “I don’t understand.”

He made a move toward the window, peering outside.

He sipped the coffee, speaking quickly. “When I was about Eli’s age, Pa took all four of us boys on a cattle drive, and I was sent ahead to drive the herd.

” He shook his head, clearly disappointed in himself for choices from the past. “I slowed down, trying to decide between two routes. Fell too far back. Took too much time thinking on which trail might be faster. I lost control of the herd and couldn’t turn the cattle away from a rocky slope. ”

His eyes slid closed. “Because I wasn’t where I needed to be, because I hesitated, some of the stock got injured. One so badly it had to be put down. It was a lean year, and we couldn’t afford to lose any head. Pa said I was the weak link.”

Oh, Nick.

Elsie’s heart hurt for the boy he’d been. For the pain his father’s words must’ve caused—still did. A young boy shouldn’t have to bear such a heavy burden.

He looked at her, and she saw the fire inside him, this shame from the past burning him up even now. “I can’t let my family, the people I care about, be injured or—killed”—he barely breathed the word—“because I’m thinking too slowly.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” she whispered. “Imagine if it was Eli. Or David. Would you be angry with them?”

She saw the way his jaw worked as he cut his gaze away so his focus was on the window again. “Maybe.”

She’d already seen the way he’d blamed himself for sending the boys to do a man’s job. Thank God David and Eli were safe.

“You have to forgive yourself,” she said. “I’m sure your father did, even if he didn’t say so.”

He stared at her and blinked, as if forgiving himself was a foreign concept.

“This family needs you to take a breath and think. Don’t you see? That’s your role. How you fit.”

She saw the tiny shake of his head in his reflection in the darkened window. Had he held on to this pain for all these years?

He rubbed a hand down his face. “No amount of thinking is going to change this. We need help.”

His brows creased after he said the words, his eyes narrowing in a way that meant his mind was working.

Since they’d been thrown back together, she’d witnessed the real Nick McGraw. The protective, fun uncle. The loyal brother. The intelligent teacher.

She was falling in love with him all over again.

A voice rang out from upstairs. “Uncle Nick! They’re coming!”

She jumped.

He turned from the window. Put the coffee cup on the counter. “We need help. That’s the answer.”

Clare ran back into the room, already reaching for one of the rifles.

He motioned to the window. “The neighbors’ll come if there’s a fire. A big inferno they can see for miles.”

Elsie’s heart thundered in her chest. “You’re going to burn down the house?”

Nick shook his head, mind still working. “We need the hay in the barn to make it through the winter—Drew will want to keep the house.”

Clare looked between them, eyes wide.

Nick’s eyes caught Elsie’s and held. “But the bunkhouse could go,” he said.

Elsie saw his determination. If someone was even now riding toward the house, guns drawn, how could he think about going out into the night? She whirled and pressed her hands onto the counter. She could see the bunkhouse from the kitchen window. But it was so far away…

Clare and Nick were speaking in low murmurs, plans for something at the front door, but Elsie’s mind had tuned out the sound.

She hadn’t told him that her feelings for him had changed. How could she let him walk out of the house?—

By the time she turned around, Nick was already moving toward the back door and the lean-to beyond.

“Wait!” She crossed the room after him, reached for him when he turned to her. Faltered when she fell into the intensity of his eyes. “Nick, I?—”

He lowered his head and kissed her.

She stretched up on tiptoe to meet his kiss, let her hands slide behind his neck as waves of emotion broke over her.

Nick wasn’t kissing her because he’d forgotten their past, because he was muddled by amnesia.

This kiss was real.

And over too soon.

She was aware of Clare still in the room as Nick pulled away, and the reality of what she’d done crashed over her. Her cheeks burned.

Nick gave her one more intense look before he rushed through the door into the lean-to. Running into danger.

All she could do was breathe a prayer he’d return.

Nick forced his whirling mind off Elsie’s kiss and into focus as he pulled on his coat in the coolness of the lean-to.