Surrender to Love (33 page)

Well, Michael conceded as he forced the memories from his mind and tossed aside the chewed bit of straw he held in his mouth, there was no sense dwelling on her.  He hadn’t been the one to walk out this time
– that had been all her doing.  She hadn’t listened to him – not one sentence, not one syllable.

Most of it was his fault, he supposed morosely.  Half the time he was aggravating her with his outbursts, and the other half was spent walking out on her whenever the littlest thing bothered him.  He couldn’t’ blame her one bit for walking out –she probably should have left him a long time ago.

But the least he could have done was come clean with her about his situation in the first place.  Perhaps, then, she would have willingly left with no animosity between them, and the hope of a brighter future in her heart – his heart.

It wasn’t going to happen now,
and his future sailed out on the
Bonnie Amelia
a short time ago.  Sabine was on her way to New Orleans, and off to wherever it was her home lay.

“You Mike Pierson?” a gruff voice behind him questioned.

“Yeah, why?” Michael answered instinctively as he swung around, the thoughts of Sabine slowly fading to the recesses of his mind.

The click of the pistol’s hammer was the only reply
, and Michael looked down to see the barrel pointed dangerously at his midsection.  Instantly his gaze met the cold grey eyes of the man who stood opposite him, and his heart froze solidly in his chest.

“You
ain’t forgotten ‘bout ole George Morrison, have you, boy,” the tall man commented through a bushy moustache.  “We ain’t.”

Two others stepped into the open doorway, weapons strapped to their sides; in addition, the pock-faced redhead cradled a rifle casually against his forearm.

His heart starting in wild leaps, Michael stood, his muscles tensing as his gaze met the murderous eyes of the three men before him.

How had he let
his guard down?  He had never heard the horses…or the men…or anything.  All because he couldn’t keep that image of Sabine out of his head.  All because of that haunting sweet memory of laughter, of softness, of the very thing that made him feel whole…

“Señor
Pierson, los buyes están – “

The burly
fieldhand never stood a chance as the pock-faced man turned and fired, hitting him square in the chest. His large body dropped motionless in the dust as a growing stain of red broadened across the cloth over his heart

Michael lunged as the shot fired, grabbing desperately at the pistol the man before him held, its cold steel wrenching violently n his hand as both men fought for its possession.

But before he managed to gain control, a crushing forearm bore hard against his throat, strangling the life from him as he thrashed violently against his attacker. 
The rifle.  Why the hell did he have to forget the rifle in the house?  Today of all days –

“Now, boy,”
the moustached man commented calmly as he pulled back his pistol’s hammer, “we’ve about had enough of you.”

A violent shove propelled him from behind, forcing him face first into the straw bedding of the barn floor, and his breath escaped with cruel force as another man’s knee pinned him to the ground.  Purposefully the unyielding barrel of a gun
against the base of his skull, and Michael stiffened, his heart hammering in his chest.

“You might think we’re
gonna let you die real fast and get it over with,” someone’s sour breath whispered close to his ear.  “But we ain’t.”  The sound of a gunblast tore through his ears as his left shoulder screamed out in agony from the fire that engulfed him.

They had hit him.  Dear Lord, Michael realized as the life began to seep from him; he was shot, and the pain sliced through him
like nothing he had ever experienced.

They released him, and with fumbling fingers he attempted to press the thin cotton of his shirt against the bleeding wound, his shoulder searing with a burning agony.

“We ain’t done with ya yet, boy,” said the wiry man again as a boot came down heavily on his back.  “Where’s the girl?”

Fighting for breaths that stubbornly refused to come, Michael bit back the tortuous pain that tore through him.

“There isn’t anyone else here,” he stiffly managed through clenched teeth.

“The hell there
ain’t.”

Michael let loose an involuntary scream as the butt of a rifle connected sharply with his injured shoulder, then the base of his skull,
and he succumbed to the twilight that enveloped him.

XXX

“You find her?”

“
Naw, he probably got rid of her.  Ain’t been a woman in that house for a while.”

“Well, what we
gonna do with him?”

“
Dunno.  Ain’t decided yet.”

“
Bringin’ him back to the Kansas Territory?”

“Hell, no.  You think I’m stupid?”

The confused haze of voices filtered through Michael’s consciousness, mingling with the excruciating ache that throbbed mercilessly in his shoulder.  He shifted in the crackling straw, wincing as the pain ripped through him.

Lightheaded, he rested his forehead tiredly against a barn support and glanced bleary-eyed at the dried track of dark brown that trailed down his chest.  Blood…so much blood.  How much as he lost in the time they had held him?

Weakly, Michael attempted to loosen his hands from the ropes that bound him, but succeeded only in intensifying the agony that tore at his shoulder.  When he finally struggled to an upright position, a booted foot pressed him forcibly back to the floor, the air crushed from him as he bit back an anguished cry.

“Hey, Boyd, come here and check this out.”

Michael bit back a scream as the lit end of a cigarette ground into the naked flesh of his back, and he arched away, the harsh laughter of three men ringing in his ears.

“Well, he
ain’t so tough,” commented the short, wiry man as he swung a foot heavily into his side.

Michael grunted as his breath escaped him.  He hurt.  Oh, God, he hurt so bad he thought he might pass out from the blinding agony that raked at him with its blade-sharp claws
.  Why didn’t they just kill him?  Get it over with so he could escape the pain?

“What are we
gonna do with him, Boyd?”

“I suspect,” came a gruff, matter-of-fact voice close at Michael’s side, “we’re
gonna do ‘im in, Jeff.  Seems only fair.  What you think, Mr. Pierson,” Boyd asked as he took a firm hold of his hair and jerked his head up.

“I think,” Michael responded through gritted teeth,
“you can go to hell.”

Boyd’s foot drew back again and connected with his bruised and broken side.  He laughed contemptuously as Michael writhed helplessly, gasping for air that again refused to come.

“Hate to do this to you, Pierson,” the man named Boyd said with a snicker, “but the law ain’t no good.  Guess we’re gonna take care of that, though. Sam, gimme that.”

Michael heard the lash of a bullwhip behind him
.  No more, he thought as his breath returned to him.  He couldn’t take any more.  And none of it was his fault.  He was just…just doing what was right.  And Morrison hadn’t.  Dammit, Morrison
hadn’t.
  He had no right to rape that woman…and these men had no right being here…and –

And he was going to die knowing Sabine had heard him say the words he had held back so long.  He was going to die knowing that he never told her he loved her - loved her more than he had ever loved anything.

Suddenly Michael wanted to go back and change it all.  He wanted to tell her, wanted to hold her close and feel her yielding softness and smell the sunshine freshness of her hair.  He wanted to fill his hands with t hose dark curls of hers that fell down her back in a never ending cascade.  He needed to see her one last time – just once – to tell her the words he regretted keeping to himself.

Then they could do whatever the hell they wanted with him.

“Sabine.  Oh, God, Sabine.”  The words were heard only by him. Uttered through his dried and cracked lips.  “I’m sorry.”

“’Sorry,’”
Boyd said, his voice dripping with sarcastic concern.  “You shoulda thought of that two years ago.  But don’t worry, Pierson, you ain’t gonna last much longer, anyway.”

The bullwhip whistled in the air before it seared the exposed skin of Michael’s back.  He bit back a cry of pain, his muscles tensing, his body twisting as the whip’s red hot tongue licked at his raw flesh.

Again and again it came down until he could no longer stifle the hurt.  His screams became hoarse, echoing in his ears, his will to live ebbing as the painful red welts increased in number, selfishly stealing the strength he so dearly needed.

It all came to him, as he had heard it did, the images of his own life.  Only, the pictures in his head were of Sabine.  The way he had seen her in Havana…at
Colón’s…with him.  Always with him – laughing as he held her in his arms, her eyes shining as she looked to him.

Relentlessly the stinging whip cut into his skin
, and as the lash came down a tenth time, Michael lay limply in the straw, his peace with his Maker made, and Sabine’s name repeating over and over on his lips.

Chapter Twenty-two

The elderly Negro gentleman stood in the entrance way to the gardens, his white-gloved hands clapped rigidly to his sides as he clicked his heels together purposefully.

“Dispense
usted, Señorita DeBois,”
he said, nodding crisply in Sabine’s direction, “but there is an American gentleman who wishes to speak with you in the library.

A surge of hope raced wildly through her,
her breath catching within her breast as she turned.  An American?  Had she merely imagined it?  Or had she actually heard the old man correctly?  Javier, she knew, had a tendency to be a bit hard of hearing on occasion, but to say it was an American…

Her pulse racing in anticipation, Sabine swallowed the tiny lump or disbelief that rose in her throat as the various possibilities swirled unceasingly in her brain.  It had to be….  It couldn’t possibly be…but, Oh, dear Lord, she prayed fervently, closing her eyes as her hand fluttered to the base of her throat, please let it be him.

Let it be Michael.

Since she had left she had wrestled with the seeds of doubt
that she had planted and cultivated in her brain until she could neither eat nor sleep, and the relentless pricks of anxiety and guilt forced her to pace the floor restlessly until the faint rays of dawn peeked into her room.  And each night the scene continued to play itself out, the echo of Michael’s words plaguing her memory again and again until the pressure of frustrated tears finally gave way and spilled onto her cheeks.

“You never listen to me.”

The words struck daggers in her heart whenever they came to her, stabbing and wounding until she wished she had never heard them uttered in the first place.  She wished she had had the patience to listen – for once, set aside her pride and listened to what he had to tell her.

But if Michael could see it in his heart to give her one more chance, she
would
listen; she would hang on to every word, every sentence, and know in her heart that he hadn’t lied, for she wanted to believe – no, she
did
believe – he had begun to tell the truth the night she had so coldly left, her blind hurt encompassing every ounce of her reason.

Had he killed a man?  She had asked herself that very question a thousand times since that night.  Had he the ability to plot a murder and leave a man violently slain in the dust somewhere?

No, not Michael,
the logical side of her spoke. 
A temper he had, yes; but never the motivation for a cold-blooded slaying.

“Shall I inform the gentleman
you are not receiving callers?”

“No,” Sabine answered, her voice almost a panicked yelp as she scrambled to her feet, clearing the barrage of thoughts that flew through her head.  “I’ll see him.”

He was here, her heart sang out, joyously repeating his name until the sweetness of its melody flowed into the cold void of her emptiness, leaving in its wake a warmth that reached to the tips of her toes.  How dearly she had missed the sound of Michael’s voice, the touch of his hand.

Desperately she wanted to see him – even if it might be for this one, last time – so that she might have the opportunity to atone for
her stubbornness.  She would tell him, once and for all, the truth as to why she could never return to American soil.  And, perhaps, he would have the patience to listen to her plea and forgive her for the terrible way she had treated him.

Michael always listened…even when she didn’t.

A wave of hope coursed the length of her spine as Sabine slipped inside the library doors, her heart filled with expectation as she fought back the urge to dash across the room and throw herself into his arms.