Tempted (8 page)

She knew because she would know him anywhere. Even here—where it seemed impossible that he could be.

The pain was cataclysmic.

Because Anne had believed him when he said it wasn’t just her whose touch he could not abide. But clearly, as his presence at a whore house indicated, that was not true.

What had Delilah called him? A customer. Yes. There was only one kind of customer at Delilah’s.

Her broken heart and shattered pride meant nothing in this terrible moment, but she could not stop the pain. It was like blood from an artery.

“Steven,” Delilah said. “The doctor’s assistant is here.”

“Assistant,” he said in that familiar voice. He turned his face sideways, and she had to glance away. At the ceiling. Anywhere but at him as he came to his full height and turned to see her.

“Anne,” he gasped.

Angrier than she’d ever seen him, he crossed the hallway to her and grabbed her arm, nearly dragging her a few steps away from the crowd watching them with wide eyes.

“What are you doing here?” he asked through his teeth, and she became just suddenly, just all at once, so angry it hurt. Everything she felt for this man hurt, because it had nowhere to go—it just stayed inside of her body, poking and jabbing and sinking, and she was tired of it. She hated it.

Hated him.

“What are
you
doing here?” she asked, unable to stop herself. He blushed—Steven, whose life she’d saved. He blushed and for a moment could not look at her. She curled her hands into fists, her blunt nails digging into her skin, the pain sharp enough to keep the angry tears at bay.

“The doctor is seeing other patients,” she said in her coldest, most professional voice. And his head snapped back around, his blue eyes pinned her to the wall.

Fury, a great blast of it from him, made the hair on her arms stand up.

Steven leaned down, looming over her, so close she could smell whiskey on his breath. So close she could see the hair of his beard coming in on his cheeks. So close she could feel the heat of his chest against the bare skin of her face.

The air smelled of him and as it crossed her tongue—it tasted like him.

“Where is he, Anne?”

“At the house,” she whispered, unable to meet his eyes. Feeling the heat of his attention through her clothing. “He’s…indisposed.”

“I will kill him. To put you in this situation—”

Finally Anne shook herself free of his hand and stepped away from his body. She could see his chest through the open neck of his shirt, and she remembered it from the days in the clearing. Smooth and wide, thick with muscle.

“The situation I am in is of my own making. Just as yours is.” He stepped back and she gave him her sharpest smile. Inside she was trying to staunch the blood from the wound he’d given her, but she would not show him that. Not ever.

We can no longer be friends
, she thought.

“How gratifying that you have found someone you can bear to touch. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to try and save Stella.”

“It is not… My being here is not as it appears.”

“I’m sure that is what many men here say.” She brushed past him, back toward the door with the people gathered around it. They made way for her, and soon she was at the closed wooden door. She lifted a trembling hand and knocked.

“Mr. Garrity?” she asked, trying to keep her voice level. “Who is it?” His voice, muffled through the wood, sounded frantic and wild. She put a hand to her throat, gathering what courage she had.

“It’s Anne Denoe,” she said. “From Dr. Madison.”

“You…you alone?”

She gave everyone around her a hard look and they backed up. “I am, Mr. Garrity. Can I come in? To see Stella?”

“Oh, Mrs. Denoe, I think… I think I done something real bad.”

She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to the door. “Is she breathing?”

“I think so.”

“Let me in, Sam, so I can check on her.”

“Anne.” It was Steven behind her, urgent and scared. “You can’t go in there.”

But then the door cracked open and the barrel of a gun came out. It was not the first time a gun had been pointed in her face, but she imagined that it never got less terrifying.

Sam’s wild eye appeared behind the barrel.

“Please, Annie,” Steven said, and the barrel of the gun swung over her shoulder towards Steven’s face.

“Sam,” she said, stepping sideways between the barrel of the gun and Steven. “Sam, it’s just me. Just me coming in.”

His wild eye trained again on her face. Over his shoulder, she was able to see just a small slice of the bed and on it, Stella’s legs. Unmoving.

“Let me come in,” she said. “Sam. Let me see Stella.”

The door eased open just a small crack and she slipped in, but Steven grabbed her hand.

“Please, Anne,” he whispered. “Please don’t do this.”

Her heart hammered in her chest, like a fist against her ribcage, and she didn’t turn back. Not at all. She just pulled her hand free, inch by horrible inch, from Steven’s touch.

And walked into the room with the madman, his gun and the unconscious prostitute he may have killed.

The room is not all that different from mine.

Except for the man with the gun and the unconscious prostitute. And the smell. Blood and rose water and the urine and sweat that clung to Sam. To his clothes and hair. His dirty body.

It was choking in this airless room.

“Did I kill her?” Sam asked, pointing to the bed.

Anne shifted Stella on the bed, so she wasn’t lying across it with her head hanging off the side. She pulled down Stella’s petticoats, covered her knees, offered her what little modesty she was able.

Stella’s breathing was fine. Her pulse was fine.

“She’s not dead.”

There were no broken bones. No wounds but a gash on her forehead that was bleeding profusely. Annie used the edge of the pillowcase to clear the blood off her forehead and her hairline. Her face was already bruising. Her eye was swollen. Her lip split.

Sam had beaten her.

Her awareness of Sam was prickly and painful. She could feel him behind her pacing back and forth, gun in one hand, chewing the fingernails of his other hand.

Sweat rolled down her back, under her arms.

“Sam,” she said, unable to take it anymore. “Please stand still.”

“Is she all right?” he asked.

Anne poured tepid water from the pitcher into the basin and submerged the gray but clean cloth.

“I won’t know until she wakes up,” Anne said, pressing the compress gently to Stella’s forehead and eye. There could be lasting damage to the eye. One of Father’s patients got kicked in the eye by a mule and he never saw out of that eye again.

But she didn’t know enough to be able to tell if that would happen to Stella.

Very suddenly she realized she didn’t know enough about anything that was happening in this room.

What made me think I could do this? That I could handle any of this?

Oh, why is it so hard to breathe?

Stop, Anne
, she thought.
There is only room for one hysterical person in this room
.

Once she had watched Dr. Madison lift Sam’s eyelids when he came in unconscious. So she did the same to Stella. Her eyes looked normal. Pupils were the same size.

That’s good
, she thought.
That’s one good thing
.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I hit her.” Sam’s voice broke. “I hit her because she kept talking. She was talking and talking and she wouldn’t shut up. She wouldn’t.” He began to hit himself on the head. Over and over. Flat-handed and hard. “Shut. Up.”

“Please,” she whispered. “Please, Sam. Stop it.”

He turned to her, bones inside skin. Eyes so deep inside his skull they looked like holes. And madness. Nothing but madness keeping him on his feet. His clothes hung off his body like he was a skeleton.

A chill raced over her skin and she realized the danger she was in. Steven’s fear made terrible sense now.

“How?” Sam asked, a child in front of a parent. “Tell me how to stop it and I will. Tell me how to stop it…” He lurched toward her and she flinched away, falling back on the bed, against the body of the woman he’d beaten.

Stella stirred beside her. She groaned, shifting her legs. “Sam?” she breathed.

Like paper left in the rain, Sam’s face dissolved in front of Anne. And he collapsed across the bed, pulling Stella’s legs toward him as if he could climb her prone body.

“C...careful,” Annie said, the stammer impossible to control. But he was pushing her aside and she slipped off the silk covers on the bed, landing in a heap on floor.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said, clutching at Stella’s petticoats, her thin skirts. “Do you hear me?” he asked. “I’m sorry. Stella, baby… I’m so sorry.”

Stella was fully awake now, and crying. Blood and tears streaming down her face. She blinked terrified eyes up at the ceiling, unable to look at Sam. Anne didn’t blame her.

“Please, Sam,” Stella whispered, pushing his hands away. “Please. Let me go. I just want to go. I want to leave.”

“You was the only one who was nice to me. Treated me like a person. The only one, Stella. I shouldn’t have hurt you.”

Anne struggled to her feet. “Sam, let her go.” She pulled at his hands, trying to free Stella. The fabric of Stella’s skirt tore, and Sam’s other hand, the one with the gun, pushed Annie away. The cold steel made her skin crawl, and she jerked her hand back.

Stella was pushing herself up the bed, struggling away. Anne got on the bed beside her, helping her sit up. She braced a foot against Sam’s shoulder, but he didn’t seem to notice.

The gun, that instrument of death, was a black cancer against the pink coverlet on the bed. And Anne could not look away.

Lord, protect us
, she prayed.
Please protect us
.

Sam pawed at Stella, scratching at her legs, tearing at her dress.

“Please, Sam, stop. Stop,” Annie said in the kind of loud, clear voice her mother used to use with her when she was throwing a fit.

“Sam?” It was Steven outside the door, yelling through the wood. And for a moment Sam stopped his fevered groping, the feral moaning in the back of his throat was silent, and he just stared at the closed door. Like a dog hearing his owner’s whistle across the fields. “Sam, can you hear me? I’m here, Sam. I’m here. Let those women go and I will come in and we’ll talk. We can… talk.”

“What are we going to talk about?” Sam yelled, spittle spraying Annie and Stella. He was distracted, but his fingers were still digging into Stella’s skin. Annie could feel Stella shaking beside her, and she used the edge of the blanket to cover her body.

“Whatever you want,” Steven said. “Whatever needs talking about.”

“It ain’t gonna change nothing.” Sam put his head down on Stella’s legs and she whimpered, lifting her chin to the ceiling like a child who by not seeing the scary thing made it go away.

“You don’t know that,” Annie whispered. “It might help.”

“Help what?” Sam asked. His wild eyes lifted to hers, and she saw for one second the total depths of his despair. How it filled every inch of his body, how it curled up at the edges into madness.

“Look at what I done, Miz Denoe. Look at me.” Tears fell from his eyes, great streams of them. “Ain’t nothing going to help,” he whispered. “I'm real sorry.”

And then he lifted the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

T
he gunshot split the world in half.

Every man and woman in that hallway stood paralyzed—silent—for one second, their ears ringing, their noses twitching from the gunpowder.

She’s dead
.

Steven was sure of it.

And then the moment was over and Steven grabbed the doorknob and put his shoulder against the wooden door. He bashed against it with his body, over and over again. He felt someone behind him, Delilah, doing the same, adding her weight to his efforts, and finally the wood splintered. The lock busted and he fell into the room.

There’s so much blood
. That was all he could think. There was so much blood.

The two women on the bed were covered in it. One of them was dead. Had to be dead.

That blood...

“Anne,” he whispered and ran across the room. Anne was lying across Stella as if to protect her. His heartbeat stopped pounding in his ears for just a moment and he finally could hear Stella crying. He put his hands on Anne’s shoulders as carefully as he could in case she was injured, and he eased her away from the crying girl, back onto the bed. Her face was full of gore, her glasses covered. Totally obscured.

“I…I can’t hear anything,” she cried.

She was shaking in his hands.

Alive! She’s shaking because she’s alive. Not dead
.

Relief turned his knees to water and he collapsed on the edge of the bed.

“I can’t see anything!” she yelled.

“Shhhhh,” he whispered and took her glasses from her face, wiped off the blood and returned them, smeared and smudged, back to her nose. Her brown eyes, wide and frantic, stared up at him.

“Are you hurt?” he cried. “Did he hurt you?” He ran his hands down her arms, but she shook away from his touch.

“Sam?” she yelled. He remembered this battle deafness from the muskets and cannons and screaming of the war. He’d learned to shove cotton in his ears, not that it helped much. And it wouldn’t have helped Annie—she’d had a Remington fired what looked like inches from her face.

Steven glanced over the other side of the bed and saw what was left of Sam. He’d blown most of his head off.

“He’s gone.” He shook his head so she understood without being able to hear him. She turned as if to see for herself, but he grabbed her shoulders and stopped her. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t look.”

Stella, beside him on the bed, was curled into a ball, crying into her fists.

Delilah stepped into the doorway, the feathers in her hair drooping. She was pale inside that elegant dress.

“Get Stella out of here,” he told Delilah. “And don’t let Tell in here.”