Chapter 15

Jeb refused to leave the room when the doctor began to stitch the wounds. He was afraid if he wasn’t there to hold her hand, Mariah might think she was alone and leave him. And he was afraid if she couldn’t hear him telling her to fight harder to live, she’d give up. Just as he was afraid if he stopped praying, God would take her to heaven.

He was thankful she hadn’t regained consciousness. The bullet had torn not only flesh but muscle, and Jeb didn’t think the doctor would ever finish. Finally, though, he pulled the last needle through Mariah’s shoulder.

When he was done, he placed a clean bandage over the wounds. But before he left, the doctor told Jeb in all honesty that it was doubtful Mariah would live. She’d lost too much blood.

Jeb reached for Mariah’s hand and held it, hoping a connection would help her heal. That maybe he could will some of his strength to pass from his body to hers.

“There’s nothing more to do tonight,” the doctor said. “I’ll be back to check on her tomorrow.” And he left the room.

Jeb leaned close to Mariah. “Stay with me, sweetheart. Please, don’t die.”

The first tears fell from his eyes, and he didn’t try to stop them. He didn’t know how he’d survive if she died. He didn’t know that he’d want to.

He brushed several strands of burnished gold hair from her forehead. It was one of the first things he’d noticed about her, a lifetime ago in Scotland. The way it changed colors in the sunlight. The thick curls that refused to stay where she put them. How he’d enjoyed watching her brush it with her fingers on those long nights on the road, then bind it up in a sensible twist, ready to ride again.

He traced his fingers across her high cheekbones and down the side of her face to the delicate line of her jaw. Everything about her was perfection. Her complexion wasn’t creamy white like the fair lilies that graced London but boasted a darkened hue from her love of the outdoors and the days of their wild ride to England.

Jeb leaned close and kissed her lightly on the lips. He told her he loved her a hundred times. Maybe a thousand.

More tears fell and landed on the pillow beside her. He couldn’t stop them. He’d never felt so helpless in his life.

He kissed her on the forehead, then lifted his head when the door opened and his father entered.

“Is there any change?” he asked.

Jeb shook his head.

His father’s hand clasped his shoulder. “You’re worth living for son. She’ll come back to you.”

Jeb’s senses reeled, awash with the sentiment his father had just imparted. That kind of support meant the world to him. A support that Mariah had once known, too. And lost.

“She did this for me,” he said, sitting close to Mariah. He reached for her hand and held it. “She took the bullet because she didn’t want any of us to be hurt.” Jeb looked up. “How could her father—”

Jeb’s father shook his head. “I don’t know. We can’t know. But I think it could only have its roots in some kind of deep, irreconcilable pain.”

Jeb brushed the backs of his fingers down Mariah’s cheek. Her skin felt so soft, so smooth. And it was losing its healthy hue. “I’m not sure I can live without her, Father. I never thought I’d fall in love, but I have. And it hurts like hell.”

“I know, son.”

The door opened, and a maid entered with a large pitcher of water and more cloths. She poured some of the water into a basin beside the bed, then filled a glass with water. “The doctor said to help her try to drink,” she said.

“Thank you,” Jeb said. When the maid left, Jeb rinsed a cloth in the water and placed it on her forehead. Then he lifted her head and held the glass to her lips. “Open your mouth, sweetheart. Drink some water.”

Thankfully, she managed a few drops.

“That’s a good sign,” his father said. “It means she can hear you.”

His hand fell once again on Jeb’s shoulder and gripped him, sending the kind of comfort only a father can send. And then he stepped to the door and let Jeb’s fellow traitors return to keep watch with him.

“Thank you, fellas, but—”

“Don’t even suggest that we leave,” Ford objected. “We’re staying until Mariah wakes, so there’s no use talking about it.”

“You have families to go home to.”

“We each have two families,” Hugh said in a husky voice. “And right now we’re with the family that needs us most.”

Jeb reached out his hand, and his friends linked hands with him, their bond immeasurably strengthened. They were as close as brothers. Perhaps even closer.

“Thank you,” Jeb said when he could speak. He turned then and gathered Mariah’s hand in his. “Did you hear them, Mariah? They’re not going to leave us alone until you open your eyes, so you’d better hurry and wake up.”

Jeb didn’t expect his words to work magic, and yet he was disappointed when her eyes remained closed.

He finally talked his friends into going downstairs for dinner.

“Can you tell how much everyone is worried about you?” he whispered when they were alone. “My father is especially worried. He would like you to open your eyes.”

Jeb placed a fresh cloth on her forehead. “So would I, sweetheart. I need to know that you’re going to be all right. I need to tell you that I love you. That I fell in love with you the first time I met you. That’s when I realized how strong you are. How much courage you have.”

Jeb poured more water in a glass and held it to her lips. “Drink, sweetheart. Please.”

But she didn’t.

Jeb sat in the chair beside her bed and held Mariah’s hand.

Over and over he told her how strong and resilient she was, and that he refused to allow her to leave him. He demanded that she open her eyes, then he begged. But she lay still and quiet, her pallor growing more alarming with each hour.

Finally, Jeb rested his head on the bed beside Mariah, and with his hand holding hers, he fell asleep.

. . .

Mariah struggled to open her eyes, but she couldn’t. The pain was so intense she couldn’t lift her eyelids. Yet she wanted to. Jeb was pleading with her to open her eyes, and for his sake she needed to.

She breathed, searching for the strength, and slowly, with the most colossal effort, she managed to open them a small bit.

He was the first sight she saw. He sat in a chair beside her bed, his hair a gloriously tousled mess, watching her in amazement as if he couldn’t believe she was actually waking. Her heart shifted, expanded, rejoiced in the simple sight of the man who had opened her eyes to love.

“Mariah?” he whispered.

Mariah tried to speak but wasn’t able.

He reached for a glass that was on the bedside table and held it to her lips. It was as if he knew how thirsty she was. And perhaps he did. She’d sat at his bedside just two weeks earlier waiting for him to wake. She remembered how worried she’d been, and saw in his eyes that he was equally as worried.

“Not too much,” he instructed as he took the glass away.

“What time is it?”

“It’s nearing dawn. You’ve been asleep nearly two days.”

She pursed her dry lips to moisten them with her tongue.

“Father?”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. He’s . . . well, he was badly injured. Very badly. His men took him back to Scotland but I don’t see how he could survive the journey.”

Mariah closed her eyes. “So it’s . . . over?”

“Yes, sweetheart. It’s over.”

A grief of sorts swept through her, a strange kind of sorrow that held both relief and remorse. The father who’d read to her on his knee, who’d carried her ‘pick-a-back’ as a child, had threatened to kill her. He had risked the lives of hundreds of his clansmen when only anger filled the void left by the woman he’d loved with his whole, flawed heart.

Something had happened to the man who was her father, the man her mother had loved. Guilt and grief had blackened his soul. And it had not left Mariah’s unscathed, either.

She sighed again, then closed her eyes.

She must have dozed for a little while, because when she opened her eyes next, the room was blanketed in sunlight. The entire membership of the Traitor’s Club was sitting in the room, as well as Jeb’s father.

“Jeb said you were awake,” Caleb said, “but we didn’t believe him.”

“He told us we could go home now,” Ford added, “but we said we weren’t going until we were sure you were awake.”

“The first question my wife would ask when I told her what happened was if you were better,” Hugh said. “I’d face the hounds of hell if I had to admit I didn’t stay around to find out. She’d skin me alive.”

“Yes, I’m better.” Mariah wanted to laugh but didn’t dare. It hurt too much.

The traitors stayed, easing her transition onto the road to recovery with their ridiculous humor and insatiable comradery. As much as Mariah longed to be alone with Jeb she wanted this moment to last forever. She was safe, here in this room with a man she adored and the three friends who had risked their lives for him. For them.

When she convinced them she would recover completely and do so in the blink of an eye, swifter than any doctor would deem possible, they begrudgingly agreed it was time for them to go home to their wives.

But before they left, Ford and Hugh promised that when she had recuperated enough to receive guests, they’d return with their wives so they, too, could become fast friends. It was a day Mariah found herself looking forward to. She knew she’d like them. How could she not? If their husbands had chosen them, they must be perfect.

When Jeb’s friends were gone and they were alone, Mariah reached for Jeb’s hand and held it. “You never told me what made you decide to accept the Queen’s offer to travel to Scotland for the jewels.”

“Are you disappointed that the Queen chose me to go?”

She smiled. “No. Never. I just wondered why you agreed to go on this mission. According to your friends, you all vowed to never put yourselves in harm’s way again. Surely you knew this assignment was dangerous.”

“Yes, I knew. But the reward was worth the risk.”

“What reward?”

“Besides you, you mean?”

“Yes, silly.”

“Well, it was an Arabian. An Arabian stallion. A champion stud, Mariah. I think the Queen received him as a gift from some Indian raja.” He gripped her hand. “But I didn’t know, Mariah. I couldn’t have known then. But the real reward was my beautiful Scottish lassie.”

“Oh, Jeb! I must thank her or I would never have met you.”

Mariah struggled not to close her eyes. She was so tired, but she resisted sleep long enough to say the words she’d wanted to speak from the first moment she’d wakened.

“Jeb?”

She reached her hand out, searching for his, and smiled when his warm fingers closed around hers.

“I love you, too.”

And she fell asleep with a smile on her face.