Chapter Eight

 

One agonizingly slow step at a time Michael inched his way through the woods in the direction of the cabin, stopping to listen for the intruders ahead and Bella behind. Thank God she and the horse weren’t making any noise, unlike the men waiting in ambush for them.

“It’s gettin’ cold out here, Caleb. You sure the son-of-a-bitch is comin’ back?” one of the men said from his left near the cabin. The whicker of a horse sounded close to him.

“Keep yerself warm by rubbing your arms and not runnin’ yer mouth, Enos,” Caleb said a little closer to the direct path Michael was taking. “The bastard that killed Silas won’t stay too long out in the cold and dark. We’ll cut his heart out and his balls off, then head back East.”

Silas? Shit, that was the man he’d killed for raping the little southern girl more than a year ago. Silas Trout. These must be his brothers.

His past had come back to haunt him. Wouldn’t he ever be free of the war?

Bella.

A chill went through Michael and not because of the cold.

If Caleb and Enos were anything like Silas, no way could he leave them alive. If he did, they’d have no problem finding Bella and raping her before killing her.

Gripping the wooden hilt of the knife he quietly circled further to his right, hoping to pass through the trees behind the men. Enos, the whiner, sounded like a much easier target to take out than Caleb. If he dispatched him first, he might have a chance of eliminating the threat to Bella.

Damn, he wished he could see the size and shapes of his targets. Luckily, in the dark they couldn’t see him, either.

A few more feet and the scent of pine hit him hard.

He’d made it to the north side of the cabin where his father had planted the copse of pines to block the winter winds. He smiled. If Enos hadn’t moved, he’d be about six feet directly in front of him.

Standing just inside the pines, he inhaled again, smelling the definite odor of horse and body odor on the wind from in front of him. He crept closer, keeping crouched so whatever moonlight there was wouldn’t give his approach away.

One hand out, he inched closer until he contacted the warm hide of a horse. Quickly he drew his hand back, but the horse shimmied sideways anyway.

“Dammit. Stay still,” muttered Enos from the other side.

Carefully, Michael maneuvered around until he stood between the two horses and could smell Enos in front of him.

He stepped forward until Enos’ body heat and odor were mere inches away. From what he could tell, the man in front of him was massive at least a few inches taller and wider than him. Nothing like he remembered Silas being.

Thinking of Bella, he had no choice but to succeed.

Without warning, he reached up to cover the big man’s mouth with his left hand. Bringing the knife forward with his right hand, he sliced Enos’ neck from left to right with one quick motion. Blood oozed over his hand and arm as he took the full force of the other man’s weight slowly and silently to the ground. The last thing he needed was to warn the other brother with a loud thump of a dead body hitting the ground.

The horses, however, neighed and shied apart.

Damn.

“Shit, Enos, can’t yer keep them horses still?”

“Mmm. Tryin’,” murmured Michael, hoping the other brother wouldn’t realize it wasn’t Enos.

A horse whinnied in the distance. Bella.

Damn. What was she doing? He’d told her to stay hidden.

“He’s headin’ this way.” Caleb’s voice moved forward toward where the horse sound had come.

Crouching in front of the dead body and horses around him, Michael focused completely on the sounds in front of him.

Crunching of snow.

Another whinny from the horse.

The bastard Caleb’s pace quickened, narrowing in on Bella’s position.

With no time to lose, Michael launched himself in the direction of the footfalls, delivering a war cry as he slammed into the man, his arms around the bastard’s neck.

The air left Michael’s lungs as they crashed to the ground in one massive heap. Desperate to protect Bella, he squeezed as hard as he could even as the smaller man tried to rear up and throw him off.

Like riding a wild horse, Michael held on for all he was worth with one arm while stabbing violently at the man’s torso with his Bowie knife.

The man pushed again, this time turning them until Michael landed on his back. He clutched the man to him, pressing against his throat with one arm, slashing down into his body with the knife with the other.

No one would threaten Bella.

No. One.

“Michael.”

Bella was too close. He thrust the knife into the renegade’s body.

“Michael, please stop.”

Bella’s worried voice pierced the raging fury storming his mind and body.

“Michael, he’s dead.”

Suddenly the body on him seemed heavier than it had. She was right. He’d killed the bastard. Heaving from below, he managed to shove the dead weight off and staggered to his feet.

God, his arms and legs were shaking, but this was no time to give in to the nausea killing always gave him. There were things to do.

“Michael?”

The icy snow to his left crunched.

“Stay back, Bella. I’m covered in their blood.” The last damn thing he wanted was to get the blood of rapists and murderers on her sweet body.

Something in his words or voice warned her he was barely holding himself together after the attack, because she paused just a few inches away. Her warm breath caressed his cheek.

Minutes passed. The only sound the heaving of their breath and the pawing of the horses surrounding them.

“What do we do now?” she finally asked, a hint of fear in her voice.

Damn, he hated that she’d seen the wild beast he’d been—seen him butchering the animal before he could attack her.

“Michael?” she asked again, this time with concern for him, which snapped him out of his own state of shock.

“I need to get the bodies away from the cabin so no scavengers are attracted by the scent of death. Can you take their horses to the barn?”

“I can do that.”

Inhaling deeply, he listened as she took the horses by their reins and lead them to the barn. She paused.

“What about the boulder tied behind Chance?”

“If you can get him into the barn, too, I’ll unsaddle the horses and relieve Chance of that stone. Don’t try to do it. I need you to get into the cabin where I know you’re safe and warm. Promise me you’ll do as I say this time.”

“I promise. I’ll heat up water for you to wash with when you’re done.”

She turned and the sound of her footsteps and the clopping of the horses’ hooves on the frozen ground and icy snow punctuated her acceptance that he’d killed two men to keep her safe. And suddenly he knew. Bella was meant to be at his side. When it came to protecting her, sight or no sight, he would do what was necessary.

*****

Michael leaned back in the tub of warm water Bella had ready for him when he stepped back into the cabin. Not wanting her to be reminded of the violence that had occurred outside, he’d scrubbed his hands and arms with snow after seeing to the animals. Might as well not have bothered. He’d forgotten about his clothes.

Once again he’d misjudged Bella. She’d given a small gasp before ordering him to strip and get in the tub. While he’d obeyed her command, he’d heard the scrapping of the washtub across the floor. Now, both he and his clothes were getting a good soaking to remove the stench of the two would-be assassins from them.

Battling the blood lust still running through his veins from fighting and killing the two Trout brothers, he took the sandalwood soap Bella had plopped into the water moments after he’d sat down and began scrubbing any stench left from the pair. He’d meant every word about not wanting any of their filth to touch Bella, even now.

When she’d arrived the week before, he’d tried to do the honorable thing by sending her home, even tried to scare her off with his sullen selfishness. But Bella’s stubborn determination that she belonged at his side had wormed its way into his heart and soul. The idea of living without her darkened his world more than the loss of his sight ever would.

The sounds of her moving around the cabin preparing them a meal touched that need deep inside him—the craving of a male to claim the female who fit his other half.

His.

Slowly as not to warn her, he rose from the tub. Stepping out, he snatched the towel from the chair where Bella had made sure he knew she’d set there earlier. The soft thud of his mother’s china settling on the table told him his prey was to his left. He drew the towel over his body, removing enough water as to not make a mess and started stalking his woman, his cock thickening at the idea of being deep in her body.

“Michael?” she asked when he was close enough to feel her body heat and smell her scent, a heady mixture of orange blossoms and feminine spice.

This was who he craved, had craved since leaving the war. Her warmth. Her love. Her.

“Bella, I need you,” he said, grasping her elbows and moving her backward. The door to the bedroom was exactly six steps from the end of the table. Which meant the wall was six steps that direction, too.

“You need me?” she repeated, the sound half question, half realization of just what kind of need he meant.

“Now. I need to be inside you, now.” He kept moving her back until he felt her stop.

“Give me a moment—”

He crushed his lips to hers, stopping any further words, his body communicating more eloquently what he wanted.

With a groan as she leaned her back into the wall and thrust her hips against his erection, he pulled her arms around his neck. Then he released his hold on them and began unbuttoning the bodice of her dress, the soft cotton nearly ripping under his lust.

Finally he’d released her breasts and cupped them in his hands, instantly kneading them as he used his tongue to plunge into her mouth like he planned to do with his cock. When her fingers threaded into his hair, he slid his hands up to the tips of her breasts, pulling and tweaking her nipples until she purred into his mouth.

When she thrust her tongue back at his in a duel of passion more heat rushed to his already throbbing erection.

Releasing her breasts with a growl, he gathered up her skirts in his hands, drawing them up over her silken thighs, parted to cradle his body. He kept pulling until the material was bunched around her waist and he thrust to slide his cock between her thighs. The moist swollen lips of her sex told him she was ready for him, would always be ready for him.

Reaching around her hips to grip the firm globes of her ass in his hands, he spread his legs to take her weight as he lifted her off the floor.

“Now, Bella,” he growled into her mouth as he held her opening poised over the tip of his cock.

She responded by wrapping both her legs around his hips and sliding down over the swollen head and shaft, taking him in to the hilt. “Ah, God, Michael.”

Her moan of pleasure filled his soul as he filled her body. Taking more of her weight, he began to lift her off his cock, stopping until he was just inside her entrance, then he let her slide down, impaling her once more.

She clenched around him, her sheath pulsing along his thickness and he almost lost control right then. He held her still, letting his body back slightly away from the precipice, and released her mouth to slide his lips across her jaw to that spot on her neck he knew would push her closer to her own edge. With determination to give her pleasure before he found his own release, he suckled and nipped at the column of her throat.

“Oh, oh, oh…yes…yes…please, Michael,” she begged in a moan, thrusting her hips, grinding her sex along his.

He gripped her tighter, the nub of her pleasure pressed against the base of his shaft and began driving slowly and deeply into her, her moans and pleas heating his blood as much as her body. The desire to feel her climax flow over him drove him faster and faster.

With a need to plant his seed deep inside the woman he loved, he continued to piston into her sex. Legs planted firmly, his thighs strained with the burden of taking her weight completely with each lunge.

Leaning her upper back into the wall, she thrust her breasts forward to his face, begging with her body for more. More than happy to oblige he latched on to a nipple and suckled, matching the rhythm of his hips.

Bella’s breathing quickened.

“Ah, Michael!” she moaned as her body shook with spasms, her fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulders while her sheath squeezed the length of his cock.

“Bella!” he moaned, his body straining with his own release as he pumped his seed deep inside her womb.

*****

A knock on the cabin door and the startled gasp from Bella, brought Michael out of his languid stupor. He eased his body away from hers, “Stay right here.”

“Do you think it’s another attacker?” she asked as he pulled on his pants.

“I doubt they’d knock.” He tried to hide the grin, but knew he wasn’t too successful when she smacked him on the shoulder.

“I’ll be right back.”

He made his way through the kitchen to the door just as another, more forceful knock pounded against the wood.

“Barclay! You in here?” Bert Higgins called out.

Michael opened the door and stepped aside to let  him in, “Hey Bert, what are you doing out here on a cold night like this?”

“Came to warn you that some mean looking fellas were asking about you in town the other day,” the storekeeper said as he stomped the snow from his boots.

“You don’t say.”

“Yep, I had to wait for the weather to let up a bit before I could get out here and warn you.”

“Sure appreciate the warning, Bert, but was one real tall and built like a bull?”

“Sure was.”

“And the other about my height, but wiry?”

“Yep. I take it they’ve already been here?” Bert asked, less question and more statement in his voice.

“Had a run-in them earlier tonight. They won’t be  bothering anyone else.”

“Good to know. I’ll be heading back to town, then. Just wanted to make sure you and your nice lady were okay.”

Michael couldn’t help the smile he gave him. “We’re just fine, Bert. And that lady is going to be my wife.”

Bert clapped him on the back. “Sure am glad to hear that, my friend.”

*****

“Does this mean you're finished trying to send me away? That I get to stay with you?” Bella asked later, curled into Michael’s body in the big poster bed. After they’d partially recovered, he’d carried her, still buried deep inside her, to the bed then slowly withdrawn to help her out of her clothes.

With her head on his chest, she listened to the steady beat of his heart and gently stroked her fingers through the soft mat of hair on his chest. Waiting for his answer she held her breath, afraid to give in to the spark of hope swirling around her heart.

From the moment she’d walked into his cabin, she’d done everything to convince him his blindness didn’t change how she felt about him and how it didn’t make him less of a man. If he rejected her now, she didn’t have any more arguments to use to persuade him. Her bag of tricks truly was empty.

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, I suppose you can stay.”

Hearing the humor in his voice, she looked up to study his face in the moonlight streaming in the small bedroom window. The corners of his lips twitched as he fought the smile just behind them.

“Oh, if you’re not sure, I guess I should get started packing,” she said, pushing up on her arms and away from him as if to leave.

Immediately his arms came around her, pulling her back against him and holding her there. “Don’t leave.”

“But you aren’t sure—”

“Yes, I am,” he said, all teasing gone from his voice. “I need you here. I’ve needed you here all along. During the war, thoughts of you kept me sane among all the killing and bloodshed.

“Even when I came home you haunted me. Losing my sight had me convinced my life was over because I’d never paint again. I tried to drink it all away but I couldn’t, because you found me in my dreams. It isn’t my art that keeps me going. It’s you. You, sweet Bella, are what I live for. Without you I will die.”

He smoothed the hair from her face, his fingers touching the tears streaming down her cheeks at his words. “Why are you crying? I thought this was what you wanted?”

“It is. They’re happy tears, my love. I want nothing more than to stay with you here on your farm, to help you discover your art and love you completely.”

“You won’t mind giving up the social whirl of Boston? The bustle of a busy city?”

“If you’re not there, they mean nothing to me.”

He chuckled beneath her ear. “Perhaps someday we’ll return to showcase our sculptures.”

“Our sculptures?”

“Mm-hmm,” he murmured as he tipped her chin up to take her lips with his in a soft, but possessive kiss. “An artist is nothing without his subject. And you, my love, will always be the subject of my work.”

–The End–