Resurrection Read online

  Gil sat back on the settee, still holding Emmeline’s hand, but instead of looking into her eyes, like before, he stared off into the middle distance, as though watching a scene unfold in the ether. “I’ve wished I’d stayed in my room a thousand times since then,” he continued presently, his voice low and rough as gravel. “But there’s no sense in wanting to change the past, of course. I’d bought a brooch that day, to bring home to you, and my spirits were so high I just had to celebrate. I recall that I threw back a couple of shots of whiskey and watched the dancing girls for a while.” He paused again, and lowered his head. A tremor went through him, barely perceptible, and then he faced Emmeline again. “My friends wanted to stay, so I left the saloon by myself and started back to the rooming house, by way of an alley. The last thing I recall is something striking the base of my skull. When I woke up, I was in the hold of a ship out in the harbor.”

  Emmeline’s mouth fell open. Gil’s story seemed a bit overdramatic, and she wasn’t at all sure she believed it. “You were shanghaied?” she breathed. She’d thought of a thousand and one yarns he might tell just since he’d appeared in the side garden like some latter-day Lazarus, but this particular scenario hadn’t occurred to her.

  Gil used his free hand to rub the back of his neck, as though some shadow of pain still lingered in the bones and muscles there, and sighed again. “I spent the next six and a half years hauling lines and raising and lowering sails. Every time we made port, I tried to escape, but I never even got to the end of the wharf before I was caught and brought back.”

  “But finally, somehow, you got away,” Emmeline whispered, marveling. She was caught up in the story, whether it was true or not.

  Gil nodded, but there was no triumph in his face, only a grim, haunted expression. “We were at anchor in Sydney Harbor one quiet night, scheduled to set sail with the morning tide. The water was smooth as glass, and so clear that the moonlight reached right to the bottom.”

  “What happened?” Emmeline dared to inquire, barely breathing by that point.

  For a moment, she thought he would fling her hand away and bolt from the room, there was such tension in him, coiled tight and ready to spring. But then Gil relaxed—by conscious choice, she could tell—and even managed a faltering smile.

  “Perhaps one day I’ll tell you the details, my love. For the moment, it’s enough I was lucky, and got safely to shore.”

  Emmeline’s stout heart was fluttering again, and the images were vivid in her mind. If Gil was lying, she said to herself, he’d missed his calling, choosing to scratch out a living on a small ranch; he could have made a fortune writing dime novels. “My word,” she remarked, too shaken, for the moment, to say more.

  Gil reached into the inside pocket of his frayed and musty coat, and when he opened his hand, a small porcelain brooch rested on his calloused palm. “This belongs to you,” he said.

  Nearly overcome, Emmeline gnawed at her lower lip and concentrated all her considerable energies on maintaining her composure. Then, with unsteady fingers, utterly unable to resist, she reached out and claimed the trinket. It was not an expensive piece, just a simple porcelain oval with a sheaf of golden wheat painted on in the most fragile of brushstrokes.

  The thought of Gil carrying the small treasure with him, through all sorts of privations and ordeals, touched her heart in a way the prettiest and most poetic words in the language could not have done.

  Her eyes were awash with fresh tears when she looked at him, holding the brooch in a tight fist and pressing that fist to her bosom. “So help me, Gil Hartwell, if I ever find out you made that up, that you bought this from some peddler in Missoula or Butte, I’ll never forgive you.”

  “I’m telling the truth, Miss Emmeline,” he said. He hesitated, obviously weighing his next words. “You’ve got to get used to the idea of my being back in Plentiful, I know, and that’s sure to take a little time. I’ll stay clear of you if that’s what you want—God knows, there’s plenty to do at the ranch while you’re thinking things through. But when I was working on those ships, darlin’, there was only one thing that kept me going, and that was the belief that I could find my way back to you some fine day.”

  A tear spilled down Emmeline’s cheek, and she made no move to wipe it away. She just sat there, listening, waiting, wondering if all the love in the world was enough to mend the damage that had been done by an unkind fate.

  “I often imagined kissing you, Emmeline, the way I used to do. That’s all that kept me from throwing myself overboard and breathing water until I went under. And that’s all I’m asking of you now. One kiss.”

  Emmeline didn’t speak. She just nodded, and leaned forward slightly, closing her eyes.

  He curved a finger under her chin, like in the old days, and tilted her head back. She felt him close to her, and his breath on her mouth set her flesh to tingling, first just on her lips, then all over her body. She let out a soft moan of relief and regret when he claimed her, tenderly at first, tentatively, and then with a slow-building power, fueled by passion.

  Emmeline was lost; Gil’s touch had always affected her that way. She would have given herself to him, right there in the broad light of day, on her grandmother’s horsehair settee, if he’d chosen to take her.

  But he didn’t. He drew back, one corner of his mouth kicking up in a semblance of a grin as she opened her eyes, lashes fluttering, to gaze at him in consternation.

  “I do apologize, Miss Emmeline,” Gil said, “for any inconvenience or embarrassment I might have caused you by coming back when I did.” He touched her lips, still swollen and sensitive from the most thorough and compelling of kisses, with the tip of an index finger. “Mind, I didn’t say I was sorry for spoiling your wedding.”

  Emmeline blinked, still too confused to speak. She loved Gil Hartwell as much as she ever had, but she was going to let him walk away, let him return to his homestead without her, because he was right about one thing: She needed time to ponder, to work out whether she believed him or not.

  If Gil was lying to her, she’d know it, somehow, and no amount of love would make her set up housekeeping with a man who had betrayed her. Emmeline was a proud woman, and she’d been taught to put a high value on herself. She could not reconcile her hopes to anything less than complete loyalty.

  Gil stood, his hand cupped beneath her chin, and their fingers, interlocked until then, loosened, separated, fell away.

  “I love you, Emmeline,” he said. And with that he turned and walked out of the parlor without looking back.

  Emmeline sat rigid until she heard the front door close smartly, then covered her face with both hands and let out a wail fit to break a banshee’s heart.

  Izannah, who had been hovering outside the parlor for some time, burst into the room and hurried over to sit beside Emmeline and put an arm around her. Mrs. Dunlap, their nearest neighbor, was close on Izannah’s heels, clucking and wringing her hands and muttering “Lord have mercy” over and over again.

  “What did that rascal say to you?” Izannah demanded.

  Emmeline snuffled inelegantly. “He said he loved me,” she confessed, and promptly began to sob again. Even now, after all the humiliation she’d suffered, all the tears she’d shed and all the prayers she’d prayed, she wanted to chase after Gil Hartwell and ask him to take her home with him.

  “The brute,” Izannah said, furiously sympathetic.

  “Lord have mercy,” said Mrs. Dunlap.

  Emmeline drew a great, shuddering breath. “Did you—send Ezra—around town with the news?” she managed between watery gasps. “About the wedding being called off, I mean?” She couldn’t have borne it if guests had begun to arrive, full of merriment and the expectation of a ceremony.

  Izannah was patting her hand—the same hand that bore an invisible tattoo of Gil’s. “Yes, dear, of course I did. Don’t worry. By now, everyone in town knows that Gil Hartwell has come back. It’s very romantic, don’t you think? Even though he should be shot�
��Gil, I mean.”

  “Do stop prattling,” Emmeline pleaded. She’d developed a headache, and her wretched sobs had turned to hiccups. “Brandy,” she cried. “Get me some of Grandfather’s brandy, please, and quickly!”

  Izannah hastened to comply, for she was fond of drama, being young and quite sheltered, and probably reasoned that brandy could only make the situation more interesting.

  Mrs. Dunlap offered a few lame protests, and actually winced when Emmeline downed one dose of liquor in a decidedly unladylike gulp, then held out the snifter for another.

  • • •

  Gil had arrived in Plentiful aboard the afternoon stagecoach and gone straight to Emmeline’s grandfather’s house, having learned from one of his fellow passengers that she’d taken up residence there several years before. Now, with the first confrontation behind him, he bought a horse at the livery stable and rode right through the center of town. His aim was to let folks know he was back, and that he wouldn’t be taking to the back roads like a man with some cause for shame.

  His cabin and the hundred and sixty acres he’d proved up on before marrying Emmeline lay two miles south of town, and it took him half an hour to make the ride. If his wife were there, waiting for him, the way he’d dreamed she would be, he’d have had good reason to hurry. As it was, he could take his time.

  Gil’s heart, already bruised, sank to his boots when he saw the state his property had fallen into while he was gone. The roof of the cabin had caved in, probably under heavy winter snows, and part of the corral fence was down. The doors of the barn gaped open, and the hay inside had long since rotted. His horses and cattle had been sold, driven off, or stolen, and the outbuildings he’d sweated to put up—the well house and the privy, the chicken coop and the storage sheds—were nothing but piles of fallen timber, dappled with bird scat.

  None of which would have mattered, Gil thought, swinging down from his horse, if Emmeline had been beside him.

  He swept off his hat and ran his forearm across his eyes. At least he’d gotten back to Plentiful before she’d married Montgomery. Christ in heaven, he thought, he’d stood a lot in his time, but he wasn’t sure he could have borne that. Just the idea of Emmeline sharing that sidewinder’s bed was enough to make a man’s belly clench.

  Gil slapped his hat against his thigh, startling the skittish livery-stable horse, threw back his head, and let out a yell. He was home, by God, and Emmeline was well, and still his wife. For the time being, it was enough.

  He calmed the gelding, whistling softly through his teeth, and then led it to the stream and the mantle of deep, sweet grass that grew beside the water. After removing the saddle and bridle, Gil tethered the animal to a birch tree by a long rope and left it to its supper.

  There was fishing line inside the cabin, along with a few hooks, and it wasn’t long until Gil had caught a meal of his own farther down the creek bank. He had a feast of trout sizzling in a pan, over an open fire, when Montgomery rode in.

  Gil had been expecting the visit, and though he didn’t hold with gunplay, he had laid down his hunting rifle within reach, against the trunk of the apple tree Emmeline had planted to shade the house. It was tall now, that tree, and weighted with hard green fruit.

  “I see you’ve changed out of your wedding clothes,” Gil said as Montgomery leaned forward in the saddle, his face shadowed by the brim of his hat. His mount was a big sorrel, deep-chested with sturdy legs. “I guess the least I can do is offer you dinner.”

  Neal swung one leg over the pommel of his saddle and slid deftly off the horse. “I ought to shoot you right here and now,” he said, and though Gil could see that the other man was smiling, there wasn’t so much as a hint of humor in his voice.

  “That might be a hard thing to explain, even for you. How I managed to get myself shot on the very day I came back and ruined your plans to marry my wife, I mean.” Gil’s stance was easy and loose-limbed, and his hands rested on his hips, but he could see that hunting rifle out of the corner of his eye, and reach it in a blink. He sighed and shook his head. “No, sir, no jury in the world would see that as a coincidence. I guess you’d better just leave me be, and go find yourself another woman.”

  Montgomery took off his hat, and his fair hair glinted in the last blinding dazzle of a summer sun. “I’ve found the woman I want,” he replied, “and I’ll have her.”

  Gil dropped to his haunches beside the fire and turned the trout in the pan. He remembered the way Emmeline had responded to his kiss, there on that fussy settee in her parlor, and smiled to himself.

  He was home. Emmeline still cared for him, whatever her misgivings, and Neal Montgomery hated him as much as ever.

  Life was good.

  2

  EMMELINE PINNED GIL’S BROOCH TO THE BODICE OF HER nightgown just before she went to bed, and lay down telling herself she mustn’t be foolish about things. True, the man told a good story, and he could make her dizzy with a look, but there were certainly other factors to consider. He’d been gone seven years, she reminded herself, with not a word from him in all that time, and she’d spent perfectly good money putting up a suitable monument in the churchyard.

  Lying in the darkness, Emmeline blushed to think of the scandals Gil had spawned with his unconventional doings. First he’d gone off and left her, and she’d made an idiot of herself, going around in widow’s weeds long past the customary mourning period, proclaiming his good character to all and sundry. And now he’d returned, on the very day she was to marry Neal Montgomery. By now, everybody in Plentiful and half the tribes in the Indian nation were surely talking about how close Miss Emmeline had come to taking on one too many husbands.

  She closed her eyes, willing herself to go to sleep and thus escape her contradictory feelings, but even after all the brandy she’d imbibed since Gil’s departure, she was wide awake. She couldn’t help thinking that this would have been her wedding night, if Mr. Hartwell hadn’t returned from the dead in such a timely fashion. She’d be lying in Neal Montgomery’s arms at that very moment, no doubt, with her nightgown on the other side of the room, an unwitting bigamist.

  Heat rushed through Emmeline, causing her to perspire from head to toe. For all her efforts to be modest and circumspect—teaching piano lessons, attending church services, marking her lost husband’s passing in the accepted way—there could be no denying the truth—hers was a harlot’s body. Her breasts yearned to be weighed in a man’s hands, to be suckled and teased, and there was a melting ache in the deepest regions of her femininity that could not be denied. Her hips waited to cradle a man, and her long, shapely legs were poised to part even now.

  But it wasn’t Mr. Montgomery, the man she had almost married, who inspired these disgraceful thoughts. It was Gil Hartwell she wanted, now as always, and she wanted him with an anguish that was downright humbling.

  In retrospect, she wondered if she would have been able to bear Mr. Montgomery’s touch at all. His kisses had never made her feel the way Gil’s did. Would Neal’s caresses have ignited her senses? Would she have thrashed beneath him, like she had with Gil, and cried out in animal satisfaction while he appeased her?

  Emmeline raised both hands to her cheeks in an effort to cool her burning face. It was no use telling herself not to think about Gil, and she couldn’t work up any interest in anyone else.

  After an hour, Emmeline rose, lighted a lamp, stripped off her nightgown, and bathed her fevered flesh in tepid water from the basin on the washstand. That done, she put on fresh drawers and a camisole, and then her favorite petticoat. Over these, she donned a cornflower-blue dress that brought out the color of her eyes. She brushed her hair, braided it, and wound the heavy plait into a loose knot at the back of her head. She took the porcelain brooch from her nightgown and pinned it to the high ruffled neck of her dress, then changed her mind and put the trinket away, very carefully, in her bureau drawer. After washing her teeth with salt and baking soda, Miss Emmeline sat down in the rocking chair next to her window
and waited for the far-off dawn to come.

  • • •

  Gil made a bed in the fragrant grass beneath Emmeline’s apple tree. Cupping his hands behind his head, he gazed up at the countless stars strewn across the endless Montana sky. This surely wasn’t the homecoming he’d dreamed about all those years, but his time at sea had taught him some valuable lessons, one of which was that he needed almost nothing to survive.

  Oh, yes, he wanted Miss Emmeline as much as he ever had, and he loved her even more. But he had his freedom now, and he knew the value of that as few men did. He could make some kind of life without her if that was the way the cards were dealt.

  Gil hoped matters wouldn’t come down to that, of course, that he and Emmeline would be able to find their way back to each other through the emotional wreckage. At the same time, he knew he’d get on if they didn’t, and so would she.

  One of the many things he loved about Emmeline was her strength.

  Somewhere far off, a coyote howled and was answered by another animal. The creek whispered over its bed of smooth rocks as it always had, and a soft breeze rustled in the silvery leaves of the birch trees on the other side of the water. The sounds, so familiar and so long missed, soothed Gil’s spirit, and he slept.

  He dreamed, as he often did, of that night in Sydney Harbor when the light of the moon had turned the still waters to liquid opal. He remembered the fear, and the desperation, and saw the dark shadows gliding back and forth below, waiting. Waiting.

  Gil broke out in a cold sweat, and he knew he was in the grip of the nightmare, but somehow he couldn’t lift himself above it, into wakefulness. He’d gone over the side of the Nellie May, clinging to a rope, carrying nothing with him but the brooch he’d bought for Emmeline, resting on his tongue like the fare for a dead man’s passage across the River Styx. His only garment was a pair of drawers, tied tightly at the waist with a drawstring.