She stared at the glass numbly, thought briefly to protest, but didn’t. She was feeling rather nice suddenly, cozy even. She exhaled languidly, and something seemed to uncoil deep within her.
Maybe Cutter was right, she thought. Maybe it would help to forget for just a little while.
“Did you know my father?” Elizabeth asked on a whim. She was proud of her father. He’d been caring and loving—and never once had he blamed her after her mother and sister had abandoned them... despite the fact that she often blamed herself. Maybe if she’d been a little more help? A better daughter? More accommodating? More like Katherine.
He nodded soberly. “’Bout a year ago—real fine man, Lizbeth.”
Something about the way Cutter said her name made her sigh with pleasure.
“He was,” she agreed. “I miss him.”
She would miss her sister, as well, though she hadn’t seen Katherine in so many years that it wouldn’t be the same. The last she remembered hearing from Katherine was when their mother had died of lung fever four years past. Enclosed along with that letter had been a small photo of her daughter Katie at five months: a plump little thing with no hair. Elizabeth had cherished that photo.
Four years? she thought, blinking.
Had it been so long?
That would mean it had been seven since her mother had run off with Katherine to St. Louis.
So very long ago... yet that miserable day was as clear in Elizabeth’s memory as though it were yesterday.
Finding the hastily scrawled message her mother had composed on the back of one of her father’s notes had been the single most painful moment of her life. Even the words were indelibly etched in the annals of her mind.With every fiber of my being, I loathe this infernal place. I can’t—I just can’t suffer it any longer. Forgive me, Angus.Not a word about her. Not forgive me, Elizabeth. Not farewell. Not anything at all.
Being the elder of the two, and interested in medicine as she was, Elizabeth had been with her father at the time, helping him deliver a baby. For that reason, and because she’d understood how very much her mother had despised the wilderness and feared the Indians, Elizabeth had never entirely blamed her for leaving without her—especially since her mother had been only the first of so many to abandon Sioux Falls. By ’62, most of the remaining populace had fled in fear of the raids.
She and her father had been close, so she wouldn’t have wanted to leave anyway. Still, it hurt to know that her mother had been so desperate to desert them that she would slip away without bothering even to say goodbye. Her father had never been the same afterward.
“Where were you?”
“Hmmm?” She opened her eyes, unaware that she had closed them, and looked into Cutter’s deep, dark eyes. They were fascinating, the way they seemed to descend forever. But she thought she detected a flicker of pity in his gaze, and a knot formed in her throat.
“When I came through... I don’t recall making your acquaintance.”
“Oh... well...” She swallowed convulsively, clearing her throat of its odd thickness. “No one ever sheems... seems to. But I wash here,” she assured him. Blinking suddenly, she shook her head in distress over her slurring speech. “Jus—just—like—always,” she enunciated slowly. “Ap—p—renticin’ with my father.”
She seemed to deflate before his eyes. Folding her arms in front of her, she laid her chin down on top of them, and her eyes took on a faraway look as she spoke again. “I think hish... his heart wash weak...” Her words trailed off as she closed her eyes.
Cutter thought she might have passed out, but for the hiccup that revived her. “I—I think... don’t really know... just—wish—I—could’ve helped more.” Her head lolled to one side.
She sat there, looking so fragile, so helpless, that Cutter again felt the incredible urge to draw her into his arms and hold her, protect her from the cold, hard world.
“Lizbeth,” he whispered, reaching out to finger an errant lock of her hair.
It felt like silk.
Had she looked up in that moment, he feared she would have seen the naked desire smoldering in his eyes.
“You’re adorable.”
Were her ears playing tricks on her?
Elizabeth thought they might be, because her eyes certainly were.
Cautiously she opened one eye to find that the room was, in fact, spinning.
With a sad smile, she gazed into her empty glass and reached to grab the neck of the bottle. She tried to lift it, but found she didn’t have the strength.
Warmth touched her fingers.
