And she was so still. Like Benjamin.
His chest clenched as he stood over her with his lantern, blood boiling inside him.
Please save her,he prayed. He couldn’t bear to lose someone else he loved.
And he knew it then, as he cut the rope off her wrists. He loved Isabelle Labrie with his entire heart. Loved her strength and her courage. Loved her willingness to risk her life to save someone else. Loved her resilience to overcome her past as she pressed boldly into the future.
He gently massaged the rope burns on her arms, begging God to breathe life back into her. Then he propped her head up on a pillow before cutting the leather strips that bound her legs. With water from the basin, he carefully cleaned her wounds. She moaned at his touch but didn’t open her eyes.
“Isabelle,” he whispered, easing back her hair.
She moaned again when he dabbed the water on the cut above her eye. Slowly, she opened her good eye, and when she saw him, she flinched. “You’re not supposed to be here, Alden.”
“I had to find you.”
“Victor will kill you when he returns.”
He leaned away from her, grateful to hear her voice. “Victor isn’t going to find me.”
“He’ll come back,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “Not this time.”
She closed her eye and then opened it again. “Where’s Isaac?”
He nodded toward the window. “In my room.”
At least, he hoped that Isaac was still there, reading the book he’d started when Alden left for court this morning.
“You should stay with him until Victor and I are gone.”
He lifted her from the bed, holding her close to him. “You’re not going anywhere with Victor.”
“It’s too late.”
He shook his head. “I’m not going to let him touch you again.”
He extinguished the lantern, and she rested her head on his chest as he walked down the steps of the hotel, out into the street. A crowd of miners, loitering outside a saloon, glanced over.
When one of the men stepped forward, Alden hung his head, seemingly disappointed. “Too much to drink.”
The men left them alone.
Instead of taking Isabelle up into his room, Alden carried her toward the edge of town. There, he found Judah and his friends still waiting in the darkness.
“Isabelle,” Alden prompted, nudging her hair with his forehead. “Please wake up.”
She groaned again before lifting her head. Judah raised the lantern, and she opened her good eye wide enough to see Victor lying in the farm wagon, his arms and legs bound together.
“They’re going to escort him all the way to San Francisco,” Alden said. “A colleague there is looking for a deckhand willing to go east.”
“He won’t work,” Isabelle whispered.
“The captain of the ship will make sure he earns his keep.”
Judah stepped forward to close the end gate on the wagon, but Isabelle stopped him, reaching out her hand. “Please let me.”
Alden stepped closer, and with Judah’s help, Isabelle raised and locked the wooden gate.
