Someone was moving in the darkness.
Chapter 12
Nicholas kept his breathing slow and steady, closed his hands tighter around the handles of his pistols, listened.
The snake-glide of leather across the wooden floor. The creak of a beaded moccasin. The slow intake of breath.
Every muscle in his body tensed. He had only time to think how much this would frighten Bethie and Isabelle before instinct took over.
In one motion, he rolled onto his back, fired both pistols into the darkness.
Twin flashes of gunpowder.
A woman’s scream. A baby’s cry.
The thud of a body hitting the floor.
Mattootuk howled in rage and pain, stumbled across the cabin.
“Don’t move!” Nicholas shouted the command at Bethie, leapt over her, tried to catch Mattootuk before he reached the door.
But in the darkness he stumbled over Youreh’s body, and in the split second it took him to regain his footing, Mattootuk had fled into the night.
Jerked from sleep by gunfire, Bethie held her baby daughter close, squeezed her eyes shut against the violence that seemed to be happening on all sides at once.
Then, as abruptly as it had begun, it was over.
Stillness.
Dreading what she might find, Bethie turned her head to glance back over her shoulder.
Nicholas stood, his back against the open door, his face and bare chest outlined in starlight. His hands were busy reloading a pistol, but his gaze was focused on the darkness beyond.
She sat up, felt her body begin to shake.
In her arms, Belle cried inconsolably.
Bethie pressed her lips to her daughter’s cheek, felt Belle’s wet baby tears, thought she might cry, too. Her voice quavered. “It’s over, little one. Shhh, now.”
“I’m sorry, Bethie.” Nicholas turned away from the forest, slipped his pistols back into the waistband of his breeches. “I wish there had been some other way.”
She tried to speak, could not.
“Stay in bed. I’ll take care of this.”
For a moment she wondered what he meant. Then he bent down, picked up something heavy from the floor, dragged it outside.
A body.
Her stomach turned. She fought not to gag, squeezed her eyes shut, clutched Belle to her breast.
A dead body.
Nicholas had killed a man in her home.
And she was grateful. He had saved her life—and Belle’s—once more.
She chided herself for her weakness, struggled to quell her nausea and slow her breathing. Nicholas had faced this danger head-on. What was wrong with her that she trembled so?
