Rocky Mountain Man (Historical) by Jillian Hart

disagreeable and as wounded find peace in heaven?
    Or would he be banned to Dante’s purgatory? She could imagine him there, for perhaps he would be happier in the shadow lands than he would with wings in a happy and peaceful heaven. He lay with a frown dug into his face, perhaps that was his natural expression. Purgatory, definitely.
    His hand in hers was heavy. So big and rough. She stroked her thumb over his wide knuckles. His fingers were broad and looked as powerful as if hewn from steel. When she turned his hand over, his broad palm was coarse with thick calluses. Remembering him shirtless, swinging the ax as he’d chopped wood, his muscles had bunched and rippled beneath his bronzed skin. Whatever this man was, Granny was right. He worked hard.
    Tenderness glowed like a lamp’s flame given more oil to burn on a long wick. It was a painful experience, the way her chest felt as if it were burning. His hand in hers began to tingle and a strange tug and pull deep in her soul made her wonder. What would have been between them if he’d lived?
    It seemed to her his skin grew cooler. His high, proud cheekbones jutted through his sun-browned skin as if it had become paper-thin.
    She pressed a kiss in the center of his palm. He tasted salty. The flame within her writhed and fought to burn like upon a too-short wick. There was no way to hold on to him, so she let him go.
    Cradling his hand in both of hers, she leaned close to whisper. “Thank you. It is so little for such a great deed. You are my only hero.”
    There was nothing. No sound. No movement. She felt Granny’s presence behind her. “It’s done now, little chickadee. Leave me to tend his body, and go with your brother.”
    â€œI ought to at least arrange for his burial.”
    â€œThat is for your brother to do. It would not be fitting.” Her grandmother knelt, wisdom alight in her Irish green eyes, and a surprising understanding. “I see how you feel, but it is too late for him. Do not grieve too hard.”
    â€œHow can I not?” She memorized the craggy beauty of his face. The pure black hair. The proud ridge of his nose. The surprising softness in his usually hard unforgiving mouth.
    â€œThank you,” she told him. “It is so little to say, I know. But I will never forget you. I will never forget.”
    Sorrow crushed her. She cried until there were no more tears left. When she let her brother lead her to the surrey, night had fallen. There was no moon to light the sky and no stars twinkling to dust the lustrous black world; only a wolf’s howl in the night of defeat.
    Joshua gripped his loaded rifle and, nosing the horse home, sent them into a fast trot. The cabin merged with the darkness. Even when she glanced backward as the surrey bumped around the curve in the road, it was lost.
    As if forever.
    Â 
    It was a sound that woke him, but the sunshine in the window was gone, the elderly lady had nodded offin the chair beside the bed and no light burned to let him see her by. He listened for her breathing—she might have made a bed on the sofa.
    But there were only two people breathing—the older lady and him.
    Disappointment choked him and he struggled to sit. He felt the pull and tug of his stitches sewn tight as he moved—he remembered Betsy struggling with her needle as he’d fought her off.
    He remembered her pleasant touch to his brow, her words warm against his ear and the sizzling heat of her kiss on his palm. Had he dreamed it? There was no sign of her, but as he’d dreamed he recalled how the air had shivered with an uncommon vibrancy whenever she was near.
    He had an iron will. A man could not survive hard labor in the toughest territorial prison this side of Texas and be made of something less than steel. He’d hunted in the old ways of his grandfather, he’d fought in the War Between the States. He’d survived what should have killed him. If not even a