Rocky Mountain Man (Historical) by Jillian Hart Page B

wanted to hate the old woman, like a demon shivering in shadows and hellish light, her narrow face taut so that she looked to be all but eyes, teeth and bone. His mouth was filling, his body trembling, he could feel the violence gathering in his fisted stomach.
    â€œBut if you don’t, on my grave, I’ll tell her everything. Is that what you want?”
    Betsy would look at him with hate in her eyes, like this woman, her grandmother, someone she trusted. Someone she’d believe without question. He remembered the sound of her tears, he remember her words, Thank you. It is so little for such a great deed. You are my only hero. No one had ever said such things to him. It hadn’t mattered how he’d treated her, shame filled him at the memory. He’d only been trying to drive her off, to keep himself safe, but all he’d done was be cruel to a truly good woman.
    No matter how vicious he was to her, she was irrepressibly cheerful, and he hated it and nothing, nothing would stop the agony of seeing Betsy, who’d held him in her lap and cried, pushing him away. Repulsed. Hate-filled. Seeing nothing but a monster.
    Oh, no. The force was gathering inside him. Pain, worse than any he’d known, blackened his soul, roaring up from the bottom of his spirit, tearing through his body, filling his mind. The realization made sweat break out anew. He’d never see Betsy again. Never need to hide out in the forest or in his workshop during her weekly visit. No more grumbling. No more abrasive fury. No more sunshine yellow dresses and charming smiles.
    Bile flooded his mouth, his abdomen jerked, his head lashed and physical pain made his eyes fail. There was only blackness and burning fire and desolation as he became sick, turning his agonized body to the side of the bed. Shame filled him.
    Drained him.
    Â 
    Betsy wished she could stop crying. It made no sense to weep for a perfectly not-nice man. No, no one with a lick of common sense would be choking on sorrow at the thought of never again seeing the scowling, growling and vicious-mannered mountain man. But all she could think about was how vulnerable he’d looked in death, and sorrow clawed through her like an eagle’s lethal talons.
    He wasn’t such a bad man. No, not at all. For all the times she’d dreaded driving into the far-reaching cloud of his hate that hovered over the forest like a fog, she would give anything to have him alive. Alive to scowl at her and to spit and hiss like a cornered mountain lion whenever she arrived a bit too early or late with the laundry delivery and caught him by surprise. Or like last time, when he hadn’t even been expecting her. He’d come to her aid like a real hero. She pushed her face into her hands, sobbing, more agony shredding her until she was like a spider’s web blowing in the wind, unwinding.
    The gentle sounds of the night did not calm her. She let the tears fall and they kept rising through her in hot, twisting sorrow as the moonlight washed through the open window to gleam like a pearl on the lacy curtains and paint the intricate pattern of the lace onto the polished wood floor. The warm wind puffed through the mesh screen and brought with it the smell of ripe apples from the orchard and honeysuckle sweetness from the trellis where the vines clung to the sides of the house. The near silent glide of an owl cut through the moonlight and flickered a total brief darkness onto the window.
    â€œDon’t grieve him overly much,” Joshua had told her when he’d seen her safely home. “He was no good. An outcast. He lived far away from decent people for a reason.”
    Oh, how wrongly Joshua assumed. He saw only the outside Duncan Hennessey. Her least favorite customer was everything unpleasant, but she’d seen inside him to the man she’d always suspected was there. A great wounded man who would give his own life to defend a woman he didn’t even