Banner O'Brien (35 page)

Banner reached out to massage taut, tension-corded shoulders, knew a quiet joy as Adam began to relax. “Did you find Mr. Royce?”

“No. But I will.”

“Adam . . .”

He made a groaning sound as Banner worked more of the fierce hardness from his muscles. “If you’re going to tell me that I should overlook what happened to Jeff,” he muttered, “don’t bother. I can live with the beating I took, but what they did to my brother is another matter.”

“They? So you do think that Sean was involved, as well as Temple Royce?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you suppose they brought Jeff back here the way they did, instead of just killing him?”

Banner’s fingers were moving on the sides of Adam’s neck, kneading away some of the fury that was knotted there. He moaned and rolled his head.

“They worked him over—left a lot of marks—but they obviously didn’t want Jeff laid up for long. It was, as he said, a warning.”

Banner lowered her hands and shifted until she was sitting beside her husband. Her throat ached and she lowered her eyes to hide the tears glistening there. “If it hadn’t been for me, none of this would be happening. I should have known that Sean would find me—”

Adam caught her face in both hands and forced her to look at him. “Stop it, O’Brien. You’re the best thing that’s happened to this family in years, and I, for one, would rather take a thousand beatings than lose you.”

“Jeff and the others might not feel the same way,” replied Banner, her lower lip quivering. “I wish I’d never come here, never brought all this trouble—”

Adam broke off her anguished ramblings with a fierce kiss; even as he manuvered her onto his lap, his tongue invaded her mouth, heralding the thorough possession to come.

Banner’s nipples became hard buttons beneath the thin, gauzy cloth of her camisole. And as Adam had no doubt intended, all thoughts of their problems fled her mind.

After a time, Adam positioned her on the bed, her
hips at its edge, her legs dangling over the side. Deftly, he stripped her of her drawers and her camisole. She moaned and flung her head back and forth in a pagan fever as he knelt at the silken altar to worship.

“The gossips say you howl for me,” he said, his voice muffled in the quivering softness that awaited him so eagerly.

Half-wild, Banner gasped, “You aren’t exactly—impassive—yourself!”

The punishment for this small defiance was one tormenting kiss. “Some rumors are true, aren’t they, O’Brien?”

Heat surged through Banner; her knees did not need the tender pressure of his hands to part them further. Still, though, she denied him the answer he wanted.

Idly, he tongued her. “Admit it, O’Brien. This time the gossipmongers know what they’re talking about—don’t they?”

Banner’s back arched in a spasm of pleasure. “Yes,” she conceded, breathless.
“Yes!”

Adam’s throaty chortle was triumphant, and his fingers came up to ply Banner’s aching nipples as he enjoyed her.

Frantic, hands clawing at the bedclothes, Banner allowed her fierce pride to give way to a fiercer passion, and she relinquished the raspy cry of triumph and surrender that she had tried so hard to stifle. And as she drifted back down, onto the piercing pleasure that waited to hurl her into the skies again, she smiled.

There was no denying it; the gossips were right. She
had
howled for Adam Corbin, and she wasn’t ashamed.

*  *  *

Jeff was fully dressed and pacing the ward when Banner arrived, summoned by a worried Maggie.

“Get back into that bed this instant!”

Jeff faced her and brought his imperious, aristocratic nose to within inches of Banner’s. “No!” he yelled.

“Yes!” Banner shouted back, noting the white strain in his face and the way he held his splinted arm close to his body in an unconscious attempt to shield it.

“It’s been
three days,
Banner!”

Banner lifted her hands to her hips, as immovable as her brother-in-law. “I don’t care,” she said firmly.
“Get back into that bed.”

Jeff turned away, sat down on the edge of the bed in question. “Bring me a woman and I will.”

“Jeff Corbin!”

He smiled thinly, and with heart-wrenching effort. “Just one woman?” he wheedled.

Banner blushed. “You are completely impossible.”

He laughed and fell back onto the mattress, clearly spent by the brief and fiery exchange. “I’m glad you think so,” he said, and two seconds later he was asleep again.

Banner smiled and shook her head and, on impulse, bent to kiss her brother-in-law’s bruised forehead. “Idiot,” she said fondly, just before she went off to search the examining rooms for Adam.

She did not find him, but standing at the windows and worrying about where he might be, she caught sight of a familiar, brawny frame at the edge of the woods. Daniel?

Quickly, her heart in her throat, Banner found her cloak and draped it across her shoulders as she ran outside, across the backyard, toward the woods.

“Daniel?” she cried, coming to a stop when she reached the line of thick trees. “Daniel!”

He came out of the foliage, his wonderful, hideous face contorted, frantic. “I didn’t want to come here—I couldn’t—”

Banner went to her father-in-law without fear, caught his thick arms in her hands. “What is it, Daniel? Tell me what’s the matter.”

“Lulani,” he managed, in a choking voice, his anguish
rising up around them both like a separate entity. “She’s—she’s hurting so much—”

Banner was already turning away, her mind racing. “Wait here, Daniel,” she called to him. “I’ll get some horses and my bag.”

“Hurry!” pleaded Daniel.

Banner found her bag immediately, filled it with supplies plundered from Adam’s cabinet, and raced outside again. On the wall outside the surgery door was a large slateboard and chalk that Adam used to advise callers of his whereabouts.

Under his almost illegible scribble, she wrote one word: mountain.

The old man who worked in the stables saddled the two horses Banner demanded without question, though his eyes were full of suspicion. No doubt, he would recount this episode to Adam the moment he saw him, but that didn’t matter.

*  *  *

Sean grinned, glad that he had resisted the urge to follow Banner when she left in such a hurry. She’d taken two horses instead of one. Did she have a lover hidden away somewhere?

No matter; Sean couldn’t think about that now. The fancy doctor was whirling away from the slateboard fixed to an outside wall of the house, running toward the stables at a speed Sean wouldn’t have thought possible, considering the working over he’d taken.

Sean forced himself to wait until Corbin had come out of the stables again, mounted on a dancing black stallion. If he followed too quickly, or too closely, he would be seen, and he was damned if he wanted to deal with Adam Corbin now, without the element of surprise in his favor.

Once a few minutes had passed, Sean lumbered into the saddle of a horse he’d borrowed from Royce.

Royce. He smiled again as he prodded the animal
into a leisurely trot. He’d wanted to be in on this, Temple had.

And to hell with him. This was Sean’s battle, and he wasn’t going to let anyone else have a piece of it.

*  *  *

Banner stumbled out of the cabin, her bag forgotten. “Daniel,” she said to the man who waited with slumped shoulders beside a tree. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

There was no sound from Daniel, no outward indication of his grief.

“Adam will be here soon,” Banner whispered, feeling a need to comfort this man who had already suffered so much loss and pain. “I left word for him and I know he’ll come.”

Though Daniel did not turn to face her, he spoke at last. “Lulani won’t hurt any more.”

“No. She’s resting now.”

“I loved her.”

“I know, Daniel. I know.”

He rounded on her, his deformed face bright with tears. “I loved my Katie, too, but I couldn’t live with her—I had to leave.”

Banner nodded, her throat tight. “You needn’t explain to me, Daniel.”

“I don’t want you to think that Adam will be like me—that he’ll betray you the way I did his mother. He’s strong and he’s good, my son.”

“Yes,” said Banner. “But so are you, Daniel, or you couldn’t have made the sacrifices you have.”

Somewhere in the trees, a bird sang a lonely song. “Go back, Banner,” Daniel said. “Go home now. My son will be furious if he finds you here.”

Banner thrust out her chin. “I’m going nowhere, Daniel. Adam
will
be angry, but he’ll need me and I intend to stay.”

Daniel looked back at the cabin where Lulani was, still now. At peace. “Adam is a good husband? He doesn’t beat you?”

Banner swallowed. “No, he doesn’t beat me.”

“Well, he might, if you’re still here when he comes. You’ve taken a foolish chance, Banner—I should never have come near you, brought you here—”

“I know that. You came to the house for Adam, not me. How long did you stand out there in the woods, Daniel, waiting for him?”

The big man shrugged. “An hour—I don’t know. I was about to walk up and knock on the door when you saw me and came out. I’m grateful to you for your help, Banner.”

Her eyes fell to the loamy, spring-warmed earth. “I wasn’t much help, I’m afraid. Lulani was gone when I reached her.”

Daniel nodded, and there was a vacant ache in his blue eyes. “I’ll sit with her,” he decided aloud, and then he was stumbling away, leaving Banner alone with a thousand thoughts and feelings.

Driven by these, she went to the edge of a nearby cliff, where a sturdy, gnarled old tree leaned out into open space, like a circus performer defying gravity. A sob rose from the core of her spirit as she considered Lulani’s passing and the terrible void it would leave in Daniel’s world.

Suddenly, her elbow was caught in a wrenching grasp and Banner found herself being spun around. Adam’s face was terrible to behold.

“What the
hell
are you doing up here, O’Brien?”

Tears burned in Banner’s eyes, blurring her vision. “It’s Lulani,” she broke in, almost choked by her despair. “Adam, L-Lulani’s dead!”

Adam closed his eyes, swayed a little. “When?” he asked, after a long interval.

“I don’t know exactly. She was gone when Daniel and I got here.”

“Papa—how is he?”

Banner wiped away her tears with the back of one hand. “He’s shattered, Adam.”

Adam lowered his head, nodded. “He’ll die without her, Banner.”

Banner wrapped her arms around her husband, held him. But her words of comfort were stopped in her throat when she looked past his shoulder and saw Sean striding toward them, a rifle in one hand.

At his wife’s gasp, Adam turned, but it was too late. The butt of Sean’s rifle landed in the middle of his face with a dull thud. He folded to the ground.

Scream after scream rattled through Banner, but she couldn’t utter a sound. She fell to her knees and reached for Adam, but Sean twisted his hand in her hair and wrenched her cruelly back to her feet.

“What good is he to you now, Banner?” he hissed. “Can he part your thighs now? Can he make you beg for his—”

“Stop,” pleaded Banner, closing her eyes.

Sean flung her away so that she sprawled on the ground. With one massive, meaty hand, he hauled a half-conscious Adam to his feet.

Banner watched in mute horror as her husband came out of his daze and braced himself to do battle with a man who had every intention of killing him. Sheer hatred sustained Adam, visible in every line of his body.

Blood streamed from a cut over his eyes, but he seemed oblivious to it, to Banner, to everything but the smirking giant he faced. “Put down the rifle, big man,” Adam breathed, holding out both hands, beckoning. “Let’s see how well you can do in the daylight, one to one.”

Sean swung the rifle around, pressed its cold barrel hard into Banner’s right temple. “Don’t come any closer,” he said.

Adam froze. His gaze sliced, murderous, to Banner, who still sat on the ground, and then back to Sean. “If you hurt her,” he said evenly, “I’ll pull your spinal cord out and wrap it around your neck.”

Sean paled, but the rifle was firmly in place, and his free hand was working at the top button of his trousers. “She was never that good when I had her,” he said. “Let’s see what you’ve taught her, Corbin.”

Banner shrieked, suddenly vocal in her terror and her revulsion, and a hideous, answering cry came from the direction of the cabin.

Three people turned to stare as Daniel came raging toward them, bellowing like a madman, waving his crippled arms in the air.

He must have looked like a monster to Sean, a fugitive from some drunken nightmare. Banner watched as the color drained from Sean’s broad face, as he dropped the rifle and stumbled backward in blind fear, his mouth and throat working.

Daniel reached him and flung himself upon him before anyone else could move. Sean screamed as both men tumbled over the cliff.

The world seemed to shift and shimmer around Banner in the following moments, like a heat mirage. She was aware that Adam raced to the edge of the cliff, looked over, grasped the gnarled tree to keep from falling.

At the same moment, Jeff arrived, his horse lathered and panting. He dismounted, stumbled over to Banner, hauled her to her feet with his good hand. And all the while his eyes were on Adam, who still clung to the tree at the brim of the cliff. “What happened here?”

Before Banner could even summon the breath to answer, Adam threw back his head and roared,
“Nooooooo!”

Jeff strode to his brother’s side, drew him away from his perilous position by the cliff. “Adam! Adam, for God’s sake—”

Banner held her breath as Adam flailed free of Jeff’s grasp and shouted, “Look for yourself, damn you! Look for yourself!”

Pale, Jeff looked over the cliff’s edge, swayed. Had
Adam not grabbed his arm and flung him away again, he would certainly have fallen.

He jerked free of his older brother, staggering, searching the cliff for a way down over it. “No,” Jeff sobbed, as he found what he sought and made his way down a steep natural path, pebbles sliding beneath his boots.