Lydia. Elizabeth Lane

to see Katy’s carries and borrows, not even to retrieve the cloak she had left on a kitchen chair. The cold spring breeze buffeted her skirts, chilling her through the thin shirtwaist as she swung into the saddle.

      Donovan had pulled himself to his feet. Catching Sarah’s eye, he raised his hand in a mocking salute. The insolent gesture snapped the final thread of her hard-won self-control.

      “I should have just let you lie there!” she sputtered, jabbing her heels into the mule’s shaggy flanks. “I should have let you die!”

      Jerking the reins, she wheeled the mule and bolted for the trees. A gust of wind caught her tousled hair, whipping it loose to stream behind her like a banner. Her spectacles dangled forgotten from the silver brooch on her shirtwaist. Tears blinded her eyes—tears she could not afford to let Donovan see.

      She clung to the saddle, grateful for the mule’s sure feet as they lurched down the trail. Donovan’s mocking kiss burned her lips and seared her memory. He had all but undone her, she realized. Another instant in his arms and her defenses would have shattered.

      At close quarters, she was no match for him. He was too bitter; she was too vulnerable. Her only hope, Sarah knew, lay in keeping her distance—that, and fighting him with the one sure weapon that lay within her reach.

      The truth.

      

      Chilled, now that his rage was spent, Donovan shivered in the raw spring wind. His lips stung with the memory of kissing Sarah. His cracked ribs burned like a jab from the devil’s own pitchfork.

      Reaching for his flannel shirt, he slipped his arms awkwardly into the sleeves. As his numbed fingers worked the buttons, Sarah’s parting epithet rang in his ears.

       I should have let you die!

      His fingers brushed the ridge of the muslin bandage. It was true that Sarah had probably saved his life. A minute more under the crushing weight of those timbers, and the breath would have been squeezed from his body. She had saved him, just as she’d saved Varina and the baby.

      But it wasn’t enough.

      Donovan rubbed his burning mouth with the back of his hand, wiping away the taste of her deceitful lips. His jaw tightened as he forced himself to remember what she had done.

      As Lydia Taggart, Sarah Parker Buckley had plotted against her friends and neighbors in Richmond—people who had welcomed and accepted her. She had used trusting young men like Virgil to betray the Confederacy. Her lying ways had killed Virgil as surely as if she’d fired the mortar shell that shattered his body. And Virgil was only one man. Who could say how many other lives her treachery had cost the South?

      No, Donovan told himself, whatever good Sarah had done here in Miner’s Gulch, it wasn’t enough. It didn’t balance the scales. It couldn’t buy back Virgil’s life.

      He exhaled painfully as the mule’s iron-shod hooves echoed down the gulch. Kissing Sarah had been a damn fool thing to do, he reflected. He’d started out with the idea of keeping things clean and businesslike between them. All he’d wanted was to get her out of Miner’s Gulch, away from his kinfolk. Then something in him had gone haywire.

      Why couldn’t he have left well enough alone? What was it about the woman that turned him into a raving lunatic every time she came within shouting distance?

       I should have let you die!

      And she should have, Donovan realized as Sarah’s bitter words flashed through his memory like summer lightning. He had told no one about her past, not even Varina. If he had died, her black secret would have died with him.

      She must have known it. Sarah was no fool. Another minute’s delay in moving the timbers, that’s all it would have taken. His death would have been a tragic accident, with Varina and the children as witnesses. No jury on earth would have found her guilty.

      Yet, she had chosen to save him.

      Donovan’s cracked ribs screamed as he picked up the hammer and slammed it against a stump. Sarah Parker Buckley possessed all the maddening qualities of a good woman—and her goodness was driving him crazy. She was sucking away at his resistance like a blasted leech.

      Was that what had driven him to kiss her? Was it the idea that it was easier to punish a bad woman than a good oneeasier to punish Lydia Taggart than saintly Sarah?

      The wind had freshened, bringing the scent of another storm. Donovan glowered at the encroaching clouds, cursing under his breath. Why did everything in life have to be so hellishly complicated? Why couldn’t Sarah have been a man—someone he could simply challenge to a gunfight or thrash to a bloody pulp? Why did she have to be so beautiful, so soft, so full of courage?

      “Uncle Donovan?” Katy’s forlorn little voice shattered his reverie. He turned to see her standing alone on the porch, clutching her slate.

      “Where’s Miss Sarah, Uncle Donovan? I wanted her to come in and see my carries and borrows.”

      “Uh—Miss Sarah had to leave in a hurry.” Donovan squirmed under her innocent scrutiny. “She said to tell you she was sorry,” he added, hating the lie but seeing no other way out.

      “But I was all ready to show her.” Katy’s small head drooped. The sight of her tugged at Donovan’s heart. Annie was the bright sister, the capable, responsible one. And young Samuel was the best natured of Varina’s brood. But it was lively, loving little Katy who had truly won him.

      He lifted her chin with a solicitous finger. She and her sister deserved toys and fun and pretty dresses, he thought, not ragged clothes, hard work and a miserable shack in the mountains with no father to look after them.

      “Hey, where’s that smile?” he cajoled her.

      “It’s hiding!” Katy clutched her slate to her chest. “I want Miss Sarah to come back!”