Page 59 of Heart on the Line

“I lingered, you know. Watched him fall. Watched the crowd scatter. Watched for you. But you didn’t show. Just let your father bleed all over the street. Alone.”

She opened her eyes but didn’t see her captor. All she saw was her father lying in that street, rubbing his spectacles. Signaling her to run. To spare her life, but more than that, to resist evil and protect the cause of right.

That final act of courage, of selflessness, crept under her skin. Sharpened her wits. Stiffened her determination.

Lockhart thought to weaken her spirit, to force her into a corner with an impossible choice.

Well, she happened to know someone who specialized in the impossible. She’d not leave the future in Lockhart’s hands, not when there were better hands for the job.

Grace drew in a steadying breath, then stared Milt directly in the face. “‘The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord: he is their strength in the time of trouble.’”

His mouth pursed and the veins in the side of his head started to bulge. “Not this garbage again.”

She ignored him and continued on, her soul and her voice growing stronger with each word. “‘He shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him.’”

Eyes glowing with rage, Lockhart uncrossed his arms, lunged forward, and slapped Grace across the face. “Shut up!”

Her cheek stung and her jaw ached, but her heart clung fast to hope.

29

Get back in that bed, Leander, before I fetch the rope and tie you up again.” Helen stood, hands on hips, and glowered at her hardheaded mule of a patient, who didn’t have the sense God gave a blind armadillo.

“Get out of my way, Helen, before I pick you up and move you myself.” The fool stood in his bare feet, shredded trousers, and mussed hair like some kind of crazed warrior, ready to defy any obstacle that dared block his path.

Well, she dared. And she wasn’t backing down.

“You were practically dead yesterday. It’s too soon to be out of bed, and you know it. Let the marshal handle it.”

He strode toward her without a wince, the crutch he’d fashioned from a tree branch and a wad of old rags supporting him as he moved. Bearing weight on his injured leg must have been excruciating, yet he didn’t let on.

Helen had to admit that he’d accomplished more than she’d ever thought possible while she’d been gone. He’d found his discarded trousers, somehow managed to get his one good leg into the right side and fastened the top about his waist with a white braid that seemed to have been woven from strips sliced from one of the extra bandage rolls. Not only that, but he’d bypassed her barring of the door by taking the entire thing off its hinges. Then he’d proceeded to make his way to the pecan grove, find a suitable branch to use as a crutch, and drag it back to the cabin.

Helen eyed his flushed face and perspiring brow, then frowned. The starch went out of her spine as she hurried to his side and lifted the back of her hand to his forehead. Warm.

“You’re pushing yourself too hard, Lee. Please. I know you want to help Grace, but killing yourself in the process does no one any good. Think of Rachel. Think of—”

His rigid posture relaxed just a bit, and something softened in his eyes. “Think of who, Helen?”

She turned away, marched over to the stove, and started slamming pans around. Well, pan, really. There was just the one. But she made the most of it, getting a spoon in on the action. She needed to fill the silence with something, anything, other than the words burning on the tip of her tongue.

Then a hand touched her shoulder.

Slowly, taking special care not to move too fast and throw him off-balance, Helen turned toward the man who was trying to walk out of her life. She might be an expert at avoiding men, but that didn’t make her a coward.

Lee met her gaze, his eyes penetrating. “Think of who, Helen?”

“Think of me. All right?” She twisted sideways and tossed her spoon back into the pan on the stove. The rattle echoed loudly in the room, but not as loudly as the thumping of her heart. “I gave up four days of my life saving your sorry hide,” she spouted, “and you just want to throw it all away, as if it doesn’t matter. Well, it does matter. You matter.”

“So does Grace Mallory.” His quiet voice, so calm and controlled, stoked her outrage.

“You think I don’t know that? That I don’t care?” She sidestepped him and paced to the hole where her door used to be then pivoted sharply to face him. “Grace is my friend. I want to do whatever I can to help her. But you killing yourself won’t do her any good. You’re barely strong enough to stand. How do you think you’re going to mount a horse with that leg? If you can even find a horse. Yours is roaming the countryside at the moment.”

The softness left Lee’s gaze. His eyes narrowed in warning. “Helen.”

“Do you think I don’t understand? That I don’t know what it’s like to feel powerless when someone stronger steals away something you are responsible for? Something you love?” She stormed back toward him and jabbed a finger in his face. “You’re not the only one to grow up in a house filled with violence, under the thumb of a man who thought he controlled you. Who stole everything you ever loved and used it against you.

“I watched my mother die, Lee.” Helen’s arm fell to her side. “Watched her body break and her spirit wither away. And I was powerless to stop it. I know how helplessness eats at your soul and drives you to take crazy risks. I went so far as to purposely incite my father’s wrath so he would take his nightly anger out on me instead of her, but it didn’t save her. She died anyway.”