The Beloved Woman by Deborah Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

yesterday, he was dressed in a white shirt and dark trousers, but this morning he had tucked the trousers into knee-high boots.
    His skin was so weathered that had it been a little darker, he would have passed for part Cherokee, except that no Cherokee had ever had such wavy chestnut hair. His mustache made him look like the handsome villain in a play. The gold nugget gleamed on the light background of his shirt.
    Grief and anger fought within her, equally matched. She felt yesterday’s anguish settling into her bones with fresh, sharp agony. It would have to work its way to the surface before she knew who she was again. Katherine wanted to hate every white settler in north Georgia.
    “How do you feel?” Justis asked gently as he walked to a bedside table.
    Could she hate this dangerous man who’d befriended her?
    “Leave me alone. I don’t need your help. You’re trash, just a thieving settler no matter how kindly you act. Men such as you aren’t fit to set foot on Cherokee land. Not so many years ago we would have burned you alive and laughed while you begged for mercy.”
    He stood beside the bed, looking miserable. “Katie, I know you hold it against me. Against every white man. If I thought it’d do a damned bit of good, I’d … All right, I will.”
    He set the tray down and went to her trunks and valises stacked neatly beside an armoire. Searching among them he found her doctor’s satchel and took the scalpelfrom it. He came back to her and laid it on the covers by her hand.
    Then he pulled his shirt off and sat on the edge of the bed with his broad, muscular back so close, she could see every hair, every freckle, the smallest workings of the flesh. “Go ahead,” he said gruffly. “There are plenty of scars there already. I don’t mind another one.”
    She stared at his back in horror. “I see them,” she whispered.
    “I’ve been in a lot of fights.” He waited for her to do or say something else. He never looked over his shoulder to see whether she’d picked up the knife.
    In the space of those few seconds she felt herself lose something deep and irretrievable from her soul. She began to cry silently because she knew she’d given it to the stranger who sat with his back bared to her, waiting stoically for her to hurt him.
    She choked on a sob and flung the scalpel to the floor. “I don’t hate you. Dear God, what are you trying to do to me?”
    His shoulders slumped. “I wish I knew, myself. I’m not prone to acting crazy.” Slowly he put his shirt back on. “Thank you, Katie.”
    Trembling violently, she pressed her hands to her forehead and tried to remember the evening before. As soon as he’d brought her back to the hotel he’d insisted that she drink some tea. Her recall ended with the soothing sound of his drawling voice.
Shut those sad eyes and rest, gal
. And it had been so easy to do that, especially when he slipped his arms under her and carried her here.
    Katherine leaned her head back, shut her eyes, and said dully. “You put something in the tea to make me sleep so that I wouldn’t question you anymore about my family or the farm.”
    “You needed the rest first.”
    She groaned at the headache that began pounding in her forehead. “Last night … I woke up once …” Hergaze darted to the rocking chair in one corner. “You were there. Why?”
    “Shhh.” He turned to face her, the weight of his big frame indenting the mattress so much that she rolled toward him, her hip nestling tightly against his. If he noticed the contact, he wisely said nothing. Instead, he lifted a strand of her hair. “I bet this almost reaches the floor when you stand up,” he murmured, rubbing the satiny black tresses between his fingertips and thumb. “And it’s so black that it’s got no shadows.”
    His frowning gaze traveled up her body, and Katherine finally realized that the quilt lay bunched at her waist and above that she was barely covered by a thin, sleeveless undershirt.