The Wedding Bargain

Or was it that he did not want to be liberated?

The broad blade of the ax crashed down on an unoffending branch and buried itself in the wood. Rafe wrenched the handle free.

Struck again.

And again.

A peculiar certainty stole over him as he gripped the hickory handle, counterbalancing the quivering strength of the tree. As he worked Rafe absorbed the rhythm of the axe, his bonding with it the key to survival in this wilderness.

There was a bond, a link, between Charity Frey and himself as well, and such a connection could never be broken…

He heard a shout and twisted his head a fraction, but could see nothing amiss. Those pernicious children never gave up.

“A snake! Master Trehearne, a snake!”

Benjamin came tearing out of the barn just as Rafe swung the ax. It bit deep. He tried to wrench it free, but the handle came loose in his hand. Damnation! Now it would take him a quarter of an hour to repair the ax. It was all the fault of Charity Frey’s pesky sons.

Rafe’s head jerked up. “What proof can you give?”

“I tell you true!”

“How may I know that you tell the truth?” He did not even bother to sound contemptuous.

“You gotta believe me, sir. It’s gonna get Isaac!”

There was a peculiar, tense silence. Then, from the barn, came a high-pitched scream.

It was Isaac. The boy shrieked as if someone had stuck a knife into him.

Rafe knew the sound of terror when he heard it. His pulse leapt. Abruptly all his blood was alive, singing danger through his veins. He sprang forward.

Between the barn door and the first stall was a bundle of hay. In the hay a snake was coiled—light gray with brown diamonds along its thick, muscular back.

A rattler!

Rafe’s whole body tingled. His legs trembled, but not with fear. He flexed his thigh muscles and pushed off from the balls of his feet. The spring gave him the momentum he needed. His outstretched hands clawed, gripped onto one of the timber roof struts. He swung himself from beam to beam until he was directly above the petrified boy.

Dropping back to the ground, he grabbed Isaac by the shoulders, pivoted and thrust him to safety, looking all the while for something to kill the rattler with. He cursed himself for a fool for not believing the boys earlier.

“Don’t move!” he commanded. The order was an explosive inflection. Isaac opened his mouth, closed it. Rafe was already in motion.

Under the loft at the end of the barn was a pile of fence posts. Rafe grabbed one, took the scythe that hung from a hook on the wall and stole slowly toward the reptile near the barn door.

He was only a few steps from the snake when it raised its head, its sinuous body already in motion. A rattling sound was the only warning Rafe received before the serpent sprang forward, an elongated, blurred shape. With the scythe Rafe met it halfway, pinning its neck against the barn sill while he struck at its head with the post. A shiver raced up his arm and his fingers went momentarily numb.

He ignored the pain. Struck again. And again. The snake hissed like a boiling kettle as it tried to escape the killing blows.

There was a blurred sense of time shifting, of an element being acutely out of place. A ferocious howling filled Rafe’s ears until it became too painful to hear. Desperately he shouted to his men. There was a sense then of reality breaking up into tiny fragments, overlapping one upon the other until clarity was lost and only a dizzying impression was left, like shadows milling.

A swirl of movement from just behind him heralded another danger. He took a deep breath, straining for control, and swung to meet the new threat.

Poised in the doorway, Charity stifled a gasp. Heart pounding, she stood there, her lips blue white, every limb trembling. She put her hands over her heart as if the gesture could stop the painful pounding. She could feel the blood rushing in and out of her heart, the thump-thump of its beat.

Rafe’s hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. Rivulets ran down his neck, over his bare chest. Raw emotion was clearly etched across his face.

“What happened?” she asked, her voice a feathery whisper.

“It could have bitten me, Mama,” Isaac said, then launched himself against her, wrapping both arms about her narrow waist, his bright head pressed hard against her breast. Her own arms enclosed him, holding him tight, as she had when he was an infant.

“Hush, child. You are safe now.” Her voice fractured and failed her.

The bondman flung the scythe from him, and the serpent slid to the floor, still quivering in death. There was a peculiar tautness in Rafe’s face.

He turned his hands over, staring at the backs—at the clenched fingers, the white knuckles, the white dressings, like bracelets at the wrist. He slammed his hands together.

Charity was panting, from the emotion running through her as much as from her breathless race from the top of the ridge. So many questions chased through her mind. She wished Rafe would look up at her. She knew that what she couldn’t say must be plain in her face.

But he did not.

“I am trained to kill and to stay alive.” He said the words slowly and softly. “Now there are times when instinct takes over—pure and lethal—because there is no time to think. Hesitate and you are dead.”

Rafe took a deep breath, let it go slowly. He paused and spread his hands, then continued in a stolid manner. “I am sorry if I upset you with my violence, ma’am, but I had an obligation to fulfil.”

Sudden intuition flooded her. He thought she was repelled because he had lost control of himself and she had witnessed his descent into mindless savagery and blood lust.

Instead, she had this almost overwhelming need to throw herself against his sweaty, blood-splattered body. Hug him to her as she did her son. It disturbed her how vulnerable she suddenly felt.

Charity closed her eyes, then opened them again. Her lips were dry, and she moistened them with the tip of her tongue. She was silent a moment, and then blurted out, “I am obliged to you for your quick thinking, sir.”

“The snake was in the bin Isaac was emptying…”

Benjie lost his voice. His pale, little face, on which the freckles stood out like dark stains, looked stricken and wretched.

Charity put a trembling hand on his shoulder, drew him close, as she had Isaac. Her hair was in disarray, falling in thick locks about her pale face, but she ignored it. “Thank you for saving…”

The preoccupied expression left Rafe’s face. “You don’t have to trouble to say it again, ma’am. I always keep my promises. You may rest assured that you and your family are safe while I bide here.”

She wanted to say something else, but no words came to her. In spite of the relief of finding the boys unharmed, she was still disorientated. It had all happened so quickly. A menacing figure, a demon, had become rescuer and friend between one moment and the next. She needed time to catch up.

Even though it lay dead in front of her, the serpent still inspired fear in her. The glittering, sinuous body was both dangerous and beautiful. There was something strangely fascinating about the creature.

Never had Charity so surely and manifestly experienced God’s protecting hand. Perhaps the tempter, the devil himself, had assumed this serpent’s shape and sneaked into their barn with foul intent—only to be ousted by this good man who, to all outward appearances, seemed wicked.

Things were not always as they seemed.

At last she heard herself say, “Perhaps the child was saved because we gave shelter to a man in need of redemption.” The thought stayed with her long after they had left the place.

The sun had begun to make its descent, but still hung high in the clear sky, spilling its heat over the clearing, when Charity unpacked a jar of lemonade and some spiceand-ginger biscuits from her basket.