The Drifter

Leah glared at the too-familiar blued barrel, the callused finger curling intimately around the trigger. “Don’t think for a minute that you can intimidate me. I won’t allow it. I absolutely won’t. Is that clear?”

His lazy gaze strayed over her and focused on her hands, clutching the bag in white-knuckled terror. “Clear as a day in Denver, ma’am.”

She hated the mocking edge to his voice. “Sir, if you hope to give your wife a decent chance to recover, you’ll let me go, and after the rain you’ll bring her to the house where I can treat her.”

“You call yourself a doctor. So how come you can only doctor people in your fancy house?”

Fancy? She almost laughed bitterly at that. Where had he been living that he’d consider the boardinghouse fancy?

“I refuse to debate this with you,” she informed him.

“Fine. I’m not fond of debating, either.”

“Good. Then—”

“Just get busy with Carrie, and I’ll be in the cockpit, making ready to weigh anchor.”

Red fury swam before her eyes, obliterating everything, even the hated gun barrel. “You will not,” she said. Her voice was low, controlled, yet he seemed to respond to her quiet rage. He frowned slightly, his hand relaxed on the gun, and he regarded her with mild surprise.

“Lady, for someone at the wrong end of a gun, you sure have a mouth on you.”

“Sir,” she went on, “you cannot simply pluck me from my home and sweep me away with you.”

She gestured again to indicate all the damage. Her gaze followed the fraying rope across the heading of the room; the line exited through a scuttle and was tied somewhere above.

“Sugar, it’s not that I want to sweep you away,” he said insolently. “It’s just that I need a doctor for Carrie.”

He stepped forward, and for the first time, she got a good look at his eyes. They were a cold blue-gray, the color of his gun barrel, and his gaze was piercing, as if he saw more of her than she cared for him to see. Leah experienced an odd sensation—as if the tide were tugging her along, drawing her toward a place she didn’t want to go and couldn’t avoid.

No. She would not surrender to this man.

“You cannot force me to come with you.” She looked pointedly at the flapping hatch. The wind made a sullen roar, twanging the shrouds against the mast abovedecks. “This ship is unseaworthy. Honestly, what sort of sailor are you, to be out in this tub of—”

“Shut up.” In one long-legged stride, he came to her and pressed the chilly round eye of the gun to her temple. “Just…shut up. Look, after Carrie’s better, we’ll put you on a ship back to the island.” He added under his breath, “And good riddance.”

The touch of the gun horrified her, but she refused to show it. “I will not go with you,” she stated. Clearly, this man had no appreciation for how determined she could be. He’d never outlast her. “I have too many responsibilities in Coupeville. Two of my patients are expecting babies any day. I’m treating a boy who was kicked in the head by a horse. I can’t possibly come along on a whim as your wife’s private physician.”

“Right.” He removed the barrel from her temple.

Relieved, she brightened and took a step toward the door. “I’m glad you decided to see reas—”

“Yeah. Reason. I know.” He gave her shoulder a shove, thrusting her back into the room. “Now get busy, woman, or I’ll make sure you don’t ever see your patients again.”

He stepped out into the companionway. Leah heard a bolt being thrust home as he locked her in the stateroom with his wife.

Standing in the bow of the creaking schooner, Jackson T. Underhill looked up at the sky. A white gash of lightning cleaved the darkness into eerie shards. The thunder roaring in its wake shouted a warning from the very throat of heaven. The storm came from the sea, blowing toward the shore. It was crazy to be out in this weather, crazy to sail in night so deep he could barely get a heading.

But Jackson had never been much for heeding warnings, heavenly or otherwise. He jammed his gun back into its felted holster, fastened the clips of his duster, and scowled when the wind tore at the backside of the coat, separating the flaps. The garment was made for riding astride a horse, not sailing a ship. But everything had happened in such a hurry, everything had changed so quickly, that the last thing on his mind had been fashion.

Bracing himself against the wind, he hoisted the sails. They went up squealing in protest, the mildewed canvas luffing. He hoped like hell the ship would hold together just long enough to make it to Canada. He’d been working on the rudder when Carrie had gotten sick, and had only managed to keep it from falling off with a hasty rig of lines connecting it to the helm. A sailor’s worst nightmare was being swept onto a lee shore in a storm with no steering. The vessel would round up into the wind and start going backward, then go to the opposite tack as the sails backwinded. It would seesaw its way toward shore with sails flapping and no control.

Jackson set his jaw and told himself the steering would hold. Once they were out of the country, there would be time to fix the schooner up right.

Over the quickening breeze, he heard indignant thumps and muffled shouts from the stateroom below. Add kidnapping to his list of crimes. That, at least, was a first for him.

Yet when a healthy puff of wind filled the sails, he felt a measure of relief. The unplanned stop at Whidbey Island hadn’t been so costly after all. He had a doctor for Carrie, and no one was the wiser. The doctor wasn’t at all what he’d expected, but he’d have to put up with her.

A lady doctor. Who would have thought it? He’d never even known such a thing could be possible.

Leah Mundy was a prickly female, all pinch-faced and lemon-lipped with disapproval, and there wasn’t a thing to like about her.

But Jackson did like her. He’d never admit it, of course, and would never find occasion to, but he admired her spirit. Instead of getting all womanish and hysterical when he’d come for her, she’d taken it like a man—better than most men he knew.

He felt a small twinge when he thought of the patients she wouldn’t see tomorrow, or the next day, perhaps even the day after that. But he needed her. God, Carrie needed her.

Pregnant. Carrie was pregnant. The thought seethed inside Jackson, too enormous for him to confront right now, so he thrust it aside, tried to forget.

Dr. Mundy would help Carrie. She would heal Carrie. She had to.

Jackson pictured her bending over to examine her patient. That’s when the doctor had changed, shed her ornery mantle. He’d seen something special in her manner—a sort of gentle competence that inspired unexpected faith in him.

It had been a long time since Jackson T. Underhill had put his faith in anyone. Yet Dr. Leah Mundy inspired it. Did she know that? Did she know he was already thinking of her as an angel of mercy?

He figured he’d thank her, maybe even apologize as soon as they got under way. It was the least he could do for a woman he’d ripped from a warm, dry bed and dragged along on an adventure not of her choosing. The least he could do for a woman he intended to take to Canada, then abandon.

He’d cranked in the anchor and moved to the helm when he heard a strange thunk, then an ominous grinding noise. The whine of a rope through a wooden pulley seared his ears. With a sick lurch of his gut, he looked behind him. The line he’d used as a temporary fastening for the rudder was slithering away.

He let go of the wheel and dove for the rope. A split second before he reached it, the rope disappeared, snakelike, through a scuttle in the hull.

“Shit!” Jackson said, then held his breath. Maybe the rudder would stay put. Maybe—

A terrible wrenching sound shattered the night. Then a quiet hiss slid through the noise of the storm. Jackson hurled himself at the aft rail and looked over.

His curses roared with the thunder. Dr. Leah Mundy, his angel of mercy, his divine savior, had just wrecked his ship.

Two

17 April 1894

My dear Penelope,

I debated quite a bit with myself about whether or not I should relate what happened to me in the wee hours of the morning. The temptation is great to stay silent.

But since you are determined to become my partner in the practice when you complete your medical studies, I feel I owe you an unvarnished picture of what a physician’s life is truly like.

Sometimes we are called upon to treat cases against our will. Such was the circumstance around three o’clock this morning when a man abducted me at gunpoint.

Somehow I managed to keep my wits about me. The scoundrel forced me aboard his ship to treat his ailing wife, who is with child. His intention was to sail away with me aboard so that I could tend to the unfortunate woman.