Captured by Love (Michigan Brides #3)(87)

Red Fox nodded, his expression somber. “I will take her now.”

“If possible, bring my canoe back to this place and hide it.” Pierre didn’t know how or when he’d be able to return. Although he had a slim chance of surviving the chase, he knew he’d have a much better chance if he had his canoe.

Pierre took one final look at Angelique’s sleeping form, then said farewell to Red Fox and turned toward the forest. Whether he lived or not, he had the feeling it was the last time he’d ever see her.





Chapter

24



Angelique fell into Miriam’s arms, and she sobbed against the woman’s shoulder, her breath coming in deep, wrenching heaves. After three days of hard paddling back to the island and containing her sorrow, she couldn’t hold it in any longer.

Each stroke away from Pierre, every league between them made the parting more painful and more permanent. It hadn’t helped that Red Fox had driven them with a relentless urgency, constantly looking over his shoulder to the lake behind them and to the shore, with fear creasing his weathered forehead.

“Angel, Angel . . .” Miriam murmured, her gentle hands caressing Angelique’s hair, combing it back from her forehead.

Angelique knew she ought to be happy to return to her beloved island. She should be overjoyed to see Miriam after the weeks apart. But she couldn’t pretend any longer how utterly wretched she was.

She hadn’t known just how wretched she’d been until she arrived at the farm and Miriam pulled her into an embrace. She knew then that nothing mattered to her as much as Pierre. And now he was gone. In fact, he’d left her without even saying good-bye. When Red Fox had awoken her in the early morning darkness with instructions to pack the canoe, there hadn’t been a trace of Pierre anywhere.

Red Fox had answered her questions about Pierre’s absence with grunts. She’d only been able to assume that Pierre had been too hurt and angry and hadn’t wanted to say good-bye.

“Oh, Miriam,” Angelique said as she wiped the tears from her cheeks, “it’s good to see you again.”

“God be praised.” Miriam’s cheeks were wet with tears too. Her beautiful, unseeing eyes shone with both joy and sorrow. “I never stopped praying for your safe return.”

Angelique took quick stock of the farm, the tall weeds, the untended garden with its yellow withered leaves, the fields that were ripe for harvest. All of Pierre’s hard work from the summer was wasting away. Would they be able to harvest enough to last them through the winter?

Yellow Beaver had already entered the enclosed garden and had started picking some of the vegetables that hadn’t rotted. Red Fox had disappeared inside the barn. He’d explained that Pierre had made arrangements for Yellow Beaver to stay with her and Miriam for the winter.

Even so, Angelique couldn’t shake the despair or the fear that had assaulted her the moment she’d stepped onto the beach near Main Street. When she’d walked the sandy path past Ebenezer’s Inn, she’d tried not to think about what he would do to her once he discovered she was back.

She wouldn’t be able to rely on him to help feed her and Miriam in the coming months. Although they’d have Yellow Beaver’s help, would it be enough?

Miriam lifted a hand to Angelique’s cheek after she’d explained all that had transpired during the time she’d been gone. “You’ve changed,” Miriam said, letting her fingers trail over Angelique’s features to do the seeing for her.

Angelique nodded. She felt as though she’d somehow passed a test. As excruciating as it had been to withhold herself from Pierre, she’d done it. She’d done something her mother had never had the strength or willpower to do. She’d done what was right, even though it had been the hardest thing she’d ever accomplished.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the ugly red marks on Miriam’s hand. “Miriam, what happened to your hand?” But she didn’t need to ask. She already knew that Miriam had burned herself over the fire, just as she’d done too many times since her eyesight had failed.

Miriam tried to pull her hand away, but Angelique wouldn’t let go. “Do you have any salve left?”

“I don’t know.”

Miriam’s confession twisted Angelique’s heart.

As she entered the cabin to look for the salve, one glance confirmed Miriam’s plight. There were flies hovering above a piece of molding squash on the table next to the skeletal remains of a fish, the floor was littered with refuse, and the woodbox sat empty. The scent of charred food permeated the stale air, along with the smell of a chamber pot in need of cleaning.

Her friend needed her. No matter what the future held, for the time being she was where she needed to be.

She was smoothing the ointment over Miriam’s burns when Red Fox exited the barn with Pierre’s boyhood canoe slung over his shoulders. He strode toward her with the same confident walk Pierre always had. “Get me a paddle,” he commanded.

Angelique stared at Pierre’s canoe with unease. “Why do you have Pierre’s canoe?” He would be with his brigade in the long vessels crafted to carry pounds and pounds of trade goods out to the Indian winter camps. Once he arrived he’d trade the beads, guns, ammunition, coats and other items to the Indians in exchange for the fur pelts the natives had trapped. He wouldn’t need the little canoe. It was in need of patching anyway.