Gingham Bride. Jillian Hart

and slowly out, ready for the bite of the strap. She heard the rustle of clothing, imagining her father was drawing his arm back for the first powerful blow. This won’t be so bad, she told herself, gathering what strength she had. She could endure this as she had many times before. She braced herself for the worst. It was best if she thought of being elsewhere, maybe astride Flannigan galloping toward the horizon. She imagined the strike of snow on her face and freedom filling her up. If only she could ignore the hissing strap as it flew downward toward her.

      The lean-to door burst open with a thundering crack, and the strap never touched her back. Footsteps hammered on the board floor and Da cursed. Her eyes had adjusted enough to make out the shadowed line of two upraised arms, as if locked in battle. But the taller man, the stronger man, took the strap in hand and stepped away.

      “It’s over, O’Rourke,” Ian McPherson’s baritone boomed like an avalanche. “You won’t beat this girl again. You hear me?”

      “This is my house. You have no call giving me orders.”

      “If you want me to consider marrying the girl, I do.” Warm steel, those words, and coldly spoken. He unwound the strap from where it had wrapped around his hand. Had he caught it in midstrike? Was he hurt?

      It was hard to think past the relief rolling through her and harder to hear her thoughts over her father’s mumbled anger. He was saying something, words she couldn’t grasp, while Ian stood his ground, feet braced, stance unyielding. His words echoed in her hollow-feeling skull. If you want me to consider marrying the girl…

      She squeezed her eyes shut. Marry. She wasn’t yet eighteen; her birthday was nearly five months away. The last thing she wished to do with her life was to trust a man with it.

      “What is going on out here?” Ma’s sharp tone broke through whatever the men were discussing. Fiona opened her eyes, blinking against the stinging brightness as lamplight tumbled into the lean-to, glazing the man with blood staining his glove.

      “Just setting a few things straight with the boy.” Da pounded past her. “Don’t stand there gawkin’, woman. Get me a drink.”

      The door closed partway, letting in enough light to see the tension in his jaw. Ian McPherson hung the strap on the nail where it belonged, his shoulders rigid, his back taut. She inched toward the door, torn between being alone with an angry man and feeling responsible for his bleeding hand. He’d caught the strap, taking the blow meant for her.

      Warmth crept around her heart, but it couldn’t be something like admiration. No, she would not allow any soft or tender feelings toward the man who wanted to bridle her in matrimony. She would be less free than she was now; this she knew from her mother’s life. Still, no one aside from Johnny had ever stood up for her. It wasn’t as if she could leave Ian McPherson bleeding alone in the dark.

      “Is it deep?” She was moving toward him without a conscious decision to do so; she reached out to cradle his hand in her own. Blood seeped liberally from the deep gash in his leather glove. It had been a hard strike, then, if the strap had sliced through the material easily. She swallowed hard, hating to think that he was badly cut.

      “I believe I shall live.” Although the tension remained in his jaw and tight in his powerful muscles, his voice was soft, almost smiling. “I’ve been hurt much worse than this.”

      “If you have, then it wasn’t on my behalf.” She gingerly peeled off his glove, careful of the wound, which looked much worse once she could clearly see it. Her stomach winced in sympathy. She knew exactly how much that hurt. “Come into the kitchen so I can clean this properly.”

      “I left the horses standing, and that’s not good for them in this cold.” He withdrew his hand from hers, although slowly and as if with regret. “I’ll bandage it myself when the horses are comfortable.”

      “This should not wait.” Men. Even Johnny had been the same, oblivious to common sense when it came to cuts and illnesses. “You need stitches, and you cannot do that on your own.”

      “I might surprise you. I have some skill with a needle.”

      “Now you are teasing me.” She caught the upturned corners of his mouth. He wasn’t grinning, but the hint of it drew her and she smiled in spite of her objections to the man. “I’m not going to like you. I think it’s only fair that I give you honest warning.”

      “I appreciate that.” He didn’t seem offended as he pulled away and punched through the door, holding it open to the pummeling snow. “It’s only fair to tell you that I don’t dislike you nearly as much as I expected to, Fiona O’Rourke. Now, stay in the house where it’s warm. I’ll be back soon enough and you can minister to my cut to your heart’s content.”

      The shadows did not seem to cling to her with their sadness as he offered her one lingering look, and reassurance washed over her. She could not explain why she felt safe in a way she never had before; nothing had changed. Not one thing. Da was still drinking in the kitchen, Ma was still worn and irritable with unhappiness and exhaustion as salt pork sizzled in a fry pan, and yet the lamplight seemed brighter as she followed it through the door and into the kitchen where more work awaited her.

      He had not bargained on feeling sorry for the girl and bad for her plight. Ian took a drink of hot tea, uncomfortable with the tension surrounding him. Other than the clink of steel forks on the serviceable ironware plates, there was no other sound. Mrs. O’Rourke, a faded woman with sharp angles and a sallow face, kept her head down and shoveled up small bites of baked beans, fried potatoes and salt pork with uninterrupted regularity. Mr. O’Rourke was hardly different, his persistent frown deepening the angles of his sharp features.

      These were not happy nor prosperous people. What had happened to the family over the years? What hardships? While it wasn’t his business, he was curious. This was not the wealthy family from his grandparents’ stories. Not sure what to say, he kept silent and broke apart a sourdough biscuit to butter it. Searing pain cut through his hand. He’d used a strip of cloth as a bandage, but judging by the looks of things the cut was still bleeding. He would worry about it later. His mind was burdened, and he had greater concerns.

      A single light flickered in the nearby wall lamp, but it was not strong enough to reach beyond the circle of the small table. He’d caught a glimpse of the kitchen when he’d come in from the barn, but Mrs. O’Rourke had been in the process of carrying the food from the stove to the table in the corner of the spare, board-sided room. A ragged curtain hung over a small window, the ruffle sagging with neglect. The furniture was spare and decades old, battered and hardly more than serviceable. Judging by the outline of the shack he’d seen through the storm, the dwelling was in poor repair and housed three tiny rooms, maybe four.

      Nana is never going to believe this, he thought as he set down his cup. What happened to the O’Rourke family’s wealth? Times looked as if they had always been hard here. His chest tightened. He had some sympathy for that. Recent hardships had broken his family. But he reckoned in the old days when they had all been sitting around the peat fire dreaming of the future, his grandparents could not have foreseen this. There was no fortune here to save the McPherson family reputation. His grandmother was going to be devastated.

      “More beans?” O’Rourke grunted from the head of the table, holding the bowl that had barely one serving remaining.

      Ian shook his head and took a bite of the biscuit, his troubles deepening. What of the marriage bargain made long ago, in happier times? How binding was it? It was clear the O’Rourkes wanted their daughter married. But what did Fiona want? Not marriage, by the way she was avoiding any evidence of his existence. She stared at her plate, picking at her food, looking as if in her mind she were a hundred miles away. Her features were stone, her personality veiled.

      His fingers itched to sketch her. To capture the way the light tumbled across her, highlighting the dip and fall of her ebony locks and her delicate face. She could have been sculpted from ivory, her skin was so perfect. The set of her pure blue eyes and the slope of her nose and the cut of her chin were sheer beauty. There was something about her that would be harder