Banner O'Brien by Linda Lael Miller Page B

though visiting the Klallum camp had been a memorable adventure. “No one is sick?”
    He smiled and reached out to catch her hand in his, and the innocent contact gave Banner a certain sweet, piercing pleasure. “No one is sick,” he confirmed, and then they were on the way back to the horse and buggy that awaited them on the ridge.
    “Did they really offer you fish and a boat for me?” she asked when they were on their way again.
    Adam grinned. “Yes. The bargaining got pretty interesting inside the lodge, as a matter of fact.”
    “How interesting?”
    “Two of their women, a horse, and all the canoes I could ever want.”
    Banner suppressed a smile. “Why didn’t you trade?”
    Suddenly, Adam’s eyes were serious. “For the same reason I didn’t press my advantage when we stopped on the way,” he said.
    “And what reason was that?” Banner blurted out, before she could stop herself.
    He held the reins in one hand, caressed Banner’s cold-pinkened cheek with the other. “I didn’t have the right,” he answered hoarsely.
    Banner lowered her eyes, but he only forced her to look at him again.
    “Did you think I didn’t want you?” he asked.
    Color pounded in Banner’s cheeks at her own brazen reply. “Yes,” she said.
    “You were wrong, O’Brien. So very wrong.”
    Banner was still confused, though the knowledge that he had wanted her was soothing. Had he restrained himself out of respect for their professional relationship, or because he thought she was a virgin?
    And what was she wondering such scandalous things for anyway?
    Banner had a sudden need to tell Adam about Sean—all about Sean. About the beatings and the heartbreak and the terrible fear. “Adam, I—”
    But his hand fell away from her face and his eyes were suddenly very faraway. Was he thinking of the woman she was certain he kept somewhere nearby, remembering that she loved him and trusted him to be faithful?
    Banner swallowed a cluster of tears, and neither of them spoke until they had reached the Corbin house again.
    Even there they were drawn into the boisterous celebration of the midday meal, and the few words they exchanged were polite, superficial ones.
    *  *  *
    It was foggy on Puget Sound, and the masts creaked in rhythm with the tide. The great sails of the Jonathan Lee were useless.
    Temple Royce grasped the railing and swore. Where the hell was the wind?
    The first mate was peering through the shifting gloom of snow and murk. “That’s a cutter, all right,” he said. “We’re in dutch, Cap’n, if they catch us with all them Chinks below decks. And what about the rum and them bolts of wool cloth?”
    What, indeed. “You’re sure that’s a revenue cutter?” Temple asked, wondering how the man could recognize any craft in that weather.
    “I’ve been runnin’ one kind of smuggle or anotherfor forty years,” replied the mate. “And yes, sir, that’s a cutter for certain.”
    Temple sighed. His head ached and sickness churned in his stomach, rising and falling like foam on an unsettled sea. “Tell the men to dump the cargo,” he whispered.
    “All of it?”
    “All of it. And be quick, damn it.” With that, Temple hurried into his cabin and shut the door tight.
    Even so, he could hear the shrieks as the Chinamen were flung overboard, into the swallowing, frigid waters of the sound.
    Trying to console himself with the fact that some of the men would make it to shore, despite all odds, Temple found a bottle, opened it, and drank deeply. If there really was a hell, he thought, it would not consist of fire and brimstone. No, it would be a place where he was forced to relive this day, over and over again.
    *  *  *
    Stewart Henderson returned first thing Sunday morning. He was a small, plump, avid-looking man with moons of grime under his fingernails and a complicated system of wires holding his jaw in place.
    Because of this appliance, he spoke in a mumbling monotone. “You’re more than welcome to