< previous page page_226 next page >

Page 226
been talking about you, old fellow," Ainsley cried.
Thorn looked taken aback for a moment, training his usual glare on Mariah, but Ainsley slurred, "The good old days back in the homeland. Do you remember Phelps, that doddering old tutor your father thought was so spry?"
Thorn laughed. "Spry because we set his shoes afire. He couldn't stand in one spot then."
The two were soon involved in reminiscences, and Mariah listened raptly, enjoying how happy Thorn sounded, for a wonderful, welcome change. Holly came in, and Mariah was able to stay at the bar while the other woman served the men at the tables. "Frenchie is cooking supper," Holly told Mariah. "He'll need us to help in a while." She hurried off as a soldier held his tankard in the air.
"So, Miss Mariah," said Maitland, who'd come up beside her, "have you an idea when supper will be ready? We must eat soon, bed down early to get a start first thing in the morning. Perhaps we will yet be in time to help those damned fool settlers."
Mariah felt a lump rise in her chest. The settlers she'd metFrancis, his shy sister Ann and the restcould have been slaughtered by now. "I'll go check on supper," she managed.
For the next hour, Holly and she were kept busy finishing the cooking and serving drinks.
She almost enjoyed herself as she forced herself again to banter with Ainsley and Maitland and some of the soldiers.
Soldiers, too, who might not survive their next encounter with Indians. An encounter that could come the very next day.
Most of them seemed cheerful, carefree. As though they'd no concerns at all about the dangers they would soon facedangers that ought not exist at all, if only Mariah, with all her knowledge, weren't so powerless.
And then there was that young man with the beard who still laughed only rarely with the rest. When he wasn't staring at Thorn with narrowed eyes, he was belting down rum.
Why did he look so familiar?
Going behind Maitland at the table he now shared with

 
< previous page page_226 next page >