Prairie Fire Read Online Free PDF

Cornwall said simply.
    Caitrin glanced down at his bare chest and the white strips of linen wrapped around his shoulder. “The bandage? Are you quite well in the head, Mr. Cornwall? Or shall I write to an asylum and have you put away for a lunatic?”
    His face sobered instantly. “An asylum is no place for a lunatic.”
    “No? Then what am I to make of a man who lingers in a place of danger because of a bandage?”
    “Miss Murphy, are you going to listen to what I have to say, or do you intend to carp at me all morning?”
    She swallowed down her annoyance. “By all means talk, Mr. Cornwall.”
    “I’m much obliged.” He pointed to the collection of lamps Caitrin would sell later at the mercantile. “Last night after you left I lit one of your lamps and went to work on my shoulder. The salve is good, I think. Ought to help. Anyway, when I unrolled the bandage and started to wrap the wound, I noticed the lace. Fine Irish lace, I think you said?”
    Caitrin nodded. “Aye, ’tis bobbin lace. In Ireland women work lace by the fire in the evenings; then we sell our creations to a laceman, who peddles them in the city. But that lace was a new pattern. I liked it, so I decided not to sell it. What does my lace have to do with your failure to leave this property as you promised?”
    “I studied the stitches you’d used to sew the petticoat,” he said, ignoring the question. “Tiny stitches. Even my mother would approve … and not much gets past her.” He gave a low chuckle. “She’s particular. My sister Mary always used to say …”
    He paused and reflected a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was rough. “Been a long time since I saw fine lace on a lady’s petticoat hem. Long time since I thought about a fireplace with a woman stitching beside it. Long time since anybody said to me the things you said last night. In fact, the more I turned your words over, the more I knew I hadn’t ever heard such notions. I decided you were something different, Miss Murphy. So, that’s why I made up my mind to stay awhile.”
    “Stay?” Caitrin snapped out of the daze his words had evoked. “Sure, you can’t stay here another night, Mr. Cornwall! Not in the storage room. I’m not a nursemaid, and I won’t be fetching and running for you. I’ve my own work to be after, so I have. I’m busy sunup to sundown. And what if you’re discovered? I’d bear the blame of it, so I would—harboring a criminal, sheltering the enemy. I’d be labeled a traitor to the whole town of Hope and everybody who loves Seth Hunter. Jimmy and Sheena would have every right to pack me off to Ireland, and I can’t go back to Ireland. I can’t .”
    “Nobody’s going to find me. Lock the door when you leave. I’ll read a few of those books on the shelf. Sleep a little. Rest my shoulder. Clean my guns. Get things back in shape. When I’m better, I’ll leave.”
    “But you can’t stay! I won’t allow it.”
    “Are you planning to rat on me?” He crossed his arms over his chest and appraised her. “I didn’t think you would. You’re too blasted spunky to run crying for help. Fiery Caitrin Murphy and Blazin’ Jack Cornwall, that’s us.”
    “I’m nothing like you.”
    “No? All my life I’ve aimed to do something worthwhile, something that matters. I’ll fight anybody to right a wrong and see that justice gets done. If I want something to happen, I do it myself. I’m bullheaded, contentious, and tough as nails. Are you any different?”
    Caitrin clutched the handle of her basket, and the blood drained from her knuckles. “It terrifies me to see how the fire inside you matches that in my own soul, Jack Cornwall,” she said in a low voice. “Sure, we’re a pair of candles burning brightly. Never have I known a man like you, a man whose flame will not flicker out at the slightest gust. But what can become of people like us out on this windswept prairie? Why will you linger here? What is it you want?”
    “I want to