Words Left Unsaid by Elizabeth McGlone

Author:Elizabeth McGlone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: erotic romance, historical romance, regency romance, forbidden romance, georgian romance

Chapter 17

The river is like a snake, Gwen thought as she sat at the back of the flatboat and trailed her fingers in the water. A bright green snake swimming lazily through the dense forest. The air on the boat was heavy with moisture, making Keenan’s hair curl with abandon.

She longed for a wash. Through the fabric of her gown she could smell her own sweat, and it horrified her fastidious nature.

A bend in the river was coming. From the back of the boat she could see the gradual curves of the mighty river. Squirrels chattered from the trees, and the sound of a dropped nut echoed as it bounced from branch to branch.

Gwen could not have said what first alerted her to the danger. It was very early. They had tied off last night when clouds had occluded the light of the moon and then cast off as soon as the sky had lightened. The current carried them quickly away from the little cove where they had rested, snug as sleeping animals in a den. Now the sky was grey and overcast, threatening a heavy rain. The birds had stopped singing and the noises of the forest became muted, as though muffled by a heavy hand.

Menacing, Gwen thought. The forest had gone from being a place of mystery and wonder to subtly terrifying, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

Gwen walked to where Papa stood, peering into the forest from near the cabin door.

"Papa?" She whispered.

"I know, Gwennie girl," he whispered back. "Get the other rifles." The hand that held the weapon close to his body was rigid with tension.

Gwen went to the cabin with a measured step. She touched her mother, always the last to rise in the morning, and began to quickly load the remaining rifles.

Papa had taught her to shoot years ago, soon after he had returned from war. In the long hours of summer he taken her behind the barn and instructed her, using the gun he had carried during the Siege of Boston. For, as he said, chucking her underneath the chin, "A woman is weaker than a man, but her arm can hold up a rifle, if there is a need."

Papa and Keenan were kneeling behind the largest crates on the deck when she returned, a rifle held in each hand. One more trip and she had the bag of shot, wadding, and powder horns, which she placed within easy reach.

"Go back to the cabin," Keenan whispered, not sparing a glance in her direction.

"No," she retorted, and held the old gun tighter. Her thumb traced a deep scratch in the wood of the stock. It was a souvenir of the first time she had shot, and then dropped, the gun, gouging it on a rock.

Papa intervened. "She’d be no safer there. The walls are too thin. She can shoot and we need her."

The minutes crawled by like hours, tension locking their muscles as they stared without blinking at the northern shore of the river.

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