Banner O'Brien Read Free Page A

curious and disturbing night. Her head was spinning, and she didn’t know what to think of Adam Corbin or Dr. Henderson or the incident on Water Street that had prompted one man to assault the other. She did puzzle a bit as to why Dr. Corbin would engage Jenny to clean the house of a man he so obviously disliked.
    She slid between the sheets of the narrow bed and found that they were impossibly cold. She moved about, trying to heat them with the friction of her body,and then fell into a fitful sleep where a woman was bleeding to death and screaming and Adam Corbin’s handsome face was contorted with a killing rage.
    Then the dream woman became Banner herself, and Adam became Sean. The screams brought Jenny running on bare red feet.
    *  *  *
    “Friends?”
    Jenny smiled as she filled Banner’s cup with fresh coffee and sat down across from her at the kitchen table. “Friends,” she confirmed.
    It was twenty minutes before seven by the watch pinned carefully to the bodice of Banner’s heavy broadcloth dress, and a gentle snowfall sifted past the window over the sink to glisten on the spiky green leaves of a nearby holly tree.
    “I’m sorry I awakened you last night, Jenny.”
    Jenny took a contemplative sip from her coffee cup. “Do you have a lot of bad dreams?” she asked.
    Only one, Banner thought to herself, but her words were calculated to close the dangerous subject. “I was very tired,” she said.
    “Who is Sean?” pressed Jenny.
    Banner was saved from answering by a thunderous knocking at the front door. Bless him, Dr. Adam Corbin was not only prompt, but early to boot.
    “O’Brien!” he bellowed irritably, as Banner raced to admit him.
    He was standing on the small porch, his blue eyes dark with some secret annoyance. Today, he looked more like a member of the English gentry than a country doctor about to make rounds: his trousers were of some soft, fawn-colored fabric that clung to his muscular thighs and tapered into the tops of a pair of glistening black riding boots. Over his crisply tailored white shirt he wore a snow-dusted coat of some fine tweed, and seeing him up close, Banner realized that his hair was not really black at all, but a very darkbrown threaded through with strands of dark gold and chestnut.
    “Is something wrong, O’Brien?” he demanded.
    Banner blushed to think of the overt way she’d inspected his person and managed a valiant little smile. “No—no, of course not.”
    His jaw knotted. “Well, then?”
    Banner had laid out her warmest cloak and her medical bag, and she turned to fetch them so rapidly that she caught the toe of her right shoe in the hem of her skirts and very nearly fell.
    She knew that embarrassment was blooming in her cheeks when she gathered her things and forced herself to face Adam again.
    His features had softened a little, and there was a twitch of amusement at the corner of his mouth.
    “I’m ready now,” she said, just to break the silence.
    “Your eyes are just the color of shamrock,” he responded, somewhat distractedly.
    Banner decided to ignore the remark, though propriety would have her challenge it. “Shall we leave?”
    Adam chuckled and indicated the horse and buggy waiting beyond the picket fence and the holly tree. “After you,” he said.
    This was Banner’s first opportunity for a good look at Port Hastings, and it was easy to let her curiosity overshadow the strange, nameless emotions this man engendered in her.
    She settled happily into the buggy seat and peered through the thickening snow as Adam joined her and took up the reins. “Do they really call this town Little Sodom and Gomorrah?” she asked.
    Adam laughed. “That and other things. The term does bring Water Street to mind.”
    Banner was reminded of the woman Jenny said had died on that street, and some of her joy in the crisp splendor of the morning drained away.
    In an attempt to divert her thoughts, she drew a mental map and placed Port Hastings on the