Page 65 of Heart on the Line

The rest of his nauseating claptrap faded from Grace’s hearing as he exited the barn. And as soon as it did, she immediately went to work on retrieving the shears. Only, with the strap pinning her arms down, she couldn’t reach her pocket. She contorted and tugged and bounced, all to no avail. Then she remembered the hoop that served as her hitch and scooted back against the wall.

Bending her knees, she dragged herself down, scraping the bumps of her spine against the metal ring, but the thin strap refused to catch. Her back was too bony. Not enough give. Grace twisted sideways, exposing the fleshy part of her side, yet the stiffness of her corset offered little improvement.

Grace darted a glance at the barn door, her pulse racing. He’d be back any minute. With Amos. An unconscious, defenseless Amos. She had to be ready. Had to get free.

Grace set her jaw. If she couldn’t snag the strap, she’d just catch something else. Lifting up on tiptoes, she jabbed her hip against the wall, digging the metal ring under the lip of her corset until it cut into her waist. The boning at the top of her corset stabbed into her breasts and ribs, drawing a groan from her, but she didn’t back away from the discomfort. She pushed farther into it, determined to win.

She wouldn’t be weak. She wouldn’t relent. God had provided the shears and the privacy. She must supply the heart.

She gritted her teeth and dragged herself downward. The metal ring pushed the corset upward. Whalebone spines jabbed the tender parts under her arm.

An arm she could now lift several inches higher than she could a moment ago.

Grace twisted, folded at the waist, and grabbed for the shears through the fabric of her skirt. Her fingers closed around the metal, and she immediately worked them upward.

When the handles emerged, she fit them between her bound wrists. Drawing her hands closer to her body with bent elbows, she pressed the handles into her ribs as her fingernails clawed at the blades to separate them.

She’d just started to pry them apart when a sound at the door announced Lockhart’s return. Heart pounding, Grace dropped to her knees and grabbed at her pooling skirt to cover her hands and the shears.

Lockhart strode through the doorway, his arm crooked around Amos’s neck. He dragged the semi-conscious man into the barn and pulled the door closed behind them.

“See what I found, Grace? Your loyal lapdog. So kind of him to pay a visit.” Lockhart threw Amos to the floor.

Grace cried out.

Amos braced his arms beneath him and lifted his head, his gaze locking on hers. “Grace? Are you—?”

The click of a hammer being cocked cut off the rest of his question. Lockhart, his expression having lost all trace of humor and gentility, snarled as he grabbed Amos by the collar and jerked him up onto his knees. Then he pressed the barrel of his pistol against Amos’s skull.

Lockhart’s cold eyes bored into her. “Ready to talk now, Grace?”

Her heart lurched. “Please. He has nothing to do with this. Let him go!”

She knew he wouldn’t, but she had to do something to gain herself time. To get the shears open and slice through the bindings.

“I don’t think so.” Lockhart glared at her. “Tell me what I want to know, Grace. Now. Or Bledsoe dies.”

Grace fidgeted, digging her hands deeper into the cover of her skirt, praying Lockhart would mistake her movements for agitation and fear when what she was really doing was hooking the curved pruning blade she’d managed to open around the inside of her ropes.

“How will you explain a dead telegraph operator to Miss Gladstone?” Grace challenged. “She’s sure to come running when the gun goes off. Executing an unarmed man isn’t exactly the action of an honorable Pinkerton detective. She’ll know she’s been duped.”

Lockhart narrowed his eyes. “Irene will believe whatever I tell her to believe.”

“And if she doesn’t?” Grace sawed the blade in tiny motions against the hemp. Please, God. Please help me get free.

Lockhart shrugged. “Then I’ll kill her. The old man, too. And you’ll have three deaths on your hands.”

“Not on your hands, Grace.” Amos’s voice, so unexpected and so calm, drew her gaze to his. “He’s the one responsible. No matter what happens, nothing is your fault.”

She heard the meaning behind his words, the forgiveness freely given. He wasn’t begging her to tell her secrets and spare him. He knew as well as she did that as soon as Lockhart had the information he wanted, they were both as good as dead. Amos wasn’t thinking of himself at all. He was thinking of her. Letting her know that if he died at Lockhart’s hands, he had no regrets and laid no blame at her feet.

Grace stilled, her entire focus on the man who had crept into her heart. The one who could not be any more a hero than he was at that moment. “I love you, Amos.”

His lips curved in the sweetest smile she’d ever seen. “I love y—”

“Shut up,” Lockhart growled and kicked Amos in the gut with enough force to double the smaller man over.

“Stop it!” Grace screamed.