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Chapter One

I forced myself up off of the ground. I had one more chance. The world swooped around me, and I nearly lost my balance, but I caught myself against a tree, leaving smears of blood.

"Sam?" it was only a whisper. I could go only a few more steps before I stumbled against another dried-out, leathery tree. "Please, Sam… please." I looked out at the lake. His boat was nowhere in sight. I fell to my knees, soaked in blood, giving up. My vision blacked out.

"Please be alive." Was the next thing I heard, and the next thing I felt was shaking on my shoulders. My weak hands were still on my side, a wet syrup substance soaking through them. I remembered – blood. "Please, please be alive."

"Sam?" I reached out and my hand touched hot, florid flesh. A cheek. His cheek!

"You're alive, dear God, thank you!" he exclaimed. He was panting, and his entire body gave off a hot feeling, like he'd been running. "Come on, we have to go now."

"Where are we going?" I wobbled, tripping onto my knees again, crying and clinging to his legs. "Sam, oh Sam, you're alive! You're alright!"

He pulled me up again, a gentleness in his clammy hands. I could hear his groan as his muscles flexed with my weight. "Close your eyes, Miss Katherine. I'll hold you."

"You're hurt." I whispered, my voice a forgotten whisp. I felt light-headed, laying my head against his chest. He smelled of blood, the lake, and onions.

Sam seemed to ignore my comment, or cast it aside. My vision shook and shuddered, and I only caught sight of a few random objects; a leaf, the dark sky, the rim of Sam's hat – the broad one with the hanging straps that he's always worn. It was amazing I was still conscious, the world was spinning, and I felt blood dripping down my leg, soaking my clothes. But Sam was alive. He hadn't been shot, Trout Walker hadn't killed him. His broad steps lulled me back into unconsciousness, and I fell limp.

The sound of water woke me up, a soft splashing like ringing out a wet cloth. I winked my eyes open, squinting at the light I met.

"Oh, Miss Katherine!" there was a voice to my right, and the water noises came to a cease.

"Sam?" my voice sounded weak and odd, like I had a frog in my throat.

"I thought you'd…" he paused like he was considering the craft of his words. Then he went back to what he was doing before; as I'd previously thought, ringing a rag in a basin of water. He worriedly leaned forward with it and tenderly pressed it to my side. I let out a painful hiss, and one of his hands slipped into mine.

"You know, you've been shot." He whispered gently, frowning and pressing the cloth a little tighter to my wound. "Sorry… I'm hurting you, aren't I…" he said sorrowfully. "There's no way to avoid pain here."

"You're hurt too." It popped right out of my mouth. His eyes traveled to the shredded fabric of his shirt on the shoulder, where the bullet had torn straight through on his shoulder, one side to the other. His brown coat rested beside him, a hole torn right through it as well, and dry drips of blood were on his arm. The white shirt was brown with the blood stain.

His eyes flitted away from his pierced skin. "It's barely a scratch."

"Sam…"

"I can fix it." He said, shushing me. I closed my eyes as he dabbed the cloth on my wound again. I noticed that is was a tear off of his shirt, not a cloth at all.

"You should've – cut open my shirt." I said quietly. What would my father say if he heard me say that to a man? "Don't prostitute yourself, girl! Show some respect!" But Sam – I felt like I'd already known him for years. Like it was as easy as breathing with him.

His brow furrowed, and he shook his head. He took his hat off and set it beside him on the ground, like he was trying to avoid conversation. "It's impolite to touch a lady that way."

I sat up, feeling dizzy, but his hands were right there to catch me, nimbly laying my head back down on his coat that smelled of pine needles. There was nothing else he could find to rest my pounding head on. I placed my palm on the side of his neck. "Sam. I trust you."

He hesitantly flipped open his pocket knife, the dull one I'd seen him use to cut the roots from onions. He sliced the wet fabric of my denim-blue shirt, severing around the wound delicately. I felt the coldness of the double-edged blade nearly touch my skin, but Sam would never allow the sharp side of the blade to touch me. There was a side of him that was so protective that it seemed like more than normal. Not to the obsessive point, but he was concerned for my well-being. It had been that way ever since we'd become friends.

"I don't have many bandages." He told me, his brown eyes warm and full of consuming concern. "I could go back into town and get some."

Town. The most dangerous place for him. The lynch mob had destroyed his onion cart, and my schoolhouse, and they probably were out to destroy Sam. Even more so if he just showed up. They'd hang him as quick as they could get a noose around his neck. Instead of answering to that, I sort of played dumb. "We aren't in town anymore?"

He nodded and pressed his hands to my wound again, keeping pressure on it. It was already feeling a little better. The pain was sort of numb, and there was at least no more blood pouring out of it like a sap tap. "No, we're in the woods." Sam put his hat back on and fiddled with the hanging leather straps. "Down by the lake. I docked my boat about a quarter mile away from here. Where no one would find it, if they're even looking. They might think I'm floating dead out there. Old Trout has horrible aim. His gun may be expensive and pretty, but his aim is about as good as a four-year-old child!" he laughed slightly and his eyes traveled to his injured arm, then back to me. "I can't stay here, Miss Katherine."

My bottom lip spasmed, and I blurted again, another thing that wasn't lady-like. "Please, take me with you." I begged. I didn't have anything to go back to. They flamed up my schoolhouse, the one Sam had worked so hard to make so fine. Trout would harass me if I returned.

"I'm going across the lake. To my home, and my onion patch." He told me. "Lay down, you're bleeding again. Don't worry, of course you can come. If you like, that is. It's a pity to leave Mary Lou."

His poor old donkey. One of the lynch-mobbers had shot her between the eyes and killed the poor old thing that pulled his cart.

"She'd probably tip the boat anyway." He said to brighten the mood. I was surprised when he reached forward and tucked my hair back. Parts of it had fallen out of the style I'd made in the morning that seemed so very long ago. At the warmness of his hand, I remembered when it had rested against my back, his lips against mine. I remembered our kiss in the perfect schoolhouse. Sam cleared his throat, and I jumped. "You don't look very comfortable." He mentioned softly as he continued to stroke my cheek. My face was still covered in lashes and scratches form the branches of dry trees lashing me, lashing me everywhere where my skin was exposed. Everywhere stung.

I slightly lifted my head off of the pine needles. Sam's face was shadowed by a few trunks of trees and other eerie objects in the dark. "I'm fine Sam… I –" I stopped talking abruptly when he slipped his hand behind my back.

"Close your eyes." He instructed in a minute whisper. I did as I was told, and he brought my head to rest against his warm chest. He still smelled of the lake, and onions. His sweet onions. But he also had his usual smell that I could never quite place.

"Oh, Sam, I –" I ceased talking again and moved my palm to rest against his shoulder.

"Miss Katherine Barlow, I think I love you." He said in my ear, and I closed my eyes as the hand that wasn't holding me moved to rest against my back, supporting me. there was a moment of silence, and I realized he was waiting for my reply.

"Sam, there was a – mob! They would have lynched you, had you not run away in time! And it was all because of me." I shook my head, on the verge of tears. His body shifted.

"I kissed you."

"I kissed you back." my eyes watered even more. I couldn't tell the state of his expression, but he waited a long time to speak. He knew I was right, and he admitted it silently. I finally looked up to observe his expression.

"They burned your schoolhouse."

"I know." I said in tears. "It was the finest schoolhouse I've ever laid eyes on."

"I can build you a new one." He said softly against my ear, his breath freezing in midair as he spoke. His words seemed sad, because they were. He knew he had to escape. But I was going with him. I couldn't stand to break my heart again. He wasn't going to get away from me so easily this time.

The rain had made the ground muddier than usual, making it even harder to walk with the pain in my side. It was better, now that the bullet was no longer embedded, but it still stung every time the torn skin pulled apart. Sam held his strong arm around my waist, but I could tell he was exhausted. He'd been running for hours, probably. Hiding and looking for me. I could tell his body was in a cold sweat, and lavender shadows were under his eyes. His hand that held mine shook with exhaustion. I'd never seen a man so tired.

"Sam," I said quietly. "You need to rest."

"There's no time for that." he stopped walking for a moment, but he was panting. His breath still froze in the air like a million tiny icicles.

"Well – we have to figure something out, we can –"

"Miss Katherine, you can't go with me. You'll be much safer in town – they could rebuild you a schoolhouse, y'know. You could rebuild your life, Katherine. You could heal."

I took his hands and brought them to my face gently, staring at him with tears in my crystal eyes. "That is not my home anymore. I'll follow you, even if you don't want me to."

I nearly caught a glimpse of that cockeyed smirk of his. His palm lay against my cheek, and he looked at me in such a way that I could barely manage not smiling at him.

"Don't break my heart, Sam. Please. Because I love you too." I said the last part louder through a sob that I hadn't seen coming. His thumb tenderly caressed my cheek, catching a tear that rolled down slowly.

"Then… I suppose that changes things." I lay my head against his chest, listening to his quick heartbeat.

"I won't let them hurt you." I whispered, resting my balled-up hand against his shoulder. I felt his slack body vibrate as he laughed.

"Hurt me? Nah… I've been eating onions, day and night!"

"Are you gonna tell me onions would stop a bullet?" I wiped my eyes with the back of my hands, though he laughed as I sniffed and contained myself.

"No, but they do make you strong." He rubbed his hand on my shoulder. It was strange, the way he held me. like he was afraid he might hurt me. he was relatively big, with toned arms from rowing his boat for miles, back and forth across the lake to his home and onion patch – both of which had previously belonged to his mother and father. He had been born free – yet so many people hadn't accepted his presence in Green Lake.

Why is it that every time I saw his smile, or his dark eyes, I felt like I needed to melt, only for him to catch me? The way he looked at a person as if he was reading them, trying to render them. His hard, calloused, and scarred hand in mine, but it was so soft and gentle when he held it.

"Sam…" I said as his hand – warm and pulsing in mine, though it was cold – finally found the back of my neck. "What's your last name?" again, it came right out of my mouth. I couldn't help it, I had an overwhelming urge to know his whole name.

He slightly smiled. "Garter. Samuel Garter."

"I like it. It's handsome." I touched my thumb to his cheek, running it across. I closed my eyes and inhaled the scent of his shirt again. He ran his hand gently down my back, and I felt him smell my hair, nuzzling his nose into the light blonde.

He sighed again, a long measured one. "Could you make it across the lake?"

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