Schulze, Dallas

by Gunfighter's Bride

  “I need a knife,” Bishop said to no one in particular. Half the town carried knives. As soon as he voiced his request, several were proferred. He took the nearest one, a hunting knife with a wickedly sharp blade. Bishop hooked the tip under the front opening of Lila’s gown and slashed the fabric open all the way to the arm. She stirred, murmuring something indistinguishable as he peeled the fabric away from her skin as gently as possible. Her shoulder was covered in blood, making it impossible to determine the nature of the wound itself.

  He was reaching for his handkerchief when there was a stirring in the crowd. Suddenly Gavin was there. He stood frozen for a moment, staring down at Lila’s still figure.

  “Is she dead?” he asked, his voice unnaturally calm. But when Bishop looked at him, he saw his own fear reflected in the boy’s eyes.

  “She’s not dead,” he said shortly. “And she’s not going to die.” He wouldn’t let her die. He pulled his handkerchief out and shook it open. “Take your sister to the Sundays’ and ask Bridget to come to our house. She’s tended a bullet wound or two in her time.”

  “Who’d want to shoot Lila?” Gavin asked, bewildered.

  “I don’t know but when I find him, I’m going to kill him,” Bishop promised. “Now take your sister and do what I asked.”

  Gavin hesitated only a moment longer before turning to where Angel lay sobbing in Douglas’s arms. She went to her brother without protest. She was no longer crying hysterically. Instead, her tears were soft and hopeless. Bishop forced himself to tune out the sound of his daughter’s fear, concentrating instead on mopping the blood from Lila’s shoulder. He didn’t want to move her until he had some idea what kind of damage the bullet had done.

  “How does it look?” Douglas knelt on the other side of Lila’s body and watched Bishop work.

  “Her pulse is strong.” Bishop took the handkerchief Douglas offered when his own became too blood-soaked to be of any use.

  “There seems to be a lot of blood,” Douglas said. “And she’s unconscious.”

  “That might just be the shock of being shot. The wound doesn’t look too bad,” he announced, his voice shaky with relief as he uncovered the bullet hole near the top of her shoulder. “I think the bullet went through and the bleeding is already slowing down. The wound needs to be cleaned and bandaged. Let’s see if we can get her home before she wakes up.”

  ***

  Lila woke to the feel of someone driving a red-hot poker through her shoulder. She cried out and tried to bring her hand up to push away her attacker, but her arms were apparently bound to her sides. She would have struggled but she heard Bishop’s voice over her head.

  “Lie still, sweetheart. I’ll have you home in a minute.”

  Sweetheart? The endearment was enough to force her eyes open. Her view was limited to the expanse of his shirt and the solid thrust of his jaw above her. He was carrying her, she decided. That was why she couldn’t move her arms, because they were held against her body. But that didn’t explain the knife-sharp pain that stabbed her with every step he took. She bit her lip against the need to cry out again and the sound emerged as a smothered moan.

  “I’ll get the door.”

  That was Douglas. Lila was rather pleased with herself for identifying his voice. It seemed quite a feat considering the pain that seemed to be oozing its way downward from her shoulder to encompass her entire body. She heard the click of the latch and then the light changed as Bishop stepped into the house—their house.

  “What happened?” In her mind, the question was clear and strong, yet her voice came out weak and thready.

  “You’ve been shot.”

  Shot? The idea bounced in and out of her head in rhythm to the sound of Bishop’s footsteps on the wooden floor. She couldn’t seem to make a connection between herself and the word. But if she’d been shot, that would explain the pain.

  “The baby?” She would have put her hand to her belly if she could have moved.

  “That baby is fine,” Bishop said so firmly that she believed him instantly. He couldn’t sound so sure unless he really knew.

  “Don’t put me in the bed,” she told him. “I’ll get blood on the sheets.”

  “The sheets will wash,” he said shortly, and lowered her to the bed.

  Lila forgot all about the sheets and concentrated on not screaming as pain shot from her shoulder outward until every inch of her ached.

  “Scream if you want to,” Bishop said softly.

  Lila felt his fingers against her forehead as he brushed back her hair. She opened her eyes. Was it a trick of the lighting or her imagination that made his skin look gray?

  “Where’s Angel?” she asked, bits and pieces of memory floating back to her. “She was with me. Is she all right?”

  “She’s scared to death but she’s not hurt. I had Gavin take her to Bridget’s and asked him to send Bridget over here.”

  “Gavin will take care of her. He’s a good boy. You shouldn’t be so hard on him. You’re going to drive him away if you’re not careful.”

  “I’ll be careful,” he promised. “Now just lie still until Bridget gets here.”

  His fingers felt pleasantly cool against her forehead, and Lila wondered if she had a fever. Maybe he was mistaken and she hadn’t been shot at all. She’d been very sick with fever once when she was little, and she remembered how cool her mother’s hand had felt on her skin. But she didn’t remember the fever hurting this much. Nor had their been any blood and, from the sticky feel of her torso, she’d lost a considerable amount of blood.

  “Am I going to die?” she asked calmly.

  “No!” Bishop’s answer was quick and sharp. “I’ll be damned if you will!”

  “Watch your language.” The pain was starting to recede, leaving behind a not-unpleasant numbness. “A gentleman doesn’t curse in front of a lady.” Her eyelids felt very heavy and she let them drift downward. “Are you sure I won’t die?” she asked dreamily.

  “No!”

  She heard Douglas’s denial but it was faint and far away, unreal and unimportant. She drifted further away from the pain as if floating on the glassy smooth surface of a broad river. It was so peaceful. So ...

  “Lila!” Bishop’s voice was sharp and angry. His fingers caught her chin in an ungentle grip, dragging her back into the real world. Lila’s eyes opened and stared into the painfully vivid blue of his. “I’m not going to let you die.”

  “It’s really not your decision,” she told him, her voice weak but unmistakably cross.

  “You’re not leaving me. I’ll follow you to the gates of hell if I have to and drag you back by your hair.” From the look on his face, she believed he meant it. He looked as if he’d take on the devil himself, and she wouldn’t have been willing to take bets on who’d win the battle.

  “No one’s going anywhere near the gates of hell.” Bridget’s acerbic voice preceded her into the room. “What kind of a way is this to behave in a sickroom, shouting at the patient as if she were one of your prisoners? Get yourself out of my way.”

  With a last, commanding look at Lila, Bishop stepped back. As he straightened, Lila heard Douglas speak from the other side of the bed. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

  For a moment, the pain ceased to matter. Lila held her breath, waiting for Bishop’s answer. When it came, his voice was so low that she had to strain to hear him.

  “Yes.”

  “Here now,” Bridget said. “A swallow of this and you’ll sleep right through me tending to your wound.”

  Lila turned her head away, pursing her lips in refusal of the bottle Bridget held to her mouth. “I have to talk to Bishop,” she shouted, only the shout came out as little more than a whisper.

  “Later,” Bridget promised soothingly. “You can talk to him later.”

  “Now,” Lila insisted. Despite all their reassurances to the contrary, she wasn’t convinced that death wasn’t hovering just out of sight. “Now.”

  “Wha
t’s wrong?” Bishop’s voice came from behind Bridget.

  “She says she has to talk to you.” The minister’s wife clicked her tongue in exasperation as she moved back. “See if you can get her to take a swallow or two of this laudanum,” she said, thrusting the bottle into his hand.

  “Drink this, sweetheart,” Bishop urged.

  Lila ignored the bottle, her eyes searching his face for some sign of his feelings. Certainly the words “I love you” were not emblazoned across his forehead, but why would he look so worried unless he loved her?

  “I’m not going there,” she whispered.

  “Not going where?” From his expression, it was clear he thought she was delirious.

  “To hell. A gentleman would never suggest such a thing to a lady.”

  “Then I’ll follow you to the pearly gates.” With a deft twist of his wrist, he got the laudanum bottle to her mouth and tilted a healthy swallow down her throat. “And I never did claim to be a gentleman.”

  Lila closed her eyes. She was adrift on that gentle river again, the pain floating somewhere far away from her. “Bishop?” Her tongue felt thick and clumsy, but there was something she had to say. With an effort, she forced her eyes open, staring up into his face for half a heartbeat.

  “What is it?” His fingers were cool against her forehead again and she let her eyelids fall shut, thereby missing the impact of her words.

  “I love you too.”

  ***

  Five months later

  She wasn’t exactly grateful that she’d been shot, Lila thought as she carefully sprinkled water over what she hoped was going to be a perfect batch of biscuits. And certainly she’d never dare even hint at such a thing in front of Bishop. The one time she’d suggested that her injury had had some benefits, he’d become irate and it had taken her some time to calm him down.

  It was just that there was always sunshine behind even the darkest of clouds, and she was inclined to think—if not say out loud—that the sunshine behind this particular cloud had more than made up for the rain it had spilled into their lives.

  If she hadn’t been shot, it might have taken months or years for Bishop to admit that he loved her, even to himself. And she’d been so busy telling herself that she couldn’t be in love with him that she might not have come to her senses any sooner. That alone was worth one small bullet wound, particularly since, other than a certain stiffness in her shoulder, she hadn’t been left with any permanent physical damage.

  Bishop’s vow to kill whoever had shot her had gone by the boards when young William Smythe came forward and confessed the deed. He’d taken a gun from his father’s study and was playing at being a gun-fighter when the weapon went off. He’d made his confession despite his mother’s loud insistence that he say not a word to anyone. There had been no doubting the boy’s contrition, and Bishop had accepted his apologies. When William told his father what he’d done, Franklin said it was past time the boy went away to school, where he’d learn some discipline. Sara had refused to hear of it but the banker had surprised everyone by overruling her. William had departed for military school in Virginia.

  Later Lila had overheard Bishop tell Douglas that it was a shame William had turned out to be the villain-—he would have felt a great deal better if he could have bashed someone’s face in. She frowned a little as she stirred the water into the dough, careful not to mix it too much. Her brother and Bishop were still far from best friends, but at least they’d come to some sort of understanding. Susan had been right— once Douglas was assured that she was happy, he’d stopped insisting that she go back to Pennsylvania.

  At least the rift between her and Douglas had been patched up—another good thing to come of her being shot, she thought as she turned the soft dough out onto a lightly floured section of the table and kneaded it quickly—just a few strokes, enough for it to hold together but not too much or the dough will toughen, Bridget had told her repeatedly.

  The back door opened as she was patting the dough out. Bishop and the children entered, bringing a rush of cold air with them.

  “Pa says it looks like we’ll have snow before morning,” Gavin announced as he took off his coat.

  “I hope it lasts until Christmas next week,” Lila said.

  “I want to make a snowman,” Angel announced. She tilted her chin up to allow her father to get to the top button on her coat.

  Looking at the three of them, Lila felt a foolish lump come into her throat. Though she couldn’t say for certain that it was her getting shot that had welded them into a family, it certainly hadn’t done any harm. Afraid that he was going to lose her the way he’d lost his mother, Gavin had looked for something solid to hold onto and had found his father there for him. Not that they didn’t butt heads as often as not, she admitted. But at least the boy knew Bishop cared about him.

  A thin wail from the parlor made it clear that the newest member of the McKenzie family had awakened from her nap and was not pleased to find herself alone. In the six weeks since her birth, she’d grown accustomed to being the center of attention. Named Margaret Ann, after both her grandmothers, she was well aware of her own importance in the universe and had a healthy set of lungs to announce her displeasure if things didn’t go the way they should.

  Lila had just picked up a glass to cut the biscuit dough and she glanced unhappily at her flour-coated hands. “Bishop?”

  “I’ll get her,” Gavin volunteered before his father could respond. Though he pretended a manly indifference to his baby sister, Lila knew he was as enamored of her as the rest of them were.

  “Me, too,” Angel said. “Maggie likes me.”

  “Maggie likes anybody who pays attention to her,” Gavin said with cheerful cynicism. “She’s too little to know better.”

  “When he gets older, he’ll figure out that adults like people who pay attention to them, too,” Bishop commented as he shrugged off his coat and hung it on one of the pegs by the door. Crossing the room to where Lila was carefully cutting out biscuits, he slid his arms around her waist and tugged her back against him.

  “Careful. I’m making biscuits and they’re going to be really good this time. Bishop!” His name was a muffled shriek of protest as he buried his cold face against the side of her neck.

  “You wouldn’t want me to get frostbite, would you?” he asked innocently. His hands slid upward, gently cupping her breasts.

  “I suppose you’re just warming your hands,” Lila said, suppressing a shiver of awareness.

  “What else would I be doing?” Bishop nibbled her ear.

  “A more suspicious woman might think you were making improper advances,” Lila suggested breathlessly.

  “A gentleman would never even think of such a thing,” he protested as she turned into his arms.

  “That’s just one of many reasons I’m glad I didn’t marry a gentleman,” Lila said as his mouth closed over hers.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  I firmly believe in the power of love to triumph over just about anything life can throw at you. As far as I’m concerned, writing romances is the best possible job. I get to create wonderful characters and watch them overcome every obstacle I throw in their paths to prove that love really does conquer all. Technically, love may not make the world go around, but without love, who’d care whether or not it kept spinning?

  When I decided I wanted to become a writer, there was never any question about what I’d write. Not only had I read hundreds of romances, but I was married to a wonderful man who’d proved all my theories about love and romance. Twelve years after selling my first book, I’m still writing romances, still married to that same man, and still a believer in love conquering all.

 

 

 
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