“Dolly—” Jax began.
“Let’s have a look, Marshal. Even lawmen bleed. An’ I guess I oughtta know.”
Jax sighed and began to unbutton his shirt.
Dolly sucked in her breath. “Won’t kill you…not too long, but plenty deep.” She nodded toward the trestle table, then met his cool gaze. “Plenty painful.” She looked away, her voice turning brusque. “Lay up here on the table, boy, and let me get my things.”
“The table!” Tildy exclaimed, horrified.
Dolly turned a fiery look on the other woman, as if she couldn’t decide whether to explain to her or ignore her stupidity.
“Table’s hard—good for doctorin’. And it washes up easier than a mattress,” she added acidly.
“But it—it’s where we eat!”
“It’ll be clean when you eat offen it, woman! Now move!” Dolly looked Tildy up and down scathingly. “It ain’t gonna hurt ya to be a little late on a meal. Looks like you ain’t missed any lately.”
Jax turned away to hide his smile at Tildy’s outraged gasp. He pulled the red- and white-checkered cloth back, easing himself onto the trestle table. Callie sat down in a chair beside Jax, reaching for his hand.
As Dolly returned, Cara asked, “Is there anything we might do to help?”
Dolly nodded toward the kitchen. “If you’re powerful hungry—” she shot Tildy a withering glance, “you can go an’dish up the vittles. I’d be much obliged. Y’all can use the other table.”
Cara nodded and headed for the kitchen, as Dolly turned her attention to Jax. “What happened to your hand, son?” she asked gruffly, noting the makeshift bandage.
Jax smiled, his eyes crinkling. “Ran into a slew of Apaches. You know Blue Feather, don’t you?”
Dolly snorted. “Do I! That ol’ bastard.” She glanced at Callie. “Sorry, hon.”
Jax went on. “He decided…we needed to fight.”
“In the ring?”
“Mm-hmm. I drew first blood, though. It rattled him some.”
“I hope you cut him bad,” Dolly muttered, cleaning the wicked slash at Jax’s side as she spoke. Her voice gentled. “Take a breath, boy. This is gonna sting.”
“Go ahead.” Jax grimaced as she poured peroxide over the wound, then whiskey.
Dolly looked at Callie with serious blue eyes. “Always purify the wound, child. That’s important.”
Callie nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“If you stay around this one very long,” the older woman continued, “you’ll have to learn doctorin’. He needs it more’n anybody I ever knowed, ’cept my husband, Joe.” Dolly took out a needle and her matchbox. She threaded the needle, then struck the match. She held the needle in the flame for a few seconds, then blew the match out. Bending, she lowered the needle just over the seeping wound, pausing for a moment.
Jax squeezed Callie’s fingers and she tore her gaze from watching what Dolly was doing to look at him. His eyes were warm with laughter. “Go on, Cal. Get something to eat. You don’t have to do this—not for me. Dolly’s used to patchin’ me up.”
Did she look that disgusted, she wondered, or was it fear he’d read in her eyes? And how much was it to ask, for her to sit beside him while Dolly sewed him up? But he wouldn’t ask. She shuddered at the thought of what Dolly was about to do, knowing her own stomach probably wouldn’t have been strong enough to see the task through. But, she could be here with him. Hold his hand. Just be near. It wasn’t much to offer, but it was something; and right now, it was all she had.
She tightened her fingers against his. “Are you trying to get rid of me, Marshal?”
“You know better,” he replied, all laughter gone from his expression as he became serious. “I could’ve done that easily enough in Blue Feather’s camp, love.”
“What—What do you mean?” Callie asked slowly.
“Did you really think I was fighting him for Tildy Rienholdt?” he whispered.
Realization dawned and Callie’s fingers went limp in his as she leaned back in her chair. She looked past him with unseeing eyes. “I thought…it was for all of us,” she murmured.
Jax snorted. “I guess you could say that, but it was mainly for you, Callie. The others were…incidental.”
“He got you deep here, Jax,” Dolly muttered. “Probably need four or five stitches on the worst of it.”
“Make ’em pretty,” Jax teased, then added under his breath, “and quick.” He flinched as the needle entered his skin, and Callie squeezed his hand.
“You holdin’ out all right over there, Jaxson?” Trey called. He laid his spoon down, craning his neck from where he sat eating at the other table.
“He’s fine, Mr. Newell, long as he don’t have to think about makin’ polite conversation right now,” Dolly responded. She took the next stitch.
“’M sorry, Dolly. We-We’re just worried.”
“Well, you oughtta be! What was you thinkin’, ridin’ into a passel of Apaches like that? Especially Blue Feather and his bunch!”
Trey Newell stopped eating and shot a look at Sam. Sam raised a brow, a smile on his lips. “Now ain’t that the way of it? Why did you ride into them ’Paches, Trey?”
“Didn’t do it on purpose,” Trey grumbled after a few seconds passed. He resumed eating.
“No. Didn’t reckon you did, Trey,” Dolly said more evenly. “But still, you did it.”
“Confound it, Dolly, what was I supposed to do? I wouldn’t have even knowed they were there if it hadn’t been for Jax! He spotted ’em.”
Another stitch. Jax’s lips tightened. “Let him be, Dolly,” Jax said quietly. “There’s…no way he could’ve known.”
Dolly looked as if she had more to say, but she glanced at Jax and remained silent.
Jax’s fingers flexed each time Dolly slid the needle into his skin, and it seemed he had to consciously give some thought to relaxing them. He made no sound, though his forehead was beaded with sweat. Dolly handed Callie a clean, damp cloth.
“Make yourself useful, child. He needs some comfort.”
Callie looked into Jax’s taut expression and saw laughter lurking in his eyes, behind the hurt. She gently drew the cloth across his forehead and neck, carefully wiping the sweat and grime away while Dolly worked on his side.
After a few more well-placed stitches, Dolly tied the thread off and snipped it with her scissors. She smoothed on some salve and began to wrap clean bandaging around the bruised and bloody area.
Jax sat up, then stood slowly, ignoring the pain in his side. Dolly shook her head. “Let’s tend to that hand.” She reached for the needle and thread again as Jax braced the back of his hand against the rough-hewn table.
She pressed her lips together as the needle slid into Jax’s palm. “You shouldn’t’ve cut so deep,” she murmured.
“Had to show I really meant it,” he muttered, watching as she took the next stitch.
Callie couldn’t bear it any longer. “Jax, don’t watch!” she entreated.
He raised amused eyes to look at her, a teasing retort on his lips. It died unspoken at the worried lines in her expression, the way her teeth clamped over her lower lip in empathy as Dolly took yet another stitch.
“I’m almost done here, young lady.” Dolly glanced at Callie, then looked at Jax. “I’ll just sew up the worst of it. It’s not cut so bad here.” She winked at him. “Four or five stitches oughtta let the deeper part of it mend, and the rest will heal on its own, long as you take care of it.” She snipped the thread once again and nodded toward the other table. “Y’all go sit. I’ll fetch ya somethin’ to eat.”
But Jax shook his head. “I need to clean up first, Dolly.”
“No bath with those cuts just stitched!” Dolly warned.
“Yeah, I know. I just want to get some of the worst dirt off before I sit down to eat.”
“You and your woman can have your old room Jax, at the end of the hall. I been savin’ it for ya. Go on, and put your things up.” She bent
a no-nonsense stare on Trey Newell. “Don’t believe your driver’ll be wantin’ to leave til mornin’. It’s early to stop, but if you went on, it’d be long after dark before you got to Bob and Marney’s place.”
“Oh—uh—yeah, Jax,” Trey nodded vigorously. “We’ll stay over here. Let ever’body rest up and get their second wind from what happened today.” He blew his breath out in a rush. “We’re all…mighty obliged for what you did for us, Jaxson. They’d of killed us, sure, if you hadn’t-a been there.”
“Earned my money today, didn’t I, Trey?” Jax teased. He took Callie’s hand and led her down the hallway.
“Earned it by nearly dying for us,” Callie murmured.
They stopped just outside the bedroom door, and he turned, his dark gaze sweeping over her.
“But I didn’t, Callie.” He brought her knuckles to his lips, brushing them in a light kiss. His eyes were warm. “Did you think I couldn’t take Blue Feather?”
She wanted to dissolve in the sheltering strength of his arms, but she held herself erect. “I was worried with good reason, Jax!” She indicated the fresh bandage at his side.
He grinned. “Stop sputtering and come thank me properly, then. I told you I’d take care of you, sweetheart.”
“Your ribs aren’t healed, Marshal, in case you forgot.”
“Oh, I remembered. When Blue Feather and I went rolling around in the dirt I didn’t forget those ribs for one minute.” He bent to kiss her lightly, but her arms encircled his neck and the kiss deepened. As Jax lifted his head, he muttered, “I couldn’t lose, Callie.”
“I know. You knew our lives depended on…on your success. We’d’ve all been killed.”
Jax’s lips curved up as he reached to open the door behind him. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then…what?”
“I couldn’t lose with you, Callie. You were there with me.”
Chapter 13
The bed seemed more inviting to Jax than food at the moment. He washed as carefully as he could, then lay down on the clean, white sheets. In a few minutes, Callie joined him. She put a tentative hand on his shoulder, but didn’t speak.
“It seems you’ve got a lot on your mind,” Jax murmured wryly, not looking at her. He was remembering the play of emotions in her expression that he’d been witnessing all afternoon. From the time he told her about the Apaches and what he was going to do, to this moment, and everything in between. He suspected the necklace weighed most heavily on her heart.
“As do you, Marshal,” she responded tartly.
Jax raised a brow at her sharp tone.
“Where did you get that locket?” The question bubbled out in a rush.
“From your stepfather, Callie. Where’d you think?” Without waiting for a response, he went on. “He gave it to me so I’d know what you looked like.” The silence stretched between them, and finally Jax asked, “Why? How else would I have come by it?”
“Oh, Jax, I don’t know! I don’t know what to even think anymore.”
“That necklace—it meant a lot to you, didn’t it? I could see it in your face, when you handed it over to Blue Feather.”
“Do you think it made a difference? My giving it to him, I mean?”
He reached to finger her hair, touching the shortened tendrils where she’d cut the locks for Blue Feather. “You guaranteed us safe passage with Blue Feather. Life is worth a lot, I’d say, chica. A lot more than a locket.”
“It was a gift to my mother, the year before she died. I-I laid it on the pillow—in the casket—when she—” Her voice broke as she gave in to the gathering flood of tears.
Jax turned to her, ignoring the spearing pain in his side. He pulled her close to him in the gathering darkness of the room. He let her cry, holding her, stroking her hair.
“So, how did Treadwell come by it?” he mused after a moment.
“He must have taken it just before—before they shut the lid.” Callie gently tried to move away, but he held onto her. “I don’t want to hurt your side.”
Jax grinned. “You’re all right. It feels better now, and you’ve had a week’s worth of practice dodging that right side of mine. You should be good at it by now.”
****
A week’s worth of sleeping together. She remembered Dolly’s words about this being Jax’s room, the one she’d saved for him. Did he bring all his women here when he passed through? And Dolly was certainly familiar with Jax, Callie thought, remembering the older woman’s almost motherly tending of him.
“Do you…stay here often?” she asked carefully.
“The question game?”
Callie could hear the amusement in his words. She flushed. “It doesn’t matter anymore, does it? You know everything about me now, and I still don’t—”
Jax chuckled. “Dolly—raised my brother and me after we lost our mother. We came here to live after…”
Callie sighed. “I’m sorry, Jax. I’ve—I’ve done it again, haven’t I? It hurts you to speak of it, I can tell. I was just curious.”
“It’s all right, Cal. Dolly likes you.”
“Well, she certainly has a weakness for you,” she teased.
Jax grinned. “And my brother, Brendan. She never beat us like Jack did. And she loved us, as he never seemed to be able to do.” He hesitated. “Dolly and Joe lost their four boys to the War. Then Joe was killed in an ambush. Bren and I, we’re all the family she has left.” He touched a strand of her hair. “Coming here to live was a good thing. A lot better than the alternative.”
He shifted, trying to get comfortable, before he continued. “My father—if you can call him that—was not exactly overjoyed at the prospect of having us dumped off on him—and he never hesitated to let us know it with the back of his hand, or whatever else was handy.”
Callie did not disbelieve him. She ached for him, for the bitter reality in his voice. How sad, for a child to be unwanted by a parent. How painful, still, for the grown man the child had become. Callie swallowed hard. “Could he have just been a harsh disciplinarian? I mean, how do you know he didn’t want you?”
Jax shook his head and kissed her nose as she turned and rose on her elbow to look at him. “I know.” There was a terrible finality in his tone. He gave a short laugh. “That’s enough about all that. Brendan, my brother, is the only true family I’ve got, besides Dolly. Jack McCall’s been dead to me a long time.”
He trailed a roughened finger down her neck. “How did you know what I told Blue Feather? That you were pregnant, I mean?”
Callie’s lips quirked. “Reverend Manley knew. He understood everything.” She became serious once more. “I was so afraid, Jax. Not for me,” she went on quickly, “but for you. I couldn’t have stood it if you—” She broke off, then finished her thought. “If you had been killed.”
Jax smiled at her grave expression. “I wouldn’t let that happen, Cal.”
They lay silent for a few minutes, then Callie asked, “Jax, do you think—what’s going to happen to me?”
He hesitated a moment. “Do you really have relatives in Amarillo?”
“No. In fact, I was planning to keep going to California—if my money held out.”
“Do you have family anywhere? Or possibly some friends you could stay with? I’ll take you wherever—” he broke off as she shook her head against him.
Something was wrong. There was an urgency in his tone that she hadn’t missed.
“What is it that you haven’t told me, Marshal?” she tried to tease. Her voice was shaky. “Am I in some…other kind of trouble?”
“Cal…” Jax began.
“Tell me,” Callie whispered.
He sighed. “Remember, in Fort Smith, Wolf Blocker was asking for you?”
Callie nodded.
“I saw him looking at a picture of you—a tintype. I think your stepfather hired me to track you, to lead Blocker and his men to you.”
“But why? You said he wants me returned. I believe that. He needs me to c
omplete his little scheme to get out of debt.”
“It’s gone beyond that now,” Jax told her carefully. “He…wants to be sure you don’t pose a threat to him.”
“You think he intends to have me killed?” her voice cracked.
“Yeah. I do. If you were out of the way, the house and everything in it would be his. Everything would be his to dispose of as he saw fit. There may even be other properties and assets you don’t know about.”
“An inheritance, you mean?”
“Possibly. Did your mother ever talk to you about something like that, Callie? Maybe when you turn a certain age—”
“Like eighteen?” Her voice was thoughtful as she searched her memory for any clue her mother might have given her.
“He’s desperate for that money, sweetheart. He’ll do anything to get it.”
Callie raised her eyes to his and moistened her lips. “Desperate enough to—to kill a U.S. Marshal?”
He gave a disgusted snort. “Stupid enough to try, Callie.” He hesitated a moment, then continued. “Blocker was asking for both of us there in Fort Smith. I stopped in for a drink before I ever came over to the hotel. The bartender said he’d been there earlier in the day asking for me. Then Margie told me he’d been asking for you at the hotel.”
Callie came to her elbows. “I’d give my stepfather every blasted thing if he’d just—just leave me alone! And you.”
Jax smiled and touched a strand of her hair once more. “He can’t do that now. It’s gone too far. Besides, why should he enjoy living in your home and you have to be out here on the run?”
“Who’ll believe me? This whole thing sounds so crazy—even I would have trouble believing it if I wasn’t living it.” She shook her head. “I can’t go back to Washington. He’s got the politicians and judges in his pocket. But, I have no place else to go.” She raised her eyes to his. “Most of all, I don’t want you getting hurt because of me. Today was bad enough.”
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