by Lynda J. Cox
Jenny’s smile widened and she nodded vigorously.
“I’m Donnie Morris. You must be Colt Evans.” Donnie stopped on the first step of the porch and gave Colt a quick once-over. Again, Amelia had the uncomfortable sensation of watching two bristling mountain lions challenge each other. She amended that comparison to a mountain lion and an angry house cat. There was no way she could ever see Donnie Morris as dangerous. Colt certainly did bring out the best in people.
“I’m him.” Colt spared Donnie a glance but didn’t get up. He continued to shave chips of wood from the piece of pine. “That get-up the newest fashion back East?”
“Yes, it is.” Donnie glanced down at his clothing, a frown marring his round face and then he shrugged, as if dismissing Colt’s question. “Saul just prattled on and on about the man Amy had staying here who had been shot.” He stepped onto the porch. “Seems you’re getting along right well. How long are you planning on staying here?”
Colt’s eyes narrowed and the shavings flew off a little faster and with more force from the stick.
Donnie retreated a step and Amelia slipped between the two men. “Donnie, Sunday dinner is just about done cooking. Would you like to stay and have a meal with us?”
“I’d like that very much.” He smiled. “I was rather hoping you would invite me to Sunday dinner.”
Behind her, Colt coughed. Amelia whirled. With deliberate motions, Colt uncoiled from the rocker and drove the whittling knife into the porch railing. “I’m going to the barn so you two can…talk about going back to church. Call me when dinner is ready.”
“What do you mean by that?” Amelia fought the urge to shake him.
“Nothing. Just that I’d like to know when dinner is ready.” He walked away from the cabin toward Jenny who was scattering feed to the clucking chickens. Colt tossed the stick he had been whittling and held his hand out to the girl. “I’m going out to the barn to brush my horse. Want to help me, Miss Jenny?”
Her walnut curls bobbed with her vigorous nod. Jenny tossed the rest of the feed to the cackling hens and raced to Colt. She slipped her hand into his and skipped alongside him.
Donnie tugged on the collar of his shirt as if his tie was knotted too tightly. “Jenny certainly has taken to him.”
Amelia pulled the door open. “Yes, she has. I’m glad too, Donnie. She’s been so terrified of strangers.”
“With good reason.” Donnie followed Amelia into the house. He swept his bowler off and hung it on a peg by the door, and then smoothed his mousy-brown hair, slicked back with Macassar oil. He sat on the edge of a chair at the table and cleared his throat several times. “Amy, folks in town are talking,” he finally said.
“Talking about what?” she asked leaning over the large black oven. Amelia didn’t know why she asked, as she was certain she and Colt were the subjects of the conversations.
“About you and that man staying here and how it isn’t appropriate,” Donnie said.
Amelia glanced at him over her shoulder, a pot of boiled potatoes in her hands. “What was I supposed to do? Turn him away? He’d been shot and he was unconscious and bleeding profusely.”
“How long are you going to let him stay?”
“Why, Donnie Morris, you sound as if you’re jealous.” Amelia poured the water off the potatoes. She added milk and a bit of butter, and rummaged in a drawer for the masher.
“Truth be told, I am.” Donnie’s voice took on an unaccustomed hard edge. “Where does he sleep?”
“In my bed.” She found the masher and took some of her anger out on the hapless potatoes.
Donnie’s harrumph grated Amelia’s nerves.
She wagged the masher at him. “And I am sleeping in Jenny’s bed with her. You should be ashamed of yourself for what you are thinking. We both know that I don’t turn any heads. I doubt I hold any attraction for Mr. Evans. You are the only one who has ever tried to court me, and that’s only been after Momma and Daddy died.”
If Donnie was embarrassed, he didn’t act it. He closed the distance between them. “You still haven’t told me how long he’s staying here.”
“Until Dr. Archer says he’s fit.” Amelia returned to mashing the steaming potatoes. A fierce, bright anger shimmered through her. How dare he? “Donnie, this isn’t like you.”
Donnie grabbed her arm and spun her around. “And this isn’t like you, letting a man like that stay here.”
Amelia glared at the chubby white fingers encircling her arm. “Letting a man like what? What kind of a man is he, Donnie?”
He shook her, his face inches from hers. “Do you have any idea the number of men he’s killed? Especially after what happened to your parents, I wouldn’t think you would want a man like him staying here. People in town are really wagging their tongues too.”
His hair oil, his strong cologne, the faint, acrid odor of cigarette smoke and soap made her head swim. His fingers dug into her arm. The jealousy and anger on his face twisted his features into something unpleasant, something she had never seen in Donnie before.
“Let go of my arm, Donnie.” Amelia forced herself to meet his angry gaze. “The last sermon Daddy preached was about the injured man on the road to Jericho and the people who passed to the other side. Let the people in town wag their tongues. If my parents were alive, they would have taken him in and you know that. I will not be one who passes to the other side.”
“But Mary and Phillip aren’t alive, Amy. Do you know what they’re saying about him and about you?” Donnie shook her arm again. “They’re saying he’s a killer, a gunman, and they’re calling you a Jezebel…and worse. If your parents were alive, people wouldn’t be talking about you and that man staying here. You’re out here, all alone and without a chaperone. Anything could happen to you with him here.”
“Let go of my arm.” Amelia flung his hand from her. “I will state this again. I was not raised to pass to the other side of the road, and Colt Evans has not acted anything but a gentleman toward me.” Even as the words slipped from her lips, she recollected the near-kiss Saul had interrupted the previous day.
“Then send him on his way. He’s obviously getting around well enough if he’s up and walking.” Donnie stepped back, bright color suffusing his rounded cheeks. “Amy, it won’t matter to me if you and he…when we’re married…if you and he had…if the reason he’s still is here is because…”
Amelia’s spine stiffened. “I never said I would marry you, Donald Robert Morris. And for another thing, Colt Evans has never done anything that could even be considered inappropriate.”
“It’s appropriate to have that man here, sleeping in your bed…?”
A red haze filtered her vision, and Amelia slapped Donnie as hard as she could.
Shocked silence reigned for a moment until Amelia broke it. “He sleeps in my bed, yes, but as I have already told you, I am sleeping with Jenny.” She pressed her stinging palm into her hip and resisted the urge to hit him in the head with the potato masher. “Maybe you had better leave, Donnie.”
“I was going to ask you to marry me today.” Donnie backed another step away. “I’m the only one who will marry you, Amy. No one else in this town will, now that you’ve let him stay here. Too many people already think the worst. I’m beginning to think there is something more going—”
“Get out!”
Donnie grabbed his bowler from the peg. The same moment he reached for the knob, the door opened from the outside. Donnie shoved past Colt, slamming him into the doorjamb.
“Shit,” Colt hissed through clenched teeth and slumped against the doorframe. He covered his injured shoulder with his good hand as color drained from his face, leaving him ashen under his sun-darkened complexion.
Amelia dropped the potato masher and raced to his side. She caught him around the waist before he fell to the floor.
Ignoring Donnie’s wide-eyed stare and the angry tightening of his features before he marched away, Amelia led Colt to the table. “Sit down.”
> He didn’t argue with her. He dropped into the chair and clutched his shoulder, his head falling forward. “Jesus, that hurt.”
Amelia pulled the knot on the sling and eased it off his arm. She knelt in front of him and unbuttoned his shirt. “Let me see if it’s bleeding again.”
His shirt parted and she carefully pulled the thick bandage away from his shoulder. Fresh blood welled against the protective cloth. She slipped the shirt from his shoulders, and tugged his right arm free of the sleeve.
“What happened, Amy?” Saul asked from the doorway.
Amelia glanced over her shoulder. Jenny and Saul stood in the doorway, both of them as white as Colt. “Jenny, go get me the bandages Dr. Archer left for Colt. Saul, saddle up your mare and ride into town. Go get Dr. Archer.”
Colt shook his head. “Saul, ain’t no need for him.” He sent a watery smile to Jenny. “Go find those bandages, like your sister asked, Miss Jenny.”
His smile went a long way to remove the worry from Jenny’s slender face and dark eyes. Amelia tilted her head up to him. “She really likes you, Colt,” she said.
He nodded. Sweat dripped down his throat and chest. “Actually, Saul could go into town and see if one of the saloons will send a bottle of whiskey home with him.”
Amelia reared back, and then nodded. “Saul, take your mare and go to the Thirsty Dog Saloon. Silas knows you. Tell him what happened and that we need a bottle of whiskey.”
Jenny returned with a wicker basket filled with rolled white bandages. Amelia shook one of the rolls out and folded it into a thick pad. “Jenny, I am going to need your help. Can you help me?”
The child’s eyes widened and the remaining color leeched from her face. Colt shook his head again. “Don’t ask her, Amelia. I’ll help as best I can. Jenny, go on out and finish brushing my horse down, will you?”
Jenny raced from the house. Amelia handed the thick pad to Colt. “Some tough killer you are.”
Colt’s grin was lopsided. “Let her pull a gun on me and see how tough I can be.” He sucked a hissing breath in through his teeth when Amelia unwrapped the bandaging on his shoulder. She grabbed the fresh pad and pressed it onto the welling wound.
“Son of a bitch. That hurts like hell,” he grated out, swaying in the chair.
“You’ve got to hold this in place until I get the first wrap around it.” She glanced away from his face, adding, “And please watch your language around Jenny and Saul. They’re very impressionable.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He covered her hand with his to hold the padding in place. Amelia started wrapping new bandaging around his shoulder, then encircled his back with the wide, white swathing, and crossed up to his shoulder again.
He was as white as the bandaging when she finished. Sagging in the chair, eyes shut, Colt breathed shallowly.
Amelia rose and wet a washrag from the hand pump at the sink. She returned to him and gently wiped the cold sweat from his neck and chest. Finished with that, she eased his arm into the sleeve and tugged the shirt up onto his shoulders.
She bent over him to close the buttons, but her hands froze when he captured her chin in his palm. With a gentle, insistent pressure, he tilted her head to him. The gray of his eyes had deepened, more like the billowing, deep thunderheads of a spring storm, adding a new depth and dimension to his gaze.
“Why’d you slap him?” His rich, velvety baritone caressed her, warm and vibrant.
“How’d you know I…?”
“He was wearing your handprint on his face. Why’d you slap him?”
Amelia twisted her head from his palm and resumed buttoning his shirt. “He said something inappropriate.”
“He one of those sweaty-palmed boys who’s stolen a kiss from you behind the church?” The amusement in his voice raked over her already raw emotions and left her aching. First Donnie Morris with his self-righteousness and his assumption that because Colt Evans slept in her bed, she had become a woman of loose morals, and now Colt tormenting her about the only kiss she had ever had.
“That is none of your business, Colt Evans.” Amelia rose and stomped over to the cooling, partially mashed potatoes.
His laughter rumbled from deep in his chest, but was aborted. “It hurts to laugh, Amy.”
“Serves you right. You shouldn’t be laughing at me,” she shot back as she scooped the masher from the floor. She rinsed it off and continued to beat the potatoes. And why was he calling her Amy now, not Amelia?
“Amy, would you please come here and help me get this sling on?”
How could his voice change in range from cold-enough-to-shatter-steel to molten honey so quickly? And why did the sound of that voice slide over her skin like the caress of warmed velvet? Without a word, she abandoned the potatoes again and carefully lifted his arm. She slipped the sling under and bent to tie it. A second later, he held her captive, his hand cupping the nape of her neck. To keep from falling against him, Amelia braced her hands against the chair back.
He pulled her closer to him. “You need to be really kissed, and not by that dandified boy who just left.”
His mouth was inches from hers. Her heart leaped, and butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She had to swallow before she managed to croak, “Donnie Morris is not a boy.”
“Did he ever kiss you?”
“Once.” She wasn’t about to tell him that at the time she wondered what all the fuss was about. Why folks seemed to think kissing was such a wonderful thing.
“Once?” His brow shot up. “Only once? Either he didn’t kiss you right, or else this isn’t the first time he’s worn your handprint on his face.”
“Donnie Morris is a gentleman.” For a moment, Amelia reflected that this was the second time she had defended one man to the other by claiming each was a gentleman. It was almost amusing that the one man she wished would act as a gentleman hadn’t recently, and the one who had been accused of not being a gentleman had so far been just that.
“Donnie Morris is a boy.” Colt slid his hand into her hair and cradled the back of her head, pulling her closer to his mouth. “You need kissed by a man who knows what he’s doing. You need kissed by a man who will make your knees weak and every inch of you ache for more.”
Everything in her stilled with the veiled promise in his deep voice. The depths of his eyes were as fathomless and warm as anything she could imagine. Amelia pushed away from him. “I suppose you think you’re that man?”
“Amy, darling,” he said in a deeper voice, “I know I’m that man.”
More butterflies fluttered in her stomach and her breath caught. She wiped her damp palms down the sides of her skirt.
Jenny shoved the door open at that moment. Colt smiled in the manner Amelia was beginning to realize was for Jenny alone.
“All done with my horse, Jenny?”
The girl nodded. Her pointed gaze fell on Colt’s shoulder and she lifted her brows in a silent query. He spared his shoulder a glance. “All bandaged and it’s going to be fine. Come here. You’ve still got chocolate ice cream on your chin.” He picked up the discarded washrag from the table and dabbed the dried splotch from Jenny’s chin.
Jenny’s smile wreathed her face. Amelia turned away, ashamed by the twinge of jealousy she felt for her little sister’s easy relationship with Colt Evans. Jenny was just responding to Colt as she herself did.
****
Amelia walked from the barn to the house, deep in thought, a half-empty milk bucket in her hand. The last bit of daylight had faded, leaving the land bathed in gathering shadows of gray and black, and the sky streaked with myriad hues of blue, purple, red, orange, and yellow. The Medicine Bows rose in the west, the peaks golden in the last of twilight. A vesper sparrow sang lustily from a small bush near the house, whistling the day to sleep. This was a beautiful place, and she did love it here, despite the harshness of the land and the difficulty of forcing a living.
Amelia sighed. Dolly was dry. She was going to have to talk to Marshal Taylor about getting
her bred. She stumbled to a halt when Colt emerged from the deepening shadows of the small porch.
“What the hell was your beef with Jenny this evening?” he asked, his face set in harsh lines and his voice tight.
“What are you talking about?” Guilt stabbed Amelia.
“You snapped her head off when she said she didn’t want to go to bed. If you’re still angry about that dandified twit this afternoon, or with anything I’ve done, take it out on me.” He raked a hand through his hair, dragging it from his brow. “I’m an adult and I can snap back. She’s just a kid.”
“It was past her bedtime and I was not going to have her stand there, shaking her head at me and giving you calf-eyes to plead her case. And she didn’t say she didn’t want to go to bed. She won’t talk.”
“Oh, yes, she does talk. You just have to listen to her. She makes herself known in very uncertain terms.”
“You’re coddling her.” Amelia started past him.
He caught her arm and spun her around. Milk sloshed from the bucket, splashing Amelia’s skirt.
“Oh, no, look at what I just did. Now, I’ve got to wash this skirt again. If I wasn’t so—”
“Don’t you dare say you’re clumsy, because you didn’t do it, Amy. I did when I caught your arm.” Colt stepped closer to her. “What is eating at you? This isn’t like you.”
“That is twice today a man has told me I’m not acting like myself.” Amelia jerked her arm free of his hold and sloshed more milk onto the fieldstone porch. “You don’t know me well enough to know how I should or shouldn’t be acting. I’d like to think that I know how to be myself without other people telling me I’m not.”
She stalked past him into the cabin and set the milk bucket on the table. She searched for a clean towel to cover the bucket until she could get the milk into the churn.
Colt grabbed her elbow from behind and spun her into his chest. Before she could react, his injured arm snaked around her waist. He caught her chin in his other hand, fingers splayed across her cheek, and bent his head to her.
Amelia’s breath caught in her throat. Butterflies darted through her stomach when he ran the pad of his thumb along her lower lip. Without thought, Amelia trailed the tip of her tongue along the path his thumb had traced, and met his gaze, startled to see the cool gray was gone, replaced with molten pewter.
