Montana Sky_Legacy

by Lynn Winchester

  “The one laced with the sleeping draught?” Now her offer of a drink, and her eagerness for him to drink it, made sense. She’d planned to drug him to keep him from finding out about her plans. “Thankfully, I dumped the drink into a potted plant.” At her sharp intake of breath, he explained, “I don’t drink spirits, never have, never will. A man shouldn’t go through life letting anything diminish his ability to take care of himself or his family.” It was something his pa had taught him, and he held it close to his chest. Too bad liquor wasn’t the thing diminishing his ability to take care of Joanna…

  “Where did you get sleeping draught?” Tim asked, wondering if he should be drinking and eating only food and drink he prepared himself.

  Joanna stood so fast, Tim thought she’d spring right into the bed, but she moved toward the door. “My mother gave it to me. I had trouble sleeping after…” The emotion on her face sharpened. “If we’re staying in town tonight, I need to change into my dress.” She changed the subject abruptly, and he didn’t need to wonder why. Her brother. She couldn’t sleep after his murder. Tim couldn’t imagine what it would be like to spend nights awake, grieving over the death of one of his sisters.

  Without another word, Joanna grabbed her bag from behind the door and stormed out.

  Tim sighed heavily and closed his eyes again. And before he drifted off into a pain hazed sleep, he wondered if Joanna would stay put, or if he’d have to take another bullet to keep her close.

  Chapter Eight

  JoJo slumped against the vibrating wall of the carriage and closed her eyes. What a long, long, long night… After her near fatal failure in the alley, she’d spent a good portion of the night watching Tim sleep. The doctor said he’d be fine, the bullet went straight through, but she couldn’t stop the worrying. It was her fault the man had bled out onto the dust in a dark, back alley. It was her fault he groaned in a restless slumber. It was her fault he’d come into town in the first place— If he’d only drank the brandy, he’d still be safe at the mansion, sleeping like a baby, and she wouldn’t be headed back to town after a breakneck ride from town to the mansion just before dawn.

  Exhausted didn’t even begin to describe her level of physical ache and weariness. Thankfully, she’d had the presence of mind to conjure up a lie that would explain Tim’s being in town. And being shot.

  “I received a message from town,” she’d told her aunt that morning after sneaking upstairs and changing into a clean dress. “It said that cousin Tim was shot and that we need to send the carriage to get him.”

  Her aunt, suitably shocked, asked, “Why was he in town, and who shot him?”

  Forcing herself to ignore the guilt rising to warm her face, she’d told her aunt the worst part of the lie… “I don’t know. Perhaps he wanted to have some fun, and maybe he was robbed.” And maybe he was chasing her and got shot trying to rescue her from a murderer. Shaking the thoughts from her head, she’d asked her aunt to order the carriage, and she hopped inside, headed back into town. And right into more trouble—because the moment Tim realized she’d slipped away again, he would surely be ornery.

  The carriage pulled up outside the infirmary and JoJo stepped from the carriage just in time to see Dalton Hess slip around the corner of a building just up the street. The same building adjacent to the alley where she’d shot Tim. Why was that alley so important?

  Pulling her bonnet up over her head, she walked toward the alley, keeping her eyes out for anyone else who slipped into the alley. She already knew Hess and Beaufort were in on something together, but she didn’t know who the ‘new hand’ was. Maybe if she—

  The door to the infirmary opened behind her, and a woman stepped out onto the boardwalk. “Oh, Miss Stopay?” the woman called out, waving excitedly. “Miss Stopay?”

  Casting an annoyed glance over her shoulder at the woman, JoJo offered her a short nod in acknowledgement, then she looked back at the alley. Again, she wondered why, after the commotion of the night before, would Hess go back there? She took a single step forward to get a better look at the building beside it.

  She let out a curse. It was right next to the store.

  “So, what’s his plan?” she murmured, her body tensing as the reality of the situation pressed down on her. She was the only one who could stop Dalton Hess from succeeding at whatever his black heart was set on. Her heart thudded against her rib cage as she turned back toward the infirmary and the woman who’d introduced herself early that morning as Dr. Rawlins’s wife, Missouri.

  Entering the cool interior of the medical clinic, she was immediately met by the man who’d answered the door to her incessant, panicked banging the night before. Lord, but she was grateful Dr. Rawlins had stayed in town last night. Missouri said her husband usually headed home to the Harper Ranch at the end of the day, but he’d finished late the night before, and JoJo had shown up before he could leave.

  Dr. Rawlins was tall, broad shouldered, clean shaven, and had a pair of the most piercing, intimidating blue eyes she’d ever seen.

  Not as wonderful as Tim’s eyes, though… She shook herself to knock out that ridiculous thought.

  “Dr. Rawlins,” she said, smiling. She was genuinely glad to see him, and she was even gladder that he hadn’t hesitated to follow her into the night to retrieve a heavily bleeding stranger. Once they had Tim back at the clinic, he’d made short work of removing Tim’s shirt, revealing hard edges and flat plains of a chest and belly that knew the strains and stresses of hard work. She knew she shouldn’t have looked, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away. It’d taken Tim’s groans of pain and Dr. Rawlins’s grunt as he looked over the wound to pull her from her inappropriate thoughts.

  They didn’t stay too far away, however, because the moment the doctor moved away from Tim to gather his supplies, JoJo watched as Tim’s body tensed in pain, and the muscles of his belly bunched. Goodness, but the man was good to look upon.

  Even now, remembering what he’d looked like under his pressed button down, JoJo had to fight the heat creeping into her face. The good doctor didn’t miss her flush, and she didn’t miss the smile that played at the edge of his lips.

  “Your young man is ready for your tender care… Miss… What did you say your name was?” he asked, his eyes twinkling knowingly.

  “Oh,” she began, remembering that when she’d met the doctor last night, she’d been wearing men’s clothes. “I never did say…and, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not say.” She knew it was pert near impossible to spend any time in town without her name and where she lived, and with whom, getting around. But she couldn’t give up that sliver of a chance of getting away with what happened the night before.

  Dr. Rawlins did smile then. “You’re to remain a mystery, then. Oh, well. I don’t suppose Mr. Timothy Hanlon knows your name?”

  Fear, guttural and fierce, slammed through her. What did that fool of a man say about me? Her stricken thoughts must’ve shown on her face because the doctor shook his head and patted her on the shoulder.

  “Don’t worry. Your young man hasn’t said a thing, though why he’d want to keep the secret of who shot him to himself, I’ll never know.”

  “Well, I—”

  “I figured I’d at least send word to the sheriff, but your young man didn’t want that, insisted on getting dressed and getting back to Wheeler Hills. Said something about keeping a sprite out of the fire.” He chuckled then. “I can only assume he meant you,” he said, winking at her.

  JoJo was so shocked at his wink, she nearly missed it when Tim hobbled into the room, one arm in a sling, and the other holding him upright in the doorway. His handsome face was drawn and pale, and his eyes were circled by dark smudges. Apparently, he’d gotten about as much sleep as she did.

  “So, you’ve returned,” he said, his eyes raking over her, taking in her dress and her bonnet. She hadn’t care much about what she changed into that morning, but now that Tim was standing there, looking at her, she wondered if she should have worn
the green dress rather than the brown one that was closer to the armoire door. A flickering of something hot danced in his expression, and she couldn’t help the shudder it teased from her. Heavens, but the man sure knew how to fluster a woman with a single glance. I wonder if he ever looks at other women that way… Angry at her turn of thoughts, she pushed out her lip and nodded.

  “Of course, why wouldn’t I?” she sniffed, then nearly panicked when Dr. Rawlins took that moment to leave the room. She was alone with Tim, so what? Why did that make her so…anxious?

  He smiled then, a slow, dastardly thing that made her breath catch in her throat. “I was worried about you. I woke up in the dark and your chair was empty.” His voice was low, carrying what she could only assume was a weighty emotion. “You promised me you wouldn’t leave.”

  “I had to leave,” she snapped. “I had to make sure Aunt Melda sent the carriage for you. With Ink at the livery—where I took him, of course—and with you being wounded, I knew you’d need a ride back to the estate. I couldn’t very well ride with you at my back on a single horse, now could I?”

  The flash of electricity in his eyes told her he wouldn’t have minded so much, and it took all the chill of propriety within her to douse the heat his gaze ignited. But not before an image of them on a horse—his strong arms around her, her back pressed against the hardness of his chest, him murmuring wicked things into her ear—charged through her brain. She hid her trembling hands in her skirts. Heavens, why was she thinking such things? About a farmer, no less!

  “No, I suppose not,” he admitted, his voice deeper than it’d been only a minute before.

  A cough and a shuffling of feet brought her attention to Dr. Rawlins who was waiting at the door, his blue eyes twinkling. Whatever he thought about her and Tim, she didn’t care to tell him different.

  “Let’s get you home, son,” Dr. Rawlins directed, helping Tim to the door. JoJo followed slowly, watching as the man she’d shot made agonizing progress to the waiting carriage.

  The first time I fire that gun since Joe’s death, and I end up shooting an innocent man. A wholly distracting and utterly charming man, she admitted, grudgingly. She’d never tell him that, of course. That last thing she needed was him getting ideas about her and him. Them.

  A tingling energy stirred in her belly and she stomped off after the men, hoping to dispel the energy into her boots. JoJo knew it was ridiculous…absurd…laughable…foolish even, to ever consider Tim as anything other than the man her uncle had ordered to watch over her. She knew it, deep down to her toes. So why did the word ‘them’ make her chest tight?

  Once they were settled into the carriage, she on one seat, Tim on the other, and the driver snapped the twin chestnuts into movement, JoJo’s thoughts settled onto what Tim had said in the infirmary. Instead of falling asleep, as her body begged, she asked, “You were worried about me?” She didn’t know why that made her happy, but it did. She shot that sensation down like a lame mule.

  Chapter Nine

  His shoulder hurt like the blazes, but he couldn’t make himself care much about it. Not with Joanna sitting across from him, her lips pouty, her eyes glimmering, her bonnet askew…she was breathtaking, and he suspected she didn’t know just how beautiful she was. Seeing her like that was almost worth getting shot over. Almost. Maybe if she smiled at little…

  He shook his head and immediately regretted it when the muscles in his neck pulled the muscles in his shoulder. The pain effectively cleared his mind of silly thoughts of Joanna smiling…but only for a moment. He remembered her smile from the drawing room the night before, when she was luring him into a trap in which he’d drink the brandy she’d given him and fall into a stupor so she could sneak out of the house. Her smile then wasn’t genuine, he knew that now. He’d have to add it to the list of fake smiles his sisters and cousins have given him throughout his life. But now, he wondered what Joanna’s face would look like with a real, brilliant smile shining there.

  “You were worried about me?” She sounded unsure but…hopeful.

  Her question made him drag his gaze from her lush, pink lips to her golden eyes. “Worried?” he asked, forcing his mind to focus. “What?” You certainly sound like an idiot, come on, get with it! “Well, of course I was worried. You’d been attacked,” he exclaimed, his gaze dropping to the high neck of her dress. More than likely worn to hide the bruises he knew would be forming there. “And when I woke up this morning, looking for you, you weren’t there. I immediately wondered if you’d been hurt or wandered off and gotten yourself into trouble again. For all I knew, you were back in that alley. Dead.” Yes, he was being dramatic, but it was the truth. When he’d opened his eyes into the blaring, morning sun, he’d glanced over to the empty chair and his heart jumped in his chest. It wasn’t until Dr. Rawlins came in and told him: “Your young woman has left, a few hours ago, racing from town like a bat out of hell.” He could remember the sense of relief he’d felt, immediately followed by annoyance and frustration.

  Sitting across from her in the rocking carriage, Tim watched the play of emotions flow over Joanna’s face. Her ginger eyebrows dipped into a V and her lips thinned.

  “You shouldn’t have worried. I can take care of myself,” she grimaced, her small hand flying to her throat. The throat covered in layers of cotton and bruises. She gave a dainty cough. “Besides,” she shifted in her seat, “I had to get back to the house before someone noticed we were gone.” She tipped up her chin and leveled him with narrowed eyes.

  Ah, so that’s why she’d left town in such a hurry. “How did you explain my absence?”

  Joanna shrugged. “I fabricated a note that said you were attacked in town and needed Aunt Melda to send the carriage to town to get you.”

  A bark of laughter escaped. “You don’t say… So, I was in town for what? A drink? A dally with a bawd? Perhaps to see the sights?” He laughed again at her pinched expression. “Was I shot while attempting to woo a saloon girl?” Tim knew he shouldn’t be so flippant, but heavens, he’d survived a gunshot wound, he had a reason to be a little gleeful.

  She crossed her arms and looked out the carriage window. “There’s no need to be cheeky.”

  He couldn’t help it, he laughed again, but he came to regret it the moment she clamped her mouth shut and refused to look in his direction. There he sat, in pain and exhausted, and the only person who’d make any of it worthwhile currently wished him to perdition.

  Three times during their slow ride back to the mansion, Tim tried engaging Joanna in conversation. Three times she grunted at him over her shoulder as she leaned into the window, blocking out the sunlight and her companion—a thoroughly chagrined farmer’s son who suddenly wondered how his pa dealt with his ma in situations like this. He dug through his memories, but he couldn’t think of a single time when his parents were anything but loving and cordial to one another. It was the kind of marriage he wanted for his own. A partnership between two people who truly cared for one another.

  Again, his gaze landed on the tense and brooding Joanna Stopay. He sighed. What will it take to get her to soften, just a bit? Would it kill her to smile and laugh just once—and not just because, but because he’d said or done something to make her happy? Would it kill him if she did?

  His heart looped through his chest, and he knew that there was something about Joanna that made him lose all sense, made him wonder about things he’d never wondered before—like how to make a woman smile. How to make a specific woman smile. If his sisters could see him now, they’d die of shock. Living in a house overflowing with females, he’d grown both accustomed to feminine company and immune to it. No matter how many grins or tears his sisters or his cousins, Uncle Thomas’s daughters, plied him with, he’d remained strong. Though, there were a few times when he’d given in, just because he loved the darling banshees.

  Now, though, faced with a pouty, angry, lovely, and utterly breathtaking woman, he was at a loss. Should he say he was sorry? Should he give her
gifts? His sister Bernie was particularly fond of gifts. What about poetry or thoughtful letters? His cousin Phyllis appreciated a well-written verse or note. He leaned back into the carriage seat and crossed his legs at the ankles, his eyes again lifting to watch Joanna watch the scenery.

  He couldn’t write poetry, it was too…intimate. And he couldn’t rhyme to save his life. He couldn’t give her gifts, he didn’t have any money, and he had no idea what she’d like. So, the only thing left was to apologize—but for what? She’d shot him! She’d abandoned him! She’d told fibs about him! If anyone should be apologizing it was Joanna. But telling her that…well, he might as well shoot himself in his other shoulder and get it over with.

  Strangely, that made him chuckle, which in turn made Joanna turn to look. His gaze slammed into hers, and his heart slammed into his ribs, robbing him of breath. Her eyes were bright with tears, like golden orbs polished to a shine.

  He gulped, then began, “Joanna…I—”

  The driver shouting and the carriage stopping made Joanna turn away. He groaned and rolled his eyes to heaven, angry at the loss of the moment. Over the last two hours he’d been thinking on his own things, wondering how he could get something he wanted, but he hadn’t really thought about Joanna, and what she might be going through. The memory of her eyes, glimmering with unshed tears, hit him square in the belly. Shaken, he swallowed the bile of guilt in his throat and forced himself to focus on getting out of the carriage, up to his room, and into a bed. Exhaustion pulled the sense from his body, leaving him numb. The ache in his arm only worsened as he stepped down from the carriage and turned to help Joanna. She let him help her down, but she gave him a quick nod before racing into the house.

  He groaned again. From the moment he arrived at Wheeler Hills, his life had taken a strange and interesting turn. A near drugging, a midnight attacker in back alley, and a bullet wound…all because he’d begun falling for a fire-headed sprite.