Could he be in jail or maybe dead? That was something Ethan hadn’t thought about until this second. In any case, he was here and maybe a little Good Samaritan help might be rewarded when he got down to talking business.
The kid’s voice caught his ear. “Mr. Ethan?”
“Uh-huh.” He spotted the cabin up ahead to the right.
“Can your horse go fast?”
“Sure.” He angled across the grassland, saving a few steps, his spurs jingling. Sage brushed against his denim trousers. The three horses followed his lead, the leather reins hard and stiff in his fingers.
“Can he go fast now?”
“No, not now.” The three horses’ hooves clip-clopped in an uneven rhythm on the hard-packed earth.
“When?”
“Later.”
“Can I ride him when you make him go fast?”
“Sure.”
Did kids always ask so many questions?
Ethan stopped by the corral. He helped Katie down first, letting the kid hold Four’s reins, not that they needed holding. Four was battle-trained like his master and didn’t bolt easily. Maybe that was why Ethan was here, force of habit, no retreat in the face of trouble. But trouble had taken on a whole new meaning when he’d met Molly Murphy.
Silently, he reached up for the woman, the one looking at him so intently. She hesitated then leaned toward him. He fitted his hands easily around her narrow waist.
Their gazes locked and held.
With her hands resting on his shoulders, he kept her there, suspended above him for an instant, the length of time it takes the heart to beat one slow, steady beat.
Married, Wilder. She’s married.
Reluctantly, he lowered her to the ground. “All right?”
She looked up into his down-turned face, hers so close he could see into the depths of her eyes, soft eyes that seemed to question, to search his face for the answer to some question known only to her.
Abruptly, she stepped away from him.
Strangely, Ethan regretted the loss, and that surprised him even more. He cleared his throat. “Come on, let’s get you into the cabin.”
She stopped him with a touch to his sleeve. “Why?”
His brows drew down in question. “Why get you into the cabin? Because—”
“Why are you doing this?”
The breeze lifted fine strands of her hair to fly about her face. He had the sudden urge to brush them back, to feel the softness, to…This time it was Ethan who took a half step back, needing distance. “I—”
“You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be—” Another spell of coughing.
“You need help, and since I’m the only one you’ve got—” he made a show of looking around “—I think you’re stuck with me…unless you really want me to go.”
Her cough eased off. “Are you from around here?” She cocked her head to one side, her fingers still lightly covering her lips.
“I’m not from around here.” There was no sense telling her more now.
“I don’t even know you, Mr. Wilder,” Molly asserted as good judgment warred with harsh reality. She needed help. She was trapped without the wagon and even if she climbed up on one of those draft horses she wasn’t sure she could stay there, her head was spinning so badly. The man was right. There was nothing and no one in town to help her. He, on the other hand, had been arrogant and bossy and, she hated to admit it, helpful.
“Look, Mrs. Murphy, like it or not you need me, and you know it. But it’s your call.” He gave a sorta one-shoulder shrug.
She appreciated that he was giving her a chance to send him away, to end their…relationship. She didn’t. “I already told you that I have no money for hiring hands, Mr. Wilder, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She wasn’t used to people around here going out of their way for her.
“I’m not looking for work. I’m offering to help you out for a day, maybe two, then I’m headed out.
I have my own business to take care of.”
“I have no bunkhouse.”
“I can use the loft in the barn.”
He seemed to have an answer for everything.
This isn’t a good idea, she thought.
Sick or not, how would it look, a stranger living out here with her? Besides, what if he was some kind of escaped criminal or worse? No, no, absolutely not.
“I’m—” She coughed again as though to remind herself of her worsening condition. A couple of days was all she needed. No one would know.
She had no choice but to trust him. It was as simple as that…and as complicated.
Her decision made, she said, “All right, Mr. Wilder, I accept your offer.” She started for the house. “Come on, Katie.”
It took Ethan a full five seconds to realize what she’d said. The woman was actually agreeing with him. “I’ll be damned. Hey, wait a minute.” He raised one hand like a signal while he strode to catch up. “If I’m staying—”
“You are,” she confirmed.
“Then don’t be so damned hardheaded.” His mouth was pulled down in a determined frown. “Let me help.”
He offered her his arm and she accepted. A simple act. A common act of courtesy and yet something passed between them, something electric, something definitely unexpected.
Their gazes sought each other’s and found confirmation that each felt what the other had.
Fortunately, Katie broke the spell. “I’ll help, too,” the child’s high voice piped in. She rushed around them to put her hand in Molly’s and Molly held it extra tight, like a lifeline, which was silly, she knew, but reassuring all the same.
Once inside, Molly let him help her to settle on the edge of the bed, rumpled from where she’d lain on it earlier. Lord, she was tired. Every muscle in her body hurt. Hell, even her hair hurt to touch.
She knew then that she’d done the right thing accepting his offer—the only thing. Katie crawled up next to Molly and insisted on holding her mother’s hand.
Molly looked up at him, perched on the edge of the table and couldn’t think of a blessed thing to say, not one thing. He seemed so tall, so powerful, so…dangerous was the word that popped into her head. She didn’t fear him, though, quite the opposite. None of this was making sense. She rubbed her temples and swallowed against the raw ache in her throat that wasn’t getting any better. If anything, it was getting worse.
And he just stood there, looking down at her.
“I was—” she began but he cut her off.
“Do you want me to help you take your clothes off?” His voice was deep and smooth as fine whiskey. That gooseflesh skittered up her spine again—the ones that had nothing to do with her illness and everything to do with the man.
His request penetrated her mind and her body at almost the same second. “Take my clothes off!” Self-defense surged to the fore and she leapt to her feet, managing to ignore the pain behind her eyes. “You know, Mr. Wilder, I’ve changed my mind.” She glanced discreetly toward that rifle propped by the door, calculating distance and time and speed at which she could run. He followed her line of vision, then looked back at her.
“Lady.” He shook his head and made a sound in the back of his throat that could have been a chuckle. “I’m not interested in anything but getting you into bed.”
Her head came up sharply. That rifle wasn’t close, but if she made a quick rush she might outrun him.
Instead, he laughed out loud. A smooth, easy sound that had no hint of a threat. “I mean,” he emphasized the words, “you’re sick and sick people belong in bed. You were planning on going to bed to rest, weren’t you?” He slapped his hat on the table making the lamp rattle lightly, then he raked both hands back through his ink-black hair.
She looked down and behind her at the bed as though it were some foreign object that she’d never seen before.
“Bed,” she repeated out loud.
“Yeah, that was your general plan, wasn’t it? You spend some time resting while I take care
of things.”
Resting. Bed. Actually, she hadn’t thought that far ahead. She hadn’t thought beyond the part about not being alone and sick, maybe real sick, and Katie. But this getting into bed business, with him in the house, was a whole other matter.
He moved from his perch on the edge of the table to one of the four chairs. “If you want to sit up for the next couple of days, okay. I just think it’s going to get damned uncomfortable.” He draped his arms casually across his chest and waited. “I intend to sleep in the nice soft haystack the kid here was climbing in earlier.”
Molly glanced quickly at the rifle, then back at him.
He didn’t move. “Go get it if it’ll make you feel any better. Unless you plan on shooting me for feeding livestock or cooking dinner, I think I’m safe. You want me to bring it to you?”
The fact that he was willing to let her get the rifle made her know she didn’t need it. Aw, hellfire, she’d known almost from the first that he wasn’t a threat, not a physical one anyway, or she’d never have agreed to let him stay, sick or not.
A ghost of a smile brushed across her lips. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said with a sweep of his hand and a partial bow.
That made her smile in earnest. There was something about the man…
Another fit of coughing. “Tarnation,” she muttered as she dropped down on the bed.
Katie rushed to hug her. “You’ll be okay, Mama.”
Molly nodded. “Thanks,” she managed to choke out as she gulped for air and wished like crazy this misery would stop.
He merely arched one black brow in sort of a question—a repeat of his earlier instructions, she knew.
That pillow on her bed looked awfully inviting. All she wanted to do was put her head down and sleep.
Molly glanced at Katie uncertainly.
“I think I can manage,” Ethan said in answer to her unspoken question about child care.
Molly decided a compromise was in order. Rest was the best cure for what ails a body. So maybe a few hours’ sleep and she’d feel better.
Still, there was no way she was getting undressed with this man standing here. So she simply stretched out fully clothed. She didn’t even remove her shoes. “Katie, hand me a blanket.”
Ethan shook his head and made a derisive sound in the back of his throat. “This is it? You’re gonna stay dressed all night?”
“Maybe.” Molly rolled onto her side to face him.
Ethan sighed, one of those deep frustrated sighs. “This is ridiculous.”
Katie returned with a faded pink blanket she’d gotten from a trunk under the window.
“Give me that,” he said more sharply than he meant. “Woman, either you trust me or you don’t. Make up your mind now.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Blanket draped over his arm, he headed for the door.
“Katie, get your mother’s nightdress and give it to her,” he ordered over his shoulder as he ducked outside.
Molly watched him through watery eyes.
Less than a minute later he was back, this time with a rope. He went to work tying the rope to a clothes-peg near the window. He hooked the other end over a nail sticking out of the back wall that had once held a mirror long since broken.
“What are you doing?” Molly rose up on one elbow, muscles in her shoulders ached at the strain. The bed creaked.
He ignored her. “Katie, where’s that nightdress?”
He was barking orders like a general and Katie was obeying as fast as any recruit.
Katie plopped the blue flannel nightdress in front of Molly and turned to Ethan. “What now?”
“Get more blankets.”
She hurried to obey, her little leather shoes half scuffing, half stamping, across the bare, planked floor.
Molly put the nightdress aside and stood, nearly catching her face on the rope he’d strung up.
“What the devil are you doing?”
Katie appeared with another blanket, this one blue, the bottom half dragging on the floor.
Without a word he tossed the pink blanket over the rope and spread it out, then took the one from Katie and repeated the procedure, essentially making a barricade between them.
“There. Are you satisfied now?”
Molly frowned. She flipped one end of the blanket upward as he peered over the top at her. “What’s this supposed to be?”
“Well,” he said, “it’s supposed to be a privacy screen and a sunshade. I noticed the sunlight made your eyes water.”
That stopped her. He was bossy and pushy and he was right—again. Damn the man. Overwhelmed, she dropped down on the bed and rubbed at her temples. It felt as though the top of her head was spinning—as though the whole room was spinning.
“So now you can have some privacy while you sleep, or dress or undress.” There was a trace of amusement in his voice. “Right now I think undressing is the order of the day.”
“You just love giving orders, don’t you?” She grabbed up her nightdress.
“Old habit,” he muttered. “I’ll go out and check on the horses while you take care of…things. I’ll be back in twenty minutes. You better be changed and in bed.”
“Fine,” she snarled. Lord, her head hurt and this man wasn’t helping any. Why the devil did he have to be so all-fired right all the time?
She thought she heard him chuckle but she wasn’t sure. She did hear him close the door as he went outside.
Ethan strode for the corral. He took about four steps before reality hit him.
What the hell have you gotten yourself into here, Wilder?
Damned if he knew. Business was going to have to wait. The day felt close. The air alive with electricity. Near the creek the new leaves of the cottonwood trees swished back and forth in the wind. He glanced over his right shoulder at the pitiful excuse for a cabin. Pitiful was being generous. Why, they didn’t even have running water—and with a creek so close there was no excuse. Then there was the corral fence that was falling down, the barn that was a mess, the garden in the back that needed tending—not to mention a sick woman and a little kid to look after.
Yeah, what had he gotten himself into here was a very good question. But whatever it was he was in it now and he’d keep his word. What difference could a couple of days make?
He grabbed up the wooden bucket by the corral fence and headed for the stream to fill the water trough. This was going to take a few trips. As he went back and forth, splashing water in the raw wood of the trough, somewhere in the back of his mind an old remedy for colds and such circled. There was steam with a little eucalyptus oil for cough. There was hot tea and honey for sore throat. There was sage tea, but was that for colds or upset stomach? He frowned. She might have to drink some, just in case.
Okay, he thought as he dumped the last bucketful. At least there was something he could do. That made him feel better, more in control. Ethan was a man who liked feeling in control.
He tossed out a couple of forks of hay for the team and Four to chew on. He hadn’t taken the harness off the team, thinking that he was going to have to go back and get that blasted wagon. He couldn’t leave it on the road. Since he planned to leave tomorrow, he’d better take care of it this afternoon.
As he slammed the top rail home, the whole fence did a wave like a field of wheat in the wind. He grabbed hold of the closest post and gave it a shake.
“The damned log isn’t down there more than a foot,” he said out loud. “Who the hell built this place?”
Obviously, someone who didn’t know or didn’t care. In either case, maybe that was a good sign. These folks weren’t cut out to be ranchers or farmers or whatever it was they thought they were doing here. Maybe they’d be of a mind to sell when the time was right. Maybe with the woman sick, a kid to take care of and no husband anywhere around, now just might be the right time.
He retrieved his gear from his saddle and took both into the barn. The ladde
r to the loft didn’t look any too strong, which made him skeptical about the loft itself.
He decided to make a spot for himself over near the east wall. Putting his saddle down, he pitched a couple of forks of hay, fluffed it a little, then spread out his bedroll.
“That should work,” he said to no one.
He looked around the barn, killing time, giving her a chance to change her clothes, giving her a chance to get used to the idea of him taking care of her.
Hell, he needed a chance to get used to that idea himself. He threw some dried corn he found to the half-dozen chickens that were pecking the ground near the barn door. Then he wandered outside, to what looked to be a garden behind the cabin. At least the soil was turned over, sorta. There was a row of stakes he assumed were for beans and the barest beginnings of something green that might be cabbage. There were even five stalks of corn, less than a foot tall, but corn nevertheless. Not bad.
Hunkering down, Ethan grabbed up a handful of dirt. Dry, and not more than six inches had been dug down. “Hell, this shouldn’t work.” He was talking to himself again. This was Wyoming soil, hard as clay, not fit for anything but buffalo and cattle and now sheep. Why the devil hadn’t her husband plowed deeper?
He looked over the small square patch again and realized that this wasn’t done with a plow. This was done with a shovel. He could see the marks in the earth.
Standing, he released the dirt he’d been holding. The breeze carried the dry soil away. He’d bet dollars to doughnuts that the woman had done this. That’s why it wasn’t turned deeper. He could almost imagine her out here, alone, back bent over a shovel, trying to force the blade into the earth. Tough work. Tough woman, he amended with a touch of admiration.
Truth be told, the place was well situated. There was a stream nearby, and if some of that horse manure that was piled up behind the barn was mulched into the ground…
Wilder, what are you doing? You’re not here to fix up. You’re here to tear down.
He tugged on the brim of his hat. That was true. He was here to tear down, tear down all her work, her home, not that she knew it. No, she was trusting him to help her.
Molly's Hero Page 5
