He kept his gaze off Beth Andrews, who had the bluest eyes he’d ever seen and the gentlest hands. He closed his eyes and felt those hands again on his bare skin. It had almost been worth being cut. As she had sewn her stitches, he’d fixed his gaze on her eyes as a way to keep from groaning. Those eyes had hurt for him, had so obviously admired him. And they’d been so grateful.
For a few moments he’d felt like a man again, not a wild animal in chains, not a posted murderer without a future. But the respite had been brief, and when the Ranger had locked the handcuffs on him in front of the woman and child, Nick had wanted to crawl under a rock. He couldn’t even manage that now, he thought bitterly, not without the Ranger’s permission. His only satisfaction was that the Ranger’s problems were growing progressively more serious. Yet, just as Nick hadn’t been able to use his sister to free himself, he knew he wouldn’t use the two newcomers. Like the Ranger, he had to wait, to bide his time, until there were only the two of them, a prospect growing dimmer.
His hands tightened around the saddle horn. His head was getting heavier. His side burned like the devil’s abode. He tightened his legs around his mount, urging it to catch up to the Ranger’s.
“Davis,” he said.
The Ranger turned to look at him. His eyes narrowed and then he stopped. “Christ, why didn’t you say something sooner?” He quickly dismounted, just in time to catch Nick as he swayed in the saddle and started to drop, his hands still bound to the saddle horn.
Nick was only barely aware of the Ranger catching his horse’s halter, stopping its movement before Nick was dragged. He tried to catch the saddle horn with his hands, ashamed at the sight he must present. Then his hands were free, and the Ranger helped lower him to the ground.
Nick wanted to shrug him off, but he couldn’t. He had no strength. He just lay there, his breath difficult to dispel, and then Lori was next to him … and … Beth.
Pretty … pretty Beth.
Lori fell in love with Caroline as well as with little, solemn Maggie.
The pig, once released from its tether, followed Maggie wherever she went, occasionally giving her a bump to get attention. The animal and Maggie took Lori’s mind from the two men who were dominating her thoughts.
The Ranger had already started a fire. She was surprised when he suggested it, and even more surprised when he’d gathered the wood for it. He had been adamant the night before about not having one. He had always been a man of few words, but he had even fewer now. The mouth was a tight line, his eyes dark and enigmatic. The lines around his eyes were more pronounced, the two-day beard darkening his hard jaw.
Beth Andrews was tending Nick. She’d wanted to, and Lori had sensed that Nick would like that. She hadn’t seen that genuine smile of his since the killing in Harmony. But he had given it to Beth Andrews back at the road, even through his pain from the knife cut. And she’d quickly realized that Mrs. Andrews had more experience in nursing than she did. So Lori had backed away and had reassured little Maggie, who had asked if the man was going to die like her daddy had.
Lori had hugged her, trying to hide the mist in her own eyes. “Of course not, darlin’.”
Not now.
Maggie had gone over to the pig and given it a big hug, which the pig accepted rather graciously, Lori thought with what amusement she could summon, and then Maggie had crept back, watching her mother and Nick solemnly. As Mrs. Andrews bathed and rebandaged Nick’s wound, she frequently glanced around, obviously reassuring herself that her daughter was all right.
Lori couldn’t resist Maggie. Her dark hair was bound in two pigtails and her eyes were much like her mother’s, a pure blue that were filled with more sadness than a child should know. Even now she was watching more pain, more misery, and Lori wanted suddenly to take her away from it.
Nick was in good hands, she knew that. She approached Mrs. Andrews. “Is it all right if I take Beth to the stream we just passed? We can fetch some more water.”
The woman looked up at her, studied her for a moment, then smiled. “I think she would like that.”
Lori glanced toward the Ranger, who was watching the fire, and silently asked his consent. She hated to, and he knew it. He gave her a curt nod.
“Would you like to go and help me?” she asked Maggie, instinctively knowing the child would respond to a request for help rather than a decision made without her approval.
“Can we take Caroline?”
“Of course,” Lori said.
Maggie nodded in that solemn way of hers, and Lori wished she could hear her laugh. She decided she would do her best to make her laugh. They both needed laughter.
With the silent help of the Ranger, she gathered up all their canteens. She took four and the child took two, and they started through the pines. It was a beautiful fall day. Although the night had been cold, the sun was warm this afternoon, and the sky clear. The snow had not reached this area yet, and the remaining leaves were still golden, though every time a breeze rustled through the branches, more blew down, drifting like tiny kites to the ground. Nick had made her a kite once and had taught her to fly it to the clouds. She shook the poignant memory away.
She looked down at Maggie and the pig following behind. Her dark mood, plaguing her since the usual confrontation with the Ranger, started to dissipate. There was something about a beautiful day, a bright sun, and a child’s innocence that made it seem as if, somehow, everything would turn out all right. She had to believe that! She went upstream, where they found a sloping bank, and they filled the canteens as Caroline rooted around the trees for whatever pigs rooted for.
And then, when they finished, Lori skipped a stone through the water, and Maggie immediately wanted to learn how. She caught on swiftly and stood in awe as one of her stones finally skipped just once, creating a series of expanding circles in the water. Maggie’s eyes lit, and Lori grinned, feeling happy and carefree for the first time in weeks. She started humming a song, which she often did when she felt that way—“Sweet Betsy from Pike.”
“Sing it,” Maggie demanded, looking up at her with fascination.
Lori did. She used to sing it frequently to attract crowds to the Medicine Show. She sang it through once for Maggie, and then again slower.
“We’ll try it together,” she said, pleased when the girl’s sweet but pure voice blended with hers, hesitating every once in a while, but then joining in again. They tried it a third time, and Maggie was almost perfect in remembering the words, giving Lori a shy smile when they finished.
Lori tried to think of another song, one not so sad, one that would bring laughter to Maggie’s usually all too serious eyes. Caroline snorted suddenly, and Lori wished she could think of a song about a pig, and finally she did. At least it mentioned a pig. She gave Maggie a conspiratorial grin. “How would you like to learn a song just special for your mother?”
Maggie nodded, her gaze now intent on Lori.
“It’s called ‘Cat Went Fiddle-de-dee,’” Lori said, and she started slow, punctuating each word with glee.
“Had me a cat; the cat pleased me.
Fed my cat under yonder tree;
The cat went fiddle-de-dee.
“Had me a dog; the dog pleased me.
Fed my dog under yonder tree;
The dog went bow-wow-wow,
And the cat went fiddle-de-dee.
“Had me a hen; the hen pleased me.
Fed my hen under yonder tree;
The hen went cluck-cluck
The dog went bow-wow-wow
And the cat went fiddle-de-dee.
“Had me a pig; and Caroline pleased me.
Fed Caroline under yonder tree;
Caroline went krusi-krusi
The hen went cluck-cluck
The dog went bow-wow-wow,
and the cat went fiddle-de-dee.”
By then Maggie was joining in on the refrains. Lori added a cow and then suggested Maggie make up a verse. She chose a horse and a lion, making a roaring so
und, and then they were both laughing, trying to remember all the animals. Lori’s heart twisted as she heard the laughter, watched the delight in the girl’s eyes. Maggie’s father had died a year ago, Beth had said, and apparently life had been difficult since then, too hard for a sensitive little soul like Maggie.
Instinctively, she leaned over and gave Maggie a big hug, and then yelped as a small movement of the water washed over one of the canteens, and it started drifting down the creek. She grabbed for it, losing her footing. She fell partly into the water, one leg getting completely doused. Maggie giggled as Lori regained her balance and returned to dry earth. Lori sat down and took off her boots, shaking the water from them and regarding her wet trousers with no little disgust. Holy Mary and Joseph, but the water was cold.
Then she shrugged. She would have to wear the dress, after all. The Ranger’s dress. Her other clothes were too disgusting even to think about until they were washed. She grinned at Maggie. “We’d better go back before I drown myself,” she said. “And I think it’s time to eat under yonder tree.”
Maggie giggled again, putting her hand in Lori’s. “Do you know any other songs?”
“Well,” Lori said, “have you heard the one about Froggie and his courtship?”
Maggie shook her head. Lori started the song, picked up her boots with her free hand, and, hands linked together, the two started back to the fire.
Drawn by the sound of Lori’s voice, the lilt of “Sweet Betsy from Pike,” Morgan Davis watched the woman and child from the safe haven of the trees. He had come to check on them, to make sure they were safe. They had been gone much longer than it should have taken to fill canteens.
He listened and watched, contemplating a Lori he hadn’t seen before—a gentle, carefree Lori, whose laughter was more enchanting than the song of birds. He heard the child’s giggle for the first time, saw her delighted face, and the way she so trustfully put her hand in Lori’s. His heart, the one so many said he didn’t have, twisted with emotions he didn’t entirely understand. He had realized, of course, that he was very strongly attracted to her, that he wanted her physically. What man wouldn’t? He’d tried to explain his feelings as normal masculine need. He knew he admired her dogged loyalty and stubbornness even as it so thoroughly made his life miserable.
But now …
He felt like a small boy peering into a shop window, seeing magic and riches he hadn’t known existed. He found himself hurting, just watching, and he didn’t know whether it was because the picture was so innocently charming, or because he’d seen so little of this side of Lori. This simple joy of life, and the ability to share it. He had robbed her of that, had almost crushed it from her during this journey.
Almost. Her head was tilted with delight, not defiance, her mouth smiled beguilingly as she charmed the child into laughter. He wanted her to laugh with him. Christ, he didn’t even know when he had last laughed. Or when he had sung. He knew he had never skipped a stone or had a pet. Animals, according to Callum, were to be used. They were beasts of burden, or potential food. A pig as a pet was preposterous.
But then, he had watched the affection between the child and the animal, and he’d be damned before he would say it should be a pork chop.
Christ, what in the hell was happening to him?
He didn’t know. He just knew he was beginning to see things in a different way, was beginning to feel emotions he thought he’d blocked off years ago, when he was a child and there was no outlet for them. There had never been anyone to hug or share secrets with. There had been chores, expectations. Be like your father. He was the best Ranger there was. If he hadn’t quit, he would probably still be alive. Marriage weakened him.
He tried to banish the voices. Most of them gone now, stilled by the war or fights with Mexican bandits, Indians, or yanqui renegades. His hand went to his pocket, where he’d placed the badge. It was who and what he was, dammit, and he couldn’t change that. Not now.
He heard another giggle, and his attention went back to Lori and Maggie. Lori’s trousers were plastered against her legs, outlining their fine shape, and she was carrying her boots, her bare toes digging happily into the pine straw. That fine golden hair was loosely braided, and several tendrils had escaped and fallen down her back. One of her hands brushed it aside carelessly, totally oblivious to appearances.
She was lovely that way. Like a laughing wood sprite who could steal the heart of the most hardened of woodsmen. She had, in the past few days, stolen his. He hadn’t been able to admit it until this moment, but as he watched her now, he knew something inside him had changed, was changing. He was recognizing a hunger inside, a longing to touch and be touched with something other than lust or anger.
He wanted to bask in her laughter. He wanted that fierce loyalty for his own. And he had not the slightest idea of how to obtain it.
As the woman and child turned his way, he moved in the opposite direction, out of sight. He didn’t want to be caught spying like some lovesick schoolboy. Or even like a Ranger checking up on his prisoner. If only this mess had some solution. But it didn’t. If he didn’t take Nick Braden back, neither Braden nor he—nor anyone around them—would ever be safe. If he did, Lori would never forgive him. And he might well be responsible for an innocent man being hanged.
Neither prospect was acceptable. But damn if he didn’t want a touch of that smile, that laughter. He wanted more than that damnable physical attraction between them. He wanted her. All of her, including pieces of her heart. The last thought was astounding to him, but once he recognized it, he understood what had been causing all the upheaval within him these last days, the gradual softening toward Nick.
Or was it Braden himself?
He didn’t know; he seemed not to know anything anymore. Every belief he’d ever had was spinning like a top, and he didn’t know how to right them again, to stack them in proper order as he’d always done before.
Because there had been nothing else before. He didn’t want to go back to that nothingness. As confusing as this was, he was intrigued, challenged. He’d discovered holes in himself he hadn’t realized existed. He felt alive for the first time in his life. A breathing, feeling human being. Not just a hunter.
He had not the slightest idea what to do with someone’s heart. Not that he would get much of a chance to find out.
He remembered the feel of her hand against his cheek two days ago, the look on her face when she’d seen him knee Braden in the crotch. She hadn’t seen Braden’s bitter attack, nor would she care that Braden had started it. But Morgan wondered now whether he hadn’t baited Braden just to rid himself of the frustration fuming inside him. Frustration because of his reluctant attraction to Lori. Frustration because of his growing doubts about Braden’s guilt, which had been reinforced by the man’s actions this morning. Nick Braden, he knew now with certainty, was no murderer.
If only Braden would return voluntarily to Texas with him, Morgan knew he could help him; he could enlist the assistance of his captain, and a judge he knew, to investigate further. But he doubted whether Braden, or his sister, would ever trust him now. He swore to himself and veered off back toward camp and his horse. Braden needed hot food. Morgan needed to get the hell away from everyone before he made a total fool of himself.
Nick was sleeping when Lori returned. The Ranger was nowhere to be seen. She felt a momentary disappointment, though she didn’t understand why. She should be glad to have him out of her way. At least he hadn’t chained Nick this time. Nor her. He might as well have, though, she realized immediately. Nick was too weak to go anywhere. And the Ranger’s horse and all the weapons were gone.
She went over to Beth Andrews, who was sitting beside Nick. She put her fingers to her mouth, warning Lori to be quiet, and then stood, moving some distance from her patient.
“How is he?” Lori said.
“I think he just needs some rest. He’s awfully weak from loss of blood and exhaustion.”
“The Ranger?”
“He left just seconds ago with his rifle.” She hesitated, “Does he always glower like that?”
Lori smiled dryly at the apt observation. “Unfortunately.”
“My husband would say he looks like a bear shinning up a thorn tree.”
“I think I would have liked your husband,” Lori said. “I certainly like your daughter.”
Beth Andrews’s face softened. “I heard her laugh. Thank you. She hasn’t done much of that lately.”
“I haven’t either,” Lori said. “I needed it, too.”
The other woman studied her for a moment. “I wish I could help.”
“You already have,” Lori said. “It’s also been a long time since I’ve seen Nick smile.”
Beth’s eyes clouded. “He’s really innocent? Then why …?”
“Why is the Ranger taking him in?” Lori completed the question, seeing the hesitation in the woman’s eyes, the reluctance to offend. “Because,” she said bitterly, “they look alike. The Ranger doesn’t want his picture on wanted posters. It’s … inconvenient”
Beth was horrified. “But if …”
Lori’s voice broke slightly as she answered. “He doesn’t care. He just doesn’t care.…”
The other woman cocked her head. “I don’t think … that’s really true. He was concerned about …”
Lori shook her head. “He’s concerned about Nick dying before he gets him back. He told me he doesn’t want to take a dead man back.” Her voice was bitter. She couldn’t forget that unfair fight yesterday, the way Morgan had driven them relentlessly today.
She saw the disbelief in the woman’s eyes, but just then Nick turned restlessly, and Beth returned to his side. Lori watched, to make sure Nick hadn’t worsened, but the woman gave her a reassuring look and settled quietly next to him.
Lori changed clothes, to the only clean, dry ones she had: the damnable dress. Then she sat down next to Maggie and Caroline and started a story about a little girl with a medicine show, and some of the adventures she’d had.
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