Cowboy Pride

by Lacy Williams

  So he had.

  Rob had noticed her exhaustion, though. He’d seen it in how she carried herself, the tired lines around her mouth. Were the Collinses taking advantage of her giving nature and working her to the bone in their shop?

  He thought of Liza and the joy she exuded in every moment—in conversation with her family, friends, and customers.

  He imagined that joy disappearing.

  After a long pause, he said, "And if she did accept my suit? What if I drove her away the way I did Danna? I couldn't keep my own sister happy."

  Charlie knew his history. Knew that Danna had almost died from exposure and a broken leg because of him.

  "Your kid sister was grieving. And so were you. You're older now. Wiser."

  "Maybe in the ways of ranching. Not so much with matters of the heart."

  Because if he were, Liza would already know his feelings for her.

  Chapter 17

  Janie had been able to secure a room in the boardinghouse. With her faux husband.

  She had insisted on taking a smaller room downstairs, near the kitchen.

  The proprietress, Mrs. Killen, had told her there was no doctor in town. And she herself was exhausted and going to bed, but Janie could have access to the kitchen.

  It was better than nothing.

  Mrs. Killen disappeared before Janie'd even hauled Nathan over the threshold. Arms, shoulders, back, everything aching, she dropped her satchel on the floor and took two steps before he took a shuddering breath and slumped forward.

  Luckily, the bed was there, and Janie released him.

  He sank heavily into the mattress, eyes closed.

  Why had she lied? She was still trembling from the falsehood.

  Had he heard? On the way from the train station, he'd drowsed in and out, but at least his feet had kept moving.

  What would he think of her for telling the lie? The situation was desperate, and she'd panicked.

  But would he see it as a necessity or as a manipulation on her part? Especially after the letter he'd sent her.

  She backed away from the bed, stared at the man on it. His eyes were closed. He was asleep, which was good, because… Oh, what had she done?

  The situation was ten times worse because they were in Cottonwood Cove. The best she could hope for was for Nathan to make a speedy recovery so they could escape from town first thing in the morning. Before anyone she'd known before saw her, recognized her.

  She dared brush his hair away from his forehead. She needed to bring his fever down immediately.

  She found a pitcher of cool water and a washcloth on the stand beneath a large window, next to a wardrobe. She wet the cloth and then rolled Nathan onto his back before she laid the cloth over his forehead.

  He still had on his suit jacket and boots. She flushed as she took them off. It seemed too intimate for their situation.

  Of course, he'd seen her in her nightgown and wrapper when she'd been convalescing on his ranch. She supposed this made them even.

  She left the door open when she went to the kitchen. His uneven, shallow breathing worried her.

  She stirred up the coals in the stove and put a pot of water on to boil, being as quiet as possible so as not to wake the rest of the house. There were no medicines to be found in the cabinets, and she didn't dare wake Mrs. Killen. She remembered her mother giving Kitty steam treatments. Surely that could ease Nathan's cough, too.

  Finally, she took a large towel from beneath the sink and returned with it, the now-boiling water, and the bowl.

  Nathan moaned when she touched his shoulder. His head rolled on the pillow.

  "I need you to sit up."

  He didn't even crack his eyes open.

  "Nathan." She shook his shoulder. "Sit up."

  He made a sorry attempt to push up on his elbow. She had to put her arm around his shoulders to help him. Then she put the bowl in his lap and the towel over his head and poured the hot water carefully into the bowl, sending steam up to be trapped in the towel.

  She kept one hand on his back. "Breathe in as deeply as you can."

  She kept him there for as long as he could bear, then took the bowl, set it on the table beside the bed, helped him lie back down. He shivered as the cooler air from the room hit his damp skin, and she pulled up the blanket from the foot of the bed to cover him.

  He smiled such an open smile that it caused her insides to clench like a fist. "Thank you, dear Jane."

  She went about returning the bowl and the now-cool water back to the kitchen and making preparations to do it all over again.

  She was shaking.

  Making a fool of herself over the man, that's what she was doing.

  No doubt his easy affection was due to his illness. Fever caused delirium, didn't it? Obviously, he was suffering from it.

  Only her heart didn't seem to understand. Its rapid fluttering and the thrum of her emotions meant one thing.

  When he recovered, she was going to get her heart crushed all over again.

  * * *

  Nathan's body was betraying him. His lungs ached and burned, and he alternated between being as hot and dry as a cowboy fire during branding and shaking with cold and chills.

  Every time he woke in the dark of night, Janie was there. She forced him to drink cool water. She held him when coughs wracked his body.

  Once, after she'd insisted he breathe in the steam yet again, he pulled away the towel covering his head to find she'd fallen asleep sitting beside the bed, her head resting on her arm on the edge of the bed.

  Wisps of her hair had come loose and curled around her face, damp from her chore. Her lashes were a dark smudge against her cheeks and her mouth wore a small moue of exhaustion.

  It would be so easy to fall for her. She was beautiful, inside and out. After the barn raising, he'd been uncertain of her feelings. Rob had confirmed that she'd seemed indifferent.

  But did one get off of a train in an unfamiliar town to spend the night nursing someone they didn't care about?

  He was exhausted and still having trouble breathing. He hated to wake her, but... "Janie," he whispered.

  She roused with a small shake and quickly jumped up from the chair when she saw him looking at her.

  "Here. Let me take that. You lie back down."

  It'd been years since someone had bossed him around like that. His mother was the only one who’d ever cared that much. When he'd been thirteen or fourteen, he’d been sick with a high fever. He could still recall her bossy, no-nonsense attitude as she’d worked to heal him.

  And here was this creature behaving the same way. It was lovely. He found himself smiling even as he drifted off to sleep again.

  The next time he cracked his eyes open, Janie was sleeping curled in the chair, directly in a shaft of morning sunlight beaming through the window. Her hair was slipping its pins, and part of it already tumbled down her back. A strand rested against the curve of her cheek.

  Sounds reached him, someone banging around in a kitchen nearby, humming a hymn if he wasn't mistaken.

  His throat ached, and he couldn't help a raspy cough. The sound of it was much improved over last night.

  Janie moved, her head tilting as she shifted and then settled again.

  He was breathing easier but still felt like his chest was a saddle someone'd cinched two notches too tight. His bones ached, but he thought the worst of the fever must be past.

  He didn't dare sniff himself, afraid he stank of sick sweat.

  He reached for the water glass on the bedside table. His arm felt like it weighed more than a newborn calf, and after he'd slaked his thirst, he sat back against the headboard, weak from just that much.

  He wouldn't be able to travel today. Maybe tomorrow, if he was able to sleep and if his cough continued to improve.

  His movements woke Janie, who hummed slightly and pushed her hair out of her eyes. Her eyes widened, and she went pink when she realized he was awake. She straightened in the chair, and he saw the
faint lines on her face where it had been pressed onto the chair.

  "Good morning," he said easily.

  She nodded, turning slightly away as she reached up to pull the pins from her hair. The mass of golden curls spilled down her back, and he found himself breathless from more than his illness. She was quick to sweep up the tresses and twist them in a move she must've practiced hundreds of times before she pushed the pins back in, leaving her hair in a bun at the back of her neck.

  She went to a pitcher and bowl on a stand across the room and splashed her face with water before drying it with a towel.

  When she finally turned back to him, her hands were clasped in front of her, her shoulders straight, and her spine ramrod straight. She wasn't smiling.

  She hesitated at the end of the bed. She'd been much closer last night, but now the distance he'd sensed between them at the barn raising had returned.

  Only... with the fevered realizations he'd had last night, he wondered if the distance was only a mechanism to protect herself, her feelings. He was almost sure she cared for him.

  "How are you feeling?" she asked.

  "I'm quite improved." He tried a smile. "Thanks to you." He wanted to lift a hand to salute her, but his strength remained sapped, and his hand fell back to the bed before it'd reached chest-height.

  Her eyebrows came together in concern, and she glanced at the door before moving to his bedside. There was a slight hesitation in her movements as she reached out to touch his forehead with the tips of her fingers.

  "I think the fever is gone," he said. "But I must confess, I feel as weak as a baby."

  Somehow, the idea of being stuck with her for another day wasn't a trial at all. He felt quite cheerful about it.

  Then he had a thought. "Are your… Your parents will be worried about you, won't they? If you aren't on the return train today? I suppose you could go ahead without me. I'll be fine in a day or so."

  She glanced at the door again, and a flush rose in her face. "I'm afraid if I leave…" She stumbled over whatever she was trying to tell him. "You see I had to…I told…" She pressed both hands against her cheeks and whirled away, giving him her back.

  A memory niggled at the edge of his consciousness. Something from the depths of his fever last night... It came to him in a flash.

  "You told the boardinghouse woman we were married."

  She whirled back, and her expression was apologetic. Almost guilt-ridden "It was a tiny lie. It would've been a scandal if she knew we weren't married. There's no doctor in town, and who would've taken care of you in the night?"

  He held up one hand, his lips twitching at the waterfall of words from the woman who was usually so composed.

  "I don't see any harm in it," he said.

  Her eyes widened, and she sat on the end of the bed suddenly, as if all her energy had been sapped. "You aren't angry?"

  "Angry that you spent all night boiling water so I could breathe? And then covering me up when my chills overtook me? That you worked yourself to exhaustion to help me—" He broke off in a fit of coughing, thankfully one that didn't last nearly as long as any last night.

  She went to the nightstand and poured the last of the water from the pitcher into his glass.

  His eyes snagged on her hands.

  Her right hand moved to cover her left wrist, but not quickly enough. There was a raw, pink spot on her skin. A burn? A fresh one. His heart thrummed hard.

  "A simple thanks for what you did last night will never be enough."

  Her eyes were luminous as she stared at him. He couldn't read what resided in their depths. Shadows, or... hope?

  Or maybe he was still fighting feverish imaginings.

  She pressed her folded hands to her midsection.

  "Then perhaps we are even," she said quietly. "Because I felt the same way after you pulled me from the creek."

  Chapter 18

  Janie browsed the meager selection of fresh fruit at the Cottonwood Cove grocer. It was early afternoon, and Nathan had grown hungry, though he'd only admitted it when pressed.

  Mrs. Killen had allowed them to take breakfast in their room. Janie had apologized for making noise in the night and the small mess she'd made, but the woman had brushed it off, which was a kindness.

  She'd served breakfast and set a time for supper. They were on their own for the noon meal, if they wanted it.

  Nathan had insisted he didn't need her to wait on him, but she knew he needed nourishment if he meant to recover completely. She was relieved that his fever hadn't come back, but his cough lingered.

  She'd gone out on the pretense of sending a wire home, so her folks wouldn't worry when she didn't get off the train in Calvin today. That much was true, but she would also purchase a small meal of cheese and bread and fruit.

  She'd made it to the grocer, the line of shops along First Street as familiar as her own reflection, with a jangle of nerves.

  No one had accosted her. No one had shouted names, not like before. Maybe she'd been forgotten.

  She could only hope.

  But as she selected two oranges and moved to the selection of fresh bread that she knew the local baker supplied each morning, the tinkling bell above the door jingled, and a familiar figure entered the store.

  Claudine, who'd once been a good friend. Until the end, when Albert had thrown her over and his mother had spread her accusations around town.

  Janie ducked her head, quickly choosing a loaf from the top.

  "Janie? Is that you?"

  She forced her chin up, though a tremble passed through her legs. "Hello, Claudine. It's been a long time."

  "It's been ages! What are you doing here?"

  Janie wished she were better at discovering people’s motives. If she were Liza, she'd know whether the undertone in Claudine's voice was simple surprise or something more sinister.

  "I was traveling home by train when my companion—my husband—became ill." Last night, in her worry for Nathan, the lie had slipped easily off her tongue. Today, she stumbled over the words, afraid Claudine would see right through her, afraid there would be another scene. Shameful.

  "You're married!"

  "Y-yes." She chose the first chunk of cheese she touched and then moved to the counter, where the grocer waited to tally what she'd chosen.

  Claudine came closer. The heat in Janie's face intensified. All she wanted to do was escape.

  She tried for a smile but was sure it emerged more like a grimace. "In fact, I have one more errand, and then I really must return to him."

  She snatched up the foodstuffs and left the store, for the first time in her life not caring whether her actions were rude.

  She wanted to hop right on the next train and disappear from Cottonwood Cove altogether. What if Claudine told Albert or Edna that she was in town? What if there was a scene?

  It would be her worst nightmare playing out all over again. This time with Nathan present to witness it.

  Oh, she wanted to escape so very badly!

  But she couldn't forget Nathan's weakness, the rattle of his cough. If she left him behind, and his fever returned, what would happen to him?

  Where the sunshine earlier had left her feeling hopeful, after the encounter with Claudine, she felt like an insect beneath the heel of a child, in danger of being crushed. Was there someone she knew behind every storefront? Did they all still believe Edna's awful accusations? Were they laughing at her—or worse, judging her?

  She was shaken and near tears by the time she reached the telegraph office near the center of town.

  She'd already composed what she wanted to say to Mama. She carefully left out any mention of Mr. Bingley, knowing Mama would spread gossip about the two of them around Calvin like wildfire.

  And then she rushed to return to the safety of the boardinghouse. Surely, no one would come looking for her, demanding that she present her husband like a train ticket, prove she was really married.

  Why should they care, anyway?

&nb
sp; Perhaps it was only her wild imagination, playing tricks and seeing menace where none existed.

  When she reached the dappled shade of the boardinghouse street, she attempted to draw several calming breaths. She didn't want Nathan to know she was upset. She could imagine nothing worse than the man who'd already shown he wasn't interested in her to find out what had happened here in Cottonwood Cove.

  * * *

  Something had happened while Janie had gone out to fetch the foodstuffs they'd devoured in the room.

  After resting all morning, some of Nathan's strength had returned. He'd gotten out of bed and paced to the small window to peer out the lace curtains to the street.

  He saw nothing sinister, nothing interesting, in fact. Only a quiet street and a row of unassuming houses.

  But something had spooked Janie while she'd been out. Had someone accosted her?

  She'd been quiet, more so than usual, and distant after the meal, sitting in her chair as far across the room as she could be from him. She'd opened her book and focused on the words, but she hadn't turned a single page. Was she simply avoiding speaking to him?

  As the afternoon wore on, boredom and his continued weakness had him dozing restlessly. He awoke, hot beneath the quilt, He flipped it away. He'd stayed fully clothed beneath in deference to Janie.

  She was still sitting in that chair, but now she was staring at the wall, at nothing. She didn't seem to register that he was awake. But as he watched, a silver tear slipped from her eye and rolled down her cheek. She brushed it away.

  Janie was upset. Whether from whatever happened earlier or from being with him, he didn't know. He was the reason she was here. She'd gotten off that train to help him, and now she was crying.

  He sat up in the bed, suffering a rush of wooziness at the action. He braced against the bed with one hand and raised the other to clutch at his forehead.

  "Nathan!" She was instantly out of the chair and by his side.

  He waved her off. "I'm fine."

  But she still reached out to him, her palm cool against his forehead and her opposite hand steadying his shoulder.