The Lawman

by Patricia Potter

  She also remembered the story had a very unsatisfactory ending and tried to dismiss it from her mind.

  Instead she took inventory. The area around the wound was clean, but he was filthy from the dust, the blood and the sweat.

  The shirt had to come off. It was soaked. She didn’t think she could pull it off, though, without waking him. She decided to cut it away. Mac was about the same size and had several shirts. The marshal could use one of those.

  Archie had taken his medical bag with him but he’d left the marshal’s knife on the table. A sudden chill went through her. It was unlike Archie to be careless. She would have to watch him more carefully.

  She turned her attention back to her patient. She cut off the sleeves of the shirt, then attacked the problem of the sheets. She rolled him as far as she could, taking the bloody sheet with him, then placed a fresh one on the bed. She rolled him back onto the other side, careful of his leg, and was able to pull off his shirt and the soiled sheet, leaving the clean one under him. With a deep breath, she took stock of the chore ahead.

  His chest was solid muscle, brown and dusted with dark hair that arrowed down to his abdomen. She’d helped Archie doctor before and was no stranger to most of a man’s body. But definitely never one this fine. Taken as a whole, he was magnificent. Sinewy. Reese had taught her that word, but she’d never entirely grasped the meaning until now.

  Thank God he was unconscious. She couldn’t let him see that she was affected by him.

  She shook her head. A moment of foolishness.

  She rinsed and soaped her cloth and skimmed it over his shoulders and across his chest. Placing the cloth back in the water, she felt his skin. Smooth and warm and covered with soft, springy body hair. Unexpectedly soft. She swallowed. Everything else was so hard.

  She drew the cloth across the patterned ridges of his chest and found herself moving it down toward his stomach legs and what little was left of his long johns.

  She was twenty—nearly twenty-one—and had never been with a man in a sexual way. Stolen kisses, yes. A few dances with boys when she was fifteen, before the fire that destroyed most of the town and caused most of the residents to flee. But never more than a kiss. One reason was her protectors. No man, young or old, wanted to go up against Mac or Reese, or even Archie with his wicked whip. Her godfathers had made it real clear in the rough mining town they would kill anyone who trifled with her.

  She knew all about nature, though. She’d seen her share of cows and horses mate. Goats and dogs, too. Hadn’t seemed all that great to her. As for humans, she’d seen the sadness of the soiled doves who’d once served the miners of Gideon’s Hope. Their relationships with men were nothing like the romances she’d read about in the novels Reese brought her. Nothing like the wild, runaway passion of Emily Brontë’s characters.

  Her skin had never tingled, nor had she experienced a deep yearning inside. Until now. She looked down at the marshal and felt an inexplicable rush of heat. Maybe her skin wasn’t tingling, but something was happening inside as she ran the cloth across his stomach.

  Her throat suddenly tightened as that warmth puddled in the core of her. An intense need clutched at her. She didn’t know exactly what she was feeling. She just knew it was there. Hungry and wanting.

  He’s the enemy.

  That reminder did nothing to ease the bubbling cauldron that was her stomach. Nor did it make breathing easier.

  She forced her gaze away from his flat abdomen and finished washing him as best she could. She couldn’t help but notice the scars on his body. One on his shoulder, and another on his side. A scar along his hairline was nearly hidden by the thick, dark hair.

  He would have another one now. Large and ugly. Because of her.

  She lightly bandaged his wound, then arranged another fresh sheet over him. He moved then, thrashed, and muttered something. A name she couldn’t quite make out. A cry of anguish.

  She stilled. Then she put her arms around him to keep him from sliding off the bed and hurting his leg more. Empathy flowed through her. Something inside him hurt every bit as wickedly as the wound. Guilt mixed with the other confusing feelings. She didn’t like pain inflicted on man or beast, but she’d had no other choice. She kept telling herself that.

  There’s always choices. Mac’s words. He’d made all the wrong ones, he told her once after he’d had some drinks.

  Mac and Reese and Archie. Her world. Her family. Her only family. And this man threatened one of them. Maybe all of them.

  Yet the marshal had had a chance to shoot, and he’d hesitated.

  He quieted now and his breathing eased. She stood. She had to leave for a few moments before guilt—and that intense need—suffocated her. Water. He would need fresh water when he woke.

  When she returned with a full pitcher, Dawg was still sitting near the door. The marshal groaned, and his eyes flickered open. As if he sensed her presence, he turned his pain-filled gaze toward her. Like a hawk with a broken wing. Predatory and fierce even while crippled.

  “Water or whiskey?” she asked, trying to keep her tone even, trying not to think about the past half hour.

  “Water.” His voice was flat, but his eyes were bloodshot and the lines around them deep with suffering.

  She raised his head and held it up while he gulped down the contents of the cup she’d filled. When he finished she lowered him back to the bed. He tried to raise himself. His face paled, and he clutched the side of the bed.

  “Don’t move,” she ordered. “We didn’t go to all that trouble to see you ruined again.”

  “Why did you go to that trouble?”

  She shrugged, tried to hide the emotions flooding her. The warmth of his skin lingered on hers. And now she felt that tingling again, and it was unlike any sensation she’d ever known. She swallowed hard. She wanted to touch him again, wanted to know more of those feelings. Instead, she tried to banish them. It was a betrayal of Mac. Of herself. “Wouldn’t watch a varmint die in the street.” She hoped her voice wasn’t as husky as she feared.

  Dawg whined from behind her, nudged her.

  “He’s…wanted,” the marshal said, his voice ragged. “There are others looking…”

  “Not you, for a while,” she retorted.

  A muscle jerked in his cheek. His eyes closed for a moment, then opened. His gaze was intense, as if he was looking through to her soul, and a shiver ran down her back.

  Dawg brushed by her. He placed his big head on the bed and growled. He sensed conflict, and he didn’t like it.

  The marshal’s eyes went to the dog. “Who…is that?”

  “Dawg,” she replied, and for the briefest of moments she thought she might have seen a flash of humor.

  He went up a notch in her estimation. He hadn’t asked what but who. Dawg usually intimidated everyone he met. He was big and considered ugly by most. But to her he was intensely loyal and brave.

  Now he inspected the wounded marshal more closely, baring his teeth as he usually did with strangers.

  The marshal stared back at him. Not the slightest flinch. Everyone flinched when they first saw Dawg. Then he said something so softly that she couldn’t make it out.

  Dawg inexplicably relaxed. Made a funny noise in his throat. Blue blazes, an accepting noise.

  Perplexed, she studied the man in the bed. “He’s not real fond of strangers,” she warned.

  “Neither…are you,” he observed. “Apparently…it’s epidemic in Gideon’s Hope.” His mouth twisted in a wry smile.

  The marshal’s body suddenly seized again, and his lips clamped down. She found the bottle of whiskey she’d used earlier and quickly filled the cup he’d just emptied. She had to hold his head up again as he drank. When he finished, he turned his gaze to Dawg, trying, she figured, to distract himself from the pain. “Dawg?” His voice was ragged.

  “I found him when he was little more than a pup,” Sam continued. “He’d been abandoned and got caught in a beaver trap. Archie saved his paw.
Archie always called him the danged dawg. Then everyone did.”

  “And me… What do you plan…now?” Every word seemed an effort, but she knew what he was asking.

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I didn’t think that far ahead.”

  The side of his lips turned up in a wry half smile, as if he were surprised by her admission.

  She was surprised, too. She hadn’t meant to show that vulnerability.

  The words had just popped out when he fixed his dark eyes on her.

  “You ever shoot anyone before?” he asked suddenly.

  But before she could figure how to answer, she saw him tense in pain. The cauterized leg must be agonizing. Sweat covered his brow. She quickly filled the cup again. His fingers reached for it and touched hers. Heat flowed from him to her. Their eyes met, engaged in a silent but oddly intimate battle. Every bone and nerve in her body was excruciatingly aware of him.

  She was so startled she nearly dropped the cup, and he was the one who steadied it. He took a few sips, then sank back against the rough pillow.

  Had he felt that same awareness? Or was it only her imagination, stirred by books?

  Flustered, she shifted her feet. “I’ll look after your horse. You should get as much sleep as…”

  As someone she’d just shot could.

  4

  WHAT WAS HAPPENING to her?

  Tremors were running up and down her spine as she left the room. And her breathing? It was coming in short little blasts.

  She should be afraid of the marshal, of what he could do. But what frightened her even more was something other than fear. It was the unexpected longing that clawed at her, striking a wild, lonely chord deep inside.

  The constriction in her chest grew tighter. She didn’t want to be anyone’s enemy. Especially his, a secret voice whispered.

  Sam took a deep breath. Think of something else. Anything else.

  The marshal’s horse, she reminded herself. Animals always soothed her, and the horse probably needed water and feed.

  The roan waited in front of the livery.

  She concentrated on the animal. Archie and Mac had both told her you could tell a lot about a man by the way he treated his horse, and she knew immediately this one had been treated well. She remembered how the marshal had said only a soft word and Dawg had practically slobbered all over him. She’d never seen the animal do anything like that before.

  But the marshal was a hunter. A hunter of men. And, from everything she’d heard, a ruthless one.

  She went over all his words, then stopped as she recalled one fevered utterance. “There will be others.”

  A shiver of fear ran down her back as she grabbed the horse’s reins and led him inside the stable.

  Burley met her at the door.

  “Is he dead?” Burley asked.

  “No. If anyone else comes looking for the marshal or Mac, you haven’t seen them.” Her eyes bored into Burley and she tried to make her voice as coldly resolute as Mac’s. “Understand? Because if you don’t, Archie will take his whip to you.”

  From the way his eyes widened at the last threat, Burley obviously had more respect for Archie’s wrath than her own.

  “Didn’t mean to tell him nothin’, Sam,” he groveled. “Honest.”

  She felt a second of guilt. Burley had dived into a bottle years ago after he lost his claim in a poker game. She had no idea how old he was, but he stayed in Gideon’s Hope because she and Mac and Archie looked out for him. Although his help wasn’t needed, he cared for the animals in return for food and an occasional drink of whiskey. Burley had pride.

  “You told him where Mac was,” she accused.

  “No, I swear. He came in and asked ’bout feed for his horse. When he saw Mac’s pinto, he asked about buying it. I said he wouldn’t be for sale, that Mac thought he was something special. That’s all I said. I swear.”

  “You mentioned Mac’s name?”

  He hung his head.

  She sighed.

  Probably didn’t make any difference, anyway. The marshal evidently knew that Mac rode a pinto and, even worse, had discovered where Mac was hiding. She took pity on Burley. “Maybe you should put Mac’s horse in the last stall.”

  “He gonna live? That lawman?”

  She nodded. “He lost a lot of blood, but Archie worked on him.”

  “You shot him,” Burley said admiringly.

  She didn’t reply right away. The agony on the marshal’s face as Archie dug for the bullet flashed in her mind. “Rub his horse down and give him some oats.”

  He nodded, eager to redeem himself. “I’ve been saving some,” he said. “Mr. Reese…he said he would be bringing more.” He looked at her wistfully. “You think he’ll be back soon?”

  Sam fervently hoped so. She and Mac and Archie never knew when Reese would return from his travels. If he was on a winning streak, it could be several more weeks. He knew, though, that Mac wanted to leave for Montana as soon as possible. Now they would have to wait until he was stronger.

  She had been the one who kept looking for delays. Her mother and father were buried here and she couldn’t imagine life anywhere else.

  But now was time to give back. Archie needed her. So did Mac. He was no longer safe here. Maybe never had been. Maybe one of his old outlaw friends had gotten drunk and said something. Or, more likely, he’d been recognized while in Denver. If only the marshal hadn’t kept the hunt alive. Maybe then everyone would have forgotten about Mac.

  She remembered his long strides when he returned from a trip, the way he took steps two at a time to see her mother. She’d seen the joy on her mother’s face when he arrived after a long absence, but she also remembered the arguments they’d had when she was a child. He wouldn’t marry her because of the price on his head. When her mother died of pneumonia, he and Archie and Reese had sworn to take care of her. Mac, though, had been the one closest to her. He was the one who wiped her tears, taught her to ride and protected her.

  Then, months ago, Reese had suggested Montana as a possibility to give Sam “more opportunities.” He’d been there years earlier and talked grandly about the land. It didn’t hurt that there were numerous mining communities to be picked, as well. But until recently, the Sioux and Blackfeet had both been active in the territory. Now that the army was conducting a major campaign against them, he felt this was the time to go. Land was available under the Homestead Act, and it could be supplemented by open range to graze cattle.

  Sam didn’t care about the kind of “opportunities” her godfathers were considering. Marriage was what they meant, and she wasn’t sure that’s what she wanted. Surely a husband would expect her to be like other wives. He would frown on her riding astride and helping Archie doctor folks. She wasn’t reassured by any marriages she’d seen in Gideon’s Hope. Worn women who looked decades older than their real ages waited at home with multiple children while their husbands drank and gambled what little money they had. Hadn’t her mother done just fine on her own after Sam’s father died?

  But maybe, just maybe, Sam could learn more about medicine. The farther Mac was from Colorado, the safer he would be.

  She had dropped her objections then, and they made plans. Reese would take one last round of the mining camps to raise money. She would can the early vegetables they’d grown in the garden. Mac would bring in game and they would smoke it, and Archie would take what gold they’d panned to Denver and get cash for it. They would need it to buy cattle along the way.

  But Archie was beset with rheumatism, and Mac had become restless. He didn’t think anyone would recognize him. He’d grown a beard, and the trip to Denver would be in and out.

  Someone did recognize him, though, and now the marshal threatened everyone she loved. Mac. Archie. Even Reese, who’d been harboring Mac all these years.

  She led the marshal’s roan into the stall. Burley fetched a bucket of water from the well in back, and together they gave him fresh hay.

  “I’ll
unsaddle and rub him down,” Burley said, eager to make amends.

  She took the marshal’s saddlebags and bedroll, then stood back. Maybe there would be some clothes in them. She didn’t want to keep seeing his nakedness. It was bad enough that the image lingered in her thoughts. She didn’t like the heat that drove through her when it did.

  Nor the churning in her stomach when he looked at her with those cool, dark blue eyes.

  HAD HE IMAGINED a gentle hand touching him? Even caressing him?

  Cool. It had been a brief moment of relief in his fevered world. Soothing.

  Sarah? He’d thought that for a moment, then remembered. Sarah was gone. Had been gone for years.

  Jared slipped in and out of consciousness. He preferred the darkness to the fire racing through his leg. When he was conscious, he tried to think of anything but the pain.

  The woman. Think of the woman! Must have been her hands he’d felt. He had to learn more about her, and her relationship to the man she called Mac.

  His life depended on it. Maybe she hadn’t intended to kill him, but from everything he’d heard about MacDonald, he couldn’t count on the same from the outlaw.

  He tried to remember what she and the old man said about MacDonald, but the words slipped in and out of his memory. Nothing he’d heard, though, fit the image of the man he was hunting.

  The poster had been in his pocket. Probably a bloody mess now, but he’d been tracking the man on and off for nearly ten years. The man she called MacDonald had been named Thornton when he took part in the stagecoach robbery. Jared had confirmed that when he caught one of the men who’d robbed the coach. The man claimed Thornton was the one who’d shot and killed Emma. He’d hung anyway.

  He’d tracked the man for six months, then lost the trail, although Thornton had never been far from his thoughts. Occasionally over the years he would get a lead, but it never panned out. Someone had thought he’d seen Thornton in a mining town in central Colorado, but that was years ago. Then he’d heard that Thornton had changed his name to MacDonald. Finally, a week ago, a young would-be gun hand heard someone say a wanted outlaw was spotted in Denver. He gathered two friends and went after him. Only one of the three returned.