Emma and the Outlaw

by Linda Lael Miller

  Fulton’s ears reddened slightly. “Emma, I must insist that you watch your language!”

  Emma was running out of patience fast. She told Mrs. Birwell to put the purchase on Chloe’s account—the old biddy didn’t mind selling her merchandise to ‘unwholesome influences’—and started for the door. “I can see we are not going to come to any rational agreement on this situation. Good day, Fulton.”

  He followed her out onto the sidewalk. “This is serious, Emma,” he insisted. “It’s bad enough that you live under that terrible woman’s roof. If word of this rascal you’ve taken in gets back to Mother, we’ll face no end of problems.”

  “He’ll be leaving soon,” Emma promised with a little sigh. “The minute he can get out of bed, I’m sure. He’s no more anxious to stay than you are to have him there, Fulton.”

  At this, Fulton subsided a little. “You don’t actually take care of him, or anything like that?”

  Emma kept walking, her eyes fixed straight ahead. “I read to him last night,” she admitted, leaving out the account of washing Steven and changing his bandages.

  “I suppose he’s illiterate, like most saddle tramps.”

  Emma only nodded, not wanting to say she suspected Steven was as well-educated as Fulton himself. That would only have made trouble. And speaking of trouble…

  “Have you heard from your mother, Fulton?”

  “She and Father will be home from their Grand Tour sometime in the coming month,” he said a little nervously. The elder Whitneys were not going to be delighted at their son’s choice of a wife, and both Emma and Fulton knew it.

  Since they were passing the bank, Fulton stopped. “Be sensible,” he called after Emma in a stern voice, when she kept walking.

  Emma looked out at the sparkling waters of Crystal Lake, because the sight never failed to soothe her. In summer she liked nothing better than wading there during the hot days and swimming, as free and naked as a nymph, when the moon rose.

  Daisy was sweeping the front hall industriously when Emma walked in. “‘Bout time you got here,” grumbled the older woman. “That soup I made is plumb cold.”

  Emma smiled, thanked Daisy, and proceeded up the stairs. At the door of Steven’s room, she knocked.

  “Come in,” he barked, sounding no more congenial than Daisy had.

  Emma opened the door and stepped inside. “I brought you some new clothes,” she said cheerfully. “I hope they’ll fit.”

  The strain of lying alone, helpless and in pain, was visible in the gaunt lines of Steven’s unshaven face. There was a feeling of restrained energy in the room, some power building up, about to burst through a crumbling dam. “You’ll find some money in my coat,” he said, shifting uncomfortably on the bed.

  She drew up the chair she’d sat in the night before and sank into it, the package resting on her lap. “We’ll settle up later. How do you feel?”

  “Like hell,” he answered, staring up at the ceiling and drumming his fingers on his bandaged chest. His hands wre graceful, though sunbrowned and calloused, but they were also lethal, Emma reminded herself. Steven was almost surely a gunslinger, and men like that usually didn’t trouble themselves with matters of conscience.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No,” he snapped. “That old harpy you call a cook has already forced two bowlfuls of soup down my gullet.”

  Emma smiled at the picture that came to mind. “I should have warned you about crossing Daisy. She’s a woman of strong opinions.”

  Steven was forced to chuckle, though the sound was grim. His bandaged arms were folded across his chest now in staunch stubbornness, and his eyes moved over Emma’s plain dress with an expression just short of contempt.

  “Why the devil do you dress like that,” he rasped, “when you’re easily the most beautiful woman in the territory?”

  Emma’s cheeks pulsed. She started to protest, then stopped herself in confusion. Had Steven’s question been a compliment or an insult?

  “What’s wrong with this dress?” she asked evenly, when she’d had a few moments to compose herself.

  “It’s plain enough for a missionary’s wife,” Steven replied. Although the words bit, Emma saw kindness in his eyes, and genuine curiosity.

  She wanted in the worst way for Steven to find her attractive, and the knowledge surprised and shamed her. After all, she was considering marrying Fulton, and she rarely gave his opinions a second thought. Uncharacteristic tears swelled along her lashes.

  “Hell and damnation,” Steven muttered. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  Emma drew her lace-trimmed handkerchief from under her cuff and dried her eyes in the most dignified manner she could manage. “I do wish you wouldn’t swear.”

  He sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, Emma. It’s just that a woman like you—well, you should be dressed in silks and satins, with a lace ruffle here and there. And maybe some bosom showing.” He narrowed his gaze for a moment, as if envisioning the change. “Yes. You have a very nice chest.”

  Once again Emma’s cheeks burned. Shocked though she was, his words had set a fire racing through her insides, and she started out of her chair. “If you’re going to be vulgar…”

  He reached out and caught hold of her hand when she would have risen. It was as though she’d dragged her feet across a thick carpet, then touched the door knob. She flinched at the sweet shock. “Please,” he said in a low, husky voice. “Don’t go.”

  Emma sank back into the chair. His strong fingers relaxed around hers reluctantly, it seemed to her, then released their grasp entirely. “It must be terrible, being so grimy dirty.”

  His teeth flashed white against a suntanned face. “Kind of you to put it that way, Miss Emma.”

  She bit her lower lip for a moment. “I meant—well, you must be very uncomfortable. It’s a pity you couldn’t gonstairs and use Chloe’s bathtub.”

  He arched his golden brown eyebrows. “I could, Miss Emma,” he said quietly, “if you’d help me.”

  Emma’s heart set instantly to pounding, and she drew back in her chair. “Help you?”

  “Get down the stairs,” he said. “I didn’t mean you should help me bathe.”

  She smiled, much relieved, though her heart rate had hardly slowed and she still felt a little dizzy. “Oh.”

  “Will you?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Emma answered briskly, smoothing the skirts of her dress before she stood. Since Steven’s clothes were in shreds, she had him wait while she slipped into Chloe’s dressing room and collected the robe Big John wore when he visited.

  With a great deal of effort on both their parts, Steven was finally hauled into a standing position. He stood still for several moments, with Emma beneath his left arm like a living crutch, and his struggle against the pain was a visible one.

  “Now the stairs,” Emma said.

  Progress out into the hallway was slow, since Steven could only take very short steps and he had to stop to rest every few seconds.

  At the top of the rear stairwell Emma shifted to Steven’s right side, so he could grip the banister with his left hand. If he were to lose his balance then, the results would be disastrous.

  Daisy was in the kitchen, her Sunday hat propped on top of her head, when they reached the first floor.

  “Land sakes, Miss Emma, put that man back where he belongs!”

  Emma gave her longtime friend a dour look. “Mr. Fairfax wants a bath,” she said.

  Daisy’s dark eyes narrowed. “That ain’t fittin’, and you know it!”

  Steven ignored the cook’s remark. Emma had been hoping Daisy would offer to help, but there was obviously no chance of that. She only took up her handbag and opened the rear door.

  “Don’t you do nothin’ you shouldn’t, Miss Emma,” she ordered with a worried frown, and then she was gone.

  The fact that she was now alone in the house with a man who was about to be stark naked was not lost on Emma, but she’d come too far to back ou
t. She and Steven had both worked too hard getting downstairs for the effort to be in vain.

  With a beleaguered glance at the clock on the kitchen mantel, she renewed her efforts at propelling Steven toward the bathroom. Half the hour she allotted herself for a midday meal was gone, and she hadn’t had a bite to eat.

  Ever so slowly, the two made their way down the hall toward the room Chloe was so proud of. Except for the one in the big house on the hill, where the Whitneys lived, there wasn’t another bathroom like it within miles.

  At the end of the darkened hallway Emma propped Steven against the wall long enough to open the door. Then she hauled him inside and set him gingerly on th seat of the flushing commode, a marvel of modern times.

  He swore and grasped the edge of the porcelain sink with one hand to steady himself.

  “Are you all right?” Emma asked.

  “God, yes,” Steven muttered. “I’m wonderful.”

  Emma ignored his profanity and bent to put the plug into the tub and turn the spigots. When she twisted around to face Steven, he was grinning at her.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “Never mind.”

  She realized she’d displayed her derriere, after a fashion, and the blood flowed to her face again. “Skunk,” she said.

  “You’re crazy about me,” Steven retorted with an impish grin.

  “Get into the water,” Emma said impatiently. “I’m due back at the library and I haven’t had anything to eat.”

  Steven got to his feet painfully and started untying the belt of Big John’s blue flannel robe.

  Emma whirled away, her hands over her eyes, and Steven laughed.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  Emma did not turn around, but stood hugging herself, her chin high.

  “I’ll need you to take off these bandages,” Steven told her in a reasonable tone of voice.

  Without looking at Steven, except out of the corner of her eye, Emma walked right past him and took a pair of scissors from the cabinet above the sink. She kept her gaze fixed strictly on his bandages as she removed them, but she couldn’t help noticing the power and depth of his chest, and the ridged muscles of his stomach.

  “You’re pretty good at this. Have you taken care of wounded men before?”

  Emma drew in a deep breath, then let it out again. The room seemed very close and very warm, and she had that familiar sense of some intangible force straining to be released. “We had a cave-in at one of the mines a few years ago, and a lot of people were hurt. Chloe let me help her and the others with the doctoring.”

  “Where was Doc Waverly?”

  “He was around,” Emma said, a little defensively, for she liked Dr. Waverly even if he did have an unfortunate fondness for the bottle. “He just had his hands full, that was all.”

  “How did you come to live here, Emma?”

  She helped him to the side of the tub, then turned away while he struggled out of the robe and whatever was beneath it. She caught a glimpse, despite her efforts to be circumspect, of hairy, muscled legs. “Chloe brought me to Whitneyville when I was a little girl, if that’s what you mean.”

  “It is and it isn’t.” She heard him groan as he lowered himself carefully into the water. Emma wanted desperately to leave, but she didn’t dare. Mr. Fairfax could easily lose consciousness, strike his head on the side of the tub, and drown. “Chloe̵s obviously a—lady of the evening.”

  Emma sighed, drying her moist brow with the sleeve of her dress. There was a peculiar sensation of aching in her most private place. “Yes.”

  “Is she your mother?”

  “No,” Emma answered immediately. “Chloe’s a far better person than Mama ever was.”

  She heard splashing as Steven helped himself to the soap and began to wash. “That’s a bitter remark if I’ve ever heard one.”

  Emma was finding it hard to breathe, and even harder to keep her gaze from skittering toward Steven’s prone body. “Mama didn’t care about me or my sisters. Why should I say she was a good person when she wasn’t?”

  Steven sighed. “Emma.”

  She was tapping one foot. “What?”

  “I’m going to need more help.”

  Emma gnawed on her lower lip before answering. “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t wash my back, or my hair.”

  Squeezing her eyes shut, Emma extended her hands and groped her way to the big, clawfooted bathtub. She smacked the edge sharply with her knee, and her eyes flew open.

  Steven was looking up at her with mischief in his gaze. He’d covered his private parts with a washcloth, but the rest of him was revealed in all its blatantly masculine glory.

  Emma decided she’d never get the project behind her if she didn’t turn to and work at it, so she rolled up her sleeves and knelt beside the tub. Trying not to think about what she was doing, she scoured Steven’s back and shampooed his hair, which felt like silk between her fingers.

  “The wrapping around your rib is wet.”

  The task of washing the rest of his body completed, Steven sagged against the back of the tub with a sigh. “I don’t care,” he replied, and there was a smile on his beard-stubbled face. “God, this feels good.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t repeatedly take our Lord’s name in vain,” Emma protested.

  “The fella that left this robe—would he happen to keep a supply of cigars here, by any chance?”

  As a matter of fact, Chloe made sure there were cigars for Big John’s visits, but Emma was no longer in an obliging mood. She had to get back to the library and she was hungry and soaked to the skin. Not only that, but soaping up Steven’s broad, muscled back had given her a lot of odd feelings that hadn’t fully subsided yet.

  “No,” she lied belatedly. “There aren’t any cigars.”

  Steven unplugged the tub with a motion of his toe. “You’d better turn your back, Emma, because I’m about to stand up if I can manage it.”

  Emma complied quickly, praying Steven would be able to execute the feat on his own, that he wouldn’t fall and crack his skull open. She held her breath.>

  “Can’t do it,” he said on a frustrated sigh, and there was a splash as he settled back into the water, which was steadily draining down the pipes. “You’ll have to help me again.”

  “Oh, dear,” Emma fussed. Then she went to the end of the tub and, keeping her eyes carefully closed, put her arms under Steven’s and tried to hoist him to his feet.

  This required both of them to give their utmost, but they succeeded, and Emma hastened to hold the robe out to Steven, keeping her head averted.

  They were just beginning the arduous trip back up the stairs when Doc Waverly himself knocked at the glass in the back door, an affable smile on his face.

  Emma had never been gladder to see anyone in all her life. Doc opened the door and came inside at her nod.

  “Afternoon,” he said cheerfully. “Giving our patient a bath?”

  Emma flushed. “Actually, he gave himself a bath. I just helped him downstairs.”

  “Liar,” Steven whispered, his warm breath caressing her ear.

  “His wrapping is wet, though,” Emma went on, speaking in an unnaturally loud voice, as though to drown out anything more Steven might say.

  “I’ll change that,” Doc Waverly said. He took Emma’s place under Steven’s arm, and she bolted immediately for the stairs.

  “I’ll put fresh sheets on his bed while you’re bringing him up,” she called back.

  She had managed the entire task by the time Steven and the doctor arrived at the doorway of the guest room, so slow was their advance. Steven was ashen with pain, but he smiled at Emma when he saw her step back from his freshly made bed.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “I think you could use a shot of whiskey,” said the doctor, “and so could I.”

  After securing Steven on the edge of the bed, Doc Waverly opened his black bag and took out a fancy flask.

  Shaking her head, E
mma gathered up Steven’s dirty sheets and left the room with them. When she returned, after exchanging her soaked blue dress for a black skirt and high-necked shirtwaist, Doc was just finishing putting new wrapping around the patient’s rib cage.

  “Good as new,” the old man boasted.

  “Not quite,” Steven said, grimacing as he settled back against the pillows. The crisp white sheets lay just covering his abdomen, and Doc bent to examine the cuts he’d stitched up the night before, frowning.

  “No need to put new bandages on, Emma,” the doctor said.

  Emma nodded. “Is there anything you want before I go back to the library, Mr. Fairfax?” She would have called her guest Steven, except for the doctor’s presence. The blaze of rumors would be fanned enough by Doc’s account of Emma hauling a half-naked man from the bathroom. To address Steven informally would only have added to the problem.

  /div>

  “No, thank you, Miss Emma,” he said distractedly, closing his eyes.

  Emma felt a pang at the sight of him lying there, so exhausted by the strain of traveling up and down the stairs. “I’ll read to you again tonight, if you’d like,” she offered, not caring whether Doc reported her words to the general populace or not.

  “That would be—fine,” Steven answered. His gaze wandered over Emma’s person once more, in a leisurely and slightly insolent sweep, and then he drifted into a deep, consuming slumber.

  Emma descended the rear stairway with Doc right on her heels. He was probably eager to finish his rounds so he could have a drink or two at the Stardust Saloon.

  In the kitchen, she lifted the lid on Daisy’s soup kettle and peered inside. The stuff was cold as well water.

  “You just send for me if that young fella has any trouble,” Doc said generously, from the doorway.

  “Thank you,” Emma answered, going to the breadbox. “I will.” Hastily, she made herself a jam sandwich. She ate it as she hurried along the sidewalk toward the library a few minutes later.

  The place was empty, as it usually was at that time of day, and Emma put herself to work going through the stacks to make sure all the books were in their proper order. Work had always been her refuge, but that day it didn’t help.