by Lori Wilde
Her godfathers didn’t have medicine in mind with the move. They wanted her to “have a more normal life.” She knew exactly what they meant by that. The male species. She’d heard them talk about her future, how she “needed” to meet some men—prospective husbands. And, truth be told, she’d been feeling stirrings inside, a longing for something she couldn’t quite define.
And there was no one to explain it to her.
But apparently Mac had sensed it. And for that reason, he’d left the safety of Gideon’s Hope. He’d planned on trading in the nuggets they’d collected over past years for cash for the trip north. For her. Only for her.
If not for her, he wouldn’t be lying upstairs as much dead as alive.
She decided to check on him. She wanted to reassure herself she’d done the right thing by shooting the marshal. She needed that mental weapon before she saw the wounded man again.
She went past the five empty rooms that had once been occupied by the women who worked below, and sometimes above. She’d known many of them, and they hadn’t seemed soiled doves to her. After her mother died, they’d been kind to her, even taught her to play the guitar and to sing songs, both pretty and naughty.
Archie was hunched over Mac when she opened the door. “How is he?” she asked.
“Still slipping in and out,” Archie said.
“He didn’t hear anything?”
Archie simply shook his head.
She went over to the bed and looked down at the man who was the closest thing to a father she had. Father. Friend. Teacher. Confidante. Her heart lurched as she gazed at his wounded body. He’d arrived barely alive four days earlier, and must have used every remnant of strength he had to reach them. He’d been ambushed by bounty hunters. He thought he’d killed two and wounded a third, but the cost was high. He had two bullets in him and a third had smashed his right hand.
It had taken him nearly two days to reach Gideon’s Hope, and by that time one of the wounds had festered. She and Archie had packed it with poultices made of moss, using old Indian remedies Archie had picked up over the years. They’d also gone through most of what little laudanum Archie had hoarded. The fever had lessened, but Mac still alternated between being unconscious and delirious. His breathing was labored and she knew he couldn’t be moved again.
He had always been so strong and sure, so capable in every way. And now his right hand—his gun hand—was buried in a swath of bandages. His unruly sandy hair was touched with gray and his normally sun-bronzed face looked years older than forty-five. A sandy beard covered his cheeks and chin.
Still buffeted by emotions, she drew a deep breath. She had done the right thing, she told herself. The only thing. But what now? Two wounded men. What if the marshal recovered quickly and discovered Mac above him? What then? Her chest tightened.
She wished Reese was here with his cocky grin and quick hands and seemingly endless knowledge. He was close to Mac’s age, but they couldn’t be less alike. The third son of an English lord, Reese was destined to go into the church. Instead, he escaped to the West to make his own fortune, and he’d never been particular as to how he did it. Reese considered life one big joke while Mac was intense and quiet. They had been competitors while her mother lived, and friends after.
“I’ll go look after the marshal,” she said. She had to keep busy. Then maybe she wouldn’t think.
With Dawg at her side, she picked up several more sheets from the room and went back downstairs. The lawman was still unconscious. The sheet Archie had placed under him was bloody, along with what was left of the long johns he wore. They no longer covered much of anything and she couldn’t take her eyes from him. Her body suddenly reacted to his, and she took a deep breath. This had never happened before, but then Archie had always tried to block her from seeing that particular piece of anatomy.
Dawg inched in and bristled as if he detected danger.
“Friend,” she told him softly. Dawg immediately backed off and sat several feet away.
The marshal was no friend, but she didn’t want Dawg to inflict more damage on the man. She reminded herself he was the enemy. He hadn’t had to come here. But he didn’t look like an enemy now. He looked like someone who was suffering.
She angrily brushed away a tear at the edge of her eye. She’d done what she had to do. She kept telling herself that.
First things first. She took a bottle of salve from Archie’s bag and liberally spread it over the wound. It would ease the pain and hopefully speed the recovery.
She fetched fresh water and washed his face where sweat had mingled with dirt, then took stock of every feature. Strong angular bones with thick black brows and eyelashes. The dimple in his chin barely dented the hard face. His cheekbones were lightly covered with new bristles of beard, and his dark hair was matted with sweat, a hank of it falling over his forehead.
Not exactly handsome but intriguing. For a moment he fit the image she had of Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, one of the many books Reese had found for her. Dark and dangerous. But, unlike Heathcliff, she sensed there was little recklessness in this man. The intensity was there, though. She’d seen it in his eyes.
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.
&nbs
p; 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.
