by Jillian Hart
"No. Me? I'm fine."
"You can hardly stand up." The rough, masculine texture felt wonderful against her palm. He was substantial and tough and he'd come to comfort her. He'd vowed to find whoever did this to her pa. Impossible not to like him even more. "I worry about you, Burke."
"No need." His baritone rumbled gruffly, as if he were too tough to need a mere woman's concern, but she wasn't fooled. Something hid deeper in his voice, something she could not hear, only feel.
She knew no one had truly worried over him in a long, long time. She was glad to be the one who did. In truth, she could not stop it. An endless supply of caring welled up from within her and she knew better than to examine it. If she were falling in love with anyone, then it could not be with Burke Hannigan. He had made that perfectly clear.
That didn't mean she couldn't take care of him. "Why don't you sit down? I'll drive you to the boardinghouse."
"Sure, but weren't your horses and wagon stolen?"
"We have another team. Driving horses for the family buggy, and Pa keeps a second wagon in case the first needs repairs." She looped her arm through his. She held her anger at the thieves and her caring for Burke in check. "Don't look at me like that. I'm a very good driver."
"I've seen a lot of women drivers, and experience has taught me to expect the worst." Humor looked good on him.
Too good. She had to be practical, businesslike and casual. She had to act as if she wasn't remembering how he'd held her in his arms. As if she couldn't remember in the least the joyous comfort of being enfolded against his chest.
She pointed to the back door. "There's a comfortable bench on the porch. It's shady this time of day and a nice place to relax. Go sit."
"What did I tell you when we met? I don't like bossy women." He probably thought he could divert her with his incredible handsomeness and humor.
Not going to work. "Life is full of hardship and take-charge women. How sad for you."
"At least I'm getting a little sympathy," he quipped. "It might help my spinning head."
"Sit, and don't even think about getting up." She couldn't resist taking his arm and steering him in the correct direction. "Promise me you will rest?"
"I make no promises. Go to your father. You will worry less when you see him all patched up and looking better." He brushed the curls from her eyes but he didn't move to the back door.
She couldn't force her feet toward the stairs. She was anchored to him like a ship to the shore. Time halted, the demands of life melted away until there was only the kindness luminous in his midnight-blue eyes and the synchrony of their hearts.
"Lila!" Eunice called, her annoyance echoing down the stairwell like a thunderclap. "Do not make me call for you again."
"Go." He withdrew first. It was like being torn apart. His features pinched as if he were in agony, too. His tender silence said what words did not.
Her heart rolled over, touched beyond measure. The silence of true feeling remained with her as she shuffled forward, loath to leave the man she would not, could not love.
"
"I don't know what to do about the deliveries." Pa sat up, his frustration palpable as Eunice rushed to plump his pillows. His wounds didn't look nearly as serious with the blood cleansed from his face, his nose straightened and his gash stitched. He appeared almost like his old self. "Our customers have been so good to us. I don't want to leave them without their groceries for supper."
"It is a worry," Eunice agreed. "Lie back, Arthur. You are going to follow the doctor's orders if I have to force you to do it."
"All right, Eunice." Pa patted his wife's hand, patient as always. The doctor was right. Pa wasn't badly injured. In a few days, he would almost be as good as new. "I wasn't thinking of taking the wagon out myself, but someone has to."
"I can." This was her chance to help her father. He'd had a very bad day. The last thing he should worry about was losing business, after losing his horses, wagon and merchandise. Lila took the tray Lark carried into the room. "I know how to drive, and it wouldn't take me long to redo the morning's orders and to pack up the afternoon deliveries."
"That's not going to happen." Eunice jerked the tray from her, still terribly upset and trying hard to please Pa. It must be difficult being the second wife, the necessary and convenient woman a bereaving widower had married when he hadn't loved her. Lila settled on the foot of the bed.
"No." Pa's eyebrows furrowed together. "I won't have it. Those bandits are still out there."
"We could hire someone." Eunice set the tray on the bedside table with a clatter. "I hate to have such an expense, but you are right, Arthur. We can't disappoint our customers. We don't want to lose their business."
"Which is why I should go." She leaned against the foot post. "Let me, Pa. Please?"
"I'm not sure." He rubbed his forehead, as if he had a raging headache and thinking was difficult.
"Then at least let me do the deliveries in town." She used to ride along with him when she was a little girl. "I know how it's done. Nothing will happen to me with so many people out and about on the streets."
"I don't like my daughter doing a man's work." He relaxed into his pillows. His black eye, bandaged nose and puffy lip made him look bedraggled, but he was still his patient self. He thought a moment and nodded, a sign he was about to relent. "What do you think, Eunice?"
"Who will run the store? I can't leave your side, Arthur. The doctor said you have a concussion and need to be watched. I won't risk your health."
"Lark can do it." Lila spoke fast before her father could frown and her stepmother could object. "She's never made a mistake so far when she's helped in the store. If she feels overwhelmed or needs help, then she can call up to you, Eunice. Otherwise, you will have to hire someone or close the store. Neither is good for profits."
She waited breathlessly, praying a one word prayer. Please, please, please. She hoped the Lord was listening. She wanted to do this for her father. To take one burden off his mind.
"Yes, if Lark would like to." Pa held up one hand when Eunice protested. "It's only for an afternoon."
The rapid sound of thuds came from the kitchen down the hall. Lila could imagine Lark hopping up and down with glee. She must have been able to overhear the conversation.
"Thank you, Pa. You won't regret it." Lila launched forward to carefully kiss his cheek. She did not want to jar his poor head, since he had to be in more pain than he was admitting. "I'll start filling the orders."
"Tell your sister to run and tell one of the Dane brothers to bring the spare wagon and our buggy team by." Pa managed a one-sided grin. "Lila, you are quite a young woman. It's good to know I can count on you."
"It's good to be counted on." She squeezed his hand before she left. Lark waited for her in the hallway, skipping in place with joy.
"I'll run to the livery straightaway." She hurriedly tied the strings of her sunbonnet. "I promise I won't let Pa down. He's counting on me, too."
"Yes, he is." She opened the door for her little sister. Her not-so-little sister, these days. Lark stood tall and slender, looking ladylike as she remembered not to run down the stairs. Halfway down she slowed and walked gracefully, so like their ma it put a lump in Lila's throat.
Now that one wounded man was tended to, there was another one to deal with. While her little sister went out the front door, Lila trailed out the back. She pushed open the
screen door and poked her head around the door frame. Was he still there? The sight of Burke sitting with his eyes closed surprised her. He was snoozing. She resisted the urge to remove his hat, lie him down on the bench and find a pillow for his head. Doing those things would wake him, and he looked like a man who needed a nap.
What had it cost him to climb out of bed? He was barely strong enough to sit up, and yet he'd walked here to comfort her, regardless of the pain he had to be in. He'd done that for her.
Don't read too much into it, she warned herself. She spun on her heels and quietly closed the screen door. Maybe Burke would do the same for anyone he knew. Maybe he was simply being a good friend. He was a Range Rider, after all, a man of exemplary honor.
The instant she waltzed into the storeroom, she spotted one of the new crates that had just come in on the morning train, the top off, showing a handful of titles from their latest book order. She let her fingertips rest on the spine of one volume of her favorite series. She had already plucked her copy of the newest installment and it was waiting for her upstairs on her nightstand. The character in the books would definitely push himself beyond all limits just to be helpful. But it seemed to her in comparison that Burke's caring toward her went beyond an employee's devotion to his job.
Didn't she just tell herself not to read too much into his actions? The man had an impossible hold on her, but one thing was sure. He was a very, very good man.
She grabbed an empty crate and filled the first order, humming.
"
He'd just turned fifteen at the start of summer. In the hot evening sun, Burke situated the old gun against his shoulder and ignored the sting of the morning's beating that had broken the skin on his back. He concentrated on lining up the notch on the barrel with the five-inch piece of scrap two-by-four sitting on top of the stump.
"How long are you gonna stay with them folks?" Olly talked around a plug of tobacco.
"You mean the farmer and his wife? "Til the end of the harvest." Harvest felt like a long time away.
"Do you like stayin' with "em?"
"No, but I've stayed with worse. Much worse." Burke let the kiss of the late-July breeze ruffle his hair and tug at his battered hat brim. It waved through the seed-heavy tips of the wild grasses and sent daisies to nodding as he let out a breath, fastened his gaze on his target and squeezed the trigger. The old rifle let out a ringing blast and a burst of fire. The lead bullet thudded into the wood and set it flying into the grass. Bull's-eye. He shrugged. "Got nowhere else to go but the orphanage. If I go back now, they'll just find me some other farm to work."
"You ought to strike out on your own." Olly spat juice into the grass as he chased down the chunk of wood. He held it up in the air. "Dead center. Don't no one shoots like you do."
"It's not like it can do me any good." He stood the rifle upright on its butt and poured gunpowder down the barrel'just enough, not too much. "It's not like I can earn a living at it."
"Sure you can."
"Me? No. I wish." The plug of tobacco Olly had given him soured his mouth and made his stomach sick-feeling. It was hard talking around a wad stuck into his cheek, so he spit the whole thing into the grass, hoping his buddy wouldn't notice. They'd met at the swimming hole back in April, where Burke had come to wash off the grime from long days of sowing oats, wheat and corn. They'd been fast friends ever since in what little spare time Burke had. He gave the barrel a shake and a tap.
"My pa does." Olly set another chunk of wood on the stump. He carried his polished Winchester carelessly, as if he was used to packing a firearm, a man of the world.
"Is he some kind of gunslinger?" Burke fed a bullet into the muzzle and used the ramrod to push it deep into the barrel.
"You could say that." Olly kicked at daisies and sent their heads flying into the grass as he made his way back from the stump. "See if you can shoot that one dead center."
The chunk was smaller, maybe three inches. A challenge. "You're on." Burke raised the hammer, slid a cap over the hollow pin. He settled the rifle against his shoulder and carefully sited.
A rattle of a wagon bouncing over road ruts startled him awake. Burke blinked. The bright memory of the dream broke apart and faded like smoke as one of the brothers who ran the livery stable pulled a pretty pair of quick-stepping bays to a stop.
"Whoa, there." Walton Dane climbed down. "Deputy, you have been the talk of the town, at least until today. Now poor Arthur is. A shame what's happening to a peaceful place like this. Some say it's the railroad's fault."
"Others might say it's man's fault." Burke tried to boost himself off the bench seat, but nothing happened. He swept off his hat, rested his back against the cool brick wall and breathed in enough air to make his head stop swimming. "Doing wrong is a man's choice."
"We didn't used to see many men like that in these parts." Walton paraded onto the porch. "Now we've got "em on the town's payroll."
Hard to miss the venom in Dane's words. He tried to stand again and he made it off the bench. He broke out in a weak, cold sweat.
"You had better watch yourself, Deputy." Dane yanked open the screen door. "Folks are hoppin' mad about the sheriff. One day they just might run him out of town. That might go for you, too."
"No one is running me anywhere." He hated the physical weakness trembling through him when he needed to be strong. He had a job to do, a sheriff to stop.
"We'll see." Dane shouldered through the door, leaving behind an air of disdain that was hard to ignore.
Folks were starting to think he was in league with the sheriff. He couldn't let it bother him. He wouldn't be a good Rider if he didn't. He did his best to ignore the pain slicing through his ribs, maneuvered forward and made it to the screen door.
"Coming through!" Lila sang in her dulcet alto, three crates stacked high in her arms. She peered over the top of a small bag of flour. "Go wait for me in the wagon. I'm taking you home, mister."
"Is that so?" He manhandled the crates from her so smoothly, she didn't have time to protest. Too bad his wounds didn't have time to hurt. Humor made the pain matter less. "Remember, I don't take orders from a woman."
"You must be getting used to it by now. Give me back my crates."
"Not a chance, sweetheart." The light drained from his eyes as he took the first step off the porch. It hurt so much. He stumbled into the alley blindly and gave thanks when his vision cleared. He hoped Lila couldn't see his knees shake or hear the groan of keen-edged pain he did his best to bite back. So far so good. He wasn't bleeding or lying on the ground, so he gathered every scrap of willpower he possessed and hefted the crates up into the wagon bed and lost his eyesight again.
"Move aside, Deputy." Dane returned, carrying a stack of six and plopped the boxes down like they weighed nothing at all. "Lila, do you want a hand up? I'll get the rest of the orders."
"I can climb up myself, thanks." She waltzed up next to him in the shade of the wagon, her presence restoring his vision and easing his pain. She tied her sunbonnet ribbons into a bow beneath her chin. "Time to get you home, Deputy."
"Home? No. I'm staying with you." The need to protect her rose up fiercely within him, greater than any pain and mightier than any weakness. "I intend to keep you safe."
"Unnecessary. I'm perfectly safe if I stay in town."
"You never know what might befall you." He grabbed hold of the side of the wagon to keep steady. "It's better to be safe than sorry."
"What if I'm a risk-taker? What if I like to let the winds blow where t
hey may?" She swung up onto the wagon seat before he could help her.
Sunshine slanted into his eyes and outlined her with blazing gold, and against the bold blue sky she could have been a dream he had wished into his life. Emotion choked him as he followed her shakily onto the seat. "That's risky talk for a fabric counter clerk. I think you need me."
"I need you?" She tugged up the brim of her sunbonnet. The sage-green color brought out the luster of her bright hair and the compelling green in her irises. She arched one slender eyebrow. "You are entirely wrong, Deputy. It's you who needs me. I fed you, remember?"
"I do. I'm grateful. You are a good cook." His throat felt doubly thick. The words sounded clumsy as he reached for the reins.
"I saw that wince. Burke, I don't want you to strain yourself. You could have died from your wounds." Her hand settled lightly on his arm. All humor faded as she searched his face. Honest caring radiated from her, the most beautiful thing he'd ever known.
All he wanted was to have her gaze upon him with caring and kindness for the rest of his days. If he could have her, then he would cherish her with all the might he possessed.
He could never be worthy. He waited for Dane to latch the tailgate before he snapped the reins. "I'm too tough to die."
"That's your opinion. I have a different one. Since it's a free country, I'm going to keep it. You won't change my mind."
"If only I were strong enough to try." He did his best not to fall off the seat. He had a hard time focusing on the alley ahead. He kept the horses walking slow and hoped his dizziness would fade. "I can be stubborn, too. I'm going to do my job. You won't stop me."
"Your job? Driving my father's delivery wagon is your job?"
"Close enough. While I'm laid up and no use to the town, I may as well spend my time protecting ladies and their wagons when I can." He hoped she could not guess why his voice sounded strained or why he could not look at her as he chirruped to the horses to keep them walking.
