Jillian Hart

by Lissa's Cowboy

  His skin was hot, and her heart thundered with fear of what she was about to do and the awareness of the man. Breathe deep, and do this right. She gathered her courage, then pulled the soaked dishcloth aside. The blood was slowing, surely that was a good sign. She nosed the tip of her scissors into the wound.

  "Beth," he murmured, his voice slurred by dream and shock, and his head thrashed to one side and then stilled. The tension drained from his big body; the pain eased from his clenched jaw.

  The scissors hit something hard. Molly gritted her teeth, steeled her stomach, and dug out the bullet as gently as she could. Blood welled up fresh and fast, and her gut clenched hard.

  Don't faint, she ordered, even though her entire body was shaking. She applied pressure to the wound, then reached for the whiskey and splashed it across his abdomen. The hard roped muscles beneath his bronzed skin clenched in pain, and he groaned low in his throat, a sound of agony even though he was unconscious.

  Beth started sobbing again on the other side of the cabinets, a sound as hopeless as a lonely winter wind.

  Tension gathered at the nape of Molly's neck as she kept working—she couldn't stop now. As she threaded her needle, she spoke softly to the girl, and the crying stopped. Beth talked in a low voice to Lady, who was no doubt offering the girl her own brand of comfort.

  Molly caught the edge of the ragged flesh with her needle. She winced, knowing it caused pain. Her stomach clenched again, and she felt her head start to swirl. Fighting for air, she pulled the knot through the skin and knotted it again to make sure it would stay and not pull through.

  More blood sluiced from the wound, faster than she could stem it. She edged the needle into his flesh again and tugged the thread taut. The yawning wound closed a fraction, and she kept working, bringing the skin together, trying to make the seam she sewed tight enough.

  She knotted her thread well and slumped against the back wall, breathing heavily. Sweat soaked her, and she felt shaky. Exhaustion gathered like an ache in the tensed muscles of her shoulders, neck, and back. She felt so weak, she didn't think she could stand.

  But she'd done it—the wound was sewn tight. Gazing at the man, who was both shivering and sweating at the same time, she feared he wouldn't live, feared that her best was, once again, not good enough.

  Beth gazed up over the bowl of steaming stew, watching Molly's every move with wide eyes. Even though she was warm, bathed, and dry, the child still looked peaked. Exhaustion bruised her delicate skin and hung on her slim shoulders. She sat as silent as a ghost at the table and didn't touch her food.

  "Are you going to eat that?"

  Beth shook her head, her dark hair brushing the shoulders of Molly's warmest sweater, which was draped over her reed-thin body. The sleeves were rolled up in fat cuffs, and the garment engulfed her. She looked forlorn, as if she were losing her entire world.

  "It's early, but you look like you need your rest." Molly held out her hand.

  Silently, Beth nodded, and her fingers closed around Molly's, tight with need and fear.

  Molly tucked the child into her spare bed, safe and warm, and left the door ajar, just enough to be able to check on her. No more sounds came from the room.

  The poor child. She understood how seriously her father was wounded. Molly ached for her, and when she next peered through the nearly closed door, she saw that Beth had fallen into an exhausted sleep. Maybe her dreams would be sweet, without cold, injury, or fear. Lady had curled up on the foot of the bed, keeping watch.

  The hinges in her door squeaked, and she set the steaming basin on the nightstand. The man on her bed remained unmoving except for the barely perceptible rise and fall of his wide chest. He still lived.

  Pulse drumming, she turned up the wick. Her knuckles jarred the lamp's crystal teardrops, and they tinkled like chimes, tossing glimmering fragments of rainbows across the embroidered pillow slip and the man's pallid face.

  He was handsome; there was no denying that. Her heart tripped as she pulled the blanket down the breadth of his chest. Roughly textured skin stretched taut over well-defined muscles. He was a strong man, one who worked for a living; anyone could see that. His hands bore old calluses across his palms, and his skin was rich with the deep bronze from many summers spent beneath the sun.

  As she wet and soaped the washcloth, she couldn't help wondering why he was wandering on foot through a dangerous blizzard with a child so young. Was he homeless? A drifter? But he had so many guns. He'd dropped one on her floor. She'd found one in his shirt pocket when she'd removed it, after stitching his wound. Now two more were strapped into holsters tied snug to both powerful thighs.

  Four guns. She tried not to think about that. Tried not to think about what kind of man he might be. He was injured and she would help him, but she wouldn't trust him. No, she couldn't trust him.

  This man bore a hard-set face, handsome but powerful, even in his sleep. She could feel his masculinity, like heat radiating from his well-made body. What was she doing noticing? She was a decent woman, a schoolteacher, for heaven's sake. She didn't go around gaping at men's handsome bodies.

  She set the soapy cloth to his face and gently scrubbed over the proud blade of his nose, the ridges of each high cheekbone, the soft slope of his cheeks, and the unyielding line of his jaw. She felt the shape of him through the cloth and again as she rinsed off the soap and dried him.

  The rough stubble of several days' growth rasped against her fingertips and caught on the terry towel. He smelled like winter wind and man, and as she laid the cloth to the base of his throat and caressed the width of his broad chest, heat licked through her. Like kindling to flame, she felt engulfed from toes to brow, from inside out.

  What was wrong with her? This was an injured man, a stranger, hewn of muscle and danger, who looked as hard as stone fast asleep on her ruffled, pink and green sheets.

  Wringing the cloth out in the steaming basin, she took deep breaths, filling her lungs with fresh air, trying to drive out the heat. Awareness tingled through her body, leaving a fine trembling that radiated straight through her abdomen.

  Her gaze drifted back to him. She couldn't remember ever seeing a man's bare chest before, unless she counted her neighbor who'd worked out in his fields the past summer shirtless beneath the glare of the bright sun. And even from a distance, she'd been prudent enough to keep her gaze averted.

  But this man, he drew her like a moth to light, and she couldn't help being fascinated by the sight and feel of him. Bronzed skin gleamed in the lamplight, dusted with soft hair that fanned across his chest and gathered in the center of his ridged abdomen, where it arrowed down beneath the edge of his denim trousers.

  Her gaze lingered there, where the sheet curved mysteriously over that part of him. She blushed even thinking of it, and approached the foot of the bed, not sure what to do. The very thought of washing his...his... Heat flamed her face, and she turned to the basin, to soap the cloth.

  He was asleep, not unconscious. Although weak from losing so much blood, he wouldn't be helpless when he woke. Maybe he ought to take care of such a personal task. The white bandage that wrapped in a tight band just above his hips contrasted against the black sheen of dried blood, and she knew she couldn't leave him like this. He had to be cared for, and there was no one but her to do it.

  She reached for his gun belt and loosened the buckle at his hips. He stirred, his head thrashing from side to side against the pillow and a moan tearing from his throat. Her knuckles brushed the hot skin and soft fur on his abdomen as she began slipping the leather strap through the plain silver buckle.

  Lady's bark echoed in the parlor, sharp against the wood walls and alarming even above the constant roar of the blizzard. The dog barked again, and Molly left the stranger, dashing into the lit parlor. The Regulator clock on the wall chimed the hour as she grabbed the Winchester from its pegs above the fireplace.

  "What is it, girl? What's wrong?"

  The dog lunged at the door with b
oth front paws, teeth bared.

  The rifle's wooden stock felt clammy against her palms. Maybe the bear was back, determined to try to break in her door this time. Or maybe he was trying to get at the horse in the stable.

  She eased back the corner of a lace-edged curtain. Even though it was late afternoon, the world was nearly dark from the storm. The gale-force wind drove the snow to the ground like bullets, making the swirling grayness so dense she couldn't see past her top porch step. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, and warning prickled down her spine.

  The hinges squeaked behind her. She turned to see a tall, broad shadow lurch out of the dark, avoiding the light. Molly grabbed Lady by the collar and ordered her to be quiet as the nose of a revolver glinted for a flash of a second, reflecting the lamplight. His step, uneven and halting, knelled on the puncheon floors as he approached, shadowed face set, broad shoulders tensed into a steely line.

  Molly shrank, and the gun she clutched so tightly felt useless against his overwhelming male power, predatory and territorial, as uncompromising as death. He pushed past her and nudged the barrel of her rifle toward the floor. Lady went wild.

  "Lock her in the bedroom."

  Molly took one look at the fresh bandage already stained crimson and went to do as he asked, but she was shaking from head to toe. He'd looked dangerous asleep but awake he was lethal, and although he didn't stand straight, he radiated power and not weakness, strength and not injury.

  Molly remembered the guns she'd found and eyed the one he held. "It's not a bear out there at all. What kind of trouble have you brought to my house?"

  "Too much, and I'm sorry, ma'am." He said no more and offered no further explanation.

  The rumble of his voice, resonate and cello-deep, echoed inside her. She stepped back, not sure what to do. He towered over her and the lamplight, barely touching him, gleamed darkly off his skin. Like a knight of old, like myth and legend, he braced his broad shoulders and lifted one arm, gazing out through the dark window.

  "Are your doors locked?"

  His gaze latched on hers, and although she couldn't see anything more than his shadow, she felt his gaze probing straight through to her heart, as if he could read all her secrets. Exactly how dangerous was he?

  "Bar the front and back doors." His shadowed jaw clenched as he stared out at the storm. "Hurry."

  She hated it when a man thought he could tell her what to do, but with the way Lady's hair bristled around her neck and tail, she knew the danger outside was greater than the one inside her house. But she couldn't stop the spark of anger as she shut her dog in the bedroom, then grabbed the bar from the corner and laid it across the metal brackets on either side of the stout pine door.

  A boom rumbled through the thick walls; the muffled crash could be either thunder or gunfire. Luke leaned one shoulder against the window casing, gritting his teeth against the pain that burned in his left side just above his hip. Weakness radiated down his left leg and washed through every muscle in his battered body.

  He listened to the tap of the woman's step through the house and the scratch of the dog's nails against the closed bedroom door. The storm outside roared like the devil himself, and if Moss followed him here, then the storm camouflaged him well. Luke swore, anger building. If Moss was out there, then Beth still wasn't safe.

  Damn. He couldn't see anything but darkness and the harsh veil of swirling snow washed with black now that night had fallen. Moss could be out there, no more than three feet away, and Luke wouldn't know it, couldn't see him. Fury tore through him like the swift edge of night.

  He hadn't come this far to fail Beth.

  The dog's startled bark split through the dark. He let the curtain fall, the lace feminine and soft against his knuckles, and charged around the perimeter of the room. His left foot dragged just enough to catch his toe on the edge of a braided carpet. Pain jolted up his leg and into the wound.

  He gritted his teeth and kept running. The distance across the parlor seemed like a mile. He heard the crack of a door breaking, the slam of wood striking wood, and a woman screaming.

  His adrenaline pumped, and he tore around the corner, revolver steady, calm from the years of working behind a gun. He saw it in a flash—the rifle on the floor, the re-flected glint off a revolver's nose, the swing of that revolver straight toward Luke's heart—

  Where is the woman? He dove behind the thick wood wall as a gun fired and a bullet bit into the curve of the log wall not an inch from his brow. He could hear the rasp of frightened breathing. Moss had her. The bounty hunter he'd been ducking since crossing into Montana Territory. The coldhearted bastard who'd put Beth's life in danger. He had the woman.

  "I've got a gun to her head, McKenna," a man's voice—not Moss's—boomed above the howling wind and the barking dog. "Toss me your Colt and come out, hands up and empty, or I'll shoot her. You know I will."

  Hammond. Moss's right-hand man. Luke leaned his brow against the wall, breathing hard, shaking from weakness and pain. He was in no position to fight. Hell, he couldn't even hold his gun steady, and he knew Hammond would kill the woman, either way. He couldn't surrender, even if he wanted to.

  "What's it gonna be, McKenna?"

  "I'm coming out, Hammond." There was no other solution. He tossed down one gun and listened to it slide across the polished floor, metal gliding on wood. "I've got Beth in the next room. I don't want a fight."

  "Sure, McKenna. Anything you say. Just step out with your hands up. I'd hate to put a hole in this little lady, not before I'm finished with her." Cruelty glittered like a rare jewel in the dark, as heartless as the storm, as dark as the night.

  "Is Moss with you?" Luke tugged his second revolver from his gun belt, speaking to hide the click as he thumbed back the hammer.

  "Get the hell out here or I shoot."

  Luke shook like a son of a bitch, but he took a deep breath, willing his right hand to be steady for just a few seconds, just long enough to squeeze off one shot. You can do this. He had to, for Beth's sake and for the woman's.

  "You win, Hammond. I'm coming out."

  Luke flew around the corner. Pain blurred his vision as he squeezed the trigger, and his aim was sure and true. He saw Hammond's look of surprise, saw his gun tumble out of his hand, firing wild. The woman, hazel eyes wide with terror, opened her mouth in a silent scream as she realized the bullet had whizzed right past her neck to lodge in the middle of the bounty hunter's heart.

  Luke waited, revolver cocked, as the big man tumbled backward already dead, hitting the floor with a sickening, lifeless thud. He didn't so much as twitch.

  Staggering, Luke leaned against the counter. Relief swept through him, cold as a north wind. "Are you all right, ma'am?"

  She shook her head. She trembled so hard, her teeth rattled. Wide eyes locked on his, and she looked ready to faint. "You could have shot me. You could have killed me."

  "No. I'm a sharpshooter. I never miss." Pain exploded with every step, and he pressed the flat of his palm to his left side, where fresh blood warmed his skin. "I'll take care of the body."

  "The body," she repeated dully. "You killed a man. Right here in my kitchen."

  "A man who had no problem playing with your life." Luke retrieved his Colt from the floor and holstered both weapons. "You don't want to think about what he was going to do to you."

  "You killed a man in my kitchen," she repeated, her hands beginning to fist. "You brought violence here, to my home."

  "I'm sorry about that." He grabbed Hammond by the wrist. He knew the bounty hunter was already dead but checking was old habit. The blizzard hurled cold and ice through the open door and sheered straight through him. He debated about hauling Hammond's body away now because the woman hugging herself and shaking looked ready to faint.

  He pushed the door closed with a bang and stepped over Hammond's body. Her back was to him, and he could see the rage in her clenched fists, see her fear in her rigid spine, and hear it in the constant rustle
of her skirt as she trembled.

  "You saved my life and my daughter's." He lingered in the shadows not knowing if he should approach her. "I had no right bringing trouble to your doorstep. I owe you more than that."

  Her chin shot up. She looked ready to fight. She looked ready to crumble. She was a gently raised woman, he could see that right off. In the soft curves of her face, classically beautiful, her complexion was as smooth as cream. She was tall and willowy, but when her gaze locked on his he saw no delicate blossom easily damaged.

  He saw hurt, he saw fear, but mostly he saw strength.

  "Keep your distance from me." She knelt to retrieve her rifle, the fragile curve of her neck white and vulnerable in the flickering lamplight. She straightened, fingers curled hard around the wooden stock, her knuckles white. "If it wasn't blizzarding outside, I would lock you out. Look what you've done."

  "Aren't you going to thank me?"

  "For what?"

  "Saving your life." He laid one hand on her shoulder, the other on her elbow. "And now you have to thank me for keeping you from fainting. Come, sit down."

  "I don't need any help." She twisted away from his grip, but he tightened his hold on her elbow. She felt like fine china, far too fine for a man like him to touch.

  "I don't understand where he came from." She let him lead her to the table and chairs by the window. "There isn't another house for half a mile, and it's impossible to travel in this kind of storm."

  "Not impossible for men like Hammond." He held out the chair and waited until she settled into the polished wooden seat, skirts rustling, before he released her. His fingertips sparked with awareness. "The devil can travel anywhere, ma'am. Lower your head and try to breathe deeply."

  "I'm not going to faint." She didn't heed his advice, but propped her elbows on the table instead, setting the crystal teardrops on the lamp tingling, and buried her face in her hands.

  It had been a long time since he'd been this close to a woman. He liked the way she smelled faintly of lilacs sweetened by spring sunshine, how her lace-edged petticoats whispered, and the feeling of gentility, of something soft and feminine in a world cold and unforgiving. She reminded him that there were places where life was valued and killing was seen as an unbelievable sin.