THE HEALING HEART

by Zelda Clemens

  “The West,” he had said with unflagging joy, “is a wonderfully wild place. You will have to learn to protect yourself my blonde beauty.”

  There were more shots. The heavy boom of a rifle from the man on top of the carriage, and another from the driver. She wondered how the coach was still moving if everyone was shooting as she shoved bullets into the revolver.

  A body fell past her window. She had just enough time to recognize the roof guard before he disappeared beneath the wooden wheels. The carriage lurched. She heard a snap and a crack. The carriage tumbled to one side. Genevieve tucked herself into a ball, and felt her good shoulder hit the ground. The sound of horses screaming echoed all around her. She had never been so afraid.

  The carriage came to a halt. Dust hung in the air like mist. Genevieve tried to blink it away, but there was too much of it. She stayed curled up, her body wrapped around a gun.

  Everything went quiet. She heard her heartbeat in her ears and her breath on her lips. Her skirts settled crispy around her, adding to the dust.

  Then she heard them, men's voices, deep and rustic.

  “Check the carriage,” one said, his voice was rich with the drawl of western upbringing. “Let's figure out what to do.”

  “Is the driver still alive?” said a second man. This voice was more cultured.

  “Naw,” said the first. “What happened to Jesse?”

  “Dead, it seems. I believe the driver got him. A bullet through the chest, potentially a heart shot. I am impressed.”

  She closed her eyes and listened. There were only two of them. At least there were only two of them now. She wasn't sure how many they had started off with.

  She heard the heavy clink of boots as steps approached. Her fingers wrapped tighter around the gun. She felt the grip dig into her palm. This was it. This was the adventure she never wanted.

  “If someone is alive in there, I believe that it would be in your best interest to make yourself known. You will be treated fairly.”

  She doubted that. Genevieve might not have been raised in the West, but she knew well enough that this was exactly the kind of situation where a person did not make themselves known. This was the kind of situation where a person waited until the last possible moment, in order to formulate a plan.

  “I say again, if someone is alive in there, make yourself known.”

  A shadow, long and strict of outline, fell across the carriage. An idea, as formed as she could manage in her short time, took shape. She took a deep breath and adjusted her grip on the gun and then stood.

  She popped out of the window, her feet planted firmly on the ground. Her arm was straight out. The gun was leveled at a man's face. It was, she had to admit, an attractive face. His mustache was neatly trimmed, and his hair cut in a gentleman's style, curling ever so slightly over his ear. He had the pale skin of a colonial, and the dark suit he wore was tailored over a well formed body, though it showed a great deal of dust and wear. A men's bowler hat kept the sun off of his face.

  His gun was pointed at her. She should have been afraid, but her stomach had become a cold pit. He could shoot her, and it wasn't going to change a great deal about her current position. However, her shooting him would change a great deal.

  “Ma’am,” he said with an educated tongue, nodding his head ever so slightly. His smile was charming, and in another setting may have invited flirtation. As it was it sent a flutter to her belly, one she ignored. Or at least tried to. “It seems that we have each other at a bit of a cross.”

  “I'm inclined to agree.”

  “Travis?” the other man called. “What's happening?”

  “I have found a darling dove, Angus, and she has a very nice talon.”

  She kept her face as grim as possible. Her eyes focusing on the man in front of her.

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “Judging by her clothing, and her bearing, she looks to be of substantial wealth.”

  “She,” Genevieve cut in icily, “is very much here and does not appreciate being spoken about as if she is not.”

  She caught a glimpse of the other man. He was taller than his companion with the tan skin of someone of some mixed heritage. His black hair was coiled into a native braid and his eyes were liquid dark. He was striking, rather than handsome. A gun hung loosely in his grip, easy and relaxed as you please.

  It was seeing the two of them next to one another that sparked the memory.

  It was several days ago, standing outside of a town’s general store while her husband negotiated the buying of supplies. She had wandered down towards the post office, her eyes scanning the weather wood, looking over the most recent news, and then the wanted posters.

  Travis “The Gentleman” Montgomery and Angus “Dust Devil” Graves, both wanted for armed robbery and other crimes. She took another look at the dark haired man and decided that there was something decidedly devilish about him. She also remembered that there was a thousand-dollar reward for each of the men. That was more than a year's worth of her husband's income. It was enough to start a life, a new life.

  A new idea formed, supplanting the old one.

  She turned the gun on the Dusty Devil, he started to raise his weapon.

  “Don't,” she snapped out, her voice filled with womanly anger. “You are worth five hundred dollars more dead, than you are alive. I have absolutely no desire to shoot you, but I will if I must.”

  The Devil's eyes turned cool, flashing like river stones. They raked over her and she felt a stirring of heat mix with her fluttering belly. “Widow. I didn't expect to meet you here.”

  Genevieve didn't agree or disagree. No, she was not the notorious bounty hunter, but she could not fault them for the confusion. There she was, standing there in the black gown of a woman in mourning, with the tell-tale veil across her face.

  “Indeed. And since you have muddled up my moving experience, I would ask that you make this easy on everyone involved.”

  “Ma’am,” the gentleman said, “you seem to think that you have the upper hand here.”

  She lifted her chin. “Oh?”

  “Indeed, you see, it's simply a matter of mathematics. There are two of us, each with guns, and you are by yourself. While that Colt-Walker you are wielding is a lovely piece of excellent craftsmanship, I am obliged to inform you that it is hardly going to outgun both of us.”

  She took a deep breath and let her vision go wide. Rather than focus on either of them she watched them both. Her mind made fast work of everything that had just happened. Genevieve had a talent for recollection. It was a quirk that had allowed her to navigate society relentlessly, and her husband had detested. It was useful to her now.

  “You are only half correct.” She thumbed the hammer back on her weapon. The metallic click echoed between the three of them. The Gentleman jumped back, The Devil narrowed his gaze, and in that moment Genevieve knew she was right. “While there are two guns between you, I did not just have a shootout with a moving object. I would be more than willing to guess that I have more bullets that between the two of you. Though I am willing to test my theory.”

  Where were these words coming from? These were the vocalizations of some dime novel heroine, not Lady (no, she amended mentally, not Lady, Widow) Genevieve of Charleston.

  With a sigh the Gentleman tosses down his weapon, “My friend, it seems the beauty has us.”

  The Devil snarled. “Damn you, Travis. She didn't know.”

  “I did,” she said. “Now, if you two will throw down your weapons and turn around, we can get this underway.”

  *****

  The carriage was absolutely useless. The wheel was broken and the spare had shattered during the tumbling of all her belongings. She had managed to find the manacles that her husband had bought. Genevieve had originally thought the purchase was frivolous, asking what they could possibly need manacles for.

  “In case we capture some savages, my dear!” he had commented, patting her on the head like a misbe
haved child, rather than a bride.

  She glanced across the span of a fire pit, they were chained together and leaning against one another to keep themselves from laying in the dirt. They looked savage enough, if she was measuring such things.

  “Ma’am,” Travis asked, tilting his head, “if I may ask, do you plan on starving us for the duration of our journey?”

  It was going to be a long journey. With no horses and no carriage, the walk to Silver Creek, which may or may not have a sheriff when she arrived, was going to take nearly a week of time. Longer if things did not go perfectly, and she doubted they would.

  “I do not,” she said. “There are some food supplies. I will see that you don't starve.”

  “Ah, excellent. I, of course, do not expect a lady of obvious means to be a cook of great talent, but-”

  “What you expect is hardly important,” she snapped. She wasn't sure why it bothered her suddenly that she could not cook. She flushed and shook her head, her golden curls bouncing as she did so. “You will eat what you are given.”

  “Well of course. I would be more than willing to eat whatever it was you wanted to feed me.” He offered her that incredibly charming grin. She felt her cheek grow warm for an entirely different reason. It lasted right up until her gaze landed on Angus Graves, the Dusty Devil.

  The Devil had been completely silent since she had locked them up. He hadn't fought back, but he had not been, in any way, friendly. Now he was watching her with that flat cool look, like a bear or a wolf. It was strangely disquieting, yet it was hard to look away.

  “Yes,” she said softly, “I'm sure.”

  “If I might ask you a few questions?” Travis pondered. “I assume I am allowed as you have not gagged me.”

  “For the moment,” she quipped.

  He chuckled. “Ah, yes well. Of course. I was wondering, what exactly you were doing out here?”

  “I was relocating,” she responded. “I decided in a change of venue, Colorado or some place similar.”

  He nodded. “So you were not pursuing us in particular?”

  “No,” she said. It was important, she knew from her time in society, to stay as close to the truth as one could when attempting to lie. It was also important to say as little as possible. “I was not. What were you doing out here?”

  “Looking for you,” he chuckled. “Well, not yourself in particular, but a wealthy stagecoach to rush and rob, which we nearly did.”

  “Nearly.”

  His eyes sparkled. “Well, my Lady Widow, had we known it was your stagecoach, we never would have attacked I-”

  Whatever he was going to say was cut off when The Dusty Devil suddenly slumped to the side. Genevieve sprang up. It wasn't until she was a few paces away that she saw the problem. The dark colored shirt was clinging the Devil's body, clinging with blood. He was injured.

  “By God!” she gasped, “he's been shot.”

  “Well,” The Gentleman said. “That's quite unfortunate.”

  *****

  If she had been a better navigator, and if the weather had complied, it would have all gone just fine. As it was, the drought that had plagued the area for months broke tempestuously the moment she had bent to attend to Angus' wound and the three of them had to seek sanctuary in an abandoned farmhouse, nearly three hours from their ruined campsite.

  There were too many of them out here, she felt. Too many places that people had given up on. They stood like ghosts of hope and memories of what could have been. Genevieve did not appreciate it. It did not bode well for the starting of a new or better life. Still, the reward for bringing these two in should help with that.

  “I cannot believe that you were so...so...foolish!” Genevieve snapped.

  She had, with a grand stroke of tenacity, managed to get both of them into the post-stop. Two salvaged lanterns added a warm glow to the washroom, the only furniture that had been left behind was a rocking chair that had seen better days, and a claw foot tub. She had managed to chain them to the tub itself, reasonably certain that they wouldn't be able to lift the vessel.

  The dark eyed male turned his gaze at her. His lips settled into a thin line, making the scars on his face stand out in the near darkness. He looked vaguely intimidating. She assumed he didn't get a nickname like The Dust Devil by being a kind and gentle person.

  “I am going to need to remove your shirt in order to get a better look at the wound.”

  His dark eyes glittered at her. Something moved in their flinty depths and a hum started somewhere in her veins.

  He adjusted his upper body as much as the chains would allow. “Get on with it then.”

  It wasn't just that they were two men who had been known to thieve and kill. It was the fact that the way they were shackled in the tub meant that the only position available for her to get a good look necessitated that she climb into the bath with them.

  “Forgive me, Lady Widow, but I do not believe now is the time to fall back on delicate sensibilities.”

  Travis was right and she was well aware of it.

  “Yes, yes. Alright.”

  There was a great deal of maneuvering that ended with her placed in a ring of masculine legs. Her back was pressed firmly to Travis' chest, though she knelt in the circle of Angus' thighs. Despite the fact that everyone was clothed and a medical situation was taking place, intimacy hung in the air like perfume.

  Her hands trembled as she lifted them to the very first button. Heat rose from his body in thick waves. The fabric of his button down shirt, heavy with rain and blood, had plastered itself to his skin, revealing a physique that seemed crafted to draw the eye.

  Genevieve had not had a great deal of practice undressing men. Her husband, when he had chosen to come to her bedroom rather than visit the women of the gambling hall, had come to her in a robe. Even that had happened less and less frequently as the years had gone on. She had, at first, wondered what it was those women could do that kept him so interested. Later she had decided that there was nothing wrong with her, as her husband was a man who was easily distracted. In the most recent years she had relegated herself to something of married spinsterhood. At least, of course, until her had whisked her away to this.

  “Problem?” Angus asked. The rain had pulled his braid out of its binding and the locks hung heavy around a face as hard and chiseled as granite.

  “I believe that you have drawn the eye of our Lady Widow,” Travis quipped. His lips were nearly at her ear. “How marvelous.”

  “Hardly,” she snapped. As if to prove herself she deftly undid one button, and then the next. “I simply did not want to cause more harm than necessarily.”

  “Well of course,” Travis answered, “we wouldn't want that.”

  The fabric peeled away slowly, revealing a chest crafted of warm copper. A pattern of scars wove itself across the lean lines of him, but they did not detract from the ultimately masculine form. No indeed, they seemed to emphasize it.

  The wound was no larger around than the tip of her thumb, at least in the front. She tugged the shirt down his arm until she could see the line of his shoulder. There was a slight bulge where there shouldn't be. A gentle touch was enough to confirm her suspicions.

  “The bullet is stuck just beneath the skin,” she explained. “I'll need to remove it.”

  “Are you a healer as well as a bounty hunter?” The Gentleman asked. She felt him move behind her, the lean press of his chest to her back had her senses growing hot.

  Genevieve shook her head and cleared her throat. “My father was. I was his nurse for many years.”

  “Get on with it,” Angus demanded, thrusting his wounded shoulder in her direction. There was a tightness around his lips, and a paleness beneath his eyes that told her he was in a great deal of pain. She nodded.

  “I'll need some hot water, a small knife and bandages,” she said, more to herself than the two men.

  “I could assist,” The Gentleman said. “I was at the university before making my way o
ut West, I took several anatomy classes.”

  “I'm sure that has been of great help in your current occupation.”

  “It has, actually.” He treated her with a charming smile. With his hat off she could see that his locks were a rich and lustrous brown, with a stubborn curl around his face. “Though I don't think your remark was intended to be facetious.”

  She made a non-committal sound and began rooting around in the few bits of luggage that had managed to be salvaged. It was precious little. When the rain relented, she would have to go out and scavenge for more items.

  She had a pot for boiling water. Travis had a small knife tucked in his boot. The only clean fabric, however, was the cotton of her favorite chemise. She resisted the urge to curse.

  “It's just a dress.” Angus gritted his teeth.

  “Your lack of civility continues to astound and astonish,” Travis smirked. “That, my friend, is a very fine lady’s undergown, hand crafted if I am not mistaken.”

  “Did you take classes in tailoring at your university as well?” Genevieve snipped. “Or are you just an expert in women's underthings.”

  Travis laughed. “With a wit like yours, ma’am, I am happy to show you what an expert I can be.”

  Her cheeks flamed brilliantly enough that she decided to turn away.

  “I'll have to go boil the water.” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Try not to die before I return.”

  Angus didn't die in the time that it took her to boil the water and put together the bandages, but he had turned several shades paler than he had been. The wound wasn't bleeding externally. That was not a good sign. It meant that something was bleeding on the inside.

  “Damn,” she cursed.

  “Such language coming from a fine lady’s mouth,” Travis quipped. It wasn't very light-hearted, however. His concern for his friend was creasing his handsome brow. “How is he?”