by Lana Dare
Hawke wanted to throw up. “We promised to protect her.”
Wyatt moved to crouch beside Hawke, gripping Sarah’s arm and thigh to turn her. “We all failed her. What the hell was she doing out here?”
Hawke took her hand, grimacing when she moaned. “Trying to give him back the gold so he wouldn’t hurt us.”
Wyatt turned to look at him over his shoulder, his eyes filled with pity and fury. “You’re kidding.”
Blade removed his buckskin shirt and folded it, gently lifted her head to slide it under it. “I wish he was. Christ, she’s a hell of a woman.”
Pressing the shirt against her wound again, Wyatt lifted the edge of the bandanna on her shoulder. “The shot in her side went clean through, but it looks like the bullet in her shoulder is still in her. It’s gonna have to be removed. How about the one in her thigh?”
“Still inside.” Hawke felt as if his heart was breaking, the pain in his chest almost unbearable. “She’s so damned small.” He should never have left her back at the cabin.
As all four of them tended to her, fighting to staunch the flow of blood, Phoenix cursed. “Why the hell did she think that bastard would just accept the gold she had left and leave?”
“She really took his gold?”
Hawke spared a glance at the woman who’d spoken, seeing that Adam remained poised to catch her if she ran toward them. “Yeah.” Furious at the outlaws, and at himself, he lashed out. “She had to protect herself somehow.”
Sarah’s mother nodded. “I deserved that. In my defense, though, I’m a weak woman. Always have been. Not like Sarah.” Tears rolled down her bruised cheek. “Please. I know I don’t deserve it, but I’d like to come closer. I’d like her to know I’m here. I need to tell her that I love her before she—”
Leaping to his feet, Hawke strode toward her, seething with anger. “She’s not gonna die, damn it, and if you say anything like that again, I’ll tie you to a tree and let the wolves have you!”
Ignoring the startled look from Adam, he hurried back to Sarah again, the knots in his stomach getting tighter. “She’s so white.”
Blade straightened and stood. “She’s lost a lot of blood. Let’s get a fire started. Will is gonna need hot water and we’re gonna have to sterilize the blade of the knife before we can dig the bullets out.”
Hawke shared a look with the others and said what he knew they were all thinking. “And to cauterize if we can’t get this blood stopped.”
* * * *
Sarah woke slowly, wondering where she was. A strange lethargy made her feel as if she floated, and she thought back to the time she’d spent with Hawke, Blade, and Phoenix in the spring.
Hearing the unmistakable sounds of low voices, she tried to turn toward them, but her body wouldn’t obey her.
She felt dizzy. Weak.
The only thing she seemed able to move was her right hand, and when she did, she encountered what felt like cool grass instead of warm water.
Pain in her side, shoulder, and thigh slowly let itself be known, and grew stronger with every passing second.
God, it hurt, throbbing with every beat of her heart.
She never knew something could hurt this much.
She kept moving her hand, loving the feel of coolness against her heated skin.
She tried to open her eyes, the feeling that something was very wrong taking hold of her and not letting go.
A wave of terror washed over her at the mental image of Hawke and Blade running toward her.
An ear-piercing scream of rage.
Shouts and gunshots.
Oh, God. Were they dead?
A sob escaped, and then another, the pain in her side and shoulder nothing compared to the agony in her heart.
“We’re here, love. We’re here.” Blade’s voice came to her as if from a great distance, low and gentle, but with a desperation she’d never heard in it before. “Don’t thrash around. Easy, love. You’ll open up those wounds again.”
Wounds?
Had she been shot?
A hand pressed against her forehead, so cool and wonderful against her heated skin. “She’s even warmer than before.”
Struggling to fight her way through the fog surrounding her, she hung onto Blade’s voice like a lifeline. “Blade?”
“Yes, love. It’s me. Hawke and Phoenix are here with you, too.”
The sound of water, followed by a cooler cloth being placed on her forehead drew another moan from her. “Are we dead?” She saw no other way of explaining the strange feeling that made her hurt while floating.
“No, little one. We’re not dead. Open your eyes for me, Sarah.”
The command in Hawke’s voice had her fighting to open them, the need to see him again giving her the strength she hadn’t known she possessed. “Can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Open your eyes right now, Sarah.” The underlying fear in his harsh tone made her stomach clench, and using every ounce of willpower she possessed, she forced her eyes open to find herself staring into Hawke’s dark ones.
Only inches from hers, his eyes narrowed, swirling with an emotion her brain struggled to identify.
He smiled tenderly, but his body remained tight with tension. “That’s my girl. See? I knew you could do it.”
Sarah tried to reach for him, but she couldn’t quite drum up the energy. “You’re not dead.” The memory of the looks on their faces when they’d ridden out and the anger in their eyes came back in a rush.
He took the cloth from her forehead and she heard the sound of splashing water again. “No, little one. We’re all all right.”
Another hand touched her leg. “You’re the only one of us who got hurt. I’m sorry I didn’t shoot a second earlier. Willy and his men shot at you the same time we shot at them. I’m so sorry, honey.” The self-disgust in Phoenix’s voice had her turning her head to look at him, the effort taking the last of her strength.
“Willy?”
Phoenix’s jaw clenched. “He and his men are all dead. Pity. I had some serious plans for them.” His expression softened. “Honey, your momma’s here.”
Suddenly, she remembered seeing her mother and the evidence of her mistreatment. Another moan escaped, the pain in her side intensifying. “Why?”
Hawke rinsed the cloth again and ran it down her neck to her chest. “That sick bastard thought he could have both of you, and use each of you to intimidate the other. She’s safe now. She wouldn’t go to sleep until she saw that you were all right.”
“Am I?”
“You’re gonna be fine.” Blade slid a hand under her neck, lifting her head, and cursing when she moaned at the sharp pain in her shoulder. “I’m sorry, love. I want you to drink some more water. You in a lot of pain?”
“Pain. Fuzzy.”
Hawke rinsed the cloth out again. “That’s the laudanum. It’s wearing off. We’re gonna need to give you a little more. We need for you to sleep and stop moving around. Will and Doc Stanton sewed you up real good and we don’t want you ripping out their work.”
She didn’t care for the idea of being sewn up, but was thankful that she hadn’t known about it at the time. “Wanna leave.”
Phoenix touched his lips to a spot close to where pain radiated from her thigh. “Just sleep, honey. Eb’s coming out with the buckboard in the morning. We’ll go back to the cabin nice and slow so we don’t rip anything open. We’ll take care of everything.”
The darkness couldn’t be held at bay much longer, and she had to make sure they understood her before it took over again.
“No. Leave. Goin’ to Cal–calforna. Made a mess of everythin’. Don’t blame you for hatin’ me.”
The sudden silence that fell heavily around her spoke volumes.
The pain in her heart grew, a pain no amount of laudanum could take away.
A tear leaked from the corner of each eye, but she knew she didn’t have the energy to brush them away.
She didn’t even have the chance as darkness c
losed in on her once again.
Chapter Fourteen
Phoenix cursed when Sarah passed out again, lifting his gaze to his brothers’. “So she really planned to give the gold to Willy and then leave us?”
Hawke rinsed the bandanna again and folded it before placing it on her forehead. “She had her bundle, didn’t she?”
“I swear I don’t understand what the hell she was thinking.” Getting to his feet, Phoenix stared down at his wife, fighting back anger. “I’ll never understand women. I thought she was starting to love us.”
Blade sighed and trickled a little more laudanum into her mouth, while Hawke rubbed her throat to get her to swallow it. “She does love us—so much that she was willing to risk her own life to keep us from being hurt.”
Phoenix cursed again, looking toward the fire where the doctor and Sarah’s mother slept. “That’s just crazy. Men like Willy Krenshaw are nothing but hot air and bluster. I can’t believe she didn’t think we could handle him and his gang.” Turning back, he crouched next to her again. “You think she really loves us?”
Blade smiled, bending to touch his lips to Sarah’s. “She does. She doesn’t know how to trust, though. It’s gonna take some time.” Straightening, he sighed. “She loves us. Who the hell would have ever thought the three of us would have such a brave, sweet little thing to call our own?”
Phoenix appreciated his brother’s attempt to lighten the mood. “Don’t forget passionate.”
Hawke stretched out next to her on her uninjured side, taking her hand in his. “Don’t you even think about that for a long time. She’s gonna need time to heal.” Staring down at her, he lifted her hand to his lips. “She doesn’t even seem to notice we’re half-breeds. She doesn’t seem to care. She actually loves us.”
Lifting his gaze to Phoenix’s again, he frowned. “We’re gonna have to be patient until we can get her to trust us.”
Phoenix stared down at her again, his stomach clenching when she shifted restlessly in her sleep and moaned in pain. “I can’t stand to see her hurting like this. It makes me sick to my stomach.” Frustrated that there was nothing around for him to take his anger on, he started pacing.
He paced well into the night, alternately walking the tree line and sitting by her side, staring at her as she slept restlessly between his brothers.
So little, to have made such a big impact on his life in such a short time.
By the time the sun rose and Eb arrived with the buckboard, he no longer felt as if he was falling in love with her.
He knew it for sure.
After settling her into the hammock they’d rigged for her in the back of the buckboard, they started back to the ranch, Phoenix sitting on one side of her while Blade sat on the other.
Eb kept glancing back at Sarah, his jaw clenched. “I can’t believe this happened. I had people watching the cabin. She must have sneaked out. What the hell was she doing, sneaking out like that?” He waved his hand negligently. “I know why she did it. I just don’t know how she got past the men.” Turning to glance at each of them, he shook his head. “We’re gonna have to watch them closer. I swear, if Maggie did something like that, I’d turn her over my knee and she wouldn’t be able to sit down for a month.”
Other than asking about Sarah, Hawke hadn’t spoken since they started out.
He did now. “We’ll handle her.”
Phoenix rinsed the bandanna and placed it on her forehead again, trying to contain the fear that threatened to choke him. “If we get the chance. She’s burnin’ up.”
Don’t die, Sarah. Please, honey, don’t die.
She’d filled empty holes inside him, and he hadn’t even realized it until he’d seen her lying lifeless on the ground.
She’d made him better. Made him feel.
If he lost her now, he didn’t know how he’d survive it.
* * * *
The pain woke her, so extreme that she couldn’t even catch her breath.
She was hot—so hot and weighed down, as if a dozen blankets smothered her. She tried to push them away, but couldn’t seem to move them.
Each small movement she made intensified the pain, so she gave up. “Please!”
She couldn’t speak louder than a whisper, but heard what sounded like the scrape of a chair leg.
“It’s okay, honey. I’m here.”
He was here. He would take care of her.
Something touched her lips, and a foul-tasting liquid trickled into her mouth, leaving her no choice but to swallow it.
A cool cloth touched her forehead before darkness overtook her once again.
* * * *
Hawke rushed in with two more buckets of water. “How’s she doing?” He dumped the water into the large tub, his insides clenched with fear.
Blade looked up and dipped the cloth into the bowl full of water at her bedside. “She’s even hotter. We’ve got to get her fever down. She woke up again, crying and in pain. Are you about ready with that water?”
“Yeah.” Hawke dropped the buckets and ran to her side as Phoenix came through the door with two more buckets.
“Duke warmed these up a little so she won’t get too chilled. He’s got more warming.” Phoenix dumped the buckets of water into the tub and hovered as Blade lifted her and carried her to the tub. “We’re not supposed to get her wounds wet.”
Blade lowered her gently into the tub, his eyes wild. “If we don’t get her damned temperature down, she’s gonna die!”
* * * *
Hawke strode into the cabin after dealing with a horse that had gone wild and broken Conal’s leg. It had been five days since Sarah had been shot, and she still had a fever.
He was scared to death.
Ridding himself of his gun belt, he rushed to her side. “How is she?” He let his gaze rake over her naked form stretched out on the new mattress they’d bought for her, pleased to see that no blood leaked through the cloth binding her injuries.
Phoenix rinsed out the bandanna and started wiping her down again. “She woke again a little while ago. She was restless and cried out in pain, so I gave her a little more of the laudanum. She looks like she’s trying to push something off her.”
Hawke knelt at her side, setting the bowl of soup onto the table next to him. “She’s still feverish, so she’s probably trying to push off blankets that aren’t there.”
Fear for her recovery had kept any of them from sleeping for days, and it had started to take a toll on all of them. “Let me get cleaned up and then we’ll give her another sponge bath.”
They’d dressed her in nothing but her nightgowns for days, but they’d quickly become soaked with sweat, so they hadn’t bothered anymore. “We’ll wash her and change the sheets. The doc said it would make her feel better. When’s he due back?”
Phoenix frowned and wrung the cloth out again. “He’ll be back at the end of the week. Eb and Jeremiah offered him a job here—offered him so much money the doc couldn’t refuse—especially since he wants to have a fully stocked office. He’ll live and work out of the house the mail-order brides were supposed to live in until they can build him his own place.”
Hawke nodded grimly. “Why the hell doesn’t she wake up?”
“Doc says it’s the fever. Once it breaks, she should be fine.”
Hawke understood the desperation in his brother’s voice, and although he knew he and Phoenix were both thinking the same thing, neither one of them dared to voice it.
What if the fever didn’t break? What if it took her?
Phoenix started to rinse the fresh bandanna, bending to touch his forehead to Sarah’s chest. “She doesn’t calm until she hears my voice.”
Hawke nodded, taking Sarah’s warm hand in his, once again shocked at how small and delicate it felt in his. “Blade and I noticed the same thing. If the doctor or one of the women tries to calm her, she just gets more agitated, but if one of us talks to her, she settles.”
Phoenix lifted his head, his eyes bleak. “She r
eally loves us. Christ, Hawke. We let her down. I swear, if she recovers—”
“When she recovers.” The thought of losing her proved more than Hawke could bear. “We won’t let her go. We told her she wasn’t getting away from us. She’s fighting it, and we’ll just have to make sure we give her the strength to keep fighting.” Smiling, he touched his lips to her fingers. “And when she gets better, she’s going to understand, in no uncertain terms, that we’ll do everything in our power to keep her here, and protect her. There won’t be any other incidents like this again.”
He turned at the sound of footsteps on the small front porch, his smile falling when he saw Sarah’s mother coming in with a tray. The unmistakable smell of the soup Duke kept making by the gallon made his stomach rumble.
Edna set the tray on the table. “Why don’t the two of you go eat while I feed Sarah? I want to give her a bath afterward—”
“We’ll take care of it.” Hawke fought back his anger at the woman who’d failed to protect Sarah when she’d needed it most.
Edna approached the bed, taking Sarah’s other hand in hers as she sat gingerly next to her legs. “I know you don’t like me much, but I am her mother. I protected her and took care of her the best I could. I made a living on my back to keep a roof over her head and food in her belly. I might not be the best mother in the world, but I didn’t abandon her as so many of the other girls did with their own babies. I kept her with me.”
Her eyes filled with tears, weakening Hawke’s anger. “I did what I could for her. I tried. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Phoenix lifted his gaze to Hawke’s, before focusing on Sarah again. “It counts for a lot. I’m just glad we found her when we did. We’ll take care of her now. You should have gone back to Tulsa with the doctor. We’ll pay for your train fare back to Waco.”
Edna laughed humorlessly. “I can’t go back there. Because of the trouble with Willy, Rose fired me.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Maybe I’ll do what Sarah was planning. I could get lost in California—start over.” She eyed each of them, smiling coldly. “But, I ain’t leavin’ until I talk to my daughter.”
