The Touch of Fire

by Linda Howard

  Annie got a clean sheet and spread it over his bare torso. “That’ll keep you warm while I heat some water.”

  She had banked the fire before leaving early that morning, and the coals glowed red when she stirred them with a poker. She added kindling and more wood, then fetched water and poured it into two iron pots that hung on a hook over the fire. The little room quickly heated as the fire grew. She placed her instruments in one of the pots to boil, then scrubbed her hands with strong soap. The tiredness that had weighed on her limbs during the trudge back from Eda’s was forgotten as she considered the best treatment for her new patient.

  She noticed that her hands were shaking a little, and she stopped to draw a deep breath. Normally her thoughts would be totally concentrated on the task at hand, but something about this man unsettled her. Maybe it was his pale eyes, as colorless as frost and as watchful as a wolf’s. Or maybe it was his heat. Intellectually she knew it had to be fever, but the intense heat of his tall, muscular body seemed to wrap around her like a blanket every time she got close to him. Whatever the reason, her stomach had clenched into a tight knot when he’d pulled off his shirt and bared his powerful torso. Annie was accustomed to seeing men in various stages of undress, but never before had she been so acutely aware of a man’s body, of the maleness that threatened her own femaleness on a very primitive level. The curly black hair on his broad, muscled chest had strongly reminded her that man’s basic nature was animalistic.

  Yet he had done nothing, said nothing, that was threatening. All of it was in her own mind, perhaps a product of her fatigue. The man was wounded and had come to her for help.

  She stepped back behind the curtain. “I’ll mix you some laudanum to ease the pain.”

  He pinned her with that pale, icy gaze. “No.”

  She hesitated. “The treatment will be painful, Mister—?”

  He ignored the raised inflection that invited him to tell her his name. “I don’t want any laudanum. You have any whiskey?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’ll do.”

  “It won’t be enough, unless you drink yourself to unconsciousness, in which case it will be easier to simply take the laudanum.”

  “I don’t want to be unconscious. Just give me a drink.”

  Annie got the whiskey and poured a good measure in the glass. “Have you eaten?” she asked when she returned.

  “Not lately.” He took the glass and carefully tilted it, then knocked the drink back with two strong swallows. He gasped and shuddered at the bite of it.

  She got a basin of water and set it beside the bed, then took the glass from his hand. “I’m going to wash the wounds while the water’s heating.” She removed the sheet and studied the situation. The wounds were so close to his waistline that his pants presented a problem. “Can you open your pants, please? I need more room around the wounds.”

  For a moment he didn’t move, then slowly he unbuckled his belt and began opening the buttons on his pants. When the task was completed, Annie pulled the waistband down and away, baring the sleek skin of his hip. “Lift up a little.” He did, and she slid a towel under him, then folded another towel and tucked it in and over the open garment to keep it from getting wet. She tried not to notice his exposed lower abdomen, with the silky line of hair arrowing downward, but she was acutely, embarrassingly aware of this man’s partial nudity. This wasn’t at all the way a doctor was supposed to feel—she’d certainly never felt this way before!—and she mentally scolded herself.

  He watched while she wet a cloth and soaped it, then gently applied it to the infected wounds. He drew in his breath with a hiss.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured, though she didn’t pause in her task. “I know it hurts, but it has to be cleaned.”

  Rafe McCay didn’t answer; he just continued to watch her. It wasn’t so much the pain that had startled him into that quick intake of breath as it was the low throb of energy that seemed to leap from her flesh to his every time she touched him. It was almost like the way the air felt charged right before a lightning strike. He’d felt it even through his clothes when she had put her arm around him to help him to the table, and it was that much stronger on his bare skin.

  Maybe the fever was getting to him, or maybe he’d just been without a woman for too long. For whatever reason, every time the good doctor touched him, he got hard.

  CHAPTER

  2

  When she touched them, the wounds began to bleed sullenly. “When did this happen?” she asked, keeping her touch as gentle as possible.

  “Ten days ago.”

  “That’s a long time for wounds to remain open.”

  “Yeah.” He hadn’t been able to rest long enough to let his flesh begin healing, not with Trahern on his trail like a goddamned bulldog. The wounds had reopened every time he’d swung into the saddle. He felt grim satisfaction in knowing that Trahern hadn’t been able to give his leg the rest it needed, either.

  The whiskey was making his head swim and he closed his eyes, but he found himself concentrating even more on every touch of the woman’s soft hands. Dr. Parker. Dr. A. T. Parker, according to the crudely lettered sign out front of the little shack. He’d never heard of a woman doctor before.

  His first impression had been that she wasn’t much to look at: too thin, with the worn, weary look women often got out here. Then she had walked up to him and he’d seen the softness of her brown eyes, the sweetly untidy mess of streaked blond hair caught back in a haphazard knot, with escaped tendrils feathering all around her face. She had touched him and he’d felt the hot magic of her hands. Those hands! They made him feel relaxed and tense all at once. Hell, he was drunk; that was the only explanation.

  “First I’m going to apply compresses of hot salty water,” she explained in her cool, light voice. “They’ll have to be almost scalding, so it won’t be comfortable.”

  He didn’t open his eyes. “Just get to it.” He thought Trahern was at least a day behind him, but every minute he lay here was a minute Trahern gained.

  Annie opened her tin of sea salt and dumped a handful in one of the pots, then used a pair of forceps to dunk a cloth in the boiling water. She held it dripping over the pot for a minute, tested the temperature with the soft skin of her forearm, then placed the steaming cloth against the entrance wound in his back.

  He went rigid and his breath hissed inward between clenched teeth, but he voiced no protest. Annie found herself sympathetically patting his shoulder with her left hand while she held the hot cloth to him with the forceps in her right.

  When the cloth cooled she placed it back in the boiling water. “I’m going to alternate sides,” she said. “The salt helps stop infection.”

  “Get it over with,” he growled. “Do both sides at once.”

  She bit her lip, then decided that she might as well. Even as sick as he was, he had an amazing tolerance for pain. She fetched another cloth and another pair of forceps, and for the next half hour applied the hot saltwater compresses, until the skin around the wounds had turned dark red and the ragged edges of the wounds themselves were white. Through it all he lay perfectly still with his eyes closed.

  Then she took a pair of surgical scissors, pulled his skin tight, and quickly trimmed the white dead flesh away. The wounds bled freshly now, though the blood was still streaked with yellow. She applied pressure with her fingers around each wound, forcing out pus and old blood; a few tiny fragments of cloth emerged, as well as a thin sliver of lead from the bullet. She talked quietly all through the procedure, explaining what she was doing even though she wasn’t certain he was conscious.

  She washed the wounds with a tincture of marigold to stop the bleeding, then applied oil she had extracted from fresh thyme to prevent further infection. “Tomorrow I’ll start using plantain bandages, but for tonight I’m going to put chickweed poultices on both wounds to draw out any pieces of your shirt that I’ve missed.”

  “I won’t be here tomorrow,” he said, making
her jump. They were the first words he’d spoken since she had started her procedure. She had hoped that he’d fainted, had been almost certain that he had. How could he have borne that pain without sound or movement?

  “You can’t leave,” she said gently. “I don’t think you understand how serious your condition is. You’ll die from the poison if those wounds remain infected.”

  “I walked in here, lady, so I can’t be that sick.”

  She pursed her lips. “Yes, you walked in, and you can probably walk out, even though you’re so sick a lot of other men in your condition would be flat on their backs. But in a day or so you won’t even be able to crawl, much less walk. In another week, you’ll probably be dead. On the other hand, if you’ll give me three days, I’ll have you almost well.”

  His pale eyes opened. He saw the earnest expression in those soft dark eyes, and felt the ache of fever all through his body. Hell, she was probably right. Even though she was a woman, she seemed to be a damn fine doctor. But Trahern was still on his back trail and he wasn’t in any shape to fight the bounty hunter.

  Maybe Trahern was just as sick as he was, but maybe not, and Rafe wasn’t going to play those odds unless he had to.

  He needed the few days of rest and care that the doc offered, but he didn’t dare take them. Not here. If he could get higher into the mountains .. .

  “Make your poultice,” he instructed.

  His low, raspy voice made her shiver. She silently went to work, picking fresh chickweed from the pots of herbs she carefully nurtured and crushing the leaves, which she then applied to the wounds. She placed damp pads over the crushed leaves and secured the poultices by binding them tightly in place. He sat up during this last part and aided her by holding the pads while she wrapped the strip of cloth around his middle.

  He reached for his shirt and pulled it on over his head. Distressed, Annie caught his arm. “Don’t go,” she pleaded. “I don’t know why you think you must, but it’s very dangerous for you.”

  He removed the blood-soaked towels that she had tucked into his pants and slid off the examining table, ignoring her hand on his arm as if it weren’t even there. Annie let her arm drop to her side, feeling helpless and angry. How could he risk his life like this, after she had worked so hard to help him? Why had he even come to her for help, if he wasn’t going to do what she suggested?

  Rafe tucked in his shirt and calmly buttoned his pants, then fastened his belt. With the same unhurried movements he buckled on his gun belt and retied the thong around his muscled thigh.

  As he shrugged into his coat Annie rushed into desperate speech. “If I give you some plantain leaves will you at least try to keep them on the wounds? The bandage needs to stay fresh—”

  “Bring what you need,” he said.

  She blinked in confusion. “What?”

  “Get your coat. You’re going with me.”

  “I can’t do that. I have patients here who need me, too, and—”

  He drew the big pistol and pointed it at her. She broke off, too stunned to continue, and in the silence she clearly heard the snick as he thumbed back the hammer. “I said get your coat,” he said softly.

  His pale eyes were unreadable, his raspy voice implacable as he issued instructions, and the heavy revolver in his hand never wavered. In numb disbelief Annie put on her coat, gathered a supply of food, and packed her medical instruments and various herbs into her black leather bag. That frosty gaze watched every move she made.

  “That’ll do.” He took the bag of food from her and motioned with his head. “Out back. Take the lamp with you.”

  She realized that he must have explored her house while he’d been waiting for her, and anger seared through her. Her private quarters weren’t much, just the one back room, but it was hers and she fiercely resented his intrusion. But with the barrel of his revolver pressed into the middle of her back, it seemed ridiculous to take umbrage at the invasion of her privacy. She went out the back door with him right behind her.

  “Saddle your horse.”

  “I haven’t fed him yet,” she said. She knew it was a stupid protest, but somehow it didn’t seem fair to expect the horse to carry her without having been fed.

  “I don’t want to keep repeating my orders,” he warned. His voice had dropped to a whisper, making the words even more menacing.

  She hung the lamp on a nail. A big bay, still saddled, stood patiently next to her mount.

  “Hurry it up.”

  She saddled her horse with her usual brisk movements, then the man motioned her back. “Stand over there, out in the clear.”

  She bit her lip as she moved to obey. She had had the half-formed plan of ducking behind her horse and slipping out of the shed while he mounted, but he had foreseen that possibility. By making her stand out in the open, he had taken away her protective cover.

  Keeping his eyes and revolver on her, he led the bay into the open and stepped into the saddle. If Annie hadn’t been watching him so closely, she wouldn’t have noticed his slight difficulty as pain hampered his motions. He stowed the bag of food in his saddlebag.

  “Get on your horse now, honey, and don’t get any stupid ideas. Just do what I tell you, and you’ll be all right.”

  Annie looked around, unable to quite make herself believe that he could really kidnap her like this. It had been such a normal day, up until he had pointed his pistol at her. If she let him force her into riding out with him, would she ever be seen alive again? Even if she managed to escape, she had grave doubts about her own ability to survive in the wilderness on her own, for she had seen too much to have any naive confidence that returning to Silver Mesa would be nothing more than a simple ride. Life anywhere outside the dubious protection of a town was harrowing.

  “Get on the goddamn horse.” Violence and an end to his patience were starkly evident in the harsh tone of the words. Annie climbed into the saddle, hampered by her skirts, but she knew it would be useless to protest, or to ask for an opportunity to change into more practical clothing.

  She had always appreciated her position at the edge of town, convenient yet private, and isolated from the noise of drunken miners as they sampled the wares of the saloons and whorehouses well into the early morning hours. Now, however, she would have given anything for the appearance of even one drunken miner. She could yell her head off and no one was likely to hear her.

  “Blow out the lamp,” he said, and she leaned down from the saddle to do so. The sudden absence of light was blinding, though a thin sliver of the new moon was rising.

  He released his own reins and held out his gloved hand, the one that wasn’t holding the pistol. The big bay didn’t move, a product of good training and the control of the powerful legs wrapped around his barrel. “Give me your reins.”

  Again, she had no choice but to obey him. She handed him the reins and he pulled them over her horse’s head, looping them around his saddle horn so her mount would have no choice but to follow him. “Don’t get any ideas about jumping out of the saddle,” he warned. “You won’t get away, and it’ll make me damn mad.” His low, menacing voice made chills go down her back. “You don’t want to do that.”

  He kept the horses to a sedate walk until they were well away from Silver Mesa, then nudged the bay into an easy canter. Annie wrapped both hands around her saddle horn and hung on. Within minutes she was wishing that she had thought to get her own gloves, for the cold night air was biting. Her face and hands were stinging already.

  Now that her eyes had adjusted she could see well enough, and she realized that he was riding west, higher into the mountains. It would be even colder up there; she had seen snowcaps crowning the high peaks even in the middle of July.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, striving to keep her voice level.

  “Up,” he said.

  “Why? And why are you forcing me to go with you?”

  “You’re the one said I needed a doctor,” he replied flatly. “You’re a doctor. Now shut up
.”

  She did, but it took all of her self-control to keep from lapsing into hysterics. Though she had never considered herself the hysterical type, this situation made her feel as if she might indulge in a well-justified loss of control. In Philadelphia, people who needed doctors did not kidnap them.

  And it wasn’t just the situation that made her afraid, it was the man himself. From the moment those cold, colorless eyes had met hers she had been very aware that this man was dangerous, the same way a cougar was dangerous. He could lash out and kill as swiftly and as casually. She had devoted her life to the care of others, to preserving life, and he was the direct antithesis of the principles she held dear. Yet her hands had trembled as she touched him, not only because of the fear, but because his strong male body had made her feel weak inside. Remembering that made her feel ashamed. As a doctor, she should have remained aloof.

  By the time an hour had passed her feet were growing numb, and her fingers felt as if they would break off if she flexed them. Her legs and back were aching, and she had begun to shiver constantly. She stared at the dark shape of the man riding just in front of her and wondered how he could possibly remain in the saddle. Considering his blood loss, the fever, and the infection, he should have been flat on his back a long time ago. Such endurance and strength were intimidating, for she would have to pit herself against them in order to escape.

  He had said she would be all right, but how could she believe him? She was totally at his mercy, and so far he hadn’t given her any reason to believe that even a small portion of that quality was in his character. He could rape her, kill her, do anything he wanted with her, and likely her body would never even be found. Every step that the horses made carried her deeper into danger, and increased the unlikelihood that she would be able to make it back to Silver Mesa even if she managed to escape.