by Gray Gardner
“I’m okay,” she wheezed, feeling weak as she tried to push up to a sitting position that was anywhere but next to him.
“No, you’re not,” he snapped, grabbing the inhaler out of her hand and reading the prescription on the side. “You’re asthmatic and you just spent all day in a cold, dusty attic?”
“What do you know about asthma?” she huffed, trying to sound annoyed, but her voice barely registering as more than a forced breath.
He didn’t answer as he stood and picked her up in one swift motion, heading for the wooden staircase that led downstairs.
She only resisted a little, momentarily weakened by the sudden attack. She really hoped she didn’t look too much like a damsel in distress, as he carried her against his chest around the big house.
When they reached the large living room and the warmth of the fire he’d started earlier in the fireplace, he answered softly as he set her down on the sectional couch more gently than she thought was possible with him. “I’m a vet.”
She sank into the cushions, letting her head rest on a pillow. Just for a second. She was always a little exhausted after an attack, like she’d just gone for a long run. Her eyes turned up to his as he sat on the edge of the coffee table and tenderly brushed her damp hair off her forehead.
“Like military?” she asked, more strength returning to her voice.
“No.” He grinned, hardly masking a look of pain that crossed his face. “Veterinarian. But I also know a few things about the human body.”
She frowned, feeling relaxed, though. “I thought you were the foreman out here.”
“Bill was kind enough to employ me five years ago after I lost my license.”
“Getting too friendly with the animals?” she asked, narrowing her eyes, but failing at hiding a little smile.
He exhaled as he stood and walked around to add another log to the fire, leaning on the mantle and answering her. “I made the wrong people mad at the horse track when I saw some abuse happening. They saw to it that the Board revoked my license to practice as well as shut down my clinic. Bill thought it was unfair. He also needed someone out here who knew about livestock. So, yeah. Here I am.”
Eve swallowed and pushed up on her elbow. Okay. He was a little mean and arrogant, and he’d definitely tried to hit her when he’d thought she was being disobedient. But. But what? Jesus. He was sexy as hell. And a vet? A doctor who loves animals? And there they were, sitting in a big house all alone by a cozy fireplace on a snowy night? Come on, Universe!
Bradley could hardly look at her with a straight face as she stared up at him with her dark blonde hair a mess, blue eyes watery and big, and glasses askew on her face. He was attracted to her. That was for certain. Which was probably why he’d lost his mind temporarily in the attic and tried to pull her over his knee and spank her.
What had he been thinking? She was fragile. Needed protecting. His protection, more pointedly. He circled the big square coffee table and sat on the edge again, taking her clammy hand even though she tried to pull it back with a frown.
“Just take it easy, okay? Let me get you some water and more soup. Sound good?”
“I can get it.”
He gently pushed her shoulder back down and gave her an indulgent look. “Let me help you. Don’t overdo things right now. I’ll even bring the journals down from the attic for you.”
“I don’t need…”
“You will not be going up there again. Clear?” He dared her to argue with a single tick of one eyebrow.
He saw and heard her swallow hard, as she let her body sink back into the couch cushions with a half-scowl, half-pout.
“For someone unfamiliar with the Childress family history you seem to be remarkably in tune with the antiquated encounters between my relatives.”
“Meaning?” he asked, finding that he could listen to her talk all day. He was supposed to be taking care of her and getting her food and water, but he couldn’t wait to hear what came out of those pink lips next.
“Never mind,” she mumbled, looking down and adjusting her glasses as a little color started to come back to her cheeks. “You told me about them. I just thought you’d read them.”
“Not mine to read.”
Bradley walked around her to head to the kitchen. That was a blush. She was embarrassed? What had been in those journals? He figured he’d better do a little investigating once he got some food in her and put her in bed.
Bed. Damn. She’d produced an entire spectrum of emotions from him in twenty-four hours, something he was entirely unused to. Anger, concern, nurturing feelings, and, yep. Lust. He had to help her to bed later. Christ, did she even know she was having this effect on him?
Chapter 4
Silver Creek Ranch, The Hunting Cabin
It almost seemed like Pryce made up infractions that first week together. She walked to the creek to get some water by herself. Spanked over his knee the second she set the bucket down by the front door. Sitting on top the fence in the corral to feed one of the horses? Spanked over the fence in the corral in front of the horses.
She’d arrived on a Sunday and by the following weekend she had to count on two hands the amount of times she’d felt his hand smacking against her bare skin. But he was so caring afterwards, which was confusing. He had to have been mad. He was mad enough to punish her. Or discipline her, as he called it.
Then he’d praise her dinner, help her clean up, and hold her close all night long. But as far as making the marriage official? Well, he hadn’t really touched her. She was beginning to wonder if she’d done something really wrong, even though he insisted she hadn’t.
“Holly.”
She knew that tone. She squeezed her thighs together as she set down the knife and potato she’d been peeling. He’d already spanked her that morning for refusing to wear the dresses he’d bought her. But after explaining how impractical they were for all the vigorous activities out on a ranch, he’d listened, indulged her, and finally agreed that pants were more appropriate attire. He even complimented her ingenuity at taking in his pants to fit her small figure.
Pryce walked in, wiped the sweat off his brow with a bandana, and sipped some water out of a ladle in a bucket. He’d been chopping wood and looked incredibly handsome and confident as he took a needle from her sewing kit and began picking out splinters. His gaze turned to her. Stern, unwavering. “Sweetheart, I told you this morning not to do laundry today.”
“But it’s Saturday. It’s, it’s wash day…”
“I told you that it was windy this morning. I didn’t want you hanging up things on the line because now, my darling, they’ve all blown away.” He exhaled and wiped the bandana on his neck as Holly ran outside in a huff.
Oh Lord. The sheets, her petticoat, long johns, pants, shirts, they were all gone. The clothesline was bare. She brought her hands to her mouth and looked back at their cozy cabin. Hanging her head, she guiltily walked back inside. Yes, he would certainly spank her now. But afterward he would hold her, kiss her forehead gently, tell her everything was all right, and she liked that part. She loved that part.
Swallowing, she walked through the door to find him lying on the bed. “I’m sorry, Pryce. You were right.” She folded her hands in front of her and waited. He usually liked to take her hand and give her an understanding grin, then he’d sit down on whatever was nearest, lecture her about why he was disciplining her, and then finally get on with it.
Lifting her eyes, Holly frowned as he lay on the bed, half on his side and half on his face, completely still. She took two steps and leaned over. Was he asleep? Had it been a rough day? She placed a hand on his shoulder and found his shirt was soaking wet. Reaching around, she pulled him over to his back and held his cheeks in her hands. He was burning up.
“Pryce,” she loudly pleaded, giving him a shake. “Pryce!”
She got a rag wet with the bit of water left at the bottom of the bucket by the door and wiped his face, continuing to call his name. Whe
n that didn’t wake him, she leaned her head over and listened to his chest. At night, when he curled around her and held her close, she’d gotten used to falling asleep to the steady rhythm of his strong heartbeat.
Now she could barely detect it. Stuffing her feet into the old boots by the door, she ran outside and looked desperately for Flip. But it was Saturday. He wouldn’t be back until Monday morning.
She glanced back at the house, then at the corral. There was only one thing to do.
Lancelot, Pryce’s favorite black horse, raced down the snow packed dirt road, working up a lather as she pushed him harder and faster. She had to get to town. What if Pryce didn’t wake up? She didn’t know him very well. What if he had episodes? The town doctor would know what to do. She just had to get there in time.
Her first time in Silver Creek City she hadn’t gotten a very good look at the town. She’d been more concerned with her new husband she’d just met and her friends riding away on the train. But the town looked like any attractive little town. White church with a bell steeple, boardwalks on either side of the main dirt road, and colorful clapboard buildings, including a red hotel, a dark green mercantile, and a pale yellow bank.
And on the other side of the pine trees in the town square was a little two-story building with some cursive script and an M.D. on the bottom. She jumped off Lancelot and let him roam to the water trough as she dashed inside. He wouldn’t run away. He was too much of a pet, spending most of his day eating right out of Pryce’s hand and getting rub downs.
“Doc!” she called, stomping her big boots on the wooden slats of the porch. “Please, is there a doctor here?”
A slender woman with long, blonde curls and a bloody white apron opened the door, looking bemused at being interrupted. Instead of greeting Holly, she turned and went right back to the large rectangular table in the middle of the big room, complete with a pig that was split open down the middle. She very casually thrust her hands back inside the dead animal and nodded at the waiting area.
“He’s out delivering the Oldman’s tenth baby. Should be back pretty quickly. All they have to do is let gravity pull that child out.”
Holly paced and ran her hands over her head. She didn’t have that kind of time. Did he have an apprentice? Pausing, she turned and watched the young woman digging around the insides of the pig, plucking out organs like she was pulling dandelions from a garden.
“You,” she huffed, walking closer and trying to not react to the smell of the dead animal. “You can help me.”
“I’m no doctor…”
“You obviously are comfortable with, well, doctor things!” She gestured at the kidney the woman was holding. “Please, Miss, I’m desperate! I don’t know what happened, but he fainted out on his ranch and I can’t, I can’t get him to wake up.”
“Drunk?” she asked, wiping her bloody hands on a rag and smirking.
“No, please, ma’am, he was out chopping wood and came inside so sweaty and then passed out on the bed and-”
“Snake bite,” the woman said, suddenly standing right next to Holly with a serious look on her face. She turned and looked at the door, maybe hoping for the doctor to be willed to return, then checked the clock, then turned back to Holly. “Seconds matter. We have to go now.”
Holly thanked her repeatedly, watching with relief as the very capable woman began checking little glass vials and dumping them into a black leather satchel. She pulled the strap across her shoulder, grabbed her by the arm and pulled her outside.
“Wagon?”
“I, I didn’t have time to hitch it up…”
“No time to saddle my horse, we’ll ride yours double.” She pushed Holly and they both jumped on Lancelot. “Let’s go!”
Holly nodded and kicked the horse, feeling the woman’s arms tighten around her waist as they dashed out of town. She urged Lancelot to go faster as they cut through the pines and patches of snow in the setting sun, feeling branches slap at her face and the young woman sitting behind her.
“Name’s Shay.” She had to shout over the pounding of hooves and wind in their faces, but Holly heard.
“Holly.”
They arrived fairly quickly and Shay wasted no time leaping off the still trotting black horse. She ran inside and removed her satchel, digging through it as Holly breathlessly ran inside.
“How do you know him?”
“He’s, um, we’re, we’re married.”
Shay paused and looked up from her bag. “Good. Help me remove his clothes. I need to find the puncture wounds.”
Holly felt her cheeks heat as the young woman ripped off Pryce’s boots and began unbuckling his belt.
Shay paused and looked over her shoulder. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before in my line of work.” She frowned and gave Holly the once over. “How about you?”
Holly swallowed and began slowly pulling a sock off his foot. “Er, well, we, um, just got married last week.” And he was always already dressed in the mornings.
Shay shook her head and yanked Pryce’s pants down, going for his shirt buttons next. “D’you just meet or something?” She snickered, but paused as she pulled his strong arms out of his blue shirtsleeves and saw the other woman’s face. “Shit, Holly, I’m sorry. You’re, are you the one from the Bridal Express?”
Holly cringed at the nickname for the company that had taken care of her for so long. She didn’t know other people used that name for Zachary’s Companions. She half nodded as she worked on the other sock.
“Holy shit, is this Pryce Browning?” Shay stopped at that point, backing up a step and looking from the unconscious man on the bed to the woman in pants clutching a sock. Then she looked around the one room cabin. “What are you doing in this shit hole?”
Holly had never really heard language like that from a woman before, but then again, she’d been experiencing a lot of firsts this past year of her life. She’d already decided that she liked the young physician’s assistant, who also wore pants, and who was completely no nonsense. When she wanted to say something, she said it.
“Please, the snake bite,” Holly pleaded, biting her lip as she reached up and began unbuttoning the sweat-soaked red plaid long johns. She peeled them back carefully, revealing his tanned, glistening skin that pulled tightly over his muscles.
Shay quickly located the bloody wound on his wrist, the swelling making his arm balloon up a little. She tossed a pillow at Holly as the woman tried to look anywhere but directly at the exposed man in front of her.
“Elevate his feet.” When Holly complied, she carefully pulled the sheet up to his waist to make her more comfortable. She needed her help and she needed her attentive. “Now hold him down gently, don’t apply too much pressure, but this might hurt enough to wake him.”
Holly nodded and held his shoulders, watching as Shay retrieved a glass and what looked like rubber tubes, placing them carefully over the wound as she pulled her blue neck scarf over her nose and mouth. She applied pressure and began pumping, the suction cup pulling blood through the tube into the glass. It wasn’t exact, but only a little blood squirted out onto her arms.
“He’s bled a lot, which is good,” Shay began, talking to Holly to keep her distracted. “Means the venom is already halfway out. This can help with the rest, and I’ll give him an anti-venom injection once I go out to the woodpile and determine what kind of snake did this.”
“A rattlesnake, of course,” Holly said, widening her eyes. “And you can’t go over there. What if you get bitten too?”
“There are over thirty species of rattlesnakes, Holly, I need to verify or else the anti-venom won’t work as well.”
Holly sighed and stood up, jamming her feet into the boots by the door as she grabbed the shotgun and loaded two shells. “He needs you here. I’ll be right back.”
Shay opened her mouth to object, but the woman who she thought was a shy, shrinking, virginal violet had already left. She continued pumping slowly but paused when she heard a shot echo
around the cabin. She carefully set the tube and glass contraption down and stood when Holly walked back in and unloaded the second shell, catching it as it popped in the air.
“It’s black, with geometric white shapes down the back.”
“Diamondback,” Shay mumbled, digging through her bag and retrieving a large silver syringe. She ran her finger over the glass vials and found what she needed, then drew in the thick liquid and injected it into Pryce.
His body jerked a little, but she was already wiping off the needle and nodding as Holly leaned down and pulled the covers up.
“He needs a couple of pillows under his head, and then we need to immobilize his arm. He should move as little as possible to keep whatever venom is left in him from circulating.”
The two women worked by firelight, keeping him comfortable and warm as they wiped his head and tried to get him to drink a sip of water every now and then. Holly poured them both a whiskey as they took a break and sat by the fire.
“So, newlywed, I take it you and Mr. Browning haven’t had intercourse, judging by the way you blushed when he was nude and haven’t gotten used to telling people you’re married. You even called it his ranch.”
“It is his ranch and,” Holly sipped the amber liquid and looked away. “No, we haven’t.”
“Don’t worry,” Shay chuckled, taking a sip and looking at the glass with appreciation. “Pryce’s parents were married for twenty-five years before they died. He’s in it until the end. And if I’ve noticed anything about him besides his handsome face and utter disinterest in every woman in town, it’s that he respected his mother very much. He probably just wants you to feel comfortable before he sticks his penis in you.”
Holly choked on the whiskey she was drinking, but quickly turned her head and tried to recover, wiping her mouth and forcing a smile.