Miracle Jones

by Nancy Bush

  Harrison was still unconscious. His bare chest rose and fell reassuringly, however, and when she checked his pulse, it still beat steadily beneath her fingers.

  Rocking back on her heels, Miracle stared down at him. Did he have identification? He’d told her his name, but she knew nothing else about him.

  Her hands gently searched the pockets of his denim trousers. She found the pocketknife and a little money, not much. But there was also a vellum card edged in dark blue. Boldly printed on its face was “Dr. Harrison Danner, Horse Doctor. Dr. Lexington Danner, Horse Doctor. Rock Springs, Oregon.”

  Who was Lexington Danner? Miracle wondered. Harrison’s brother? His father? They must be in business together, she decided.

  Miracle still had to hide the wagon, so she set the card, knife, and Harrison’s money in a small pile beside her own supplies. Then she walked back to where she’d unhitched the horses.

  By the time she’d finished gathering fir and cedar boughs, scattering them over the roof of the wagon and against its gaily painted sides, fluffing up the broken, flattened grass trail with a stick, and generally covering up her tracks, the sun was beaming down hot and relentless over the dry Cascade foothills.

  Tired, physically and mentally, Miracle headed back to the camp with the thought of another cold, refreshing bath and the comfort of her tattered wool blanket.

  Chapter Three

  It was hot. So hot that he felt on fire. Harrison’s throat was so dry he couldn’t talk, and the sun was relentless. He was hurt, too. His back felt like hell, and his head was stuffed with cotton.

  He felt the gentle touch of a woman’s hands on his face, and he reached for her. It was Isabella. He could see her blond hair hanging down. But he didn’t want Isabella. She’d sworn her love for him then found someone else. He remembered now that he’d been furious with her, and with himself, and that all he’d felt was scorn and a sense of betrayal.

  No, it wasn’t Isabella he wanted. It was Kelsey. Yes, those hands must be Kelsey’s, and that urgent voice, forcing him to drink that revolting liquid, must also be Kelsey’s. But it didn’t sound like Kelsey.

  He tried to open his eyes, but his lips were too heavy. He could smell earth and water and a slightly smoky scent. Then he felt her hair and he reached for it, pulling it to his mouth.

  No, it wasn’t Kelsey. In a distorted dream he remembered thick, straight black hair as smooth and lustrous as satin.

  “Kelsey?” he asked, but no sound issued from his throat.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  A persistent horsefly was bothering Sadie Mae. The tiny mare shifted her hindquarters and switched her tail, snorting in frustration. Kelsey Garrett patted the paint’s neck and eased her into a light trot across the field toward her brother’s farm.

  “I’ll kill that nasty fly for you as soon as we get home,” she promised.

  Home. Kelsey frowned. Her home was about to change. No longer would she have to live with Jace. This afternoon she and Harrison were going to marry and move to the house he’d built on the far side of the Danner property – as far from Garrett land as he could get.

  Well, she couldn’t blame him. The Garretts hadn’t exactly shown the Danners hospitality, now, had they? She knew that marrying Harrison was a gesture of friendship, on his part as much of her own. But at least she liked Harrison, which was more than she could say for the other men her mother and older brother had tried to match her with. Whenever she thought of Paul Warfield, the mayor of Malone, she wanted to gag. She’d been lucky to escape that marriage!

  There was a rifle in the scabbard by her side, and Kelsey glanced down at it, thinking how different her future was going to be. Harrison was a horse doctor, like his sister, Lexie. They had a business together in Rock Springs, which worked to both Harrison’s and Lexie’s advantage. After all, Lexie’s strange passion for wanting to treat animals had not been received well by the local farmers. Who wanted a woman working on their horses and cattle?

  But Harrison had helped her establish herself. Only Harrison and Lexie’s husband, Tremaine, had believed in Lexie, helping her gain a foothold in a man’s world. Kelsey, who sympathized totally with Lexie, felt chafed and frustrated by the same rigid demands of what women could do and what they couldn’t. She wished…

  Drawing a deep breath, she shook her head. No, it did no good to wish. Action was needed. At least Harrison was enough of a rebel to trust that women were meant for more than keeping a house and raising a family. Their marriage would work. She would make it work.

  Sadie Mae swayed gently back and forth as she walked across the fields, picking up her delicate hooves and raising them high, as if hating the feel of dirt beneath her shoes. “Mistress Finicky,” Kelsey murmured with affection, patting her neck.

  Far ahead, past the sloping fields that undulated before her, Kelsey saw the Garrett home and grounds. Her expression darkened as she thought of her brother and the series of events that had led her to this marriage to Harrison. Dangerous thoughts of another man entered her head, and she angrily thrust them away. There was no use thinking about him.

  Biting on her lower lip, she fought back an unreasonable desire to race Sadie Mae away from here, away from her fate, away from Rock Springs, and away from Harrison Danner, a man she cared for but knew she could never love.

  Kelsey turned her face upward to the beastly autumn sun, fighting her thoughts with almost physical effort. Her long auburn hair swept Sadie Mae’s white and brown patched back, and her slim figure was taut with tension. A part of her wanted something so much, so very much! Maybe she could learn to want her husband this way.

  Her throat tightened. It certainly didn’t feel like her wedding day.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  Miracle sat on a thick stump, chafing at her forced inertia. She stared at Harrison, then squinted upward to the hazy blue-white sky. The sun was at its zenith. It must be almost noon.

  Miracle walked over to where Harrison lay. The poultice was still strapped to his back. He needed food, she thought. Something. But at the moment he slept like the dead.

  She glanced away. The soft, melodic lapping of the lake drew her like a bee to honeysuckle. She’d put off her bath when he’d started thrashing and moaning again, but she couldn’t wait any longer. She wanted to scrub off the layers of dirt and sweat and the memory of Jeb’s rough hands again, scrub herself down with lilac-scented soap.

  But first she had to change his poultice one more time. It had dried, the bits of wild cherry bark and white pine sticking out and rubbing into Harrison’s flesh. Miracle pulled it off, stuck the bits in her tinware pan, and mashed it once more with the rock. She knew she would get more results by boiling the inner bark and saving the decoction. Then she could soak the bark in the decoction each time she needed to reapply it.

  It was a quirk of fate that she knew so much about healing; she had not learned it from her tribe. Aunt Emily and Uncle Horace, white people who had come by wagon train to Oregon, had learned their healing ways from the Indians of the plains, and also white doctors who’d been willing to impart their knowledge. Uncle Horace’s own superstitions and belief in the medicinal powers of drink and elixirs had furthered Miracle’s education. Had she been born wholly white, she would have sought to study medicine. As it was, she acquired knowledge for her own purposes, and for her livelihood. A traveling peddler and half-breed medicine woman were a curiosity every town seemed to welcome.

  Miracle attempted to reapply the poultice, but Harrison began moving around again. He moaned and writhed, fighting her with surprising strength. The long-ago scars across his shoulder and chest strained white from the effort. Whoever had saved his arm had done an outstanding job, Miracle realized in awe. The fact he had any use of it at all was nothing short of miraculous.

  “…stop…” he muttered. “Don’t… I can’t…”

  “Shhh.” She peeled back his fingers from her arm, wincing at his hard grip. The mash of bark dripped through her fingers. She laid it on his back a
nd tried to re-fasten her strip of petticoat.

  He rolled over, and the bark slipped to the ground, covered in dust. Miracle swore between her teeth. The poultice was ruined. Dirt and rust would spoil its power.

  But she had a new problem to contend with. Harrison suddenly pulled her against his hot skin, rolling her onto her back in one smooth motion.

  “Get off me!” she gasped furiously, shocked to anger. Strong arms held her tight against a hard muscular chest. Dark gold chest hair furrowed downward, much darker than the hair on his head. She pushed against the crisp, curling down and reminded him tautly, “You’re hurt. Let me go.”

  But he didn’t let go. His breath rasped near her ear, sending every fiber in Miracle’s body quivering to sudden life. The hair on her arms rose. Whatever was wrong with her? Then his mouth pressed against her neck. She choked out a gasp as his tongue wetted her skin. Strange tremors ran through her body, and she pushed harder, wriggling violently.

  “Don’t,” he ground out, shocking her to immobility.

  Did he know what he was doing? She doubted it. Oh, Lord! But she knew, and yet she found no strength to resist. The blood rushed hotly through her veins. She felt drained and numb and slightly dazed.

  “Harrison,” she protested unsteadily.

  Her shirtwaist was asunder. She wore nothing beneath, and his hard hand found her breast again. Her bottom lip dropped open as he kneaded the soft mound; her mind jolted at the rising thrust of her own nipple.

  In all her nineteen years Miracle had never been touched by a man. Not even kissed. One of the schoolboys who’d later taunted her had grabbed her behind the schoolhouse, but she’d whacked him hard with a broken piece of forgotten fencing. The nail had hit him square in the back of his hand. That’s when Miracle had learned the properties of dirt and rust. The boy’s hand had swollen like a ripe tomato. Only Uncle Horace’s protection – and a decoction of wild cherry – had saved Miracle from the boy’s parents’ wrath.

  Now she felt Harrison mouth against the base of her neck. Curse and rot him, what was he doing? Miracle’s pulse thundered in her head. She stopped pushing against his chest, too stunned to react. She felt all melty inside and weak. Of their own volition her hands circled his back – and encountered the hot, raised flesh surrounding his wound.

  Sanity returned in a flood tide just as Harrison’s weight slumped against her. He stopped moving, and it was his saving grace, for she would have shoved him off her, wound or no wound. Nevertheless, fear squeezed her heart. Was he all right?

  Miracle squeezed out from beneath him. His breath still rasped noisily in and out of his lungs. He’d just lapsed into a deeper coma.

  Lord, what was the matter with her? She stared down at him, shocked and furious at her own reaction. She’d actually liked his touch.

  Did that make her like her mother?

  Several moments of desperate soul-searching sent Miracle racing to the lake, needing to escape her thoughts by some physical means. She ripped off her torn shirtwaist, her dusty, ripped crinoline skirt, the remainder of her petticoats, her boots and cotton socks, and lastly her drawers. Then she dove into the crystalline waters, gasping at the icy cold. The mountain runoff was frigid.

  When her lungs ached and felt ready to burst, she shot upward, surfacing so the water ran freely down her upturned face. Treading water, she shook remaining droplets out of her eyes, swiping at her hair. She stared across at Harrison, seeing his arm thrash from one side to the other.

  He wasn’t getting better. She was going to have to do something more for him. If she’d believed in spirits and incantations, she would have performed a tribal ritual. At this point even a prayer to God seemed less than useful, but Miracle was willing to try anything.

  Lord, I’m thankful You chose to rescue me last night by sending me this man. In Your wisdom, maybe You can help me help him now. He deserves that much, doesn’t he? She hesitated, remembering the way she’d felt when Harrison touched her, wondering if her lapse might cause God to consider her less worthy. Grimacing, she added as an afterthought, I care about him and hope for his safe return to his family.

  Dripping wet, she emerged from the lake shivering and self-conscious of her nudity. She stood over him for several moments. His eyes were half-open, but she knew he couldn’t see her. Hellfire, but he was attractive. It worried and baffled her that she should notice such things about a white man.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  She was a water nymph with black hair nearly to her waist and the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. Her legs were long and smoothly tapered, her hips slim and boyish yet utterly feminine. Her breasts were perfectly formed; faintly tanned, softly swelling globes that would fit easily in his hands. Harrison wanted her more than he’d ever wanted another woman. In his dreamlike netherworld, she was attainable; all he had to do was reach out for her.

  He threw out an arm, and his hand connected with her ankle. He wrapped his fingers around cold, supple skin, dampened with lake water. He’d seen her rise from the water and walk to him. He tried to pull her closer.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  Miracle stared down at Harrison’s hand wrapped around her leg. She was shocked by the lurch of her heart, the spurt of desire his touch ignited. She yanked her foot away and snatched up a blanket, wrapping it around herself before heading cautiously through the woods to the wagon. She had to get over this strange fascination she had with him.

  It was dim inside the wagon as Miracle pulled on clean drawers, a petticoat, and a pink cotton shirtwaist. Frowning, she buttoned a buttery soft buckskin skirt around her small waist, still annoyed with her reaction. Harrison Danner was not a man to be fascinated with. She sensed it in her bones. He was white, and he was off-limits.

  Dragging a comb through her thick hair, she let her restless gaze fall on an assortment of bottles, some broken, others chipped or still, amazingly enough, intact.

  Inside one chipped jar was a dried marshmallow root. Miracle snatched up the jar and stuffed it inside the pocket of her skirt. Uncle Horace had used it in a poultice to help prevent gangrene. Knowing the depth of Harrison’s wound, Miracle was afraid for the death of vital tissue. But what was the rest of the cure?

  She could see Uncle Horace now, waving a half-empty bottle of rum at her, as they sat around the campfire. “Sweet milk,” he said with a sly, one-sided grin and a hiccup. “You gotta boil it down to a decoction in sweet milk. Then add powdered elm bark, just to thicken it. Spread it on, then, Miracle, my girl, pray to God Almighty that He sees fit to keep the flesh from putrefying!”

  As a last thought, Miracle grabbed up some of Uncle Horace’s clothes, then she rushed back to Harrison. She had no milk, nor did she have even a pinch of elm bark. But it was the marshmallow root that would stop gangrene.

  Harrison face was flushed, but he was quiet. She touched his skin. Hot. Sighing, she began gathering sticks for a small fire. She would cut the root into pieces as fine as she could manage, then boil them in lake water. And then she would make them into a poultice and pray to God Almighty.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  “Where is Harrison?” Kelsey asked her brother in alarm. “You were with him last night, weren’t you?”

  Jace Garrett, his dark russet hair mussed from its usual oiled slickness, glared down at his rebellious sister. She was too knowing, by God. Hardly an attractive feminine trait! She would be the bane of Harrison Danner’s existence, and that – along with the possibility of a stake of Danner land – was the reason Jace looked forward to their union.

  His gaze slid sideways, settling on his own wife, Emerald. Now, she knew what being a woman was all about. She sat still and poised on the edge of the horsehair couch in the parlor, her lovely white hands folded in her lap, the picture of sweetness and gentility.

  Jace smiled to himself. He’d made a good catch. Emerald’s family was one of the wealthiest in Malone, and after Lexie’s rejection, Jace had determined to marry a woman he could be proud of. And he’d tried like hell to beat Tremaine
and Lexie to the altar – he hated anyone thinking he was pining for that Danner bitch – but Emerald had insisted on a proper length of time before the nuptials. Unlike Lexie, Emerald was worried about propriety. She didn’t want anyone to think they were rushing into marriage for improper reasons, so she insisted on a year’s engagement after her father had accepted Jace’s proposal.

  The wedding had been in Rock Springs, the most lavish the town had ever seen. Jace’s delight in showing off his beautiful dark-haired bride had only been marred by the news that Lexie had just delivered Tremaine a son.

  Jace had yet to get his wife pregnant.

  Emeralds sharp black eyes were glittering at Kelsey; she neither approved of nor liked Jace’s hoyden sister. The trace of an amused smile lifted one corner of her rapturous little mouth. Jace’s good humor fled. Was she laughing at him, because he’d made a fool of himself last night? Lord knew he was lucky to be alive thanks to Sheriff Raynor’s appearance at the Half Moon while he’d been attempting to pay off those miserable, stinking outlaws. Jace had never been so glad to see Raynor’s bulging stomach as the moment it had appeared in the Half Moon’s office door. The outlaws had bolted out the back before Raynor saw them, more’s the pity, but at least they’d left Jace’s throat intact.

  The thought still made him break out into a sweat.

  Emerald, however, was gazing at Kelsey’s snapping gray eyes. Her secret amusement was apparently because Harrison Danner had chosen to stand Kelsey up at her own wedding.

  “How in God’s name should I know where Danner is?” Jace growled.

  Emerald’s satin skirts rustled behind him. A brassy trill of laughter escaped her. Just whom was she laughing at? Jace’s ears burned.

  “You were gambling together at the Half Moon,” Kelsey pointed out. “You told me you were! Did Harrison make it home?”

  Jace shrugged. “He left when the cards heated up. I don’t know where he went.”