But now that he’d turned over Suarez’s corpse, he was free of his obligation. Not only that, he was rich! He’d relish deciding how to spend his fortune, and he sure as hell looked forward to enjoying life again.
He strode across the wheel-rutted street, passed the Grand Hotel, where he’d spent the night, and tramped into the saloon next door. Inside the smoky room, he slapped a greenback down on the counter.
“Here’s the money I owe you, friend.”
The barkeep pushed the bill back across the gritty oak surface. “Told ya it was on the house, Mr. Lawson. Pleasure to serve you.”
“All of it? Jeez, I must have drunk eight or ten bucks worth of whiskey. You sure?”
“Twelve bucks, to be exact,” the bartender corrected with a grin. “Sure I’m sure. Got kinda interesting the lower the bottle got.”
“Interesting,” Cord echoed. He wished to hell he could remember more of it. What he did recall was being warm and full of steak and beans for the first time in a week; beyond that, things got a bit blurry.
The barkeep leaned toward him. “I got two questions, Mr. Lawson. One, you got plans how to spend that pile of money? Little trip to Chihuahua, maybe? Booze? Bit of Mexican calico?”
Cord turned the suggestions over in his mind. Chihuahua was tempting; for some reason he wanted to keep moving south, as if he needed to get away from something.
Liquor? He’d had enough firewater last night to float him off his horse, so at the moment, that didn’t hold much appeal. And calico?
He couldn’t work up a shred of enthusiasm for female companionship, either. “Can’t say for sure, friend.”
“Second question.” The barkeep lowered his voice.
“Who’s Sage?”
Cord jerked. “Sage? Did I mention that name?”
“You was drinkin’ toasts to this feller all night. Flowery ones. I figgered you owe him some money.”
The man’s expression told Cord he hadn’t been able to keep the smile off his face. In spite of himself, he felt his mouth widen into a grin. The mere sound of her name made his insides flip over.
“Yeah, that’s right,” he said quickly. “I’m in he— his debt.”
Right up to his boot tops. Sage had reached deep inside him, touched something he’d kept hidden for twenty years. Underneath, he cared about people. Some people. Zack Beeler, who’d raised him. Nita.
And Sage West. Goddamn it, he’d lost his perspective on that intriguing mix of woman and physician. Lost his heart and soul right along with it.
Spending a bunch of dollars on some willing señorita might ease the physical ache for an hour, but it would never be enough; it was Sage he wanted. And she didn’t cost a damn thing.
Oh, yes she does, a voice reminded him. Sage would cost him everything, right down to his freedom.
“You got a bank in this town?” he asked the barkeep.
“Sure ‘nuf. Two blocks down, on the corner.” He swiped his rag over the counter in lazy circles.
“Got a telegraph office?”
“Yep. Down at the train station.”
Cord sat in silence so long the bartender finally moved away. An idea was taking root in Cord’s brain. A crazy, damn-fool idea, but one he couldn’t shake. It was so far-fetched he wondered if maybe he was still a bit drunk.
Or not drunk enough for what he planned to do. He caught the bartender’s attention.
“Got any of that Red Eye left?”
The Thursday following Sarah and Eli Ramsey’s wedding, Sage sank exhausted onto her front porch to read the latest issue of the Willamette Valley Voice, which Mrs. Benbow said included a writeup of the ceremony, along with birth announcements for Rafe and Ella Pokell’s new baby boy and the twins born just two days ago to Cyrus and Una Gardiner. Sage had attended this birth, as well, which had kept her up all one night and half the next.
Now she rocked in her porch chair, working the kinks out of her weary frame and scanning the type before her. She found it difficult to keep her eyes open.
Mrs. Benbow swished past her front fence, stopping to tsk over Sage’s overgrown roses. Sage leaned her head against the rocker slats and feigned sleep until the older woman tiptoed on past.
She didn’t have the energy to spar with Mrs. Benbow this afternoon. Her shoulders and back ached from bending over Una during her contractions, and the ride back into town an hour ago had left her headachy from the heat. Then, when she dropped off the mare, Ginger, at the livery stable, she’d had to endure Arvo Ollesen’s avuncular lecture about getting more sleep. Your pretty mama, she see those circles under your eyes, she tell me not to give you a horse next time.
Sage had escaped to Friedrich Stryker’s newspaper office, asked about his sore knee and picked up a copy of the weekly newspaper.
She must have dozed off, because suddenly there was Arvo on her porch, shaking her shoulder. “Miss Sage, you vake up! It’s here, down at the landing.”
Sage peered at him through a haze of pain. “What is it, Arvo? Is someone ill?”
“Not ill, no!” the liveryman chortled. “Yust you come and see!”
He tugged her to her feet, propelled her along the lane behind the street that ran down to the river. She had to trot to keep up with him and, despite the ache in her temples, the sight of the burly Norwegian barreling ahead of her made her laugh. She’d never seen Arvo move that quickly; even mounted on one of his horses, the liveryman moved as slowly and deliberately as a turtle. Today he’d turned into a jackrabbit.
“Yust look!” Arvo pointed to the wooden landing. Beyond it, the sternwheel steamer Eva plowed away from the dock toward the center of the river.
“Look at what?” She saw nothing but the ripples made by the departing vessel lapping against the wooden platform.
“Dat!” Arvo gestured to a canvas-covered mound at the far end of the loading dock. “Iss for you.”
“Me! How do you know it’s for me?”
“Cuz dat’s vat the lading bill say.” He pulled a wrinkled sheet of paper out of his pocket and shook it in her face. “Dr. Sage West, care of Ollesen’s Livery, Russell’s Landing, Oregon.”
Sage stared into the liveryman’s round blue eyes. “It’s a horse, isn’t it? Why would anyone send me—you—a horse?”
“Miss Sage—”
“By steamship?”
“But Miss—”
“You have hundreds of horses, Arvo. Good ones. And I like Ginger just fine.”
“Miss… Dr.—”
“She’s steady and gentle and—”
“—West, you lissen now, I tell you.”
“Why is she all covered up like that?”
Arvo’s mouth dropped open. “She?”
“The horse. It must be a mare. A stallion would be kicking the crate—”
“Vait, Dr. Sage. Vait yust vun minute. Iss not a mare. Or a stallion. Look!” The liveryman strode toward the canvas-draped object, lifted one corner of the cover and yanked it back.
Sage gasped. One shiny black wheel peeked out, the yellow-painted inner rim looking like a giant smile. As Arvo rolled the canvas all the way back, three more yellow smiles emerged. Four wheels and a gleaming black body.
“A buggy,” Sage breathed.
“A Columbus Phaeton,” Arvo added. “All the vay from Chicago.”
Sage gulped. “But I don’t know a soul in Chicago.”
“Vas only shipped from Chicago,” Arvo said. “From Sears Roebuck, the paper say.”
But Sage was not listening. A buggy! A beautiful, shiny new buggy! With a leather top to keep off the sun and the rain, and plush forest-green upholstery and a Brussels carpet.
For her. For Dr. Sage West, the first doctor in Russell’s Landing. The first woman doctor in three counties! Her heart swelled with pride and gratitude.
“But who sent it?”
Arvo lifted his arms in a shrug. “Someone who knows about you. And about Ollesen Livery.”
Tears burned under her eyelids. “Was it Pa
pa? Or Uncle John?”
Arvo’s wide face looked blank. “Dunno, Miss Sage. Seems kinda funny either one of them vould order from fancy Chicago place when Portland iss yust up the river.”
“Yes,” Sage murmured.
“I go get a buggy horse and ve hitch it up.”
Sage nodded, unable to take her eyes off the shiny black contraption. What a blessing it would be on scorching summer days and on wet, cold ones in the fall and winter to come.
Someone is thinking of me when I make my medical calls. Someone who recognized her value as a physician, who wanted her to be successful.
By the time Arvo returned, leading a sturdy sorrel mare and lugging the necessary tack, Sage was smoothing both hands over the gaily painted wheels and blinking back tears. Someone believes in me, believes in what I am doing.
Arvo hitched up the mare, handed Sage into the buggy and placed the reins in her hands. “You yust drive on home now, Miss Sage. I come by later and take to the livery. Free board I gif you, since you fix my hoof kick…” he slapped his thigh “…and dat boil on Cal’s neck.”
Sage looked down at the earnest, beaming face of the liveryman. “Thank you, Arvo.”
She knew it was more than his bruised hip and Cal’s boil; Arvo had a soft spot in his heart for her, and for her mama, as far back as she could remember. Pretty Miss Nettie, he called her. And he always blushed crimson in her company.
“Thank you,” Sage said again. Then, scarcely able to see the road through the blur of tears, she clucked to the mare and set off toward home.
Another week passed. The temperature climbed higher with each passing day, the heat searing gardens and livestock and people alike. Old Grandpa Hedden collapsed from heatstroke while watering his wife’s geraniums, and Sage spent a blistering afternoon bathing his face with witch hazel compresses and forcing salted water down his parched throat. When the old man was himself again, she calmed his distraught wife with healthy sips of medicinal brandy.
Then on Tuesday one of the Hamilton boys fell out of a tree swing and Sage drove her new buggy twelve miles out to their ranch and set his arm. When she returned, near dusk, she had to travel six miles in the other direction to prescribe a cough mixture for Trula Rondeau’s chronic catarrh.
It was while driving home that night, the collar bells on the sorrel’s bridle jingling faintly and the fat gold moon riding over her head like a ghostly ship, that Sage sensed something was wrong. The night air was so sweet with the scent of ripening apples and honeysuckle that she opened her mouth wide as if to taste it. An evening songbird twittered in one of the two big maple trees at the edge of town, but all at once she reined the buggy to a stop.
A sharp-edged ache filled her.
Something was missing.
The aching, desperate certainty stayed lodged in her bone marrow until Sage gave up trying to sleep. She had been without rest for a day and a half, but it made no difference; she rolled and tossed on the feather mattress in her bedroom upstairs and finally jerked to a sitting position.
She had to do something, but what? She’d already rolled two dozen yards of muslin bandages, boiled up another batch of horehound syrup for Mrs. Rondeau, reinspected her surgical instruments and wiped them all with alcohol for the third time that week. Aside from a call for her medical services, she had nothing to occupy her mind.
Worse, she had nothing to occupy her body, which had suddenly developed an unexpected life of its own. Her thoughts skittered, her head full of dandelion puffs. Her arms ached, her thighs ached; her belly clenched and tightened at every sound.
What on earth was wrong with her?
Nothing, a voice within her said. This is what hunger feels like.
Hunger! Hunger for what? Sage flopped onto her belly. She’d stuffed herself with thick slices of bread and Aunt Cissy’s blackberry jelly the minute she’d arrived at the house. The bread was fresh-baked the day before, the jelly so sweet and flavorful it made her cheeks hurt. It was her favorite snack, even during medical school.
She got up, marched down the stairs to the kitchen and gobbled down two more slices with a glass of warm milk. Still she felt so restless she couldn’t keep her feet still. Back and forth she paced across the kitchen floor, up the hallway, into the second parlor, back to the kitchen.
She circled the perimeter of her small bedroom, around and around on the blue braided wool rug, her toes curled into the soft fibers. For the first time, she noticed how good it felt.
And then she knew what was wrong. She was waiting for something. Waiting to hear Cord’s voice, to feel his hands on her skin.
Lord in heaven, she was hungry for him. Him! The man who had taught her about life, and loving. About herself.
But he is not coming back.
She knew that for a certainty. When—if—he captured Antonio Suarez, he would ride off on another chase. That’s what kept a loner like Cordell Lawson going.
The thought of Cord’s free and easy spirit trapped in town life even made her smile. He would never risk it. One part of him would chafe under the yoke of civilization and the social obligations that came with it.
Cord would always long to be free.
What do I do then, with this hole in my heart?
Climb back into bed and try to forget him.
Forget the pull on her senses and the fire inside that the mere thought of the man aroused.
Sage pulled the sheet up to her chin and gritted her teeth. You wanted to be a doctor? Then be one!
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The gray mare plodded south out of Nogales, heading for the Mexican state of Sonora. Cord’s saddlebags bulged with provisions—coffee, dried beef, beans, and the sun-parched, hot green chilis he liked to flavor his food with when traveling south of the border.
He’d ridden this trail before, once when he’d delivered a fugitive to the authorities in Magdalena, and again when he’d rescued Nita from her drunken father. Like most trails, it was dusty and hot.
Usually he liked the hardship, even the loneliness of wending his way farther and farther from civilization, if he could call the sprinkling of faded storefronts and near-empty saloons in Nogales civilization. Today, Cord felt different in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Not dried out and muzzy from too much drink. Not tense and short-tempered as he’d been while tracking Antonio Suarez. Just…different. Even his horse sensed something.
The mare kept stopping to sniff at patches of greenery along the way, and Cord had to press his spurs against her hide to keep her moving forward. Each time they halted, the mare stretched her neck to look back at him, as if questioning the direction. Each time he felt the animal’s skin quiver under his boot heel he regretted having to prod her forward. It was almost as if the horse had a better idea.
“Which would be what, Sugar-girl?” Cord murmured to the slow-moving animal.
The mare blew out her breath in a whoosh, put her head down and took a reluctant step forward.
“You want to stop wandering? Settle down somewhere?”
Cord’s fingers tightened on the reins until his knuckles stood out. What in hell…? What the devil made him say that?
He drew rein smack in the middle of the trail and sat listening to his heartbeat turn ragged. Something had punched the breath right out of him.
He closed his eyes against the sun’s glare, bent his head to catch his wind. Behind his lids rose a willowy image with a jaunty purple feather stuck in her hat.
His pulse kicked. A longing he’d never known slammed him in the gut.
You don’t owe me a thing, she had said.
Sure he didn’t. He threw back his head and laughed out loud. He’d been roped and tied with a daisy chain so delicate he hadn’t even noticed it, yet so strong he knew it would hold him forever.
He let go of the reins and stretched his arms wide. He didn’t have a hole in his head; he had a big girl-shaped hole in his heart.
Whether the mare had suddenly developed a will of her ow
n, or whether she read Cord’s unconscious intent, he didn’t stop to puzzle out.
Horse and rider turned north, toward Oregon.
It was the hottest, driest August Russell’s Landing had ever experienced. Men on haying crews collapsed regularly, sending Sage trudging through fields of prickly stubble to pour cold, salty lemonade down throats and deliver yet another lecture about the dangers of dehydration in hot weather. The crews stubbed the toes of their boots in the parched ground while she talked and fanned the unfortunate farmhand with a stiff fan she’d fashioned out of wrapping paper from Duquette’s Mercantile.
Men were a stubborn species, she huffed to Arvo when she returned the buggy to the livery stable. “Not one lick of sense and don’t take kindly to advice from a woman, even if she is a doctor.”
Arvo just nodded and unhitched the sorrel for the second time that day. “Iss not Gardiner’s hay crew I vorry about, Miss Sage. Iss you. You don’t stop long enough to take any kind of a meal, and what about you, skedaddling all over the county in this weather? How much water you drink today?”
Sage sighed. “Don’t fuss over me, Arvo.” Between Arvo and her mother she felt as coddled as a baby chick.
“Your pretty mama, she vorry, too.”
“I’ve had half a gallon of cold water from Gardiner’s spring,” she assured him. And another quart of lemonade waiting in her pantry cooler. Pink, after she’d added a dab of Aunt Cissy’s jelly.
True, she was bone-tired and soggy with perspiration. Her hand strayed to the top button of her wilted white waist; oh, how she longed to bare her steamy skin to the fresh air….
She fiddled with the button loop, then caught herself when Arvo’s round blue eyes widened. Well, she guessed that could wait. In polite society one didn’t expose one’s chest to the breeze when one was out and about.
The smile that had started at Arvo’s horrified expression faded, and her heart knotted like one of the liveryman’s half hitches. She missed Cord.
She would miss him for the rest of her days.
Yes, men are a stubborn species, all right. Maddeningly impervious to the joys of…well, marriage. And in Cord’s case, resistant to even the idea of permanence.
High Country Hero Page 16