Lady Sundown (#1 of the Danner Quartet)

by Nancy Bush

  “Celeste, Ella’s sick and I need someone to take care of her.”

  The other girl recoiled, wrapping her silken robe more tightly around her small bosom. “Call Hildegarde.”

  Lexie was thinking fast. “You call Hildegarde. I’m going for the doctor.”

  “What? How? Good Lord, Lexie. What have you got on?”

  Lexie’s feet carried her swiftly down the carved oak stairway. She ran to the front door and was in the process of shifting the bolt when her plight truly occurred to her. Biting her lip, she considered running down the street to the small livery where Cyril, the groomsman for Miss Everly’s School, kept horses for them and several other nearby enterprises.

  A woman alone on the streets of Portland? Miss Everly would die of shock!

  Lexie cared not a fig for propriety but she wasn’t foolhardy. There were dangers a single woman might face in the dark city streets. She hurried to the kitchen, pulled a magnificent knife from the nail above the washboard, and unlocked the back door, stepping into a bitterly cold, moon-washed, clear winter night.

  Tugging the hood of her cloak over her head, Lexie clung to the knife in her hand, skirting the main street and moving like a shadow across and through other properties. She climbed one fence and heard the low, bristling snarl of a dog, but she moved valiantly onward.

  She reached the livery in remarkably rapid time, appearing in the warm, glowing doorway like a wraith. Cyril, who was sitting on a bucket, half-nodding off to sleep, snapped to attention with a surprised grunt when Lexie spoke.

  “Hello, Cyril. My name’s Lexington Danner. I attend Miss Everly’s School.”

  “Tarnation, girl!” he sputtered. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I need a horse to ride,” she said simply.

  He looked stunned, even amazed, then suspicious. “Ah’m not authorized to let horses to Miss Everly’s students without her permission, miss. ‘Specially not this time the evenin’.”

  “One of the girls is sick. I’m going for the doctor.”

  “If’n that’s the case, I’ll send the message along to the doctor, but you stay right here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lexie said firmly. “There isn’t time. I appreciate your position, but I want a horse.” Digging into the pocket of her skirt, she withdrew a handful of shining silver dollars, every bit of cash she possessed. “I’ll hire one, if you can’t give me Miss Everly’s.”

  He ran his hand through his hair, rumpling it until it stood on end. “It’s not right,” he muttered, his eyes glued to the glinting coins.

  “Take it. All of it,” Lexie coaxed. “And give me a horse and buggy I can handle.”

  “There ain’t no buggies. They’re all hired out.”

  She thrust the money into his slackened hand, shoving past him, examining the horseflesh with the practiced eye that would have given Cyril a start had he known her experience. At the end of the row stood a beautiful, quivering stallion not unlike Tantrum. Lexie chose him.

  “Stop, miss!” The groomsman ordered. “That un’ll never let you ride him!”

  “Show me one that will, then!”

  She snatched a bridle from its peg on a nearby post. Cyril rubbed his jaw and shook his head. “Gentle Dawn might do ya,” he said, pointing to a petite swaybacked mare who looked half-asleep.

  Lexie adjusted the bridle straps to the stallion’s head. “I don’t have time,” she said, snatching a crop from the bench nearby. Holding the crop between her teeth, she climbed up the stable rails and onto the stallion’s bare back.

  “I can’t letcha take him, miss,” Cyril said firmly, admiration and concern glowing from his eyes in equal measure. He approached the stallion with caution. “He’s too hard to control. It would be suicide.”

  “Then what’s he doing in your stable? Someone must be able to handle him.”

  “Only a strong man with a will of iron!”

  Lexie recalled Ella’s twisting pain and said simply, “Move aside. I’ve paid you. Now I’m going.”

  Cyril wasn’t used to young chits talking back to him, but then neither was he familiar with the way this woman could handle a horse. Knowing he was bound to pay, yet equally aware that the girl had overpaid him enough to make that gamble worth it, he opened the box and led the black devil with the young temptress out of the livery. “God looks after his own fools,” he muttered as Lexie worked to hold the mincing stallion in check. She wasn’t certain whether Cyril meant her or himself.

  The black stallion’s hooves rustled in the straw on the livery floor, then they rang on the cobblestone street. It was quiet in this section of the city. Gaslights shed watery ribbons of light across the stones. Lexie, whose belief in her own infallibility was waning with each forward move of the stallion’s sleek muscles, headed in the direction of the hospital where Tremaine worked. If there was a closer doctor, she didn’t know his address. Besides, there would be less explanations with Tremaine. She only hoped he was there.

  The stallion moved with an effortless stride, but he chewed and moved the bit, his ears flicking back and forth, as if he hadn’t quite figured out his rider. He sidestepped every chance he could, tossing his head, but Lexie kept up a soft, low cooing, gently guiding him down the street.

  As she neared the poorer section of Portland’s waterfront there was more activity in the streets. Several times she heard the murmur of male voices as she passed dark alleyways and saw the red pulsing tips of cigars. Lexie’s courage seeped steadily away. Her heartbeat accelerated. Her stomach churned. The knife in her pocket was a welcome companion.

  “Hey, there,” a drunken male voice called, and she saw a man stumble after her into the street, chasing the stallion. The black horse shimmied and squealed, and Lexie, whose blood ran like icewater through her veins, let up on the reins.

  “Go,” she whispered and the magnificent horse surged forward with unexpected freedom.

  Tears blurred her vision as the horse clattered along the Willamette’s riverbank. She clung on and suddenly realized she didn’t recognize the area. Her arms ached from the effort of slowing the spirited stallion, and when she finally got him stopped she felt the heave and fall of his magnificent chest.

  This street was better than the one Harrison had driven her down, but the unfamiliar buildings warned her she was nowhere near her destination. She walked the stallion steadily, keeping the river to her right. Had she gone too far? Why, oh why, hadn’t she paid better attention?

  Suddenly a hand snaked out and grabbed the reins. A face leered at her. “Well, well, well,” it said. “What have we here?”

  Lexie didn’t speak. Perhaps, safely hidden beneath her cloak, the stranger wouldn’t realize her sex. Silently, she pulled back on the reins in a furious duel with the grinning maniac. He was missing teeth and he reeked of nameless odors, the strongest being a sour ale.

  The stallion reared and thrashed. Lexie nearly lost her seat. With more energy than sense she drew the crop and hit her assailant across the face.

  “Bitch!” he screamed and Lexie screamed, too. The black stallion wrenched itself free and bolted. Lexie wrapped her arms around his straining neck. Her heart stuck in her throat. She couldn’t breathe. She let him have his head until strength returned to her shaking arms.

  “Oh, you beauty,” she murmured over and over again, aware that, had she chosen a gentler horse, her fate might have been far less favorable.

  Long moments later, she carefully guided the stallion, who was tired and in a nervous lather, around the last curve. The river ran serenely by. The streets looked more familiar, and Lexie doubled back, coming upon the whitewashed hospital so unexpectedly that she admitted a cry of relief and thankfulness.

  “Can I help you, miss?” a startled voice sounded from Lexie’s left.

  She glanced down and saw a young man who was more surprised at seeing Lexie than she was at seeing him. She smiled tremulously, realizing his job was to take care of the horses. “I need a doctor,” she explained, sl
iding from the stallion’s back. “Could you take care of him for me?”

  “That’s my job, miss. What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know!” she answered a bit hysterically, then ran up the steps to the hospital.

  A different receptionist was on duty. She regarded Lexie with round, wary eyes. “Yes?” she asked.

  “Is Dr. Danner in? Please.” Lexie drew back her cloak and loosened it at her neck. Her teeth began to chatter as much from nerves as cold.

  “Yes, ma’am, he is.”

  “Could you call him? I have — there’s an emergency. I need help.”

  The receptionist started to speak, then clamped her mouth shut and walked calmly down the hallway.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  Tremaine stared down at the dead man lying on the operating table. Five bulletholes in his chest and Silas Monteith swore he’d killed him in self-defense! This was the second man who’d gone against Monteith and got himself shot. The first man had survived. This fellow wasn’t so lucky.

  “Dr. Danner?”

  He turned toward the voice. Standing at the door, the receptionist scrupulously avoided looking at the man on the table. “There’s a young woman asking for you. She seems desperate.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Tremaine glanced at the patient another long moment. “Cover him,” he ordered tersely to the nurse standing by, then swept up his jacket and headed for the door.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  It seemed as if eons passed before Tremaine came striding toward Lexie. Seeing him again was like a blow to the stomach. Her knees turned to water. In his familiar leather jacket and breeches, his dark hair falling forward, his eyes narrowed with concern, his ground-devouring strides reminding her of the sleek, wild stallion she’d left with the livery boy, Lexie wanted to fling herself into his strong, powerful arms.

  He stopped short in amazement. “Lexie! What in God’s name are you doing here?”

  For a moment she couldn’t speak. All she could think of was his body hot against hers and the drowning, melting heat of his kiss. The sensual curves of his lips and the blue of his eyes made her remember that moment in a wave of supreme desire.

  “Lexie,” he said again, his expression changing as he reached for her arm.

  She trembled. “I’m — I need help.”

  That stopped him cold. He regarded her in a way she didn’t understand. “What kind of help?” he demanded, gripping her shoulders as if he knew her traitorous legs were about to collapse beneath her.

  “My roommate, Ella, has a chronic stomachache. She’s been sick for days, but tonight she’s in agony.”

  “Is the pain all over or localized?” he asked crisply.

  “Localized.”

  “Right side or left?”

  Lexie thought hard. “Right.”

  Tremaine glanced over his shoulder, then looked back at her in a gentle way. “Stay here, all right? I need to get my bag.”

  Lexie nodded. When his hands left her shoulders, however, she had to fight for balance. Tremaine returned momentarily, his black bag in hand. He conferred with the receptionist, then led Lexie to the door.

  “Who did you come with?” he asked, looking around with a frown as they stepped into the inky night.

  “I came alone.”

  His brows lifted. “Where’s your buggy, or carriage?”

  She gestured feebly in the direction of the hospital stables, and Tremaine, his hand firm on her arm, led her toward the lighted interior.

  The black stallion had the nerve to nicker when he saw her. Lexie rubbed his nose, glad to see the stable boy had taken such excellent care of him.

  “You rode this horse to the hospital?” Tremaine asked in a soft, disbelieving voice.

  “Yes.”

  “All alone?”

  The way his eyes coolly threatened her brought a dryness to her throat. “Do we have to discuss this now?”

  “No.” Ordering the stable boy to bring around his buggy, Tremaine swiftly changed from the ominous older “brother” to the clinical doctor. Lexie was glad to see Fortune and stroked the mild-mannered, big-hearted stallion as he was harnessed to the buggy.

  They were well on their way to Miss Everly’s school before Lexie cleared her throat and said, “I’ll have to bring that black stallion back tomorrow.”

  “I’ll do it,” Tremaine snapped.

  “I know you’re mad at me because I came alone—”

  “Mad at you?” He turned his darkly handsome head to glare at her and Lexie inwardly shrank. Outwardly, she lifted her chin a fraction and met his gaze defiantly. His drawling “Your talent for underestimation continues, I see” only increased her ire.

  Lexie’s worry over Ella was all that kept her from launching on a lengthy, and patently untrue, discourse on how she was able to take care of herself perfectly well, no matter the circumstances. Instead she sat by Tremaine’s side, biting back her annoyance and enjoying his companionship nevertheless.

  He took a different route to Miss Everly’s School; a much more traveled one, Lexie realized with chagrin. She would have been much safer on the main streets, she hadn’t been aware she had a choice. Shooting a glance toward Tremaine’s grim countenance, she decided to keep that bit of information to herself.

  Lantern light quivered strangely from the upstairs windows as Tremaine pulled his buggy to the front steps. Fortune, disciplined animal that he was, simply stood in quiet acceptance as Tremaine and Lexie entered the monstrous brick building.

  No one was about on the first floor. Lexie gathered her split skirt into fists and started up the stairs, never noticing the amusement that lurked around Tremaine’s eyes as he noticed her apparel. Eliza might believe Lexie was made for finer things, he thought humorously, but she would never convince Lexie of that.

  As Tremaine reached the upper landing, he was aware of an assortment of young, feminine heads, whispering in groups. They looked up at his arrival, their mouths collectively dropping open.

  “You’re the doctor?” one asked, disbelieving.

  What had they expected? he wondered. “Yes.”

  Lexie’s hand found his arm and he was dragged into a room. Once inside he forgot his bemusement at the strangeness of the girls’ school and strode directly to the moaning girl on the bed. An older woman with a pinched face was leaning over her. Now she glanced upward, blinking at the sight of him.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “I’m Dr. Danner,” he explained absently, thrusting her out of his mind even before he finished speaking. Lexie had not underestimated the seriousness here, however, he realized, noticing the sheen of moisture on this girl’s skin, the shallow, painful breaths.

  “We’ve sent for Mistress Everly,” the woman said haughtily, pulling the covers over Ella’s perspiring half-dressed form. “She’s coming straight here. We should wait until she arrives to take further action.”

  “Ma’am, you can wait till hell freezes over for all I care,” drawled Tremaine, folding back the blanket. “But I’m going to treat this patient now.”

  “Well, I never!” Hildegarde stumped from the room, thought better of it, and marched back to keep an eagle eye on Tremaine.

  And that’s your whole problem, Tremaine thought.

  Lexie hovered anxiously nearby. She knew it was bad. How bad she expected to read in Tremaine’s face, but his expression was implacable. His eyes were gentle and compassionate, however, when he searched Ella’s.

  “Where’s the pain now?” Tremaine asked Ella.

  “Right here!” Panting, she pointed to a spot on the right side of her abdomen.

  Tremaine parted Ellis camisole from her drawers, ignoring the outraged sucking of Hildegarde’s breath between her teeth. Lexie shot Hildegarde a furious look. The woman’s sensibilities had no place here.

  Ella cried out at Tremaine’s touch and Hildegarde was so unnerved that she murmured, “Forgive us, Father. We are mere mortals who cannot appreciate your wisd
om and—”

  Lexie closed her ears and touched Tremaine arm inquiringly. He glanced at her, read the unspoken questions in her eyes, and said, “I’d bet on appendicitis, but as to how far the condition has progressed, it’s anyone’s guess. Her pain’s incredibly localized. She can practically put her finger on it.”

  “Is that a good sign or a bad sign?”

  Tremaine said simply, “It’s got to come out.”

  On the floor below, a minor commotion was ensuing. As Tremaine was gathering Ella in his arms, Hildegarde rushed from the room, wringing her hands. “Miss Everly!” she called down the dimly lit stairway. “Upstairs, please!”

  It was indeed Miss Everly. She appeared at the bottom of the stairs, her normal fixed smile disrupted, her gray hair hastily tossed into a bun. Upon seeing Ella in Tremaine’s arms and subjected to Hildegarde’s babbling tale of Lexie’s exploits, the headmistress demanded, “Put that child down. I’ve sent a message to the school doctor and he’ll be here soon. He knows when one of my girls is feeling poorly.”

  Tremaine’s harsh laughter straightened Miss Everly’s already ramrod straight back. “I’m taking her to the hospital, ma’am.”

  “You most certainly are not,” she returned wrathfully. “Ella has been entrusted to my care and her parents—”

  “Won’t thank you if she dies.” Tremaine shouldered his way past her.

  Lexie tried to follow but Miss Everly’s fingers clawed into her shoulder. “Stop him!” she commanded, her voice warbling with self-righteous indignation. “You brought him in here. Stop him!”

  “He’s a doctor, Miss Everly,” Lexie explained in irritation.

  “And a damned good-looking one,” a voice said from up above.

  Miss Everly rounded on her students, who wisely and quietly shuffled back to their rooms. Then she rushed after Tremaine. “If you do not release her this instant, I shall alert the police, young man! Your abduction is criminal, to say the least. How do I know where you’re taking her? Put her down!”