It was enough to give Jared a head start. He’d heard that the young gun hand’s father was hiring men to avenge his son’s death. He didn’t think the others knew exactly where Thornton was hiding, but they would figure it out.
Now he was damned close to the man and couldn’t do a blasted thing about it. Not at the moment anyway.
Why was a woman living in a nearly deserted ghost town some seventy miles away from the nearest civilization? Young and…intriguing, even in a man’s garb. Had to be Thornton’s mistress. An outlaw’s mistress. A killer’s woman. Or was she simply an outlaw herself? Part of Thornton’s band?
Sam raised herself. The old man had used his words sparingly.
But now she was full grown. Without the coat, it was obvious that she’d reached womanhood. Her breasts pressed against her shirt, and there was a long-legged grace in her movements. And her eyes. God, they were remarkable. He wondered how she would look in a dress.
He tried not to think about the jolt of awareness that had shot between them in the street despite his pain. Nor did he wish to think about the gentleness of her fingers when she was assisting the old man. Efficient but gentle. It was obvious that she had tended wounds before.
An odd combination for an outlaw. Or an outlaw’s woman.
He moved slightly. The pain was so excruciating that he wanted to sink back into oblivion. He looked down at his bandaged thigh. The wound felt hot and angry and burned like the furies from hell. The barest movement sent fresh frissons of agony through him.
He tried to ignore it. He glanced around the small room. The door was closed. His gun? Neither it nor his holster was in sight. A bowl sat on the table, along with a pitcher and cup. Nothing else.
His throat was parched. He reached for the water, but it was beyond him. With a massive effort he tried to move his legs from the bed to the floor, and the room started to swim. Will. All it would take was will.
He lowered his legs to the floor, his teeth clenched to keep from crying out. He was so damned weak. A step. Just a step. Water.
He stood, wavered, then crashed down, his body hitting the bed and knocking over the table. Then everything went black again.
SAM LEFT Burley unsaddling the horse and carried the marshal’s possessions to the saloon. She thought about opening the door and checking on him, but she hadn’t been gone that long and she wasn’t sure she was up to another encounter with him. She didn’t fear him, but she was wary of the way she reacted to him.
Instead, she put the saddlebags and bedroll on a table and opened the bedroll first. She wasn’t spying, she assured herself. He needed some clean clothes after all.
A heavy jacket fell out, along with a rain slicker. Then she looked through the saddlebags. A pair of leg and wrist manacles. They felt hard and cold and ugly in her hands. She carefully placed them on the table and continued looking. There was a pair of pants, an extra shirt, socks and one set of clean underwear. A container of matches wrapped in oilskin. Then she found a well-worn book by someone named Victor Hugo.
Books were precious to her. She looked at the title. Reese had never mentioned this one. She put it down and continued her search. Some hardtack and coffee. No photographs or miniatures. No other personal items.
She folded the clothes and put the manacles back in the saddlebags. They might just need the latter.
Archie would be up with Mac, just as he had been these past few days. The two usually argued constantly, but they were close friends, and she knew Mac probably would have died had Archie not pushed him into living. And kept pushing.
She sat down at the table and closed her eyes. Everything hit her then. She had nearly killed a man. If the marshal died of blood poisoning, she would have succeeded. Now she knew what Mac meant about killing. A target was one thing, but a man…that was something else.
What if he died?
She shouldn’t care. But hell’s blazes, she did. He had grit for sure. Any other man would have been screaming when Archie poked around for the bullet, then pressed the white-hot knife against the wound.
And something…something had passed between them for the briefest second as she was cleaning the wound, when his gaze met hers. An awareness that had nothing to do with the fact she’d shot him. It had been like a lightning bolt—and a remnant still burned inside her.
Dawg came over, rested his big head in her lap and whined in sympathy. She leaned down and put her arms around him, soaking in the comfort he was offering.
A crash jerked her back to the moment. Dawg’s ears pricked and he ran to the back room.
She hurried after him and opened the door. She hadn’t locked it, thinking the marshal was far too weak to move. Anyone else would still be unconscious.
He lay sprawled on the floor. It was obvious he’d tried to stand. Darn fool. His leg was bleeding again. Blood spread across the bandage.
She heard a noise behind her and spun around. Archie was in the doorway.
“What happened?” he asked.
“He must have tried to get up.”
“More trouble than he’s worth,” Archie mumbled.
She couldn’t have agreed more. Yet there was something about the man—the uncompromising set of his mouth, the hank of dark hair that fell over his forehead.
He was unconscious. And naked except for a scrap of bloody long johns.
Archie took one of his arms and she took the other. Together they got him back on the bed. She quickly pulled the sheet over his near-nakedness.
She averted her eyes, but she couldn’t stop the warmth creeping up her neck. And other places. It’s just the summer heat. It had been warm all day and was particularly so in the small, windowless room.
“Maybe he needed water,” she said.
“Damn fool shoulda waited.”
Archie unwrapped the bandage from his leg and frowned. The burn looked wicked and blood seeped around it. He muttered about wasted effort and damn fools.
“I’ll make a poultice,” Sam said.
Archie rewrapped the marshal’s leg.
He signaled her to go outside. He followed and closed the door behind him. “Best make it two,” he said.
“Is Mac worse?” she asked.
“He ain’t no better. He’s having those nightmares again. Some one has to be with him all the time or he might start thrashing about and hurting hisself again. I don’t even want to be gone now, but I heard the crash. You gonna have to see to the marshal yourself.” He paused and looked at the saddlebags on the table. “Anything in ’em?”
“A shirt and a pair of trousers. Undershirt. Wrist and leg irons. A book.”
“Get that shirt on ’im. And keep him covered with that sheet. Don’t like him being so naked.”
“I’ve seen men before,” she said. “You let me help you doctor them.”
“Mebbe so, but that was then and this is now,” he said grumpily, and looked at Dawg, who was at her heels. “And take Dawg with you. Hound ain’t good for nothing ’cept looking after you.”
She nodded. She didn’t tell Archie that Dawg had already made an overture to the marshal. It wouldn’t sit well at all.
“Manacles may come in handy,” Archie continued. “He ain’t going no place now, but we might need them later. He seems like a mighty determined man.” His frown deepened. “I don’t like leaving you with him but Mac needs me. You watch out for yourself.” He took a step toward the stairs, then turned back. “You don’t tell him nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all. If he lives through this, I don’t want him to be able to find us.”
She nodded, a chill settling in her. She was an outlaw now, too, and she’d made Archie one, as well. She’d shot a marshal and was holding him captive. She swallowed hard. “I’ll let you know if he worsens.”
Archie gave her a long, measured look. “You might want to put a drop or so of laudanum in the whiskey.”
She stared at him in surprise. She knew they were running low.
“It will keep him quiet,” Ar
chie said. “That’s what he needs, and what we need.” She nodded.
He gave her a sharp look. “We shouldn’t have kept you here, girl.”
She made a face. “You didn’t keep me. My decision, remember.”
“Mac should have insisted you go off to one of them fancy schools in Denver,” he grumbled.
But Mac hadn’t, not when she threatened to jump off the train and come back. She’d gotten all the schooling she needed from Reese and Mac.
“They would have tried to turn me into a lady.”
He muttered something inaudible, then sighed heavily. “If he tries anything…”
She nodded. She was probably safer than Archie would be with the marshal. Archie had never been good with a gun. He could use a whip like it was part of his arm, but he’d never liked guns. He wasn’t a fast draw or, with his fading sight, a good shot.
“And keep the door locked when you ain’t there. Leave the key under the sack of coffee beans. We don’t want anyone wandering into town and finding him.”
“Not likely,” she replied.
“He found his way here,” Archie retorted. “Might be others comin’ behind him.”
Sam watched him as he moved slowly up the stairs. She found a tin cup and followed him up. He poured several drops of laudanum into it, then she left, hurrying down to the kitchen. She added a little whiskey to disguise the laudanum, then filled the cup with water from the pump.
The marshal was still unconscious, or seemed to be. She used some water in the pitcher to dampen a cloth, then sat in the chair and wiped the sweat from his face.
He groaned. His eyes flickered, then opened, and he stared at Sam. A muscle moved at the edge of his throat.
She studied him for a long moment, noting again the dark, taut skin stretched over high cheekbones, the thick eyebrows framing midnight-blue eyes.
A hard face with hard eyes. A face that looked as if he didn’t smile much. Or laugh. A sudden empathy filled her, and she had the most ridiculous need to see him smile.
Remember Mac. Remember why this man came here.
Their gazes caught, and again she felt something new and powerful spark a response in her body.
She felt rooted to the floor, though her legs were trembling.
He tried to move, and a muscle tightened in his neck as he fell back. “I was trying to get some water….”
“You were on the floor,” she said. “You must have fallen.”
“Did you get me up…by yourself?”
“Archie and me.”
“Where is he?”
She tried to fight off the intimacy that unexpectedly heated the room. “He had better things to do than nursemaid you.”
He didn’t reply, but suddenly his body tensed. She knew pain had struck again.
She offered him a drink from the tin cup. “I put a little whiskey in it,” she said. He took it in his two hands, but they were unsteady and he spilled some despite what seemed to be an intense concentration. She leaned over and steadied his grip. He drank the cup dry.
She felt his forehead. Hot. He was too hot.
“Trying to get up was a damn fool thing to do,” she said.
“Not as foolish…as shooting a marshal,” he shot back.
“Brave words in your position,” she replied. “I can always finish what I started.”
He tried to move again and succeeded this time, but only a few inches. He sank back against the pillow and closed his eyes as if he was too tired to keep them open. The attempt to stand had taken everything left in him.
His breathing was ragged, then calmed. The whiskey was getting to him, or maybe that drop of laudanum.
She pulled up a chair and sat down. She would wait until she was sure he was asleep. Then she had much to do. They had to be ready to leave as soon as Mac could travel.
But all she could focus on was the figure in the bed, the face tight with pain even in the drugged sleep. She wondered whether those midnight eyes would haunt her forever.
5
TWO DAYS WENT BY in a blur.
On the third day, Sam woke and looked out the window to see pouring rain. At least it should lower the abnormally high temperatures that had tormented both injured men.
She stretched. She’d spent all her time lately caring for the marshal and making preparations to leave Gideon’s Hope as soon as Mac was well enough to ride. That meant cutting what meat they had into long strips and smoking it. She also used much of their remaining flour to make hardtack, a laborious process that produced a tasteless cracker. But hardtack didn’t spoil and lasted forever. It was perfect for a long journey where fuel for the body was more important than taste.
She also started a stew from a venison roast, using carrots and potatoes and a number of herbs.
But uppermost in her mind were the two injured men. Archie stayed with Mac and, except for brief inspections and help with the chamber pot, he left the marshal’s care up to her. The marshal was still weak from loss of blood and still in a great deal of pain. The laudanum she’d been slipping him helped him sleep, but he had a fever that worried her. Several times, she’d heard him call for someone named Sarah. She wondered if that was the name he’d called that first night. She couldn’t help but wonder who Sarah was.
Wife? Lover?
He wore no ring, but that didn’t mean anything. Still, there was no tintype of a woman in his saddle bags. No miniature. If she meant that much to him, wouldn’t there be something?
The idea plagued her, and it shouldn’t. She shouldn’t care whether the marshal loved someone. It shouldn’t matter at all.
And yet in the past couple days of caring for him, the connection she’d felt had grown stronger. She tried to tell herself it was only her usual feelings for a hurt critter. Empathy. That was all. But she was intrigued with the marshal’s quiet stoicism mixed with a rare glimpse of wry humor and self-deprecation. She found herself longing to see a real smile.
Unlikely under the circumstances.
He showed signs of improvement this morning. The redness around the wound was fading.
She dressed quickly and ran a brush through her tousled curls. She checked on Mac first. He was sleeping. So was Archie on a cot near him. Quietly closing the door, she went downstairs. She started a fire in the stove. Archie would want his coffee soon. So would she.
She unlocked the door to the marshal’s room. To her surprise he was awake, half sitting up in bed. She’d provided him with the shirt she’d found in his saddlebags, but it was unbuttoned and his chest was highly visible. The sun creases around his eyes were a little deeper. The dark bristles on his cheek made him look even more dangerous. The sheet was gathered around his waist.
He looked better, though. The last remnants of the laudanum were obviously gone. His eyes were sharp and penetrating. The pain was still strong. She could tell by the muscle working in his cheek. And his face was slightly flushed.
She wanted to touch his cheek to see how warm it was, but she knew now that to do so would unleash those wayward reactions inside her and, no doubt, bring a flush to her own cheeks. She couldn’t give him that knowledge. That control.
“I’ll have some coffee and breakfast soon,” she said. “How does your leg feel?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Like it has a bullet hole in it.”
If he meant to make her feel guilty, he succeeded. His gaze moved over her slowly, as if he were examining every part of her, inside and out. But he gave no indication of approval or disapproval, just watchfulness. She wondered what he saw. Anything more than an outlaw who’d shot him? She was suddenly aware of the loose shirt and worn pants she wore. She was definitely wanting in womanly refinement.
Her legs felt rubbery, and her heart beat faster. “You look better.”
“Do I now?”
“Yes. Much. I think you might live after all.”
“And that presents a problem, doesn’t it?” He gave her a twisted smile, one that held a dare and even a hint of mocker
y.
He was obviously strong enough to confront what they’d both ignored these past several days. “Yes,” she replied.
He looked disconcerted by her answer. “What have you been giving me?” he asked.
“A little laudanum,” she replied. “To help you rest after that fall.”
His expression told her he didn’t believe that was the entire reason. “Why are you risking so much to protect a killer?”
She studied him. “How many men have you killed?”
He didn’t reply, but a weariness appeared in his eyes. It almost made him seem vulnerable, took some of the hardness from his face and softened something in her.
She didn’t want to acknowledge that. Not that or the raw longing deep inside her. “You kill for a living,” she said more sharply than she intended. “Nothing to brag about in my eyes.”
“Yet you protect…a woman-killer.”
“A woman? Not Mac. You’re after the wrong man.”
“Ask him.”
She shrugged. She couldn’t let him know Mac was just above him. “I don’t have to. Anyway, he isn’t here.”
“Then…why try to kill me…if he’s not here?”
“If I’d really tried, you would be dead.” She ignored the last part of the question.
His eyes burned into her. They were bright. Maybe too bright. “If you…weren’t a woman, you would be dead. It may not work next time….” His voice trailed off.
Sam didn’t believe him. Didn’t want to believe that he thought her too weak to fight on his terms. “Keep thinking that,” she retorted. “I can take care of myself.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But there are others coming, and you and an old man won’t have a chance.”
A lie. It had to be a lie to scare her. He would not have come alone if it were true.
Electricity crackled, the heated energy that often flashed between them when they sparred.
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