Trail of Kisses

by Merry Farmer

  “All Cade’s guns. They make you feel safe, don’t they?”

  The startled look on Ben’s face made him seem even younger than his years. “Uh, yes ma’am,” he answered.

  “See?” Lynne turned back to Cade. “Ben feels safe too. You have every reason to catch a few extra hours of sleep at night.”

  His only answer was to shake his head.

  “Unless you don’t actually know how to shoot anything,” she said.

  That provoked a reaction from him.

  “I’ll have you know that I am an prize-winning sharpshooter.”

  “Are you?” She intended her tone to be teasing, but was genuinely interested. “What award did you win?”

  Cade settled back in his saddle, brushing the revolver in its holster at his hip. “Couple years back, there was a competition around the Fourth of July in Denver City. Your uncle hosted it and offered a prize to the winner, a contract to work with him.”

  “Oh?” Lynne perked up. “What a good idea. And you won?”

  Cade nodded. “I did, but it was a close contest. Jerry Poole, a prospector turned supplier, came close to outshooting me in the last round. It was a fine contest.”

  As his eyes unfocused, he smiled. The tiny lines around his eyes added to his smile instead of making him look tired. The sight sent a satisfied thrill through Lynne’s chest.

  “They had to keep moving the targets back, first five feet at a time, then ten, and finally five yards. Jerry and I, we kept shooting and hitting the mark.”

  “So how did you win?”

  His smile grew wider.

  “Bessy Harding.”

  “Who?” Lynne asked, her voice suddenly flat, her stomach knotting.

  Cade chuckled. “Bessy ran a boarding house on the west side of town. She was so sweet on Jerry that you didn’t have to put sugar in your coffee when they were within fifty feet of each other.”

  “Oh.” Lynne relaxed, her smile returning.

  Cade’s grin grew wider. “Jerry liked her too, but never worked up the nerve to say anything about it. Come the final round, Bessy found a place at the edge of the barrier separating the contestants from the shooters. Just as Jerry was taking aim, she leaned over to wish him luck. Poor Jerry took one look at her….” He cleared his throat. “At her attractions,” he went on, “and fired off before he was in position. You better believe we’ve never let him live that one down.”

  Lynne laughed, but she had the distinct impression there was more to the joke than she’d caught.

  “I take it you made your shot?” she asked.

  He brushed the edge of his hat’s brim. “Oh, you’d better believe that I never fire too early and I hit that mark every time.”

  He was teasing her. She didn’t know how, but he was definitely teasing her. The dancing light in his eyes and the ease of his smile gave it away.

  He shook his head and went on. “Turns out your uncle had already decided to hire me, contest or no. He’s friends with my father. So both Jerry and I got jobs. It was a good day.”

  “Sounds like it.” She paused. “What about those guns you bought at the fort? Could you hit a target like the one in your competition for my uncle with one of those?”

  “These?” He wrapped the reins of his horse around the pommel of his saddle and drew one of the revolvers from the holster in his belt. He then eased the other one out of its concealed spot in his vest. She rather liked the look of the smaller one, the Cade hade called a Cooper. Or perhaps that was because it had been riding nestled against his body. “I’d be willing to venture that I could hit most targets with either one of these.”

  “I don’t know anything about guns,” Lynne said. “They’ve always seemed so… angry to me.”

  “Angry,” he repeated her word, then shrugged. “I’ve never thought of it like that. A gun is a gun, as far as I’m concerned. You carry them for protection.”

  “Or to kill someone,” she added in a low voice.

  Cade shrugged. “If you have to. Take this Colt, for example.”

  He tucked the Cooper into his belt and held up the Colt. His strong thighs gripped his saddle as he rode with no hands. Lynne wasn’t sure whether she wanted to stare at his legs or the gun more.

  “This is a newer model army revolver,” he explained. “I’m surprised the fort had any to sell. I sure paid enough.” He twisted the gun to show her the handle and trigger. “It has a—”

  With a loud bang, the gun went off in a puff of smoke. The bullet whizzed past Arrow’s ear. Arrow jumped and lunged forward. He took off in a flat panic, his eyes huge. Cade jerked in the saddle as Arrow shot forward. He scrambled for the reins, for the pommel, but Arrow bucked. Cade went flying.

  Lynne screamed as Cade’s foot caught in the stirrup. Arrow didn’t show any signs of calming or slowing down. The horse galloped on, dragging Cade behind him for several yards. Lynne urged Clover to race after them. She screamed again when Cade’s boot came loose from the stirrup and he shook free, rolling several times before flopping in the grass and dirt. He didn’t move.

  “Cade!” she shouted. Her heart pounded so hard she thought she might be sick. Clover ran straight to him and Lynne pulled her mare up by his side. She unhooked her knee and jumped down without a second thought, stumbling when her feet hit the ground. “Cade!”

  She rushed to him and threw herself to the ground by his side. As she touched him, he moaned and tried to roll over.

  “Stay there, stay there!” she panted. She pushed herself to her knees and turned toward the wagon train. Several men, including Dr. Meyers and Mr. Evans, were already running toward them. “The doctor is coming, you’re going to be all right,” she insisted.

  Cade groaned and rolled to his back, his arms and legs sprawling. “What happened?”

  “The gun went off and Arrow bolted.”

  He managed a weak smile. “Good one.”

  “What?”

  “Arrow? Bolt?”

  She was too far beside herself to have any idea what he was talking about.

  “Never mind,” he said and tried to push himself up onto his elbows. “I’m all right.”

  “You were dragged by a horse.” Lynne pushed him down, worrying over him. “You are not all right.”

  She twisted to look over her shoulder, willing Dr. Meyers to run faster. If she had anything to do with it, Cade would never ride a horse again.

  Every inch of Cade’s body ached. His ankle throbbed where it had twisted while caught in the stirrup. He could feel nasty scrapes along the side that had been dragged, and he was pretty sure he’d have a hell of a lot of bruises in the morning. But he was in one piece. Lynne, on the other hand, looked as though she might go to pieces.

  “I’m fine, really, Lynne,” he said.

  His use of her name must have startled her. She gasped and stopped her fussing to stare at him. He took advantage of the opportunity to sit up.

  “See? Everything’s still there.” Although his ankle would be complaining to him for the next week.

  “I saw what happened,” Dr. Meyers said as he rushed to where Cade lay. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” Cade answered, testing his ankle by putting his feet under him so he could stand.

  “No!” Lynne shouted. “Stay where you are until the doctor has had a chance to examine you.”

  She forced him down again and sat by his side, gingerly touching his arms and laying a hand on the side of his face. Dr. Meyers cleared his throat. Lynne continued patting Cade, only to realize with a start that the doctor wanted her to move.

  “Oh,” she gasped and scooted to the side.

  Dr. Meyers went through a cursory examination, testing Cade’s limbs and joints to see if anything was broken and rolling back his shirt sleeve and pants leg to judge how bad the scraping and bruising were. Cade considered it a small miracle that he wasn’t dead.

  “Where’s Arrow?” he asked as Dr. Meyers poked at him. He tried to sit taller and search the horizon
through the pain.

  “I’ll send someone to get him,” Pete Evans said as he reached the scene.

  He nodded to one of this assistants, who jogged off in the direction Arrow had gone. Cade could see Arrow in the distance, stopped and chewing on a tuft of grass.

  “It’s just like him to pretend nothing’s out of the ordinary after something like this,” he grumbled. He winced when Dr. Meyers prodded his ankle.

  “Do you think you can stand?” Dr. Meyers asked.

  “Oh, no,” Lynne answered for him, shooting to her own feet. “He’s been hurt. He shouldn’t stand at all, should he? Someone should carry him.”

  Cade frowned. “I can stand.”

  He proved his point by muscling himself to his feet. He wasn’t doing his ankle any favors by putting weight on it, and when he limped on his first step, Dr. Meyers stepped to his side to lend the support of a shoulder under his arm. Lynne was caught somewhere between concern and glaring at him as they started back to the wagon train, which had kept moving the whole time and was now slightly ahead of them. She fetched Clover and led her, but continually watched Cade.

  “I picked up your gun,” Pete said in a grim voice.

  “Thanks,” Cade replied. He tried to walk on his own without letting on to the pain he was in. Lynne scrambled to prop him up on his right side the way Dr. Meyers had him on his left.

  Pete shook his head. He took the Colt from his belt and handed it to Cade. “I don’t know if you’re going to thank me for it or not.”

  Cade took the gun with his free hand and looked it over. “Why not?”

  “Because that thing nearly killed you.”

  Lynne gasped. “Get rid of it, Cade. Put it down right here.”

  “It’s brand new,” he said.

  “Yeah, well, brand new or not,” Pete nodded toward it, “someone messed with the firing mechanism. I took the bullets out, and if I were you, I’d keep them out. That thing is likely to go off without warning.”

  “What do you mean?” Lynne asked. Her effort to sound indignant came off as anxious.

  “It’s been fixed so that it’ll fire at the slightest touch of the trigger. Even a stiff breeze would—”

  “—set off a bullet that would spook a horse,” Cade finished. His frown darkened. It might also fire a bullet when it was innocently pointed in the wrong direction. As in, at someone. At Lynne.

  They were silent the rest of the way back to the wagon train. Word of what had happened had spread up and down the line in spite of the fact that they hadn’t stopped. Families stared at them as Cade and Lynne caught up to where Ben had managed to keep their wagon going while standing up on the buckboard to watch what was going on. When he saw that no one was seriously hurt, he sat down with a grunt and focused on driving.

  With Dr. Meyers’ help, Cade managed to hop onto the back of the wagon. He detested the idea of riding like a woman or an invalid, but his ankle argued that for the time being, he was an invalid. What surprised him was Lynne tying Clover up, then hopping into the back of the wagon with him.

  “I thought you refused to ride in the wagon,” he said. He wanted to tease her, but the aches of being dragged by a speeding horse dampened his humor.

  “I’ll make an exception today,” she said. “Dr. Meyers has his own concerns to go back to, don’t you, doctor?”

  Dr. Meyers, who had been walking behind the wagon to make sure Cade was all right, said, “There are a few fevers that need looking out for. If you have some water or even alcohol, you might want to clean off those scrapes,” he told Cade. “They look fine for the most part, but the one on your calf could use some attention, and so could the one on your arm.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Lynne said. “Thank you, doctor.”

  Dr. Meyers touched his hat to her then moved on. Lynne rolled to her knees and climbed deeper into the wagon. Cade twisted from where his legs were dangling off the back to watch her sort through boxes looking for bandages.

  “Come back here, out of the sun,” she ordered him.

  “What, are you a trail boss now?” he asked, but did as she said.

  “Now you can roll up your pant leg without worrying about dust from the trail getting in your wound.” She found a packet of bandages and a bottle of liquor and squatted beside him, her face all business.

  “It’s just a scratch,” he insisted. “My leg isn’t in any danger of falling off, you know.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  He held his tongue as a dozen jokes came to him. His leg really wasn’t that bad. He’d have to thank the tailor who made his pants for using sturdy material. His calf was sore and red, but the skin was only broken in a few spots and not deep. Lynne dabbed spirits from the bottle on his cuts.

  “Ow! You’re not using my good whiskey to clean cuts, are you?” he said to hide his pain.

  “I have yet to be convinced that any whiskey is good whiskey,” she answered. “Especially after seeing the way the miners on this journey behave after drinking it. Let me see your arm.”

  “I’ve seen worse,” he said, attempting to roll up his sleeve. “I’ve had worse, though not often.”

  Rolling up his sleeve was more trouble than it was worth, so he took his chances and shrugged out of his vest and pulled his shirt off entirely. Lynne couldn’t hide the flush that came to her face or the way her pretty eyes got wider at the sight, not even in the shade of the wagon.

  “If I didn’t know any better,” Cade grinned, “I would say that you like what you’re looking at.”

  Whatever spell had her enthralled broke. Lynne huffed out a breath. “You certainly are full of yourself.” She poured more of his whiskey over the bandage and set to work dabbing at the scrape on his arm.

  Cade winced. “Isn’t there something better you could use to clean that?”

  Lynne shook her head. “You heard him, Dr. Meyers said to use alcohol.”

  “Or water.”

  She didn’t answer him. The throbbing in his scrapes and in the rest of his bruised body was slowly becoming more than just an irritation.

  “I think you like me,” he said, hoping to get a reaction from her that would distract him from the pain.

  It worked. “Of course I like you. My uncle hired you.”

  “No, I think you like me.” He worked himself up to a smile when what he really wanted to do was grimace. “I think that’s why you like staring at me the way you do.”

  “I do not stare at you,” she insisted. She finished with his arm and examined his side.

  “You’re staring at me right now.”

  “I’m treating your wounds.”

  “Yep, and I just bet you’re thinking about how handsome I am while you’re at it.”

  She paused and rocked back on her heels, back braced against a pile of crates. It didn’t take her far away from him. Come to think of it, the wagon bed was closed and cramped. And heating up, in spite of Lynne’s frown.

  “Any man can be handsome,” she said at last. “So what if you are? You’re also ridiculous and cowardly.”

  “Cowardly?” He balked.

  “I’m sure you’re about to say something about how you think whoever is supposedly out to kill me tampered with your gun too, that maybe they’re trying to kill you now.”

  “How is that cowardly?

  “In fact, the answer is probably just that you bought a faulty gun back at the fort.”

  “I—” He blinked as he considered her words. He’d been too sore to think about that yet, but she had a point. A bad point. If her would-be assassin was trying to take him out too, it could be a problem.

  “If you ever head back to Ft. Kearny,” she went on, studying the scrapes on his calf, “I think you should ask for your money back. They shouldn’t go selling faulty guns. It’s dangerous.”

  Cade’s lips parted to say something, but he held back. Lynne was afraid. She’d guessed at the truth but was trying to fight it, hiding her fears with prickles. She was a l
ot smarter about the predicament she was in than she wanted to let on, maybe even to herself.

  “Honey, it’s going to be all right,” he said in as soothing a voice as he could manage.

  It had the opposite effect. Lynne’s eyes flared wide in indignation.

  “How dare you call me ‘honey’ like I’m some saloon girl?” she snapped. “I don’t need you to tell me things will be all right. I know they will. I’m going to make sure they are.”

  All right, maybe sweet words weren’t the way to go with Lynne Tremaine when she was afraid.

  “I forgot,” he said. “You’re brave. Nothing frightens you.”

  “Exactly,” she said, throwing the bandage at him. He still held the bottle, though, and for a moment Cade thought she would take a swig from it to prove her point. Instead she reached for the cork on top of the boxes and stopped the bottle, then put it away.

  “Any man can be handsome,” she went on, plucking the whiskey-soaked bandage from his hands and tying it around the worst of the scrapes on his calf. “It takes a special man to be brave.”

  His lips wobbled from a grimace to a smile. “So you think I’m handsome, then?”

  She tied off the bandage with a jerk. Cade cried out before he could stop himself.

  “Did I say I thought you were handsome?” she said.

  “You were staring at me,” he growled and straightened his leg. The throbbing was worse after her efforts to heal him.

  Lynne sniffed and rocked back on her haunches. “You are handsome,” she admitted, chin tipped up. “I think you know that.”

  Cade shrugged, grin growing. He adjusted to sit more comfortably with his back against the stack of boxes in the wagon.

  “I have yet to determine if you’re brave,” Lynne finished.

  Cade barked a laugh. “Still? After all we’ve been through?” Through his pain, he winked at her.

  “Still,” she answered, firm as ever.

  She pushed herself to stand, although she had to remain hunched over as she searched through the crates. In short order, she found a pillow and a folded blanket.

  “Here.” She handed the pillow to him. “Sit on this. It’ll make you more comfortable.”