by Jillian Hart
"You aren't?" Wyatt's fingers steeled around her elbow, helping her up.
"I'm honest when it comes to Pa." The iron strength of him vibrated through her. Her spine began to tremble, sending ripples of shivers through her limbs. But it wasn't from the pain. She'd never been this close to a man who wasn't a relative. Goodness, but it was a strange sensation. Warm tingles danced up her arm, fizzed in her blood.
"Here," he rumbled like thunder. "Lean on me."
His arm reached around her shoulders, rock-hard and immovable. He wouldn't let her fall, she knew. How had he gotten this strong? With every step, Garnet tried not to think of the way his iron-corded body moved against hers, so hard and hot she forgot all about her pain.
"That's right." Encouragement softened his rum-rich voice. "You don't have much farther to go."
Heavens, how could she think about something as mundane as walking when this distracting man was holding her tight? His touch burned like fire, his strong male presence chased all thought from her head. Something primal made her heartbeat drum thick and loud in her ears.
What was wrong with her? Had she lost so much blood that it was affecting her reasoning? What kind of woman did that make her? She had been able to resist all the men back home in Willow Hollow, but she felt tingly all over from the touch and closeness of this perfect stranger.
No matter how well-made the man, her primary concerns ought to be that her sister was missing and her father was ill.
"Men die of brain fever," she said now, trying hard to focus her mind away from this handsome, dangerous stranger and back on the pain in her leg. Yes, pain. That ought to make her think of something besides Wyatt Tanner's steely chest. "I can't thank you enough for all you've done. For saving Pa's life and mine. You knew nothing about me, yet you didn't leave me in the woods after I was shot."
"Well, I considered it, but truth was, I was afraid you would still be there come morning and scare my horse."
"So helping me was a convenience?" Oh, she saw right past his tough facade.
"Something like that. Watch the step up."
His protection washed over her like starlight. Garnet caught her toe on the step, and pain ricocheted through her injured leg.
His strong arms scooped her up against his chest before she knew what he was doing. How powerful he was! Goodness, she couldn't seem to breathe because her lungs felt so incredibly tight. A good percentage of her body was in direct contact with his, rock-hard and far too intimate. She could feel his every step, his every breath.
A part of her could not deny it was simply scandalous. A proper woman never allowed a man to carry her around like a . . . well, Garnet didn't know what. But another part of her felt dizzy, almost giddy. It was like flying, and all too soon it was over. He set her down on the hard, unpleasant-smelling bed. That blanket, that's what it was. It needed a decent washing.
It just went to show that no matter how kind and charismatic Mr. Wyatt Tanner was, he was not so different than her pa. He lived and worked the same way, with as little effort as possible. Even when it came to doing laundry.
"You've probably opened up that wound again. Just when I got the bleeding stopped. I'd better change that bandage." He moved in the darkness. She heard a clank of tin and the scrape of a drawer opening. "Let me find the matches, and with a little bit of light, I'll be able to see. There they are."
Garnet couldn't catch her breath as Wyatt set the lantern on the table near her elbow. Her body still tingled from his touch, her blood still circulated a strange heat through her veins.
He struck up a flame and lit the lantern's wick. Light danced to life, pushing away the darkness and nudging it back toward the shadowed corners, revealing the breadth and shape of the man towering over her. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a knife.
But it was the sight of him that drew her. All this time she'd not seen what he looked like with a lantern's glow caressing the side of his face, showing the darkness, as deep as the night, in his eyes. Illuminating the hard plane of his nose and the curve of his jaw, the high cheekbones that made his face rugged.
"You won't hurt me, will you?" Her words trembled when she spoke. "I can't imagine a man has much opportunity to hone his nursing skills."
"I managed before. Hold your breath."
So he had put the bandage on her thigh, the bandage that was now blood-soaked. Garnet nearly panicked until she saw the flash of humor in his eyes, eyes that were deep and full of secrets. She sensed Wyatt was a private man, a loner. Of course, he was a prospector. Like her father, he'd run off to this wilderness to dig for a fortune that simply did not exist. But she had to know more.
"Do you have any family?"
"Not now." He snapped the blade into position. The polished blade glinted menacingly in the lantern light, at odds with the sadness in his voice.
"What does that mean?" She tried not to be nervous.
"It means my brother was recently killed."
"I'm sorry." She read it there on his face, crinkled in the lines fanning the corners of his eyes. Pain. He'd loved his brother. Her heart skipped a beat in sympathy. "Was he your only brother?"
"Yes." Mr. Wyatt Tanner bowed his chin as he bent to turn up the wick, shrugging away her sympathy without regard, as if his loss mattered little.
Yet she suspected the opposite. She began to wonder if Wyatt Tanner wasn't as dangerous and deadly as he was rumored to be.
How her heart ached for him. What would she do if she lost one of her dear sisters? What if she lost Golda? She'd raised her from a baby when their mother had taken ill. She had taught the toddler how to dress herself, as she'd instructed her young sisters in the alphabet and arithmetic. She had protected Golda since the girl had been born, and now what had become of her?
She struggled not to think of Golda's fate. And mightily wished there was something she could do to protect Wyatt from the pain she saw so stark on his rugged face. "Then if you have no other family, you aren't one of those men who's left a wife and children behind so he can dig for gold."
A muscle jumped along the length of his square jaw. "No, I haven't."
My, but his voice was cold. Garnet wondered at that. Apparently he was a little touchy on the subject of a wife and family. Maybe he was the type to never marry. Well, it was certainly better for him to know that of himself, that he wouldn't stay and take responsibility for a family, than for him to run off and leave them to fend for themselves, the way her pa had.
In that, Wyatt Tanner was a better man.
"I'm divorced," he said as he knelt down at her feet.
"Divorced?" Her hand flew to her throat. She was alone with a divorced man? In his cabin? On his bed?
"She left me, and not the other way around. Couldn't stand me, I guess."
Garnet didn't know what to say. She empathized with the woman. She'd witnessed a lot of marriages, since she had many married friends back home in Willow Hollow, and it was her personal opinion that if divorce ever became more popular, more women would toss out their errant husbands in a flash.
"Garnet, I'll make you a deal."
"A deal?" Her head was spinning. "I don't negotiate with men like you."
He grimaced. "No, your type never does. Haughty, decent women are above men like me."
"Hey, I'm not haughty."
"Haughty. Admit it, Garnet, you are also a tad bit judgmental."
"I wasn't judging–"
"You were," he interrupted, waving that knife in his hand. "Don't forget I saved your life."
"Why, you accidentally shot me in the first place."
"Is that what you think?" Wyatt's laughter boomed in the tiny cabin.
Really, she saw nothing funny about this at all. "I can understand why you'd want to blame your bad shooting on someone else."
"I didn't hit you," he chuckled. "I'm an accurate shot, Garnet."
"But I saw you shoot–"
"The man following you. His rifle fired before I could stop him." Lantern light
washed over Wyatt's face, gentle as a touch, illuminating the honesty in his eyes. An honesty as solid as the earth at her feet.
"Then I owe you more gratitude."
"I would rather have whiskey." He winked. "Time to lift your skirts."
"Excuse me?"
"I need to bandage your thigh."
Wyatt had never seen a blushing woman. A soft pink shade crept up from the confining collar at her throat and swept over her oval face. When her mouth wasn't pressed into a straight disapproving line, she was a pretty woman. Her dark hair glistened in the lantern light, framing her delicate features like a great shimmering cloud.
"Ordinarily I wouldn't lift my skirts for a man." She looked hard at her ruffled hem as if she could find some answer to her moral dilemma embroidered there. "I suppose it would never be a proper thing to do, even under these circumstances. But I don't feel well enough to tend the wound myself."
He could see her hand shake; she was weak from blood loss and pain. She'd probably never laid eyes on a bullet wound. "Look, there's no dilemma here. I doubt you want to see the open hole in your thigh, it's pretty bloody. But if you do, I'll step aside–"
"No!" Her quick answer surprised him. She raised one hand as if to keep him from escaping. "I mean, since you did such a fine job before, maybe you could do it again?"
"I'll give you my word. I'll try to control my manly appetites." Wyatt winked at her as he grabbed hold of the ruffled hem and heaved it up over her legs.
He saw her knobby knees piercing through the dust-smudged muslin of her pantaloons. He shook his head. The woman didn't need to be so guarded about her virtue. She could be assured he didn't like bony, sharp-voiced women.
But she blushed, truly embarrassed. He would never understand the propriety some ladies clung to while others had to sell their bodies simply to survive. He'd seen too many injustices in his line of work. A deputy marshal saw all walks of life, all types of people, and everything a man or woman had to do just to survive.
"Hand me that whiskey bottle." He inserted the newly sharpened knife beneath the blood-soaked bandages.
She gasped over the sound of the muslin tearing. Her eyes were wide with pain. Her face turned ashen. Hell, he didn't want her toppling over.
"Hand me the bottle right there, on the edge of the table."
She didn't reach for it, so he said it again. "Hand me the whiskey." Then she quirked a thin arched brow at him, and he lost his temper. "What's your problem? Hand me the damn whiskey."
"No."
"Why the hell not?"
"I don't approve of spirits." The way she raised her lip in disapproval riled him up like an injured bear.
Who knew he'd taken one of those kinds of women into his cabin? She probably wanted the vote, too. "Lady, I know the likes of you is simply too good for my rotgut whiskey, so fine, don't drink it. But I gotta wash this wound out with something. I could use creek water. I got a bucket over in the corner."
"Creek water?" She didn't move at first, but then she turned her stiff chin just enough to spot the flask of whiskey in the center of the table. "You mean, water from Stinking Creek?"
"That's the one."
Her hand trembled as she reached for the bottle. The bright yellow light of the lantern revealed the stiff way her fingers grabbed the glass, as if she were too afraid, or too injured, to do much else.
"I'll allow the whiskey," she whispered, handing him the flask.
Wyatt growled. "I figured you would."
Women. Thank God he didn't have one of them for himself. He lived in the middle of nowhere for a reason. He was far enough away from civilization that no such woman would dream of showing up. And what happened?
One showed up.
With a steady hand he leaned forward just enough to wash the blood from the wound. Whiskey slithered down into the open gash on the woman's thigh.
Garnet gasped, surprised at the sting of the alcohol. She could detect that familiar scent of cheap whiskey Pa often smelled of the rare times he was home. Her gaze slipped to the corner of the cramped cabin where a lump laid beneath a gray wool blanket. Her father. He was alive. She would concentrate on that.
But soon enough her gaze returned to Mr. Tanner. Garnet studied the man's strong features. He was so close she could smell the cigar-and-whiskey scent of him, close enough to see the concern softening the hard-cut features of his face. Of his handsome face. She only now noticed his good looks as he wrapped a fresh strip of muslin around her thigh. Such gentle, careful hands. Feather-light and wonderful.
And there lay the danger. Wyatt Tanner was a miner, dressed from his broad-rimmed hat to the hem of his Levi's in typical prospector's garb. He wasn't a decent sort of man for a woman to start thinking romantic thoughts about. He was a wanderer and a gambler. He was exactly like her father.
Good thing the stage left tomorrow morning. With the way her blood warmed in his presence, Garnet was truly afraid. She'd heard of women falling instantly in love with a man, and she knew it started like this, with an appreciation of his physical attributes.
She knew because it had happened to her mother.
They say love is blind. Well, Garnet Jones would not be blinded by a man's obvious charm and good looks. Or his kindness as he lowered her skirt, her wound now clean and bandaged. Or his smile that lit up the darkness in his eyes and made her heart flip over.
She would be on tomorrow's stage. No matter what.
* * *
Wyatt cursed to himself as he paced around the entire circumference of the little cabin, kicking up dust with each harsh-footed step. He drained the whiskey flask in two long pulls. Fire ignited in his belly, sweet and warm and reassuring. The liquor chased away a deeper emotion he didn't want to feel. Desire. He had looked too darn long at a certain woman's thigh.
Desire was a bad thing. He kept pacing, but not even the cool night air could chase away the memory of her lily-white skin, or the satiny feel of her inner thigh as he'd bandaged her wound. An unmistakable, unbidden tightness gripped his groin. Garnet's soft thigh made him remember what it was like to be with a woman.
The last woman he had made love to was his wife, the woman who taught him he could never be good enough. She'd left him for someone who was. A banker's son who was home every evening, who didn't travel, who made enough money to keep her in the latest fashions.
Wyatt rubbed his eyes, but the pain didn't relent. Yes, he needed more whiskey. He tossed down the bottle before he realized his liquor supply was in the cabin. Where she was with her petal-soft thighs and woman's curves. She smelled like roses. Sweet, wild, gentle.
Just his damn luck.
Wyatt sat down at the creek's bank and stared into the small glimmer of water that slowly lapped over large stones. The quiet motion of water blended with the other night sounds. Listening, Wyatt was content that the world was still the same, even if his cabin had been invaded by a highly proper woman, truly his worst nightmare.
If only he could forget how she felt in his arms. Her long dark hair had cascaded like water over his shoulder, absorbing all the colors of night. Her slender, fine-boned hand had rested on his forearm, so small when compared to his own big-boned strength.
This desire for her was enough to scare him. But then she had done something worse. She had said thank you. Those two words clawed at his chest like trapped mice trying to escape.
The last thing he wanted was the woman's thanks. It wasn't that he was unaffected by her appreciation. He was afraid of it. All the years with his family, then on his own since he was fourteen, then as a lawman, his suspicious nature had kept him alive. Trust no one. It was a good–and safe–motto to live by.
But it made him an awfully lonely man.
And Garnet Jones had to burst into his life with her beautiful dark hair and fine-featured face and lily-soft thighs, and remind him exactly how lonely he was.
Wyatt cupped some of the creek water in the palm of his hand. He doused his forehead, hoping to wash away some of
the unrelenting pain that drummed through his head and ached in his heart.
But it didn't. He feared nothing could.
* * *
A muffled bang jarred Garnet from the depth of a murky sleep. She felt as if she were drowning, submerged in a deep lake of water. It was as if she could see the light at the surface of the lake, but she had to struggle for it. She fought, incapable of pulling herself awake. She felt unable to breathe . . . and then suddenly she burst into the morning, already drained.
She blinked. A door stood wide open, letting in the gentle peach light of early morning.
Wyatt's dark gaze met hers. He stood as imposing as the wilderness outside, his long legs spread and his feet braced solidly on the floor. She stared at him, blinking. Her head hurt terribly, her whole body ached. She was so thirsty, the inside of her mouth was dry as sand and her tongue felt swollen.
Then he spoke. "I've been shot before. Nothing feels worse. At least nothing you live through. Here, I brought you some water."
Garnet opened her mouth, but she could find no words. No one had ever waited on her before. In her entire life, she'd been the one taking care of others. No one worried over her. No one was concerned if she was tired or hungry or thirsty or hurt. But this handsome miner did.
"Your hand isn't steady. Let me hold it for you." He knelt at her side and lifted the tin cup to her mouth.
"No, I'm perfectly capable–" Water rushed over her bottom lip. Cool, refreshing. She squeezed her eyes shut, cutting off the sight of the concern in his gaze. He still had a strange hold on her, as if her body had decided to thrum with life no matter what she wanted. She struggled to quiet the rapid beat of her heart and the thud of blood in her ears.
"Is that enough?"
She nodded. His nearness made her dizzy. She pulled herself up into a sitting position, and the full force of her condition hit her with the weight of a falling anvil. Her leg burned with pain, and she almost cried out loud.
"Careful." He caught her hand with both his larger ones. "You haven't gone and developed a fever on me, have you?"