by Linda Turner
“I wasn’t hitting on her—”
That was as far as he got. All his attention focused on Chuck and appeasing his anger, he never saw who threw the first punch. It caught him on the side of the jaw, and before he could even mutter a curse, fists were flying from every direction.
Steve liked to think that he was fairly tough—in his line of work, he had to be. When the need arose, he could throw punches with the best of them and hold his own. But Muhammad Ali would have had his hands full when the odds were four against one. Especially when the four closing in on him thought they were protecting the innocence of a woman they cared about. He didn’t stand a chance.
That didn’t mean he just gave up. After all, a man had some pride. So for a few moments, at least, he gave as good as he got. But he was fighting a losing battle, and they all knew it. For every punch he landed, at least three connected with various parts of his body. He grunted in pain and kept swinging. He was still swinging when a rock-hard fist caught him in the temple. Lightning swift, darkness fell like a shroud over him. Without a sound, he crumpled to the ground.
He was late.
Watching the others gather around the chuck wagon to eat, Lise frowned. Steve wasn’t usually the first one in line when the dinner bell rang, but he wasn’t the last, either. He usually came riding in with some of the other guys, and after a hard day’s work, he could put the food away with the best of them.
So where was he? she wondered, gnawing on her bottom lip. Everyone had come in except him, and it was long past quitting time. Her gut told her something was wrong.
“Has anybody seen Steve?” she asked as she joined the chow line. “He should have come in by now.”
For a moment, she didn’t think anyone was going to answer her. Silence threatened to stretch into eternity. Then Nate said gruffly, “Maybe he realized the work’s too hard for him. He wouldn’t be the first cowboy to walk off the job when it got to be more than he could handle.”
If they’d been talking about anyone but Steve, Lise might have found a way to accept that. The work was hard, and the pay was nothing to write home about. Over the years, more than one cowboy had ridden out to check fence and just kept on riding. Not Steve, though. She couldn’t believe that of him. He truly seemed to enjoy the work, and she couldn’t see him walking away from it—or her—without a word. He wasn’t that kind of man.
And Nate knew that as well as she did. So why was he suddenly spouting such garbage? “All right,” she growled, including the entire group in the scowl she aimed at Nate. “What’s going on? And don’t look at me like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Something stinks here, and I want to know what it is. Where’s Steve?”
For a moment, she’d didn’t think anyone was going to tell her. Exchanging speaking glances, the men shuffled their feet like guilty little boys. Frustrated, and getting more worried by the minute, Lise didn’t know which she wanted to do more, shake them until their teeth rattled or fire the lot of them.
“Don’t make me ask again,” she warned.
She rarely lost her temper, but she didn’t have red hair for nothing, and her men knew it. They looked at each other again. Finally, it was Chuck, the youngest of them all, who had the courage to speak up. “He’s out at old Nelly,” he mumbled, referring to the old windmill that they’d all worked on—and cursed—at one time or another. “He hurt you, so some of us thought it was time he was taught a lesson.”
Outraged, Lise couldn’t believe he was serious. “You beat him up?”
“Well, not by myself. Anyway, he hurt you! Nate saw you crying.”
“So that gives you the right to beat him up? That gives all of you the right to step in and be judge and jury without so much as a by your leave? How dare you!”
Fury burning in her eyes, she couldn’t believe their audacity. She may have decided that she couldn’t trust Steve, but that was her business, dammit. Hers! “Whatever is going on with me and Steve has nothing to do with any of you,” she said coldly. “Do you understand? When I need your help, I’ll ask for it. In the meantime, you’d better pray that he’s not seriously hurt. Because if he is, whoever’s responsible for hurting him can pack their bags and get out.”
Not giving them time to so much as mutter a protest, she turned to Cookie and growled, “Go get your first aid kit and meet me at the truck. I’m going to need your help getting him back to camp.”
Turning to her tent without another word, she collected the bedding from her cot and hurried to the pickup truck that was used to tow the chuck wagon. Cookie was waiting for her there with his first aid kit and the keys. “I’ll drive,” he said before she could say a single word. “Let’s go.”
Lise was too worried about Steve to argue. Silently, she walked around the truck to the passenger door.
Sick with worry, Lise didn’t remember much of the ride to the windmill. Staring straight ahead as the countryside whizzed past, all she could see was images of Steve’s battered, broken body lying in the dust at the foot of the windmill. If he was hurt…
“He’s going to be okay,” she told herself and Cookie firmly, and tried to believe it. But when they finally reached the windmill and her searching eyes immediately found Steve lying in a crumpled heap, just as she’d pictured him, her heart stopped dead in her chest. With a strangled cry, she was out of the truck and running toward him before Cookie had even brought the truck to a stop.
“Oh, my God! Steve! Can you hear me?”
He didn’t move so much as an eyelash.
Terrified, Lise dropped to her knees in the dust beside him and reached for him with trembling fingers. He was, thank God, breathing, but that was about all he had going for him. His face was bruised and swollen and bloody from the blows he’d taken, and his knuckles were scraped raw.
“Quick, Cookie, bring me some water and the smelling salts. And a blanket. We need to get him out of the dirt.”
Cookie wasn’t the kind of man who ever got in a hurry, but he was beside her in seconds, checking Steve’s wounds with expert hands. “Nothing seems to be broken,” he said matter-of-factly, “but he took some hard punches. Here, let’s get him on his back and see if we can bring him around.”
With gentle hands, he rolled Steve onto his back on the blanket he’d spread out next to him, then uncapped the smelling salts and waved the bottle under his nose. “C’mon, Yank,” he muttered, “you’ve slept on the job long enough. It’s time to wake up.”
His brain smothered in darkness, Steve drew in the sharp scent of the smelling salts and winced. Throbbing with pain, he groaned and turned his head away. “Don’t!” he muttered. “I’ve told you everything I know.”
“Steve? Are you okay? Can you hear me? It’s Lise.”
From a distance, Steve thought he heard Lise calling him, but he couldn’t be sure. Images swam in and out of his head, confusing him, and with a muttered curse, he growled, “The bastard slipped away again! Just like a rat in the dark. I don’t know how the hell he does it. I’ve got to call Belinda—”
He started to turn, only to groan as the slight movement sent a white-hot pain rippling through his head. Dragging in a sharp breath, he tried to hang on to consciousness, but he was fighting a losing battle. Darkness descended like a sudden, unexpected storm, and there was no place he could run to to escape the thick, black clouds that swallowed him whole. Without a sound, he slipped back into unconsciousness.
“Steve!” Worry knitting her brow, confused by his mumblings, Lise wanted to ask him who Belinda was, and the man who was like a rat in the dark, but he couldn’t hear her. “We’ve got to get him back to camp,” she told Cookie huskily. “Let’s do it now, while he’s unconscious, and it won’t hurt him so much.”
They had their work cut out for them. Steve was a big man, and though Lise was strong for a woman, she only had Cookie to help her, and he wasn’t even as tall as her shoulder. She didn’t know how they were going to find the strength to lift him.
Cookie, howe
ver, had no such worries. Quickly backing the truck up to where Steve lay, he told Lise, “You take his feet.”
“But that’s the lightest end. You can’t—”
“I can,” he said firmly, and motioned her to move to Steve’s feet.
Later, Lise didn’t know why she ever doubted him. From the time she was a little girl, Cookie had had a magical, mystical power about him that she’d never understood. He could do things that no one else on the station could do, and whenever she asked him how he did such things, he always smiled mysteriously and said it was the way of his people.
This time was no different. She didn’t know how he did it, but within minutes, he had lifted Steve into the back of the truck, and with very little help from her. She knew he had to use some kind of mind over body control, but there was no time to ask him about it now. Climbing into the back of the truck, she settled down beside Steve as Cookie once again slipped into the driver’s seat. Within seconds, they were racing back to camp.
Slowly regaining consciousness, Steve opened his eyes to discover himself in his tent, with Lise and Cookie hovering over him worriedly. Disoriented, he frowned and only then remembered the little run-in he’d had with Nate and Tuck and the others. Immediately, he struggled to sit up. “I’m all right,” he began, only to groan and collapse on his pillow as sharp, shooting pain streaked through his battered and bruised body.
“You’re a strong man,” Cookie told him solemnly. “After the beating you took, you shouldn’t even be able to move.”
Gritting his teeth against the pain, Steve grimaced wryly. “Gee, thanks for the compliment. I’m flattered.”
“You’re lucky to be alive,” Lise told him, worry clouding her blue eyes. “Chuck told me what happened. I’m sorry.”
“For what? You didn’t do anything.”
“No, but my men did, and I feel responsible. I promise you it won’t happen again.”
He accepted that with a nod, but they both knew why her men had felt compelled to give him a thrashing. Ever since they’d made love, it seemed like they’d been at odds. Obviously, he had done something to hurt her, and they needed to talk about it, but Steve had no intention of having that kind of discussion in front of Cookie. And the old man wasn’t going anywhere. Hovering at Lise’s side like a watchdog, he wasn’t the least impressed with the hard look Steve shot him.
Frustrated, Steve growled, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be back on my feet in no time.”
Not waiting to be asked, Cookie said, “A week. No sooner.”
Steve wanted to argue, but he had a sinking feeling the old man was right. Nate and Tuck and the others had done a good job of working him over. Even his teeth ached. “We’ll see about that. I’m a fast healer.”
Lise rolled her eyes. If that wasn’t just like a man. Why was it so difficult for them to admit that they were hurting? It wasn’t a character flaw, for God’s sake! They didn’t have to be strong all the time.
But that’s just what Steve would do, she realized, if she didn’t find a way to get him out of there. He’d fight her efforts to keep him in bed, in spite of the fact that was obviously where he needed to be, and the first time she turned her back, he’d go back to work.
What if he had a blood clot? she wondered worriedly. He had bruises all over his body. If he went back to work too soon, a blood clot could develop and kill him. Couldn’t it?
Unsure, unwilling to take the chance, she said, “No, we won’t see about it. As of this moment, you’re on sick leave for the next week. And just to make sure you do what you’re told and rest, I’m taking you back to the house.”
“What? But what about the roundup? You’re needed here.”
“The guys’ll get by without me. And the roundup ends next week. By the time you’re back on your feet, it’ll be all over with.”
If Lise needed any proof that she was doing the right thing, she got it when he scowled like a little boy who’d just been told he couldn’t have another piece of candy. Smothering a smile, she said, “Now that we’ve got that settled, I just need to collect a few things from my tent, then we can go. Cookie, would you make a pallet in the back of the truck, please?”
“I don’t need a pallet!”
He might think that now, but Lise knew he wouldn’t be able to make it all the way to the house without needing to lie down. To keep the peace, however, she only said, “Fine. You don’t have to use it. But it’ll be there if you need it.”
He didn’t like it, but there wasn’t a hell of a lot he could do about it since she was the boss. Pride forcing him to hide how much he was hurting, he rolled stiffly out of his cot and slowly, painfully, made his way to the truck as she conferred with Tuck, leaving him in charge of the men and finishing up the roundup over the course of the next week.
Less than five minutes later, Lise drove out of camp with Steve in the back of the pickup. Standing by the chuck wagon, a frown knitting his dark brow, Cookie watched them until they disappeared from view. Like Tuck and Nate and the rest of the men, he’d seen the way Lise opened up like a flower whenever the Yank flirted with her, and he didn’t mind admitting that had him worried. He loved her like a daughter, and he couldn’t stand around with his hands in his pockets while she got hurt. Unlike the rest of the men, he didn’t have to use his fists to protect her. He had other means.
Stepping into his tent, he found the special phone his boss had given him that allowed him to keep in touch with him anywhere in the world. Quickly dialing the number he knew by heart, he waited only until he heard the familiar voice at the other end of the line before he said, “I think we’ve got a problem between Lise and the Yank.”
Steve didn’t remember much about the long drive back to the house. Less than a half mile from camp, he found it impossible to sit up anymore, and with a ragged sigh, he let go of his pride and collapsed on the pallet of blankets Cookie had made for him. The padding helped, but not much. The station road was little more than a rough dirt track, and Steve felt every jarring bump and dip. It was nearly as bad as getting beat up all over again.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, he lost track of time and where he was. Lying flat on his back, he stared at the night sky and wished the world would stop moving. When it finally did, all he wanted to do was lie right where he was for the rest of the night.
Before he could close his eyes and drift back into unconsciousness, however, a woman was leaning over him, urging him to get up. “C’mon, Steve, you have to help me. I can’t get you into the house by myself.”
Not recognizing her, he frowned. Who was she? And why was she calling him Steve? That wasn’t his name. Was it? “What house? Where are we? I need to call Belinda.”
Lise winced at that. There was that name again. Belinda. Who was she to him? And why, when he was feeling so miserable, did he call for her? Was she some long-lost love? Or a wife he’d walked away from somewhere and still loved?
Pain lanced her heart at the thought, but she didn’t have time to worry about that now. “You can call Belinda later,” she promised. “After you’re feeling better. Right now, we’ve got to get you in the house. Can you sit up?”
Lise didn’t know if it was the promise that he could call his precious Belinda or that her words registered and he realized she really did need his help to get him inside, but he gritted his teeth and struggled to sit up. It wasn’t easy for him. The second he started to move, his body cried out in protest. He groaned, but didn’t let the pain stop him. Sitting up without help, he swung his legs over the tailgate of the truck.
“That’s it,” she said, hurriedly scrambling to his side to slip her arm around his waist. “Put your arm around my shoulder. Now we’re going to take it slow and easy. There’s a guest room downstairs, off the study. Just hang on a few more steps and we’ll be there.”
It was more than a few steps, but if Steve noticed she wasn’t quite truthful about that, he didn’t say anything. All his attention apparently focused on putting one foo
t in front of the other, he let her guide him inside. And all the while, the weight of his arm on her shoulder grew heavier and heavier as he leaned on her more and more.
If the guest room had been five more steps, Lise didn’t think they would have made it. Steve had used the last reserves of his strength and was stumbling by the time they reached the threshold. Two steps into the room, he started to fall, and Lise knew there was no way she could catch him. Luckily, she didn’t have to. The bed was right there. He fell across it with a groan and didn’t move again.
“Steve?”
Unconscious, he didn’t twitch so much as an eyelash. And that, Lise decided, was probably for the best. Getting him out of his clothes was, no doubt, going to be quite painful. Wishing she could spare him that, she determinedly went to work on the buttons of his shirt.
“Dammit to hell, I knew the bastard was playing both sides against the middle! Lying piece of trash. He’s going to burn in hell for this—I’ll make sure of it.”
Jolted out of a sound sleep, Lise jerked awake, her heart thumping crazily, and then realized she must have fallen asleep next to Steve in the guest room after she’d stripped him of his clothes and bathed his wounds. Even now, just thinking about it, she wanted to cry. His poor bruised body—
“Belinda? Dammit, where are you when I need you? Get your ass in gear and answer the damn phone!”
Worried sick, Lise didn’t even wince at the mention of Belinda’s name. He’d rambled on about her several times while she was tending his wounds, then he’d slipped into something that sounded an awful lot like Spanish. When he’d switched back to English, he’d complained that he hadn’t been able to bring a real gun with him—he had a feeling he was going to need it.
At any other time, Lise might have been disturbed by that. But there was no time for that when she was so worried about him. He’d taken a real beating. Any other man would have been in desperate need of a hospital, but he was somehow still hanging tough. In his more lucid moments, she was able to get some aspirin down him to ease the pain, but he was still hurting. And that meant she was hurting, too. Because she was falling in love with him.