The Cowboy's Honor

by Lacy Williams

  Seb didn’t remember that. He’d gone down swinging, but it’d been three against one, and Ralph had had that knife. At one point he’d been knocked to the ground. He remembered the kick to his ribs. But he’d had his arms up, guarding his head.

  He blinked away the memory. Daniel was still staring at him. Assessing him.

  “You want to tell me what happened? Who jumped you?”

  Nothing on earth was going to make Seb talk about what he’d been involved in or how he’d been ambushed.

  “How’d I end up here?” He’d known Daniel and Emma lived in Denver. It was where he’d addressed those ill-fated love letters. Since his arrival, he’d stayed plenty far from their ritzy address. Daniel was a lawyer—and a successful one, apparently—and their house was in a fine part of town. Seb’s business had kept him in the seedy corners of the city. Somewhere Emma would never be caught dead.

  He hadn’t meant to stay for as long as he had.

  And now look where he’d ended up.

  Daniel didn’t answer. His calculating gaze remained on Seb.

  Seb broke first. “If Tolli—” he cut off his words. Started again. “If the thugs who tried to kill me know where I am, Emma’s in danger.”

  It was a plea for Daniel to get him out of there. Help him to his feet at least.

  He’d made some stupid choices, but he would never bring danger to her doorstep. Not if he could help it.

  Daniel’s face remained hard to read. “Nobody knows you’re here. I intend things to stay that way, at least for a few days.”

  A few days. That was how long Daniel thought it would take to get him on his feet?

  He wanted to argue, but what good would it do? Right now he was as weak as a newborn kitten.

  “Do you think he can handle some broth?”

  Emma’s sweet voice rang out from somewhere beyond the doorway. And then the swish of her skirts preceded her as she swept into the room.

  “Why don’t you ask him?” Daniel’s voice was tight when he spoke the words.

  “He’s—” Awake?

  She didn’t have to finish the question for Seb to know what she’d meant. He’d been able to read her thoughts. She wasn’t good at hiding her emotions, her expressive features gave everything away.

  But then he remembered how callously she’d rejected him. Maybe it’d all been a lie. Every shy glance, every blush…

  Now, she bit her lip. Her gaze fluttered around him like an anxious butterfly afraid to land.

  She carried a tray in front of her, a steaming bowl of what must be the broth she’d mentioned.

  Her eyes dropped, her lashes hiding her expression, but not before he realized that she wanted to turn around and leave the room.

  She didn’t.

  She didn’t look at him again, but she walked right around the couch, going behind Seb’s head instead of brushing past Daniel.

  Did she do it on purpose, so he couldn’t watch her?

  She moved into sight and set the tray on the corner of the low table, using one hand to move the glass out of the way before she pushed the tray into place in the center.

  Her hands flexed as she straightened. She still wouldn’t look at Seb, and some stubborn, prideful part of him used that fact to stare at her, taking in every detail. The peep of dark boots beneath the hem of her skirt. The slender wrists and delicate hands he remembered holding. The single dark-blonde curl that had escaped the twist of hair behind her head. That curl rested just behind her jaw, touching skin that Seb knew firsthand was soft as silk.

  “I’ll spoon-feed him,” Daniel said.

  Seb ripped his gaze away from Emma with some effort. Daniel was glaring at him.

  Seb glared back. He was half-afraid that Daniel had seen his old feelings, resurrected and bubbling to the surface. He’d loved Emma so deeply that losing her had meant losing a part of himself.

  Emma moved toward her brother, giving Seb her profile.

  “I can handle it.” She probably didn’t mean for him to hear her low tone.

  “He can barely move,” came Daniel’s dry reply.

  They were talking about him as if he weren’t sitting right here. It was humiliating to be reliant on their kindness to eat so he could regain his strength.

  He had no intention of letting Emma spoon-feed him.

  He would rather die.

  He fueled his humiliation into anger, which swept through him long enough to propel himself to a sitting position. His feet fell to the floor as he twisted his body.

  The siblings broke off their hushed argument to look his way.

  He pressed back into the upper cushions, sweating and clammy, trembling with pain.

  “I’ll feed my own self, thank you.”

  Emma clasped her hands at her waist.

  Seb’s eyes were near crossing from the pain—being upright somehow compressed the injury in his side—but he thought her fingers trembled.

  Daniel’s gaze narrowed, hard as flint again. He strode to the sofa and handed Seb the bowl of broth. “If you rip out those stitches, the doc’ll have to come and put ’em in all over again.”

  And it was clear that Daniel didn’t want that. He wanted Seb gone.

  No more than Seb wanted to be gone. He held the other man’s stare. “I didn’t rip them.”

  The bowl was warm against his lap.

  He wasn’t hungry.

  But with an older brother for a doctor, he knew he needed to eat if his body was going to repair itself.

  Pride forced him to lift the spoon to his lips. The broth was flavorful, and the moment it hit his stomach, his body remembered that he’d been near unconscious for days. He was suddenly ravenous, his stomach demanding more.

  He spooned more broth into his mouth, covertly watching Daniel and Emma.

  She still hadn’t spoken directly to him.

  Daniel had his arm under her elbow. He’d guided her away from Seb to the window where she’d stood earlier.

  “You don’t need to be in here,” Daniel said in a low voice.

  Too bad Seb had grown up with a bunch of older brothers who’d been trying to keep secrets from him—and each other. His ears were as sharp as an owl’s.

  “I’m fine,” Emma returned. “It doesn’t bother me to—to help.”

  Seb felt his lips curl in a sneer. How magnanimous of her. She no longer wanted him, but she was willing to nurse him.

  Daniel shook his head. “You should stay clear of him.”

  Seb’s eyes narrowed. Daniel had been cold since he’d stepped in the room. Did he know more than he’d let on about Seb’s activities around town? Why else would he want Emma to stay away?

  She was her own woman. She could make her own choices.

  Not that Seb had a shred of hope that she’d choose to be with him if she felt she had a choice. She’d up and left the ranch in Wyoming without so much as a word.

  He made himself stare at her. This was the woman who’d broken his heart. She was a liar and a tease.

  Except the longer his gaze lingered, the more he saw. She wasn’t quite looking Daniel in the face either. Oh, her face was tilted up to him, but her eyes weren’t focused on her brother.

  Her eyes.

  His memory provided a blip of the moment she’d set the tray on the table right in front of him. She hadn’t looked at the glass before she’d moved it. Her fingertips had dragged along the surface of the table until she’d located it. It’d been quick, but not as quick as using her eyes.

  Earlier today, she’d touched Seb’s wrist when she’d checked on him. She hadn’t spoken to him, even though he’d stared at her rudely.

  And right now, she was standing close in conversation with her brother, looking at him without really looking.

  Was something wrong with her eyes?

  3

  Early the next morning, Emma warmed a batch of porridge as Daniel readied for another day in the office.

  She hadn’t slipped into the parlor to check on Seb. Not y
et.

  Last night, she’d left when Daniel had insisted he’d help Seb finish what little supper he’d taken.

  She was a coward, but she’d been relieved to escape.

  Seb had barely spoken—and none of it had been particularly polite—but simply hearing his voice again resurrected memories she’d rather keep buried.

  The touch of his hand as they walked side-by-side. The way his breath had felt against her jaw when he’d whispered how much he cared for her.

  She’d known having him there would be difficult. But when she’d heard how badly injured he was, she’d wanted him close. Wanted to take care of him.

  She also wanted to hide from him.

  She was a completely different person now from the girl who’d left Wyoming two years before. She’d had to re-learn how to accomplish daily tasks. She no longer struggled with dressing herself or fixing a meal. She’d learned to do everything that needed to be done.

  And she desperately didn’t want to be the object of Seb’s pity.

  She heard Daniel moving around in his room upstairs. He didn’t want her near Seb—that was her brother, who’d been overprotective ever since she’d been forced to reveal her feelings for Seb—but she didn’t see much choice. Daniel defended the poor and underprivileged in his law practice. He frequently had meetings from sunrise until sundown.

  She was going to have to pretend to be okay with waiting on Seb while her brother worked.

  Might as well start pretending now.

  She straightened her shoulders and turned to the hall. She’d check on Seb first. Prove that Daniel didn’t have anything to worry about.

  She only faltered once, just outside the parlor door, where she paused to take a shaky breath.

  There was a groan and a gasp from inside.

  Her hesitation dissipated, and she walked inside.

  His groan must mean he was awake. She would hate to wake him if he weren’t.

  There was a rustling from the sofa as if he’d moved his legs.

  “Good morning." There. She kept her voice from shaking. She moved carefully around the sofa.

  "No brother on guard duty this morning?"

  She should go. Retreat. But his words nudged the tiniest spark of defiance and blew it into a flame. Her chin came up. "I have no need for a guard. We’re friends, aren't we?"

  He made a noise of derision. "Are we?"

  Her stomach dipped like a pail spilling water. She’d known she would hurt him when she'd left. Then, it had felt like a necessity. Now, the anger behind his words simply hurt her.

  She pressed her lips together lest he see them tremble. She'd taken a step to retreat to the kitchen—intent on having Daniel bring Seb’s breakfast after all—when he spoke again quickly.

  "I'm thirsty. The water glass is empty."

  She was torn between escaping and retrieving his glass. The Seb she’d once known would have asked politely for more water. This Seb, this stranger, had only demanded.

  She’d never been able to ignore an injured animal. Seb’s distress was even worse. She remembered how fiercely independent he was. It was probably killing him to be bedridden, to have to depend on her and Daniel for help.

  She crossed the room to fetch his glass. She stretched out her hand and swept her fingertips across the surface of the low table. She’d instinctually gone to the end of the table nearest his head, because surely that was where Daniel would've left the glass last night, within easy reach for Seb. But her fingers encountered no glass. The table was empty.

  “It’s right over there," he said.

  Embarrassment pinked her cheeks. She’d never wanted him to know about her blindness. She had wanted his last memories of her to be the strong, independent, beautiful girl that she’d been in Wyoming.

  She swept her hand across the table in more of an arc.

  "No, there."

  Who could've known that just retrieving a simple glass from the table would reveal her condition to him?

  Her hand finally bumped into the glass at the complete opposite end of the table. She clasped it in shaking fingers and straightened. It was empty after all. And how had it come to be so far out of his reach? And then she remembered his groan from just before she’d entered the room. Had this been a ruse? A test? The heat in her face became unbearable at his cruelty, and she turned away.

  "Emma.”

  She could bear his presence no longer and swept out of the room in such a rush that she misjudged the doorway and banged her elbow on the frame. Moisture sprang to her eyes. She hurried back into the kitchen, pretending the tears were from her smarting elbow and not the encounter itself.

  Her breaths came ragged as she clutched the edge of the work counter.

  Daniel’s noises from the second story moved out of his bedroom. Overhead, his footsteps traveled across the hall, which meant she had only a scant few moments to compose herself.

  She dashed the evidence from her cheeks and dried her hands on the apron she’d tied around her waist.

  She worked to steady her breathing and her hands as she made up a tray for Seb. The porridge would have to do for his breakfast. She refilled his water glass. And then, on second thought, she carefully poured him a cup of coffee from the kettle on the stove.

  She added the coffee to the tray as Daniel’s familiar footsteps carried him into the room.

  “Good morning,” she said, mustering as much calm and cheer as she could.

  He didn’t respond to her greeting immediately, and she had the uncomfortable feeling that he was staring at her. She bore it stoically, though she wanted to run upstairs and throw herself on her bed and cry.

  Seb had tricked her. Seb knew the truth—or part of it at least.

  She kept her face a serene mask.

  “Good morning,” Daniel finally said.

  “Would you mind taking the tray in to Seb while I dish up your breakfast?”

  Daniel didn’t acknowledge the slight tremble in her voice. Good. She heard the rattle of the spoon as he lifted the tray and then the murmur of two men’s voices in the other room.

  She moved mechanically to fill a bowl for Daniel and one for herself—not that she had any appetite.

  Her brother returned almost immediately.

  She took her bowl to the small table tucked beneath a window at the back of the kitchen. Spring was coming, or so everyone said. But all she felt was a cool draft coming in through the casement.

  Daniel remained at the counter. He often ate standing up in the mornings, eager to get to the office.

  Indeed, his voice was garbled as he spoke with his mouth half full. “You look a little peaked. You sure you’re all right if I go into the office?”

  She worked to keep her expression peaceful. “Why should today be any different? Seb has been under our roof for days already.”

  “But today he’s awake.”

  Her smile slipped, and she quickly spooned some of the porridge into her mouth. After she’d eaten the bite, she answered. “It will be fine.”

  No, it wouldn’t. But she wouldn’t ask Daniel to stay home to baby her. Nor would she turn away Edgar’s brother when he was in such desperate health. She and her older sister Fran had suffered a series of misfortunes, and when a vile lunatic had chased Emma across the country, Fran had protected her. Ultimately, the sisters had ended up in Wyoming, and Fran had been caught in a sticky situation and ended up married to Edgar.

  Edgar and his brothers had protected the both of them. In the midst of it all, Fran had fallen for Edgar. They remained happily married.

  Emma would never forget what she owed her brother-in-law. Her life, and her sister’s.

  Taking care of Seb, as uncomfortable as it would be, was the least she could do.

  “And if he discovers you’re blind?”

  It was what she’d been most afraid of two years ago when an illness and high fever had robbed her of her sight.

  She’d been forced to confess her feelings to Daniel. Daniel kne
w she’d loved Seb—but not that her feelings had never faded.

  Her lips trembled now. “I’m fairly certain he’s already figured it out.” Before Daniel could play the protective older brother, she rushed on. “Phillip is coming by later to help with my manuscript. I’ll be too busy to worry.” A lie. “I’ll check on Seb a few times. Everything will be fine.” Another lie.

  Daniel hesitated. “You’re sure?”

  She released the breath she’d been holding. He believed her. “Of course.”

  She heard the clink of his bowl as he placed it on the counter. Daniel’s mind had no doubt gone to his caseload, the people he’d see today.

  But he paused at the door. “It would be best if you didn’t mention any of this to Phillip. Seb. Or his condition.”

  “Why?”

  She felt the waves of tension roll off Daniel at her innocent question.

  “You refused to tell me how Seb was injured.” She wasn’t sure her brother even knew. The fact that Seb had been dropped on their doorstep in the middle of the night was suspicious, wasn’t it? “And now you want me to keep him a secret? What’s going on?”

  “Nothing you need to concern yourself over. Just do as I say.”

  There he went again, ordering her around. Two years they’d lived together. Seemed by now he’d have learned she didn’t take his orders.

  She wanted to argue, but her brother left the room.

  She bit back a sound of frustration.

  Daniel had helped her in so many ways after she’d lost her sight. But lately, his protectiveness rankled.

  Didn’t she deserve to know why Seb had been so grievously injured?

  Of course, she could always ask the man himself.

  If she asked Seb questions, then he’d question her as well.

  And she wasn’t quite sure she could bear that.

  * * *

  Seb heard Emma and Daniel’s voices in the kitchen and then footsteps—Daniel’s heavier tread and sure stride—go back down the hall and then leave out the front door.

  He picked at the porridge as he waited for Emma to return. He hated porridge, but his body demanded sustenance.