Читать книгу The Lawman - Patricia Potter - Страница 11

JARED TRIED to help as they dragged him inside what once must have been a busy saloon. But whenever he put any weight on his injured leg, new waves of agony coursed through him.

He ground his teeth to keep an expletive—or worse, a groan—from escaping his lips. He swayed as they entered the building. He tried to take a step with his good leg and sagged against the woman. Her arm tightened around his body. Stronger…than she looked. Hell…of a lot stronger.

A step, a hop.

He fought the fog closing in on him. Too much blood lost in those seconds before the tourniquet was in place. And the worst was yet to come. The damn bullet in his leg had to come out. He also knew the wound would probably need to be cauterized to stop the bleeding and infection.

He was only too aware that more men died in the Civil War from infections and fever than from ordnance. He’d been lucky thus far. He had survived three bullets: two during the war, one while marshaling. Shoulder. Side. Left arm. A bayonet had nicked his face.

He tried to focus on the woman rather than the pain. Who in the hell was she? Thornton’s woman? Must be, to risk her life. Hell, the man must be decades older than she was.

Another step. Why? Why was he being helped inside? As a hostage maybe? To wait for Thornton? The original question pressed him: Why not just a bullet in his heart? Or had she really aimed for his leg? If so, it had been one hell of a gamble.

He might have made the same gamble, though. He was tired of killing. During those few tense minutes outside while he’d tried to avoid a shooting, his mind flickered back to a boy he’d encountered two months earlier. The kid was no more than seventeen, but Jared hadn’t known that then. He’d only seen the gun in the boy’s hand when Jared stepped out of the stable after feeding his horse.

He groaned inwardly, but it was more from the memory than pain. Why now, dammit? Why did those pImages** continue to haunt him? Maybe he should have quit hunting men. He’d been at it far too long….

Then they were inside the saloon.

“Back room,” the old man said to the girl, then as an aside to Jared, “Used it as a cell after the jail burned down.”

Ironic.

The old man and the woman helped him through the back door of the saloon, then down the hall to a door. The woman opened it, and they half carried, half dragged him to an old iron bed and lowered him down on a thin, lumpy mattress. He made himself glance around the room. One chair and a small table in addition to the bed. Nothing else. Stout door. No windows.

His breathing was labored. The last of his strength was ebbing. So, apparently, was the old man’s. His captor collapsed on the chair, his breath coming in spurts. But the woman…

She stood straight as if his weight hadn’t been anything. Tall and slender…she was far stronger than she looked. Her gaze didn’t waver as she met his. It was almost as if she was challenging that connection he’d felt a few minutes earlier. But it was there. He’d felt it, dammit. Felt it still. How could that be? Hellions had never appealed to him. Nor had women who chose the other side of the law.

He had little doubt she was Thornton’s woman. Why else would she risk her life for him?

And why should he care whether she was or wasn’t? Maybe because of the regret in those wide golden eyes as she looked at his wound. Or the gentleness in hands that seconds earlier had fired a gun. Or maybe the glimpse of vulnerability in her expression when the old man appeared.

Her cheeks started to flush as if she knew what he was thinking, or maybe it was because of what she was thinking. She turned abruptly, put a hand on the old man’s back. “I’ll get your bag and some water.” She left the room in a quick stride. Straight. Proud. Defiant.

He fixed his thoughts on her. It blocked the pain, the knowledge of what he had to face next. Damn, but she intrigued him even now.

When she returned several minutes later, she had several sheets folded over her shoulder. She carried a black bag in one hand and a bowl of water in the other.

“Archie, are you all right?” Her voice softened as she placed the items on the table and knelt before the older man. Jared watched affection flicker between the two, and a pang of loneliness ran through him. He couldn’t remember when someone had last worried about him.

“Stop fussin’,” the man named Archie said. “Jest a mite winded. I’m all right now. Let’s get started on him.”

“I fired the stove and more water is heating. I’ll bring it as soon as it’s ready.” She obviously knew what was needed. Jared remembered the deftness with which she’d taken over the tourniquet. He would bet that this wasn’t the first time she’d treated a wounded man.

He was even more certain when she started to pull instruments from the bag and line them up on the table she placed next to the bed. He gritted his teeth as the old man yanked off his boots, then what was left of his pants. He cut away the right leg of Jared’s long underwear but managed to leave enough fabric to cover his privates. Some shred of dignity at least.

Archie’s ministrations weren’t gentle, but they were efficient, and Jared was in no position to complain. He was totally at their mercy and that galled him. He knew the pain to come would be many times worse than their jostling.

“You a doctor?” Jared asked.

“Nope, but I’ve done some doctoring ’round these parts.” Archie peered at the wound through a pair of spectacles he’d taken from a shirt pocket. “Have to take out the bullet and those scraps of cloth. I’ll sew it if I can. Cauterize it if I can’t. It’ll hurt like the blazes, but from some of them scars, I ’spect you know that.” He didn’t sound very concerned.

Jared merely nodded. He’d been through this before.

“We have a small bit of laudanum,” Archie said. “Maybe enough to help dull the pain.”

Jared didn’t like the idea of losing what little control he had. He damn well wanted to know what the man was doing to his leg. “Whiskey will do if you have some.”

Archie shrugged. “Sam will get a bottle,” he said, and the woman hurried from the room.

Sam? The old man had mentioned the name several times. Hell of a name for a woman. Even one who strapped on a gun and shot lawmen.

Archie put his hands in the bowl of water. Jared noticed the white foam. Soap. Good sign.

The man loosened the tourniquet again for a few seconds before retying it quickly. Despite the new rush of blood, Jared was grateful. Keeping the tourniquet tight would cut off the blood supply to the lower leg and he could lose it. He tried to sit upright to see what was going on, but he fell back, his breath ragged. God, he was weak.

He gritted his teeth as the old man chose a probe from the instruments the woman had lined up.

Concentrate on something else. “I would like to know the name of the man cutting me,” he said. “And…the lady’s.”

His captor frowned at him, obviously taking exception to the way he referred to the woman. “Since you ain’t likely to spread it anytime soon,” the old man said, “might as well tell you. I’m Archibald Smith. Archie to my friends. Smith to you. And the lady, she’s just Sam.”

Jared tried to wrap his mind around that. He couldn’t. She might be a lot of things, but she certainly wasn’t “just Sam.”

“Your daughter?”

“Nah.”

The old man was stingy with information. Jared clenched his teeth as he probed around the wound. Christ, it already felt as if someone was sticking white-hot knives in him. “You…raised her?”

Archie sat back and studied him with pale, watery eyes. “Sam pretty much raised herself.” He hesitated, then added, “Heard of you. Didn’t much like what I heard.”

“Because I’m a lawman?”

“You’ve been hunting Mac for years. That ain’t just marshaling, that’s something else. Something dark.”

The probe went deeper, and Jared’s fingers knotted in fists. After a second, he asked, “Then why are you taking the bullet out? You could have left me…”

“Could’ve, but Mac wouldn’t have liked it. He wouldn’t want Sam to kill anyone.” The old man shook his head. “Me, I’m not sure it would be a bad thing.”

Mac again. Jared tried to concentrate on the man’s words. Mac wouldn’t want Sam to kill anyone.

Mac must be Thornton, who also went by MacDonald. Maybe they knew Thornton would want to get rid of Jared himself. The old man just admitted they knew he had been trailing the outlaw for years. He wanted to ask more, but then Archie poked the wound again. Jared’s body arched involuntarily, and the room began to fade in and out.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll forget about Sam.” The old man spoke softly, but there was no mistaking the warning. “No one messes with her and lives.”

It seemed to Jared that it had been Sam doing the messing, but he didn’t reply, partly for fear it might come out as a groan. The pain was too intense. His body shivered. He tried to lie still, tried to adapt to the ever increasing waves of agony. There would be more. Maybe he should have taken the laudanum.

Archie muttered something Jared couldn’t decipher. He tried to concentrate on the words. His life might depend on it. Thornton. MacDonald. A killer with a price on his head. Yet this old man and the woman—Sam—talked about him as if he were some kind of god.

Then Sam returned again, this time holding a bottle of whiskey topped by a cup in one hand, a second bowl of steaming water in the other. She placed the water on the table, then filled the cup with whiskey. She lifted his head as she put the cup to his lips. “Drink,” she ordered.

Knowing what was coming, he gulped down several swallows. He still didn’t know what skill Smith had, but he did know the bullet could eventually kill him if it weren’t removed.

He stared up at the woman. His eyesight was blurring. She didn’t seem boyish now with soft hair framing her face. More…like an angel.

An angel who had shot him.

He finished off the strong, bitter whiskey.

She poured more, but he shook his head. Best to get this over with.

She placed the cup on the table, then dunked a piece of cloth into one of the bowls, took a deep breath and wiped the blood from around the wound. The cloth was hot, burning, but he was grateful for it. The heat would increase his chances of survival, of preventing infection.

There was a stillness in her face, like a mask, as if she were afraid to show any emotion. Only a flicker of her tongue against her lips gave her away. A tendril of hair fell over her forehead and he caught the scent of roses.

Sarah had smelled of roses, too.

Archie probed deeper.

Jared sucked in a deep breath. Christ. He needed something to bite on. Almost as if she read his mind, she stuck a piece of wood between his teeth. He crunched down on it, waiting for the worst of the pain to subside. Then Archie stopped fishing around.

He felt the wet cloth against the tender skin again and looked back at the woman. Damn, why did she have to be…pretty? And dangerous? She’d done what few men had: bested him in a gunfight.

If he lived through this, he had to remember that. He suspected those golden eyes could make a man forget almost anything. When she finished cleaning the area around the wound, Archie gave him a long look. “I got most of the cloth out. The bullet’s deep, lodged against the bone. We can tie your hands and feet to the posts. You don’t wanta be moving when…”

Jared shook his head and dropped the wood from his mouth. “Get…on with…it.”

The woman put the wood back in place, and he bit down as the probe reentered the wound. His left hand clutched the iron frame of the bed. Sam stood next to Archie, washing away blood as the old man worked. Spasms of fresh pain shot through Jared’s thigh and up his body. His teeth chomped harder on the wood and he squeezed his fingers into tight fists. Waves of agony, each worse than the last, swept over him.

Then he was aware of her hand holding his, that he was gripping it. He opened his eyes and saw a tear halfway down her cheek. Her lips were bleeding from biting into them.

Maybe he was imagining it. Or maybe it was the whiskey. He closed his eyes again as the old man pulled out the bullet. Remember. Remember the good times.

Sarah. Sarah stood there in the door of their farmhouse, that grand smile spreading across her face….

THE MARSHAL’S BODY RELAXED. Sam’s body eased, as well, as he lapsed into unconsciousness. She couldn’t feel the full extent of his pain, but some part of it radiated into her. She’d done this to him.

Thank God, he was finally unconscious. It seemed like an hour but must have been no more than three or four minutes before Archie held up a bullet. “Got it,” he said with satisfaction, and dropped it onto the table. Then he went in again and fished out more pieces of fabric. Concealing her bruised hand, she started swabbing the wound again with the wet cloth.

“How bad is it?” Sam asked.

“Bad enough. Lodged against a bone and tore some muscles. Be a while before he can walk again. But if it doesn’t putrefy, he should be all right.” He looked at the gaping wound. It still bled. “I have to cauterize it.”

“You can’t sew it?”

“It’s bleeding pretty bad. Safer to sear it shut.” He looked at her closely. “Best do it while he’s out.”

She retreated to the kitchen area and fetched the knife she’d left in the stove to heat. She stood by as Archie poured sulfur in the wound, then touched the white-hot blade to the marshal’s skin. Shivers ran through her as the smell of burning flesh permeated the room. Thank God the man was still unconscious. But when he woke…

Archie looked weary, the lines in his face deeper than usual.

“You go see to Mac,” she said. “I’ll put some salve on the wound and look after him.”

“Better change clothes first. You got blood all over you.” Archie wearily walked to the door. “Damn fool shoulda taken the laudanum. Got guts, though.” He sighed. “Don’t know what in the hell we’ll do with him. Might have been best to just let him bleed to death.”

She didn’t answer that. There was no answer. She hadn’t planned ahead. She’d only thought about the immediate need to protect Mac.

As for courage? The marshal undoubtedly had that.

Sam took one last look at the unconscious man, then went to release Dawg from the storeroom, where she’d placed him before the confrontation in the street. He’d known something was different, and she hadn’t wanted him to alert Archie or, worse, try to follow her.

The half mutt, half wolf regarded her quizzically when the door opened. Then he tentatively wagged his tail. She leaned down and petted him, assuring him all was well, even if it wasn’t. Dawg cocked his head, trying to understand, then whined.

She’d found Dawg four years ago, his leg half torn off by an old trap. Archie had doctored him, and he’d chosen to stay with them.

He sniffed her now, apparently smelling the blood on her and the scent of a new person. He knew something was wrong but apparently no longer sensed immediate peril for those he cared about. He followed her up to her room and watched protectively as she put on a clean shirt and trousers.

When she finished, she hesitated, trying to steady herself. She’d always been independent. And strong. She’d helped her mother run a boardinghouse until her death when Sam was eleven. Her father had died several years earlier, and there had been no living relatives. Mac, Reese and Archie—all of whom had loved her mother—promised to care for Sam. One of them was usually gone, one was always in town, and each had taught her his special skills, and most of all, how to take care of herself.

She’d never questioned why they’d stayed here when everyone else left. To her, it made sense. Gideon’s Hope was a safe place for Mac. Few people even realized it still existed after the gold ran out. They’d had some visitors. The hopeful who thought they might still strike it rich. Sometimes friends of Mac or Reese or Archie. But visitors were increasingly rare these past few years. The town had made a convenient base for Reese, who gambled up and down the gold camps and now the silver mines, and Mac and Archie both loved the mountains. They had a comfortable home in the saloon Reese owned. There were plenty of trout in the stream, game in the forest and enough remaining nuggets carried down by mountain rain to pay for any additional supplies they needed.

As for her schooling, she had three teachers. Reese had attended Cambridge University in England, and Mac the University of Virginia until the war started. Between the two, she’d learned to love knowledge. Reese had collected books from all over Colorado, and she’d read every one. He’d introduced her to Shakespeare and poets along with penny novels and romances. Mac was more interested in sums and astronomy because that was something he could use.

From Archie, she learned the greatest gift of all: healing.

She’d begged Archie when she was no more than thirteen to take her along with him on one of his calls, and over the years he’d taught her more and more. Even when the last of the residents left, she continued to help him with mountain folks—and even some Indians—who’d heard of Archie and made their way to Gideon’s Hope. And she’d helped him mend creatures who needed it.

At her request, Reese had brought her books on medicine and she’d built a small library. She sometimes dreamed about being a doctor, but she never told her godfathers. She knew it would mean leaving them and she was too indebted to them for that. Archie was slowly going blind, and Mac, well, what would Mac do without having to fret about her? The valley was the only safe place in Colorado for him.

The one thing they didn’t teach her was how to be a woman, and for a long time she hadn’t cared. After most of the miners and merchants left, she had a freedom she relished. She loved running barefoot in the summer and swimming nude in the mountain spring. She could ride like the wind and play a fine game of poker.

They had been talking, though, about going north to Montana, where Mac wouldn’t be known. Starting a ranch with the money they’d saved from years of on-and-off panning for gold and Reese’s winnings.

Her godfathers didn’t have medicine in mind with the move. They wanted her to “have a more normal life.” She knew exactly what they meant by that. The male species. She’d heard them talk about her future, how she “needed” to meet some men—prospective husbands. And, truth be told, she’d been feeling stirrings inside, a longing for something she couldn’t quite define.

And there was no one to explain it to her.

But apparently Mac had sensed it. And for that reason, he’d left the safety of Gideon’s Hope. He’d planned on trading in the nuggets they’d collected over past years for cash for the trip north. For her. Only for her.

If not for her, he wouldn’t be lying upstairs as much dead as alive.

She decided to check on him. She wanted to reassure herself she’d done the right thing by shooting the marshal. She needed that mental weapon before she saw the wounded man again.

She went past the five empty rooms that had once been occupied by the women who worked below, and sometimes above. She’d known many of them, and they hadn’t seemed soiled doves to her. After her mother died, they’d been kind to her, even taught her to play the guitar and to sing songs, both pretty and naughty.

Archie was hunched over Mac when she opened the door. “How is he?” she asked.

“Still slipping in and out,” Archie said.

“He didn’t hear anything?”

Archie simply shook his head.

She went over to the bed and looked down at the man who was the closest thing to a father she had. Father. Friend. Teacher. Confidante. Her heart lurched as she gazed at his wounded body. He’d arrived barely alive four days earlier, and must have used every remnant of strength he had to reach them. He’d been ambushed by bounty hunters. He thought he’d killed two and wounded a third, but the cost was high. He had two bullets in him and a third had smashed his right hand.

It had taken him nearly two days to reach Gideon’s Hope, and by that time one of the wounds had festered. She and Archie had packed it with poultices made of moss, using old Indian remedies Archie had picked up over the years. They’d also gone through most of what little laudanum Archie had hoarded. The fever had lessened, but Mac still alternated between being unconscious and delirious. His breathing was labored and she knew he couldn’t be moved again.

He had always been so strong and sure, so capable in every way. And now his right hand—his gun hand—was buried in a swath of bandages. His unruly sandy hair was touched with gray and his normally sun-bronzed face looked years older than forty-five. A sandy beard covered his cheeks and chin.

Still buffeted by emotions, she drew a deep breath. She had done the right thing, she told herself. The only thing. But what now? Two wounded men. What if the marshal recovered quickly and discovered Mac above him? What then? Her chest tightened.

She wished Reese was here with his cocky grin and quick hands and seemingly endless knowledge. He was close to Mac’s age, but they couldn’t be less alike. The third son of an English lord, Reese was destined to go into the church. Instead, he escaped to the West to make his own fortune, and he’d never been particular as to how he did it. Reese considered life one big joke while Mac was intense and quiet. They had been competitors while her mother lived, and friends after.

“I’ll go look after the marshal,” she said. She had to keep busy. Then maybe she wouldn’t think.

With Dawg at her side, she picked up several more sheets from the room and went back downstairs. The lawman was still unconscious. The sheet Archie had placed under him was bloody, along with what was left of the long johns he wore. They no longer covered much of anything and she couldn’t take her eyes from him. Her body suddenly reacted to his, and she took a deep breath. This had never happened before, but then Archie had always tried to block her from seeing that particular piece of anatomy.

Dawg inched in and bristled as if he detected danger.

“Friend,” she told him softly. Dawg immediately backed off and sat several feet away.

The marshal was no friend, but she didn’t want Dawg to inflict more damage on the man. She reminded herself he was the enemy. He hadn’t had to come here. But he didn’t look like an enemy now. He looked like someone who was suffering.

She angrily brushed away a tear at the edge of her eye. She’d done what she had to do. She kept telling herself that.

First things first. She took a bottle of salve from Archie’s bag and liberally spread it over the wound. It would ease the pain and hopefully speed the recovery.

She fetched fresh water and washed his face where sweat had mingled with dirt, then took stock of every feature. Strong angular bones with thick black brows and eyelashes. The dimple in his chin barely dented the hard face. His cheekbones were lightly covered with new bristles of beard, and his dark hair was matted with sweat, a hank of it falling over his forehead.

Not exactly handsome but intriguing. For a moment he fit the image she had of Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, one of the many books Reese had found for her. Dark and dangerous. But, unlike Heathcliff, she sensed there was little recklessness in this man. The intensity was there, though. She’d seen it in his eyes.

She also remembered the story had a very unsatisfactory ending and tried to dismiss it from her mind.

Instead she took inventory. The area around the wound was clean, but he was filthy from the dust, the blood and the sweat.

The shirt had to come off. It was soaked. She didn’t think she could pull it off, though, without waking him. She decided to cut it away. Mac was about the same size and had several shirts. The marshal could use one of those.

Archie had taken his medical bag with him but he’d left the marshal’s knife on the table. A sudden chill went through her. It was unlike Archie to be careless. She would have to watch him more carefully.

She turned her attention back to her patient. She cut off the sleeves of the shirt, then attacked the problem of the sheets. She rolled him as far as she could, taking the bloody sheet with him, then placed a fresh one on the bed. She rolled him back onto the other side, careful of his leg, and was able to pull off his shirt and the soiled sheet, leaving the clean one under him. With a deep breath, she took stock of the chore ahead.

His chest was solid muscle, brown and dusted with dark hair that arrowed down to his abdomen. She’d helped Archie doctor before and was no stranger to most of a man’s body. But definitely never one this fine. Taken as a whole, he was magnificent. Sinewy. Reese had taught her that word, but she’d never entirely grasped the meaning until now.

Thank God he was unconscious. She couldn’t let him see that she was affected by him.

She shook her head. A moment of foolishness.

She rinsed and soaped her cloth and skimmed it over his shoulders and across his chest. Placing the cloth back in the water, she felt his skin. Smooth and warm and covered with soft, springy body hair. Unexpectedly soft. She swallowed. Everything else was so hard.

She drew the cloth across the patterned ridges of his chest and found herself moving it down toward his stomach legs and what little was left of his long johns.

She was twenty—nearly twenty-one—and had never been with a man in a sexual way. Stolen kisses, yes. A few dances with boys when she was fifteen, before the fire that destroyed most of the town and caused most of the residents to flee. But never more than a kiss. One reason was her protectors. No man, young or old, wanted to go up against Mac or Reese, or even Archie with his wicked whip. Her godfathers had made it real clear in the rough mining town they would kill anyone who trifled with her.

She knew all about nature, though. She’d seen her share of cows and horses mate. Goats and dogs, too. Hadn’t seemed all that great to her. As for humans, she’d seen the sadness of the soiled doves who’d once served the miners of Gideon’s Hope. Their relationships with men were nothing like the romances she’d read about in the novels Reese brought her. Nothing like the wild, runaway passion of Emily Brontë’s characters.

Her skin had never tingled, nor had she experienced a deep yearning inside. Until now. She looked down at the marshal and felt an inexplicable rush of heat. Maybe her skin wasn’t tingling, but something was happening inside as she ran the cloth across his stomach.

Her throat suddenly tightened as that warmth puddled in the core of her. An intense need clutched at her. She didn’t know exactly what she was feeling. She just knew it was there. Hungry and wanting.

He’s the enemy.

That reminder did nothing to ease the bubbling cauldron that was her stomach. Nor did it make breathing easier.

She forced her gaze away from his flat abdomen and finished washing him as best she could. She couldn’t help but notice the scars on his body. One on his shoulder, and another on his side. A scar along his hairline was nearly hidden by the thick, dark hair.

He would have another one now. Large and ugly. Because of her.

She lightly bandaged his wound, then arranged another fresh sheet over him. He moved then, thrashed, and muttered something. A name she couldn’t quite make out. A cry of anguish.

She stilled. Then she put her arms around him to keep him from sliding off the bed and hurting his leg more. Empathy flowed through her. Something inside him hurt every bit as wickedly as the wound. Guilt mixed with the other confusing feelings. She didn’t like pain inflicted on man or beast, but she’d had no other choice. She kept telling herself that.

There’s always choices. Mac’s words. He’d made all the wrong ones, he told her once after he’d had some drinks.

Mac and Reese and Archie. Her world. Her family. Her only family. And this man threatened one of them. Maybe all of them.

Yet the marshal had had a chance to shoot, and he’d hesitated.

He quieted now and his breathing eased. She stood. She had to leave for a few moments before guilt—and that intense need—suffocated her. Water. He would need fresh water when he woke.

When she returned with a full pitcher, Dawg was still sitting near the door. The marshal groaned, and his eyes flickered open. As if he sensed her presence, he turned his pain-filled gaze toward her. Like a hawk with a broken wing. Predatory and fierce even while crippled.

“Water or whiskey?” she asked, trying to keep her tone even, trying not to think about the past half hour.

“Water.” His voice was flat, but his eyes were bloodshot and the lines around them deep with suffering.

She raised his head and held it up while he gulped down the contents of the cup she’d filled. When he finished she lowered him back to the bed. He tried to raise himself. His face paled, and he clutched the side of the bed.

“Don’t move,” she ordered. “We didn’t go to all that trouble to see you ruined again.”

“Why did you go to that trouble?”

She shrugged, tried to hide the emotions flooding her. The warmth of his skin lingered on hers. And now she felt that tingling again, and it was unlike any sensation she’d ever known. She swallowed hard. She wanted to touch him again, wanted to know more of those feelings. Instead, she tried to banish them. It was a betrayal of Mac. Of herself. “Wouldn’t watch a varmint die in the street.” She hoped her voice wasn’t as husky as she feared.

Dawg whined from behind her, nudged her.

“He’s…wanted,” the marshal said, his voice ragged. “There are others looking…”

“Not you, for a while,” she retorted.

A muscle jerked in his cheek. His eyes closed for a moment, then opened. His gaze was intense, as if he was looking through to her soul, and a shiver ran down her back.

Dawg brushed by her. He placed his big head on the bed and growled. He sensed conflict, and he didn’t like it.

The marshal’s eyes went to the dog. “Who…is that?”

“Dawg,” she replied, and for the briefest of moments she thought she might have seen a flash of humor.

He went up a notch in her estimation. He hadn’t asked what but who. Dawg usually intimidated everyone he met. He was big and considered ugly by most. But to her he was intensely loyal and brave.

Now he inspected the wounded marshal more closely, baring his teeth as he usually did with strangers.

The marshal stared back at him. Not the slightest flinch. Everyone flinched when they first saw Dawg. Then he said something so softly that she couldn’t make it out.

Dawg inexplicably relaxed. Made a funny noise in his throat. Blue blazes, an accepting noise.

Perplexed, she studied the man in the bed. “He’s not real fond of strangers,” she warned.

“Neither…are you,” he observed. “Apparently…it’s epidemic in Gideon’s Hope.” His mouth twisted in a wry smile.

The marshal’s body suddenly seized again, and his lips clamped down. She found the bottle of whiskey she’d used earlier and quickly filled the cup he’d just emptied. She had to hold his head up again as he drank. When he finished, he turned his gaze to Dawg, trying, she figured, to distract himself from the pain. “Dawg?” His voice was ragged.

“I found him when he was little more than a pup,” Sam continued. “He’d been abandoned and got caught in a beaver trap. Archie saved his paw. Archie always called him the danged dawg. Then everyone did.”

“And me… What do you plan…now?” Every word seemed an effort, but she knew what he was asking.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I didn’t think that far ahead.”

The side of his lips turned up in a wry half smile, as if he were surprised by her admission.

She was surprised, too. She hadn’t meant to show that vulnerability.

The words had just popped out when he fixed his dark eyes on her.

“You ever shoot anyone before?” he asked suddenly.

But before she could figure how to answer, she saw him tense in pain. The cauterized leg must be agonizing. Sweat covered his brow. She quickly filled the cup again. His fingers reached for it and touched hers. Heat flowed from him to her. Their eyes met, engaged in a silent but oddly intimate battle. Every bone and nerve in her body was excruciatingly aware of him.

She was so startled she nearly dropped the cup, and he was the one who steadied it. He took a few sips, then sank back against the rough pillow.

Had he felt that same awareness? Or was it only her imagination, stirred by books?

Flustered, she shifted her feet. “I’ll look after your horse. You should get as much sleep as…”

As someone she’d just shot could.