The Ranger's Bride

Chapter Three

She’d probably never be hired as a driver for the stagecoach company, even if she wanted to be, but she wasn’t doing too badly, Addy decided. It helped that the team was an obedient, willing foursome who seemed to appreciate having a human controlling them again.

She had to steer to the left when they’d come across the body of the murdered stagecoach driver around the bend in the road. As the coach passed around the corpse, Addy said a prayer for the dead driver and for the other slain passengers she’d left behind. She’d have to let the sheriff know what had happened as soon as possible, so he could have the bodies brought in for burial.

But first she had to see to the wounded Ranger. She’d heard nothing from within the coach since they’d left the scene of the attack. Had he passed out from pain during the long bumpy two miles to her house? She would soon see. She turned the coach off the main road and into the rutted path that led up to her house.

Reaching the front of her house, Addy threw the brake on the coach, then clambered down and tied the reins to the porch rail. The two leaders were going to devour the primroses in her flower bed, but that was the least of her problems after what had happened.

Just as she opened the coach door, the Ranger pushed his hat back off his face.

“How are you doing?” she asked, her eyes roaming over his blood-soaked shirt, looking for signs of fresh bleeding.

“Well, the company wasn’t the best,” he said, with a sardonic nod toward the dead man still lying crumpled in a heap on the floor of the coach. “And that’s got to be the bumpiest section of road in the whole state of Texas. I felt every rock the wheels rolled over. But I reckon I’ll keep.”

She had to admire his grit. “Let me help you out,” she said, extending a hand. “We’ll get you into the house and I’ll put you to bed.”

Distracted by his haggard face, she hadn’t chosen her words with any special care, but apparently he wasn’t in too much pain to tease.

“Why, that’s the best offer I’ve had in weeks, Miss Adelaide Kelly,” he drawled, managing a wink. “Just wish I was in good enough shape to take advantage of it.”

She felt her temper flare, even as the flush flooded her cheeks. “If you were, you wouldn’t be coming into my house, let alone my bed, sir. But for the grace of God, you might be lying dead out there with the others!”

He sobered instantly. “Sorry, Miss Adelaide. I didn’t mean any lack of respect to you or to them. I reckon I’m purely giddy-headed, realizin’ how lucky I am that hombre who aimed to kill me was such a rotten shot and didn’t bother to check afterward to see if I was breathin’ or not.”

Addy figured she owed her survival to a similar piece of luck. Drenched in the dead man’s blood and partially covered by his body, she’d probably looked dead to the outlaws, too.

“It’s probably the loss of blood making you giddy-headed,” she replied tartly as she fitted her shoulder under his uninjured one. “Come, let’s get you inside.”

“All right, but don’t let me put you outa your bed, Miss Adelaide,” he insisted as he raised his foot to the first stone step. “Surely you have a sofa or a truckle bed or something. Even just a pallet on the floor.”

She didn’t answer him. He’d have to use her bedroom. Getting him up the stairs to the spare bedroom was out of the question, in his condition.

They passed the room at the front of the house that had once been her aunt and uncle’s bedroom, but she had transformed it into her shop. There was a rack along one wall full of bolts of fabric, but their bed was piled high with scraps of fabric, cards of buttons, a case full of spools of thread, and rolls of lace and ribbon trim. It was to this room that the misses and matrons of Connor’s Crossing came to get alterations done or new dresses made in the latest styles from Godey’s Lady’s Book.

Addy had taken over a room off the kitchen for her bedroom. It was small, but had the advantage of facing northeast, making it cooler on hot summer evenings.

He closed his eyes on the steps leading up to the porch, letting her guide him. Aware of his tightly clenched jaw and the groans he tried to stifle, she moved slowly down the hallway, passing through the kitchen and into her room.

He sagged against her just as they reached the bed, and she had no choice but to let him down right on top of the calico quilt.

“I’ll go get some water so I can clean up those wounds,” she announced as she picked up his booted feet and placed them on the bed.

Ashen-faced, he didn’t answer. Addy wondered if he had passed out again.

After she had returned and cut away his ruined shirt, and had begun washing the dried, clotted blood away from his upper chest wound, though, his eyes fluttered and opened again.

“Am I too rough?” she asked. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t worry, you have a real gentle touch,” he replied. And she did. She was far gentler than George McDonald, his Ranger company captain, would have been. Nevertheless, though he’d never have admitted it to her, each stroke of the damp cloth was like a blast of flame. He knew what she was doing was necessary—if she didn’t cleanse the wounds, he had a worse chance of dying of blood poisoning.

A groan escaped him, however, as she helped him to turn so she could wash the larger wound in the back of his shoulder where the bullet had exited. He felt her hesitate, so he muttered, “Go ahead and finish,” then set his jaw and held on to the mattress until she was done.

Once she had eased him onto his back, he concentrated on her face, willing the pain to recede. She was so pretty, despite the streaks of blood on her cheeks and neck and the smudge of dirt on her cheek. Her hair had mostly escaped the knot at the back of her slender neck, but its disarray gave her a wild, wanton look that was quite opposite, he guessed, from her normal appearance and personality. She’d be pretty as a silver dollar with her hair up and wearing a dress that wasn’t stained with a dead man’s blood. He guessed she had totally forgotten—if she’d ever noticed—the sorry state of her clothing.

He watched her tear strips from an old, well-worn man’s shirt to make a bandage, then realized, by the self-conscious way she worried at her full lower lip with her teeth, that his staring was making her uncomfortable. But he was damned if he could stop. After all, it kept his mind off the fiery ache above his collarbone.

“What’s your name?” she asked suddenly.

He hesitated. Could he trust her not to tell even one person when she went into town about his presence here?

“You gonna tell anyone I’m here?” he asked.

She looked mildly indignant at the question. “For now, no—I know you said it was important not to. Though I can’t see how it would hurt for the sheriff to know you’re here. Surely he’d be your ally in capturing the Fogartys.”

Miss Adelaide Kelly would probably be surprised at just how often a sheriff could be hand in glove with desperadoes, he thought. “Some small-town lawmen flap their jaws too much,” he said. “I don’t want to bet my life on whether this one does or not while I’m lyin’ here weak as a poisoned pup.”

“Sheriff Wilson doesn’t strike me as a gossip,” she said, coloring a little, “but I’ll respect your wishes.”

Something about the way she defended the man was a bit too enthusiastic, and his heart sank. Was she sweet on the sheriff?

He supposed he owed her honesty, after she’d brought him to her house and put him in her own bed—he’d guessed it was hers by the flower-sprigged wrapper and hat that hung from hooks on the door. “It’s Rede…Rede Smith,” he said.

“How do you spell it? R-E-E-D? Or R-E-I-D?”

“R-E-D-E. It’s short for Redemption,” he admitted sheepishly. “I guess you could say my ma had a Biblical bent when it came to names.” To make up for my father’s lawlessness. She’d taken the surname of Smith to hide their connection to the outlaw who’d been her husband.

Rede wondered what Miss Adelaide Kelly would think if she knew the leader of the band of killers who’d attacked the stage today had been his uncle, his father’s youngest brother.

“Redemption Smith,” she said experimentally. “A bit of a mouthful, isn’t it? I see why you go by Rede.”

He liked the sound of his name on her lips. “Rede will do. Or just plain Smith.”

Her nose wrinkled at his last sentence. “I’m not calling you Smith. Sounds like I’m some rich lady and you’re my butler. I suppose I should properly call you Mr. Smith.”

“Please, call me Rede. Can I call you Miss Addy? Adelaide’s kind of a mouthful, too. And it’s too stuffy a name for a pretty woman like you,” he added, purely for the pleasure of seeing her blush again.

Which she did, enchantingly, though she tried to put on a severe expression to counter it. “Horsefeathers,” she sputtered, after a moment. “I suppose it’s all right for you to call me Miss Addy. Most of the town calls me that or Miz Addy. Since I was widowed,” she explained.

He nodded obediently.

“But you needn’t think that means I’ll stand for any monkeyshines from you while you’re here, Rede Smith.”

Again, he nodded, trying to look lamblike.

“Which will be for as brief a time as possible, is that clear? I’m a respectable widow with a business to run, which will be difficult enough while you’re here. Just as soon as you’re well enough to ride out of here, you’ll be leaving, is that understood?”

This wasn’t the time to tell her he’d decided this was the ideal place to stay, not only while he recovered, but while he looked for the Fogartys’ hideout.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, with all the meekness he could muster. Judas priest, but she was even prettier when she was riled, if that was possible.

“And now I had better get that bullet out of your arm, before you get blood poisoning,” she said. “I’ll just go and get a knife—”

The thought of her digging that bullet out made him queasy all over again. Ignoring the pain that lanced through him at the sudden move, he took hold of her arm before she could step away from the bed.

“Not just yet,” he said. “I mean, it’s gettin’ pretty late, isn’t it? You’d better go report the attack so someone can go out and pick up those bodies before the varmints get to ’em.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she said, looking down at his hand.

Reluctantly, he let her go. “Remember now, when they ask you about the dead folks, tell ’em Rede Smith is the one lyin’ out there with the star on his shirt.”

She shuddered. “But how would I know he was Rede Smith? We didn’t all introduce ourselves while we were traveling. I couldn’t tell them the names of the others. If I just knew your name, it would make it look as if we were…well, carrying on a flirtation or something. And I’m a respectable widow—I have a reputation to maintain here,” she told him tartly.

She had starch all right, Addy Kelly did.

“All right, just be sure and mention you noticed the man was wearin’ a Texas Ranger badge.”

She nodded her assent, started to walk out of the room, then suddenly asked, “Who wants you dead, Rede? Why don’t you want anyone to know you’re alive?”

“The Fogartys. The same bast—Excuse me, ma’am, the same outlaws that attacked the stage today.” He’d been trying to come into the area secretly, to find their hideout before they knew he was here, but somehow the word had gotten out.

Which meant someone in his Ranger company had talked. He’d have to find out who that was, preferably before the company joined him to capture the Fogarty Gang. It could be that one of them had just babbled too much while drunk. He didn’t want to think that a Texas Ranger could be bribed.

She seemed to want to discuss it further, but he wasn’t ready to trust her that much yet. “Are you up to drivin’ that stage into town?” he asked, to divert her.

Addy nodded. “I think so. I—I don’t like to think of that man lying dead in there, right in front of my house.”

He was glad she felt that way, because that meant the sheriff wouldn’t be nosing around here right when Addy was about to dig that bullet out.

His stomach clenched all over again at the thought. “Say, Miss Addy, maybe you’d better buy some whiskey while you’re there. Sure would be easier to stand you operatin’ on my arm if I could get good and drunk before you start.”

“Now how am I going to explain a sudden fondness for whiskey?” she demanded.

He hadn’t thought of that. Good Lord, was he going to have to go through this ordeal sober?

He must have looked as uneasy as he felt, for she smiled. “Don’t worry. Fortunately for you, there’s still some of my uncle’s supply here. My aunt didn’t dispose of it when he died—I think she used to sip it herself. There’s one bottle left. You want it now?”

Rede shook his head. He didn’t know how long it’d be before she could start her digging, and he’d have a better chance of passing out and avoiding the pain if he drank a whole lot of it right before she started.

He’d drink the whiskey while she was boiling the knife before she went to work on him. He didn’t know why it was, but from what he’d seen, a wounded fellow just seemed to do better when the bullet-digging instrument was boiled first.

“Oh, Miss Addy—before you leave, will you bring in my saddlebags?” he called after her retreating form. “They’re still inside the coach. My pistols and gun belt are in ’em.” Since he was still alive, he figured, he might need them again.

Chapter Four

If it hadn’t been for the tragedy that had necessitated her driving the stagecoach into Connor’s Crossing, Addy would have been amused by the reaction that greeted her as the coach rolled onto Main Street after crossing the bridge over the Llano River.

Dogs barked and scurried out in pursuit of the stage. A pair of ladies strolling onto Main Street—ladies she recognized as two of her best customers—stared in slack-jawed amazement, one of them dropping her parasol. The town ne’er-do-well, lounging outside the barbershop, turned to run inside—no doubt to tell the barber what he’d seen—and ran right into the support pole holding up the roof that jutted out over the shop. As the horses trotted farther along Main Street, cowboys loitering outside the saloon shouted questions at her and the news of a woman driving the stage to patrons inside.

Addy ignored them all, determined not to be delayed. She wanted to tell the story only once. Approaching Miss Beatrice Morgan’s trim cottage, she spied a towheaded, freckle-faced boy of five staring between the slats of the white picket fence. It was Billy, the sheriff’s son, whom Miss Beatrice looked after during the day while his widowed father served as Connor’s Crossing’s sheriff.

“Billy!” she called, “run ahead and find your father for me, will you? Tell him to come to the jail, that I need to speak to him right now!”

If he had no prisoners to guard, Sheriff Asa Wilson spent little time in his office at the jail. Usually, at this time of day, he was ensconced in the general store playing checkers, but there was no guarantee of that, and Addy didn’t want to spend valuable time looking for him. She was eager to turn the coach and its dead passenger over to him as soon as possible so that she could get back to the wounded Ranger in her house.

Still paying no attention to the questions called out by every soul she passed, Addy had just reined in the team in front of the jail and was setting the brake when Asa Wilson catapulted out of the general store with Billy on his heels.

“Miss Addy! I thought Billy had lost his mind when he told me you were driving a st—Dear God, what’s happened to you? You’re all bloody! Are you—are you shot?”

Belatedly, she gazed down at her dress and saw the blood that had dried into dark-brown splotches and streaks across the front of her bodice and skirts. Dear God, indeed! But her appearance was of no concern to her right now.

“No, Asa,” she said, as she took hold of his hand and allowed him to help her down. “I’m unharmed. But…I’m afraid we were robbed back there.” She gestured back up the road that led past her house into town.

“Wilson, there’s a dead man in here,” called the barber, who had apparently been peering inside the coach while she spoke. “He’s all shot up.”

Asa’s eyes flew to her face, and he seized her other hand.

Addy nodded in confirmation, feeling her knees starting to turn to jelly now that she had accomplished her mission of bringing the coach—and the news—to town.

“Th-that’s how I got so bloody,” she told him, aware that more than half the town was clustered around the coach and hearing every word. “I was crouched down in the floor of the stage…and he fell over on me.”

A buzz arose from the crowd at her words, but over it she could hear Asa murmuring, “Dear God,” once again.

“You could have been killed,” he added in a hoarse whisper. “Oh, Miss Addy, I knew I shouldn’t have let you go by yourself!”

Her eyes dropped, uneasy at the naked devotion in his eyes. His kindness and caring made her feel guilty. Ever since she had come to town and made his acquaintance he had always been a gentleman. He’d said he understood that she couldn’t return his feelings just yet since she had only been a widow for half a year. But she couldn’t think about the way she’d been deceiving this good man, not now.

“Asa…there’s five more people dead out there, about three miles out, where we were attacked. The driver, two women—”

“Women?” someone cried. “They killed women?”

Suddenly feeling more weary than she ever had in her life, she nodded and went on. “Another man who was a drummer, and the sh—” She shut her mouth. She had almost said, “the shotgun guard.” Quickly she corrected herself and told the lie. “And a Ranger.”