Wolf Creek Wife
She held her tongue. “You need to rest, Mr. Slade. Do you have any sort of medicine that might help your cough and fever?”
He lowered himself back onto the feather pillow. “Ma brought me some willow bark...on the shelf.”
The words seemed forced from him, as if their short conversation and the mere drinking of a cup of water had worn him out. “Willow bark?”
“For tea.” He scraped a hand down his face and closed his eyes. “Brings down a fever. Whiskey and honey for the cough.”
Blythe had never heard of using willow bark tea for a fever, but he seemed familiar with it, so she’d give it a try. As for giving him whiskey...she was less sure about that. Wouldn’t it be risky to give anyone who’d once had a problem with alcohol any sort of liquor? Still, she supposed she’d have to take a chance on it. He certainly needed something.
She was about to ask where she could find the spirits, but when she glanced over at him, she saw that he was out again. She rummaged around until she found a jar of dark amber honey, complete with a hunk of honeycomb, a bottle of whiskey and two plain white mugs. The teakettle on the back of the stove was about half full and piping hot. Blythe poured the water over some willow bark to steep and more into a second thick mug. She stirred in a generous measure of whiskey and honey, added a bit of water from the bucket to cool it and carried both remedies to her patient.
He drank it down faster than she felt he should have, and by the time he finished it and the willow bark tea, she realized she was feeling a bit hungry, even though she’d had little appetite since leaving Boston. She’d find something in a bit. It was more important to finish doing what she could for the man resting on the floor.
She found a cloth, poured a basin of water and carried them to his side. For several moments she bathed his face and hands, hoping that the combination of the cool water and the tea would bring down his fever. He sighed in his sleep, as if to let her know her ministrations were nice.
Working over him gave Blythe ample opportunity to study his face from a woman’s point of view. Everything about him was uncompromisingly masculine and, from what little she’d observed, he did and said whatever he pleased, the opinions of others be hanged. Win claimed Will was a man’s man. Was that why Martha had left him for someone else? Had she found someone who would treat her more gently or perhaps cater to her every desire?
Blythe passed the cloth over his forehead and noticed the lines between his heavy eyebrows. Worry? Frowning into the sun? There were grooves in both cheeks that might be dimples when he smiled—if he ever smiled. She’d never seen him with anything but a scowl. What would a smile do to his somber, attractive features? Would his eyes crinkle at the corners? Was that why those little lines were there?
Though it was doubtful that she would ever allow herself to be tempted by a man again, there was no denying that he was quite nice-looking—if one liked their men big and burly and surly. She didn’t. She liked slender men with grace and elegance and charm.
An errant memory of Devon’s face filled her mind. When they’d first met, she believed she’d found everything she’d been longing for in a man. Not only was he handsome and fascinating, everything about him had given the impression of sophistication and refinement—from the immaculate cut of his clothing to his knowledge of how the elite world of society worked. Most important, he’d claimed to love her. She’d learned the hard way that his outward façade was as false as his declarations of love.
As usual, the mere thought of his lies and betrayal brought back the anger that had simmered just below the surface since she’d learned the truth about him. She removed the cloth from her patient’s forehead and tossed it into the wash basin, where it landed with a little splash.
Troubled without really understanding why, she pulled the quilts up to Will’s chin and went to find something to eat. She discovered a chunk of cheese and some slightly stale bread wrapped in a towel that would do nicely with a cup of tea. The dog stared at her with disapproval in his eyes and saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth until she’d offered him a portion of her meal.
Her hunger sated, she stood in the center of the large kitchen area, her hands pressed against her aching back. She’d done all she could for her patient at the moment. Weary beyond words, she carried a footstool from the parlor and set it next to the large rocking chair near both the fire and her patient. She found another woolen blanket in a small bedroom, wrapped herself in it and settled into the chair.
She was asleep in minutes.
* * *
Will woke at some time during the night. He felt some better. He turned onto his side and realized that he was on the floor. What on earth was he doing on the floor? In a bit of a panic, he raised himself to one elbow and looked around the room. The first thing to snag his attention was a drift of white eyelet trim that was attached to... Was that a woman’s petticoat?
His gaze moved upward. An unfamiliar woman was sleeping in the rocking chair. Why was he on the floor and why was an unknown woman in his chair...in his house? What was going on? He thought about waking her to ask, but with his head pounding and his breathing rattling around in his chest, the last thing he wanted was any kind of confrontation or conversation. All he wanted to do was sleep. He didn’t recall ever being so sick, and he didn’t like the helpless feeling that made it hard to even move. He lay back down and continued staring at her. Even that was a strain.
On closer examination, she looked familiar, but he couldn’t put a name to the face. She looked young and innocent sitting there with her head lolled over to the side. Even as sick as he was, it was obvious that she was really pretty with her slightly curly brown hair tumbling over her shoulders and her eyelashes casting shadows onto her face. Despite the fact that she wasn’t wearing a skirt and her feet were bare except for her white stockings, she sure didn’t look like the kind of woman who would stay over with a man any more than he was the kind of man who would let a woman stay over. A sudden, vague memory of her giving him medicine for his cough surfaced through the murky fever fog of his mind. Maybe she was a nurse, he thought, yawning and closing his eyes. They flew open immediately. There were no nurses in Wolf Creek. He shivered and pulled the covers closer around his neck, feeling the weariness pulling at him once more. He’d ask her who she was tomorrow. It was nothing that couldn’t wait until morning.
* * *
The barking of the dog woke Blythe from a deep sleep. Someone was outside. She could hear the sounds of men’s voices and the scrape and stomp of boots on the porch. Sleepy and confused, she bolted upright, her gaze automatically seeking her patient. His eyes were open, and though he looked a bit puzzled, he seemed much more alert than he had the previous evening.
When someone began to pound on the door, she realized with a bit of dread that a search party had arrived. While she was deciding what to do, Will pushed himself to his elbows. Simultaneously, the door burst open, revealing a group of men, among them Sheriff Garrett, his deputy, Big Dan Mercer, the preacher and her brother. All wore looks of shock on their faces.
“Blythe Granville!” Win cried. “What on earth is going on? Are you determined to ruin yourself?”
“It’s pretty obvious what’s going on, if you ask me,” the preacher said.
Blythe closed her eyes against a sudden feeling of light-headedness and nausea as a feeling of déjà vu swept through her. She started to get to her feet to explain and realized she was wearing only her blouse and petticoats. While she sat wondering how to approach the mess she found herself in, Preacher McAdams turned to Will, who was wearing his familiar frown.
McAdams pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You will do the right thing by this young woman, William Slade. I expect you to marry her as soon as possible.”
Blythe gasped and glanced at her brother. “I can’t marry him,” she cried at the same instant Will shouted, “Are you out of your mind? I’m not marrying anyone. Especially not her.”
Blythe had seldom seen her easygoing brother so furious. “Oh, but you can,” he said to her in the tone she knew brooked no arguing. He shifted his furious gaze to Will. “And you are. Marrying her.”
Though it hardly seemed possible, Will’s anger topped Win’s. “Over my dead body,” he growled.
“That can be arranged,” Win snapped. Then he turned to her.
She didn’t know what hurt the most: the heartbreak or the disappointment in his eyes.
“Get dressed.”
She reached out toward him. “Win, you’re jumping to conclusions. I can explain.”
Instead of answering, he turned and left the room. The others followed.
Chapter Two
For several seconds after the door closed behind her brother, Blythe sat wide-eyed and still. She was afraid to move, afraid to even breathe, lest Will, who lay with his eyes shut, his fists clenched at his sides and his jaw rigid with anger, light into her the way he had Win. Knowing she had no choice, she stood, reached for her skirt and pulled it on, not bothering to brush the dirt from the hem or go to another room to dress. It was a little late for misplaced modesty. Besides, his eyes were still closed.
“I can’t believe the mess you’ve made of things.”
Her? She was being blamed once again? Blythe looked up from settling the waistband of her skirt and saw that Will’s eyes were open and he was glowering at her.
She was usually hard to rile, but after everyone in the rescue party jumping to conclusions and Will’s lack of gratitude, her usual self-control was nowhere to be found. She finished buttoning her skirt, then glared back at him.
“Why, thank you, Miss Granville, for finding me and doing your best to take care of me while I had a raging fever and a hacking cough.” Her voice reeked with disdain.
His gaze shifted from hers. She hoped he felt guilty for his attitude.
“I am grateful for that,” he said, though he sounded anything but.
“Please, Mr. Slade,” she said, looking down her straight nose at him. “Don’t insult my intelligence by spouting platitudes you don’t really mean.”
“Fine,” he snapped. “Why didn’t you take me to town instead of staying here with me overnight? Then none of this would have happened.”
Blythe stared down at him, her eyes wide with disbelief. Was he serious? “How much do you weigh, Mr. Slade?”
Dull color crept into his whisker-stubbled cheeks. He knew where this was going. “Somewhere between one eighty and two hundred pounds would be my guess.”
He started to say something more, but she stopped him with an upraised hand. “I suppose I should have just left you in the woods while I hitched the wagon, then picked you up, tossed you over my shoulder, dumped you into the wagon bed and let you get even wetter while I drove you into town in the middle of a storm.” She didn’t tell him that she had no idea how to hitch the horse to the wagon, much less drive it.
He threw a forearm over his face and drew in a deep sigh that set off a fit of coughing. When he finished, he looked at her with another daunting frown; Blythe took her coat from the back of the chair where she’d left it to dry and shrugged into it.
“I would fetch you some of your cough remedy, but I’m having second thoughts about coming to your aid, since it’s clear you don’t appreciate anything I’ve done,” she quipped. “My mother has a saying that I didn’t really understand until a few minutes ago.”
“Oh?” he challenged with an uplifted eyebrow.
“‘No good deed goes unpunished.’” Then, because she was so miserable that he felt no gratitude for the sacrifice she’d made for him, and because she still had to deal with Win, she added, “It’s plain to see why your wife ran off with another man.”
The shock and anger in Will’s eyes were impossible to ignore. Blythe longed to call back the spiteful words, but that was the thing about things spoken rashly and in anger. There was no taking them back. Even if one apologized, the words were out there, ready to be called up at a moment’s notice. Instead of even trying, she lifted her chin and turned to let herself out the door. Let him stew in his own juices and fetch his own medicine! She was finished with the dreadful man.
* * *
Will lay in the back of the bouncing wagon, his head aching, his chest tight and fury simmering through his veins. It wasn’t enough that he was so sick he’d have to get better to die; he also had to deal with the blasted Granvilles. Again. More specifically, Win Granville, who’d been trying to buy the mill from him for more than a year. Even though things at the mill had started going wrong before Martha walked out more than two years ago, Will had no intention of selling as long as he could scrape together enough cash to keep the saw blades turning.
As if he didn’t have enough on his mind, he’d received a letter from Martha a couple of weeks ago, saying that she’d made a terrible mistake, that she’d found out the man she’d left him for was a liar, and she wanted to come and see him and talk things through. The long and short of it was that she wanted him to give her a second chance.
For the space of a few heartbeats he’d considered it, but then reality settled over him. He knew her well. Martha didn’t play fair. She would come fully equipped with a plan that involved using every strategy in her womanly bag of tricks, including regrets, tears and apologies, and vows of lifelong devotion. If all else failed, she would park herself on his doorstep until she got what she wanted.
With that sobering thought, the moment of insanity had passed and he’d promptly sent her a letter telling her not to waste her money on a train ticket and saying that after her betrayal he had no intention of marrying her again. In fact, he added, her behavior had soured him on the entire female species. He might never wed again.
Looking back, he wondered why he’d ever married her in the first place. She’d been far too flighty and flirty, too superficial by far, but she was a beauty who knew how to use her feminine attributes. He’d been taken in, and once she got what she wanted—marriage to a successful businessman—the real Martha had emerged and he’d known without a doubt he’d made a mistake. Still, his mama had told him that marriage vows were sacred and not to be broken, and he’d have stayed married to her until the Second Coming if she hadn’t walked out on him.
For months after her departure, the embarrassment of what she’d done had driven him to drink, and he’d spent far too many hours looking for answers to his misery in the bottom of a glass. When the pain eased and he sobered up, he’d realized, through talks with his friends, that even though nothing was ever the fault of one person, Martha would never have been satisfied with him or a life in Wolf Creek.
Martha liked men, especially men with money who could grant her heart’s desires, which were many and varied. For two years he’d done his best to give her everything she’d wanted, but when someone had come along who could give her more, she’d wasted no time in flying the proverbial coop, telling him that he spent far too much time working.
Trying to explain that if he didn’t cut trees into boards he’d have no money to buy her the fripperies she was so fond of had made no impact on her. All that counted was what she wanted. It didn’t help matters that it was about that time that equipment at the mill started breaking down and he didn’t have enough cash flow to keep both the business running and his wife happy.
So, here he was, two years later, Martha hounding him to come back and the mill still barely scraping by. He felt as if he’d been treading water. Now there was this newest...situation.
Had he really passed out in the woods? His jaw tightened. Not exactly a manly act. If he lived to be a hundred, he’d never hear the end of it. And why, out of all of the women in Wolf Creek who might have stumbled onto him, did the one who found him have to be Win Granville’s sister?
Rumor had it that she’d been through a situation somewhat similar to his back in Boston. She’d thought she was marrying a rich guy, but the joke was on her when he’d cleaned out her bank account and she’d found out the marriage wasn’t even legal. That didn’t say much for her intelligence, did it? Like most pampered, rich women, she probably wasn’t good for much besides playing hostess at parties or showing off her jewels at the theater.
She was smart enough to figure out how to get you back to the house and inside when she saw you were sick.
Well, he’d give her that, and despite his anger over everything that had happened this morning, he was grateful for what she’d done for him. If she hadn’t come across him by chance, there was no telling how long he might have lain on the wet ground with the cold rain pouring down on him before he came to and made his way back to the house. If he’d been able to make it to the house.
Blythe Granville was no bigger than a minute. Will tried to imagine her getting him onto the travois and then up the porch steps and inside. The fact that she’d figured out a way to do that proved that she wasn’t just another pretty face, that she was, in fact, intelligent. The truth was that Martha’s behavior had left him suspicious of all women, and to add fuel to the fire, Blythe was a sister to Win Granville, who refused to take no for an answer when it came to Will selling the mill. Beyond that, Will had no particular dislike of the woman.
He broke into a fit of coughing that had Dan Mercer looking over his shoulder.
“You all right, bud?” Dan asked.
“I’ll live,” he grumbled.
“Hope so.”
Will tried to smile but didn’t think he managed more than a grimace. He didn’t remember ever being this sick in his life. In fact, he could count on one hand the times he’d suffered from any kind of ailment. He closed his eyes, hoping to sleep, even though the wagon was wallowing in the rough ruts in the road and seemed to hit every hole. Despite the jarring ride, the sickness that left him weak and feverish finally allowed him to drift in and out of a light sleep.
* * *
Blythe sat silently in the buggy next to Win. She hadn’t spoken a word since she’d stepped out onto the porch and watched while Big Dan Mercer hitched up Will’s horse and wagon. No one had spoken to her, either; no one so much as looked at her. It hurt, but she’d refused to let any of the search party know just how much it hurt. She’d stood there with her arms folded across her chest, her chin high, refusing to let the tears that threatened slip down her cheeks. She’d never shed so many tears in her life as she had since late November, and she was sick of crying.
After tying her horse to the rear of his buggy and giving her a look of patent disapproval, Win had held out his elbow and she’d taken it, though she’d rather have grabbed a rattlesnake. Without saying a word, his every movement stiff with censure, he helped her into his buggy. Everyone else was on horseback. She should have known her stylish brother would not sit astride a horse; it might wrinkle his trousers, she thought unkindly.
The men had helped get Will loaded into the back of the wagon, making sure he was well protected against the cold morning air, and the silent group had started back to Wolf Creek.
And here they were, she thought with a heavy sigh. And here she was, smack-dab in the middle of another scandal.
“What on earth were you thinking, Blythe?” Win asked, glowering at her.
She clenched her hands in her lap and stared straight ahead, counting to ten in hopes it would prevent her from yelling at him when she answered.
“Oh!” she said, her voice dripping with contrived drama as she placed a hand over her heart. “Silly me! I was thinking that Mr. Slade was a very sick man I found passed out in the woods and that perhaps he should be inside, since a storm was brewing.”
“There was no way to get him to town?”
“Well,” she said in a lighthearted tone. “I suppose I could have dragged him back to town behind my horse.”
For the first time Win looked at her with curiosity instead of condemnation. “Drag him? What are you talking about?”
When she explained that she’d had no way to get him into the back of the wagon—if she’d known how to hitch it up—she elaborated on how she’d made the travois and added, “None of it was easy, believe me. Especially getting him up the steps.”
“Do you mean to say that you dragged him up the steps on a quilt?”
A feeling of frustration nudged aside her irritation. “I did. By the time I got him inside, the storm was in full force and it was getting dark. I thought about trying to ride to town for help, but he was burning up with fever and coughing his head off. I did what I thought was best at the time. And believe me, brother,” she added in a voice laced with sarcasm, “I did think about the consequences of my actions, but I figured there wasn’t much else that could be done to me.”
“That’s an abysmal attitude,” he said, shooting another disapproving glance at her.
Blythe lifted her chin and returned the look with scorn. “I prefer to think of it as a practical attitude. It isn’t as if my staying overnight will ruin my reputation or my chances of finding a husband.”
A muscle in Win’s jaw tightened. “Oh, you’ll have a husband within the week, if I have anything to say about it.”
So much for soothing the troubled beast, she thought, the annoyance draining from her. She was so tired of worrying about every move she took, every word she uttered. Part of her wanted to give up, give in and just go along with whatever Win told her to do, but the part of her that was tired of doing what her brothers thought was right asserted itself. She was an adult. A modern woman. She may have made a mistake, but she had learned from it, and that one transgression was no reason to treat her as if she had no more sense than God gave a goose! Her anger made a comeback.
“Are you insane, Winston Granville? This is the nineteenth century. You cannot force two perfect strangers to marry.”
“Of course I can.”
“Ooh!” she said. “Men!” She turned on him angrily. “Do you know what the incident with Devon taught me? That if men aren’t using women, they’re manipulating them or treating them like imbeciles.”
“That isn’t fair, and it isn’t true.”
“Isn’t it?” she challenged.
“Be reasonable, Blythe. Think about your future. This is your chance to pull yourself up and regain the respect you lost with the Devon fiasco.”
She looked at her brother as if he had lost his mind. Perhaps he had. Fiasco? She had fallen in love with a man who’d appeared to be everything she’d wanted in a husband; he’d taken her virtue, her money and her self-respect, and Win considered it a fiasco? Why was it no one understood that she’d gone into that marriage with trust and love? Why couldn’t they see how hurt and miserable Devon’s betrayal had left her? She sighed. She didn’t much like the problems that came with becoming an adult and living with the choices she made.
“So you think that if I marry a man whose wife left him, one who is rumored to have a fondness for whiskey, a man who has no desire to be married to anyone—especially me—” she added, recalling Will Slade’s hurtful words “—that all my troubles will miraculously be over. What kind of future would that be? Certainly not a happy one.”
“People marry for lots of reasons,” Win argued. “Happiness is often the least of it. At least you’d be settled.”
Ah. Settled. Translated, that meant that she would be out of his hair, no longer his and Philip’s responsibility. Oh, she knew quite well how the minds of her brothers worked. Both were geniuses when it came to solving problems. And if one solution took care of two dilemmas, so much the better. She also knew that if Win’s mind was set on this marriage, neither she nor Will stood a chance. She almost felt sorry for him.