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.
