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.
