The Lady Takes A Gunslinger (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 1) (20 page)

Pushing himself up on one arm was a mistake. He fell back with a groan.

Grace's head came up with a snap. She fumbled with her hair, raking it off her face with her fingers. "Reese! Oh! You're alive!"

You might say that. Then again...

Her eyes went suspiciously bright. "We've all been so worried."

He frowned, letting his gaze roam over her face until she flushed pink.

"You were very ill." She leaned closer, pressing the backs of her fingers to his forehead.

They felt like cool silk against his damp skin. He couldn't explain it, but he craved her touch almost as much as he did a long swig of Red Dog.
Don't move,
he told her silently.

But she did. "I think your fever has broken at last." A tremulous smile softened the bruises of fatigue beneath her eyes. "But you're still a little warm."

"How"—he cleared his throat—"how long have I been here?"

"Nearly two days." She glanced at the morning sunlight spilling through the room. "It's Thursday, I think."

Two days.

Hard to believe he could lose forty-eight hours in the blink of an eye. More than long enough for Sanders to find them ten times over. He'd been right on their tails. It was pure dumb luck he hadn't found them yet. His blood rose at the thought. "How close are they?"

"They?"

"The posse."

Grace shook her head. She didn't want to say that Cass had seen Sanders's men in town searching for them, and that they'd come within spitting distance of the house exactly twice since last night. They'd sniffed around the stock at James's livery as well, but had seemed to leave without suspicion.

"Perhaps," she suggested, plucking lightly at her sleeve, "that Hidalgo fellow is not as good a tracker as you thought."

"And you're a bad liar, Miss Turner. You've seen them." It wasn't a question.

Weighing the truth against her poor bluffing skills, she nodded reluctantly.

Eyes slammed shut, Reese fingered the damp poultices draped around his side. "And Gil?"

"Uh-h..." She hesitated.

He looked up at her.

"Gil Lambert is dead, Reese. He died three months ago."

His breath left him in a rush. "Gil? Dead?"

She nodded. "I'm sorry."

"How?"

"James said something about river pirates," she said. He didn't reply, but she recognized the pain of the loss in his shattered expression despite his attempts to hide it.

"Was he a good friend?"

Reese's fist tightened around the sheet. "Aye. He was."

"I'm sorry. James said as soon as you're well enough to travel, he'll hire a boat for us."

He sent her an incredulous look. "Whose boat? By now the whole bloody waterfront knows we're hiding out somewhere in Brownsville. He cursed vilely.

"Reese, calm down."

"And wait here like lambs for the slaughter? We have to get out of—" He started to throw back the covers.

Grace's eyes went wide and she threw up her hand to stop him. "No, wait!"

His movement froze halfway up when he discovered the reason for her warning. Snapping the covers back over himself, he managed a scathing look at her before the pain forced him to collapse back on the pillow with a groan. "The devil take it! Why didn't you tell me I didn't have any bloody clothes on?"

She narrowed her eyes and gave him a look worthy of her most troublesome students back at the academy. "You didn't ask. I didn't think you'd be fool enough to try to leap from the bed!"

Reese groaned in frustration. Who did he think he was kidding? She was right. He wasn't going anywhere. Not when the room spun every time he moved and his hand trembled like a man with the palsy.

She touched his arm. "There was nothing we could do until—"

"—until I came to. Right?" Heat infused his cheeks, making him light-headed.

"It wasn't your fault. Now look, you're getting flushed again. You're still not well. Here, drink this."

She lifted a cup of cold feverfew tea to his lips and forced a few godawful swallows down him. He wondered suddenly if her true intent was poisoning. With a grimace he eased back on the pillows again and glared up at her.

"Why are you doing this?" He narrowed his eyes. "What is it you're after this time?"

Her lips parted in confusion. "After? I don't know what—"

"The last time you helped me, the price was a trip to Querétaro. What do I have to promise this time? Jump off a cliff, maybe? Run headlong into a stampeding herd of wild Texas cattle?"

She hugged her arms, watching him warily, obviously stung by his words. "There's no need for sarcasm, Mr. Donovan."

"Ah, yes, you must have been worried about our bargain, then. Protecting your interests?" He was being cruel and he knew it, but—

"It wasn't about Querétaro or my brother."

His eyes locked with hers. "No?" He was suddenly exhausted and breathing hard. "What was it about then?"

She bowed her head. "It was about you. I was afraid for you." That silenced him and she met his gaze directly. "I didn't want you to die. Do you find that so hard to believe, Mr. Donovan?"

He didn't answer, only looked at her with something akin to anger twisting in him. Believe that she cared about him? He'd made a career out of looking for the worst in people, cutting away every trace of trust he harbored inside him, until no one could get close enough to hurt him. Yet when he looked at her, at the innocence in her eyes, he hated himself for wanting to believe her.

"Look," she said, twisting her hands in the fabric of her wrapper, "I know you don't think much of me after all the trouble I've caused you."

"Aye," he said, one corner of his mouth lifting slightly. "You are a lot of trouble."

"I know. I've been trouble my whole life. Everyone says so. Even Luke. I don't try to be. It just happens. When I was sitting here with you last night, and you were very ill, it occurred to me that I'd never really told you how sorry I was about everything. I never thanked you for what you did for me back in Pair-a-Dice."

"For what?"

"Deke."

Donovan pulled his gaze from her and aimed it at the window. "Oh, that. I didn't do it for you."

"For the spilled whiskey, I suppose?"

"I paid good money for that bottle."

"I believed that too, at first. But you don't kill someone over spilled whiskey."

The look he turned on her was hard again. "No. I don't kill men over whiskey, or over a woman, either. I don't kill at all unless I have to."

"I know," she said. "I mean, I understand that now. I didn't before. I'm sorry I doubted you."

He swallowed hard and drew the back of his hand over the sweat glistening above his lip. "Don't try to make me something I'm not, Grace. It won't work. You weren't wrong about me. The truth is, if I could have gotten away from you that first night—if not for the bullet—I would've left you and the old man behind in a blink and never regretted it."

"Oh." Disappointment clouded her eyes.

He stared at her, forcing himself to look unrepentant.

"And now?" she asked.

"Now." He sighed, turning his face away from her. "Now it doesn't matter, does it? I'm weak as a kitten and no good to you or myself."

"But you will be. As soon as you get your stren—"

"Will you wake up?" he shot back. "Surely even you can see it's no good. The plan's been doomed from the start. This"—he gestured to his side—"this only seals the bargain."

Her expression went cool as ice and she pulled herself straight in the chair. "My, you're feeling quite sorry for yourself, aren't you?"

"What?"

"Are you going to give up and die, then? Perhaps just languish here until the posse does find you? Then what will happen to James and Evie? Tell me that. Harboring criminals. Fugitives. How well do you think it will go for them, then?"

He scowled, knowing she was right.

"Whether you've decided to renege on your promise to us or not, Mr. Donovan, is of no real consequence at this moment. Because right now a man named Ephram Sanders with a grudge as big as all of Texas is determined to see us dead. You are in precisely the same danger as Brew and I. The longer we stay here, the more danger we put your friends in. Is that what you want?"

He closed his eyes, wishing he could escape into sleep, or something deeper. "You know I don't."

"Then we'll speak of it no more. As soon as you're able, we will find a boat and get on it. Then we'll cross the Rio into Mexico and take tomorrow as it comes. Agreed?"

He nodded.

"Good. I'm going to find you something to eat, and when I come back, you will eat it." She flounced toward the door, that pretty backside of hers swaying in indignation.

He couldn't stop the half smile of admiration that crept to his lips as he called after her, "Hey, Grace."

She stopped short and turned back to him with an arched brow, waiting.

"Are you by any chance a schoolmarm?" he asked.

From her expression, that was apparently the last thing she expected him to say. "Why, yes. An assistant teacher. However did you know that?"

"Just a guess. It was either that," he replied, letting his eyes shut, "or an army drillmaster."

* * *

James was sitting beside the bed when Reese woke up again. He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, except that Grace hadn't returned.

"Hello, my friend," James said.

Reese smiled. "James. Sorry for dropping in on you this way."

"You did drop, didn't you?" He rolled his shoulder with an exaggerated wince. "I think I pulled something carrying your carcass into the house."

"Sorry," Reese admitted sheepishly. "I don't remember any of it."

"When you consider you were nearly straddling Saint Peter's pearly gate when you got here, that's no great surprise." The grin faded and he grew serious. "How do you feel?"

"Like I've been dragged across Texas—under a horse."

James smiled. "Grace told us what happened. We halfway expected something like this. We'd heard you were making your living by the gun."

"Did you, now?" Reese wouldn't have thought himself capable of a blush, but nevertheless felt heat creep up his neck. It had never bothered him what people thought of him or what he did. It mattered, however, what James thought.

"You've got a reputation as a shootist, Reese. Even you must know that. Is that what that kid, Deke Sanders, was testing? His gun against yours?"

"Something like that." Reese flexed his hand, then shoved it beneath his head and stared at the ceiling.

"I know you well enough to know he drew on you first."

"That's a fact that conveniently escaped the attention of every other man in the room," Reese said, meeting James's eyes. "He just happened to be Ephram Sanders's baby brother. Bad luck."

"Well, you're lucky that girl didn't let you bleed to death out there. And lucky she's so determined to keep you alive. She hasn't slept for more than a few hours since you got here for fussing over you. I reckon she did more to save you than Evie and me combined."

Reese shook his head. "Grace couldn't afford to let me die. She needs me."

James shook his head slowly. "She's crazy about you."

"Crazy abou—? You don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't I? You'd have to be blind not to see it, Reese. And I say a woman strong enough to do what she did is worth hanging on to."

Reese snorted. "I don't hang on to women, James. You should know that by now. Anyway, that sort of life is all behind me."

"Maybe," James said carefully. "And maybe it's time you changed your mind."

"With Grace, you mean?" He snorted. "She's a wide-eyed, green stripling with an imagination like a steam engine locked at full speed. If she's not recounting some wild scheme from some dime novel adventure she's read, she's lecturing me on the quality of honor and mercy."

James laughed, and shook his head. "And she's got just enough optimism to possibly—just possibly—knock off that chip of cynicism you wear on your shoulder, if only you'd give her the chance."

Reese glared up at him. "Chip, eh? Is that what you think of me?"

James rubbed a hand across the stubble on his jaw. "You came here, so you must have a pretty good idea what I think of you, Reese. You wouldn't be lying in my bed if I didn't believe you were worth that gal's trouble or mine. But I think you've been on your own too long. Havin' a woman, a good woman," he added meaningfully, "changes the way a man thinks about his life. Changes everything. That's all." James slapped his knees and leaned forward. "And that and two bits will buy you a shot of bad whiskey. So what'll you do? Brewster has gone to hire a boat. Are you going to help them get to Querétaro?"

"I don't know," Reese said honestly. "I'm going to get on that boat and cross the border. After that, I don't know."

James watched him, and leaned back in his chair. "Would it make any difference if I told you I heard Jake Scully was down that way, workin' with Juarez's forces?"