Winter Fire (5 page)

“But your hip—”

“It's just fine,” Lola interrupted again. “Start patching this boy up 'fore he bleeds to death.”

Sarah didn't argue any longer. She threaded a special needle with fine silk and went to work stitching up the cut she had made in Case's skin.

The hair on his thighs was as black and silky as the thread she used. His skin was warm, surprisingly smooth, supple as fine leather.

“Turn him onto his back,” she said.

Her voice was husky, almost breathless. Hastily she cleared her throat.

Conner gave her an odd look before he bent and rolled Case over onto his back.

“Your sheets are bloody now,” he said.

“Ain't the first time,” Lola muttered.

“What?” he asked.

“A woman's monthlies, boy. Use your head for something more than a hatrack.”

Spots of red burned on Conner's cheeks but he bit his tongue. He had learned not to get into slanging matches
with Big Lola. She knew the kind of words that could singe stone.

And when provoked, she used them.

Sarah ducked her head to hide her smile at her brother's chagrin. Lola was as hard and blunt as a stone ax, but she wasn't cruel. She simply had no patience for thick-skulled male foolishness.

Nor did Sarah.

Quickly she folded clean cloth into a pad and pressed it over the wound. When she applied more force, Case groaned. She bit her lower lip and kept on pressing down.

After a time she cautiously lifted a corner of the cloth. Blood still flowed, but slowly.

“More,” Lola said. “Ain't stopped yet.”

Sarah repeated the process with a new cloth. Her teeth sank into her lower lip when he twitched and moaned.

“Don't fret,” Lola said. “He ain't really feeling it.”

“I hope you're right.”

“Hell, gal, he's an outlaw, not some fine, fainting lady.”

“That doesn't mean he can't feel pain.”

“I'll mix the poultice” was all Lola said.

Finally the bleeding slowed enough for Sarah to finish dressing the wound. Lola handed her a jar of strong-smelling poultice.

Holding her breath, Sarah smeared the blend of herbs, oils, and moldy bread onto a clean bandage, placed it over both wounds, and waited while Lola did the same to the wound on the back of Case's thigh. Quickly Sarah wrapped his leg with clean ribbons of cloth that still smelled of the sunny winter day.

“That's it,” Lola said. “Cover him, put some warming bricks in the bed, and leave him be.”

She was still talking when Sarah started pulling the top layer of bricks from the fire ring. They were hot. Breath hissed between her teeth as she wrapped the bricks in old flour sacks. She tucked the bricks at Case's feet and added
a few more along his legs for good measure.

“Feverish?” Lola asked.

“Not yet.”

She grunted. “It'll come.”

Sarah bit her lower lip, but didn't argue. Lola's experience with gunshot wounds was greater than her own.

“Will he…make it?” Sarah asked.

“Hope so. Shame to waste prime males. Ain't enough of them as it is.”

Sarah pulled up the covers and tucked them around Case's shoulders. Like everything else in the cabin, the bedclothes were as clean as hard work, hot water, and soap could make them.

Lola grunted, heaved herself to her feet, and walked to the door. With each step the folds of her flour-sack skirt swung briskly over her knee-high moccasins. Her homespun blouse was the color of unbleached muslin. The headband she wore to hold back her thick gray braids was finely woven, colorful, and spun from the hair of goats she kept for their milk, meat, and silky wool.

“Check the rifles and shotguns,” Sarah said to her brother without looking away from Case. “Is there more fresh water?”

“I'll get it,” he said. Then, almost reluctantly, “What do you think? Will he be all right?”

For an instant she closed her eyes. “I don't know. If his wounds don't infect…”

“You pulled Ute through.”

“I was lucky. So was he.”

“Maybe this one will be lucky, too.”

“I hope so.”

She stood and looked around the cabin, listing things that had to be done.

“More water from the creek,” she said, “more firewood, a place for me to sleep next to Case, Lola will probably need help with her medicinal herbs…”

“I'm gone,” Conner said.

Sarah smiled as her brother hurried out of the cabin. He was a good boy, despite a wide streak of wildness in him that kept her awake nights worrying.

Conner needs something more to look up to than outlaws
, she thought.
I've got to find that treasure. I've simply got to
.

Case moaned softly and tried to sit up.

Instantly she was on her knees beside him, holding his shoulders down.

He swept her aside as though she was no more than straw floating on the wind. Sitting up, he shook his head, trying to clear it.

She put her hand on his thick hair and soothed him like a wounded hawk.

“Case,” she said distinctly. “Case, can you hear me?”

Slowly his eyes opened and focused on her.

An odd kind of gray-blue-green
, she thought.
Not really hazel. More a pale green
.

Clear as winter and twice as deep. Colder, too
.

“Sarah?” he asked hoarsely. “Sarah Kennedy?”

“That's me,” she agreed. “Lie down, Case.”

She pressed on his shoulders again. This time she noticed the resilience of his muscles beneath her palms, the male power coiled under his naked skin.

And the heat. Not fever. Just…life.

“What happened?” he asked thickly.

“You were shot. Ute found you and brought you here.”

“Culpeppers?”

“Reginald and Quincy.”

“Got to get up,” he muttered. “Coming after me.”

“I doubt it. From what Ute said, the only place those two are going is straight to hell.”

Case blinked and rubbed one hand across his eyes.

“Other Culpeppers,” he said.

His left hand moved as though reaching for a gun. His fingers found nothing but bare skin.

“Gun,” he said hoarsely. “Where?”

“Lie down. You couldn't fight a baby chick in your condition.”

Case shook off Sarah and tried to stand. A wave of pain slammed through him. Stifling a groan, he sank back down onto the bed.

“Got to—get up,” he said.

“I'll bring you a gun if you'll just lie down,” she said quickly. “Please, Case. If you move around you'll start bleeding again and then you'll die!”

The urgency of Sarah's tone got through to him. He stopped struggling and allowed himself to be tucked in again. Then he watched with pain-hazed eyes while she stood and went to get his gun.

As was her custom, Sarah was dressed in men's clothes. Skirts and petticoats were worse than useless when she was climbing the stone canyons searching for treasure, or tending sick animals, or riding one of the skittish mustangs Conner and Ute had caught to provide mounts.

“Men's clothes,” Case said in a blurred voice.

“What?”

“Pants.”

She flushed brightly. “I, er, that is…”

Her voice faded as she remembered the picture Case had made when she undressed him. Even bloody and half-dead, he had been enough to make her heartbeat quicken.

Ninny
, she told herself.
Just because he kissed you sweetly as a butterfly doesn't mean he wouldn't hurt you for his own pleasure
.

He is, after all, a man
.

A big one
.

“I'll bring your shirt as soon as I get the blood off it,” she said. “But you shouldn't wear it or pants for a time. All the rubbing would just make it harder for your wounds to heal.”

He looked confused.

“I was talking about your clothes, not mine,” he said carefully.

“Good thing,” she retorted, “because you're not wearing any to speak of at the moment.”

He tried to answer, but dizziness was breaking over him like a long winter storm. He closed his eyes, clenched his teeth, and fought to keep a clear head.

But it was one battle Case knew he would lose.

“Here,” she said. “I emptied the first chamber.”

He felt the cold, familiar weight of his six-gun pressed into his left hand.

“Now lie down again,” she ordered.

He allowed himself to be pushed back onto the pallet. When she bent to tuck the bedcovers around his shoulders, one of her braids fell forward. It brushed across his cheek like a silken rope.

“Roses,” he said.

“What?”

He opened his eyes. He found himself staring into eyes that were the color of mist and silver intermixed, compassionate and wary and admiring all at once.

“Roses and sunshine,” he said thickly. “I kissed you.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “You kissed me.”

“Dumbest thing…I ever did.”

“What?”

There was no answer. Case was unconscious.

S
arah sat
cross-legged next to the pallet where Case slept restlessly, gripped by pain and fever. Except to care for the wounded hawk, she had barely moved from Case's side for the past three days.

“Em…” he said hoarsely. “
Emily
.”

The agony in his voice made Sarah's throat ache with tears she had forgotten how to shed.

She didn't know who Emily was. She knew only that Case loved her. He called out other names, too—Ted and Belinda, Hunter and Morgan—but it was Emily's name that was torn from him in naked anguish.

“Case,” she said, using the voice she reserved for frightened animals. “You're safe, Case. Here, drink this. It will help the fever and pain.”

As she spoke soothingly, she propped up his head and held a cup to his lips.

He swallowed without a fight. He knew with a gut-deep certainty that the murmurous voice and cool hands would help rather than hurt him.

“Roses,” he said hoarsely, sighing.

Sarah's smile was as sad as the mist-gray eyes that watched his flushed face. She had taken care of many hurt creatures in her life, but never had she shared their pain in quite this way.

“Sleep,” she murmured. “Sleep. And don't dream, Case. Your dreams…hurt too much.”

After a few more minutes he sighed and slid back into the twilight world that was neither sleeping nor waking. But he was calmer now.

She barely dared to breathe deeply for fear of disturbing him. His fever was less than yesterday or the day before, and the infection in his wounds was subsiding, but he was far from well.

Moving slowly, noiselessly, she trimmed the wick of the lantern, lit it, and checked the hawk's wing. The bird protested at being touched, but like Case, the hawk no longer fought her when she rubbed in salve. Her gentle hands and voice had calmed the wild bird to the point that she no longer had to hood it to keep it from panicking.

“Healing nicely,” she murmured. “You'll be soaring winter skies again, my fierce friend. Soon.”

She set the lantern near the pallet where Case lay. Settling close by, she picked up a small bundle of wool and began twisting it onto a wooden spindle. Her fingers flew, spinning a shapeless mass of goat hair into soft yarn. As though by magic, yarn grew fat around the spindle as the pile of wool shrank.

The cabin door opened and shut quickly. Without looking up, Sarah could tell from the footsteps that it was her brother.

“How's he doing?” Conner asked.

“Better. Less fever.”

“Told you he'd make it.”

She smiled wanly.

“You look tired,” he said. “Why don't you sleep? I'll watch him.”

She shook her head.

Her brother started to argue, then shrugged and held his tongue. Lola was right—no one had Sarah's touch. Somehow she could reassure everything from hawks to mustangs that they were safe in her hands.

“Anything happening up on the rim?” she asked.

“No sign of Culpeppers, if that's what you mean.”

“Ute must have done a better job of wiping out Case's trail than he thought.”

“Maybe. And maybe they're just waiting.”

“For what?” she asked.

“How should I know? I'm not a Culpepper. Any beans left?”

“You just ate.”

“That was hours ago,” he said.

“One hour.”

“I'm hungry.”

“Finish the beans, wash the pot, and put more—”

“—beans in to soak,” he interrupted, reciting the familiar instructions. “Shoot, you'd think I was still in diapers or something. I know how to make beans.”

“Really? Do you think they grow in dirty pots? Is that why I had to wash out the pot and start today's supper in the middle of last night?”

Conner's mouth flattened.

Sarah regretted her sharp words the instant they were out of her mouth. Sighing, she wondered how parents managed to keep their tempers at all. One moment Conner acted as responsibly as any fully grown man. The next moment he was worse than a two-year-old.

Yet she desperately needed to be able to count on him.

That's hardly fair to Conner
, Sarah reminded herself.
He's only a boy
.

“Sorry,” she said. “You were up half the night on watch.”

Saying nothing, he scraped the last of the beans onto a plate. He knew he was in the wrong. He should have started the beans even if he was cross-eyed from lack of sleep. He had just plain forgotten.

“I won't forget again,” he muttered.

“It's all right.”

“No, it ain't.”

“Isn't,” she said automatically.

“
Isn't
. Hell's fire, what difference does it make? I'm not going to no—
any
—fancy Eastern school!”

“Yes, you are. Just as soon as I find that treasure.”

“We'll all be dead as last year's flowers before that happens. Besides, I don't want to go.”

“I'll find the silver,” she said. “You'll go.”

Conner heard the stubbornness in his sister's voice and changed the subject. Every time they talked about his lack of formal schooling, they argued. The older he got, the fiercer the arguments became.

He didn't want to hurt his sister, but he had no intention of going back East and leaving her to fend for herself. She would never admit that she needed him, but she did.

He stalked out into the night to wash the pot in the creek.

The vague whisper of goat hair being spun into yarn filled the silence. Sarah worked quickly and deftly, and tried not to think about the future.

It was impossible.

Conner is growing up too fast
.

Though she would have died sooner than admit it, she was frightened that she wouldn't find the Spanish silver in time to save her young brother from the rootless life lived by too many Western men.

And now I have those Culpeppers and Moody's gang to worry about
.

She bit her bottom lip and kept on spinning without a pause.

I'll spend so much time looking over my shoulder that my only chance of finding the silver will be to trip over it on my way to the privy
.

Next time I'm out I'll try the land north and west of the ranch. The outlaws don't go there much. No reason to. In most of the canyons there's no water, no forage, no hunting
.

No silver, either. Not yet
.

But there will be
.

There has to be
.

Despite her bleak thoughts, her fingers never stopped working. Conner's wrists were hanging out of the last jacket Lola had woven for him. There was no money to buy another.

Spinning and weaving, spinning and weaving
, she thought.
Lord, I wish all of life was so simple
.

She knew it wasn't. On the other hand, spinning and weaving at least accomplished something. All that treasure hunting had done was to wear out her moccasins as fast as Ute could make them.

Conner came back inside, bringing a gust of cold air with him. Though there was no snow yet, the land itself was icy at night.

Without a word, he put some beans to soak. Then he curled up on his pallet near the fire. He was asleep between one breath and the next.

With a small sigh, Sarah stretched her back and ran her fingers through her freshly washed hair. The scent of wild roses drifted up from her fingers. She had taken advantage of her brother's absence earlier to have a thorough bath, something she did so often that Ute swore she was going to sprout scales and fins.

Her waist-length hair was cool and still faintly damp to the touch.

Not dry enough to braid yet
, she decided.
I might as well just stay awake until it's time to change the bandages and coax Case into drinking some more water
.

She picked up her spinning again and settled in for more quiet hours of spinning, caring for Case, and fretting about Conner's future.

 

When fever released Case from its grip, a rhythmic kind of whispering was the first thing he heard. Most men in his situation would have opened their eyes to find out where they were, or moved, or made a sound.

He gave not one sign that he had awakened.

His senses told him that he wasn't alone. Since the only person he trusted was clear over in the Ruby Mountains of Nevada, the fact that there was someone nearby meant danger.

Hidden beneath blankets, his left hand moved, searching for the weapon that was never far from him even while he slept.

The six-gun was there.

And he was naked.

Very carefully his fingers closed around the gun. Secretly he gathered himself to fight.

Despite his iron self-control, the sudden stab of pain in his right leg when he moved it almost tore a cry from him. Memories followed the lightning stroke of agony. Some were as sharp as the pain itself. Some were dreamlike in their softness.

The fight at Spanish Church was one of the sharp memories.

Did Ab Culpepper track me down?

As soon as the thought came, Case dismissed it.

If Ab had found me, I wouldn't be waking up at all, and I sure as sin wouldn't have a gun in my hand
.

I was wounded
, he remembered painfully.
I tied myself to Cricket, spurred him into a run, and
…

Memory ended in a swirl of agony and darkness.

He listened intently, but heard no sound that told him Cricket was grazing nearby. All he could hear was a soft, somehow reassuring sound, like whispering breaths.

But it wasn't breathing. Not quite.

Spinning
, he realized suddenly.
Someone is sitting close to me and spinning yarn
.

Other memories came, the scent of roses and warmth, gentle hands soothing him, water easing between his lips to cool the fiery thirst that was consuming him, a woman's long hair outlined by lantern light.

Sarah?

Fragments of the past cascaded over Case like colored glass, sharp-edged and beautiful at once.

Gray eyes and hair the color of cinnamon
.

She tastes even sweeter than she smells
.

I never should have kissed her
.

Dumbest thing I ever did
.

Really dumb
.

Cautiously he opened his eyes just enough to see without revealing that he was awake.

Sarah was sitting within arm's reach. Her hands moved in deft, soothing rhythms as she spun yarn from a pile of black wool. Her hair fell over her shoulders in silky, cinnamon waves that cried out to be stroked by a man's hand. Her eyes reflected the luminous gold of lantern light.

She was watching him.

“How do you feel?” she asked softly.

“Dumb.”

She didn't ask why. She was afraid she already knew.

The kiss.

Even the memory of that sweet, searing caress was enough to make her fingers tremble.

“No need to berate yourself,” she said matter-of-factly. “You're not the first man to get shot.”

Or the first one to kiss a girl
, Case thought.

Well, at least she's a widow. She won't mistake a man's hunger for a promise of now and ever after
.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

“Your wounds?”

He nodded.

“One bullet went between the inside of your right arm and your chest.”

As she spoke, she bent over and touched his right shoulder gently.

“You were shot twice in the right thigh,” she continued.

“Infection?” he asked, his voice emotionless.

She set aside her spinning. “You can see for yourself. It's time to change the dressings.”

He watched intently while she went about the simple tasks of gathering clean rags, warm water, and a jar of something pungent he couldn't identify.

“Do you want anything for pain?” Sarah asked. “Ute has some homemade whiskey that—”

“No,” Case said. “I want a clear head.”

She wasn't surprised. Though pale, obviously in pain, and not able to stand, he had an animal alertness that was unmistakable.

He was a man used to living with danger.

Ute had been the same way when he first came to Lost River ranch.

Often, he still was.

“How did I end up here?” Case asked.

“Ute found you.”

Calmly she peeled the bedcovers down to his waist. As she bent forward and began unwrapping the bandage on his arm, her hair slid in a soft cascade across his chest.

Cool, yet it burned him like naked flame. His breath hissed in and his heartbeat doubled.

“Sorry,” Sarah said, lifting her hands instantly. “Are you sure you don't want something for the pain?”

“Yes,” he said through set teeth.

Her eyelids flinched but she said nothing. She simply got on with the task of unwrapping the rest of the bandage on his arm. Delicately her fingertips brushed the area around the furrow left by the bullet.

Again his breath hissed in.

She frowned. “Is it that tender?”

“No.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes,” he said, jaw clenched.

She gave him a wary look. Then she went back to her tender tracing of the skin around the shallow wound.

This time Case didn't make a sound, despite the heat
in his blood that had been summoned by a simple, impersonal touch.

Never should have kissed her
, he told himself savagely.
Dumb. I haven't wanted a woman like this since
…

His thoughts scattered.

He hadn't ever wanted a woman the way he wanted Sarah Kennedy.

For a few more seconds the gentle, delicious torment of her touch continued. Then she withdrew.

“The skin around the wound is cool,” she said. “No infection, but you'll have a scar.”