Winter Fire (7 page)

“Sorry,” she said. “We don't have coffee. Too costly.”

“Mormon tea, then,” Ab said. “Something hot.”

“We put the cabin fire out at dawn and worked outside,” she said. “Wash day, you know.”

Ab's expression said he didn't believe her.

Looking at the condition of the Culpeppers' clothes, Sarah understood his distrust. His pants looked as if they hadn't been washed in a month of Sundays. He probably had forgotten what a lot of work wash day was.

Or maybe he had never known.

“No biscuits,” Sarah continued in a calm voice, “no beans, no bacon, not even venison jerky. Hate to seem inhospitable, but I wasn't expecting callers.”

Turning in the saddle slightly, Ab tilted back his hat and looked directly at her.

It was all she could do not to take a step away from him. There was something in his eyes that made her stomach churn.

Then she remembered what Lola had said about Ab and his kin.

They sold kids to the Comancheros, after doing things to the young'uns that would shame Satan
.

“If your mules are thirsty,” Sarah said grudgingly, “you can water them at the creek.”

“Ain't thirsty,” Ab said.

Not even the eagle's cry came to relieve the silence that descended.

“You ain't real friendly like, are you?” he asked finally.

“I have friends.”

Her tone said she didn't want any more—especially Culpeppers.

“Gal alone like you can't have too many friends,” he said.

“I'm not alone.”

Ab glanced at Lola, then back at Sarah.

“I meant gentlemen friends,” he said.

“I have no interest in men, Mr. Culpepper. None whatsoever.”

“Well, little lady, then I guess you won't mind giving me back my man, will you?”

“If I had one of your men, you could have him instantly,” she said. “I don't, so you had best look for your lost man elsewhere. Now.”

Ab's face seemed to flatten. His watery blue eyes took on an odd sheen.

“Not so fast, missy,” he said. “I ain't no trash to be sent packing by the likes of you and an old whore.”

All pretense at civility was gone. Ab was using the cold tone Sarah remembered, the tone that said all females were worthless sluts.

But it was his eyes that shocked her. She had never seen such naked hatred.

“I don't care for your language, Mr. Culpepper,” she said evenly. “Please remove yourself from Lost River ranch.”

“I come for the polecat what murdered my kin,” he snarled. “Give him over.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” she said
coolly. “There is no murderer on Lost River ranch.”

Kester's mule took a few steps to the left.

Lola's shotgun came up in blunt warning. She brought both hammers back and watched Kester like the rattlesnake he was.

“He's here,” Ab said. “We done tracked the murdering devil from Spanish Church.”

“Were your kin wearing guns?” Sarah asked.

“Of course they was. They're Culpeppers!”

“Were they shot from the front?”

“Culpeppers ain't no cowards,” he said. “They was facing him.”

“Then there was no murder, was there?” she pointed out reasonably. “Your kin simply drew on the wrong man. They paid for their misjudgment with their lives.”

Ab's face flushed, then went pale.

“The man what killed my kin is in that there cabin,” he said coldly. “Get him.”

“No,” she said. “He's near dead himself.”

“Who cares? Get him!”

“If he survives, you may pursue your vendetta elsewhere,” Sarah said. “Until then, the man is my guest.”

Ab stared down at her as though he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Despite the cold sweat on her ribs, she stared right back at him. Then she leveled the shotgun at his belt.

“Don't take your eyes off him,” Lola said. “No matter what happens elsewhere.”

“I won't.” Sarah's voice was thin but steady. “Goodbye, Mr. Culpepper. Please don't hurry back. We don't take kindly to unexpected visitors.”

A stream of tobacco juice landed wetly on the ground as Lola cleared her mouth.

“What she means,” Lola said bluntly, “is that we shoot 'em on sight and plant 'em where they lay. Savvy?”

Ab understood. He didn't like it any better than he liked the shotgun pointing at his brisket.

A shot rang out from inside the cabin. It was followed quickly by two more.

Sarah flinched but kept her attention—and her shotgun—on Ab.

Lola didn't even flinch.

There was no return fire from beyond the cabin.

“Sounds like planting time,” Lola said. “You boys either grab iron or git.”

Neither Culpepper moved toward his gun. Each man was looking straight down both barrels of a shotgun that was loaded, cocked, and ready to fire. The fact that women were holding the guns wasn't a comfort.

It took no particular strength to pull a trigger.

“Parnell!” Ab yelled.

No one answered.

“More kin?” Lola asked blandly. “You boys sure are careless of yourselves.”

Not once did Ab look away from Sarah. He memorized her face, her body, and her hands on the gun.

“Your turn be coming,” he said. “And I be the man to lay it to you. Same for that hotheaded young pup lying back in the cottonwoods. Keep him leashed, else he won't have no fancies to strut in front of the gals.”

Ab's hand jerked on the reins. His mule spun on its hocks and trotted off. Kester's mule followed.

Neither rider looked back.

“
K
eep watching
them,” Sarah said tightly.

Lola spat another juicy stream. “I weren't born yesterday.”

Without answering, Sarah uncocked her shotgun and ran into the cabin. She spared a quick glance for the injured hawk on its perch in a corner. The bird was ruffled and skittish from the noise, but otherwise unhurt.

Not as much could be said of the man.

Case was slumped on the floor at the back of the cabin, naked but for the loincloth. His forehead was propped against the wall. His six-gun was in his hands. The barrel was rammed through an opening in the planks where the chinking had fallen out.

The bitter smell of gun smoke hung in the still air.

“Case?” she asked.

His only answer was an indistinct sound. He didn't turn toward her.

She rushed across the room and sank to her knees beside him. Hastily she propped her shotgun against the wall and began running her hands over his back and legs, searching for new injury.

The gentle touches went through him like lightning. His breath hissed in on a muffled curse. He lifted his shaggy head and turned glittering gray-green eyes on her.

“Are you all right?” she whispered.

“No.”

She made a small sound and stroked his back as if he were a frightened hawk.

“Where do you hurt?” she asked. “Were you shot again? Your back looks all right. Roll over and let me check your front.”

The thought of having Sarah's gentle, quick hands exploring every inch of him sent another jolt of sensual lightning through Case.

“Don't tempt me,” he said.

“What?”

He said something rough under his breath. Her touch had transformed the fear he felt for her when the Culpeppers rode up into raw, reckless desire.

“Nothing is wrong with me,” he said, “except that I missed the son of a bitch.”

“Who?”

“Parnell, from what Ab called out,” Case said. “Hellfire and damnation!”

“Where was he?”

“See that pile of rocks yonder?”

Sarah bent and peered through the broad crack. The only pile of rocks she could see was a lot more than a hundred yards away. She glanced at Case's revolver.

“Good Lord,” she said. “Of course you missed him. All you had was a six-gun.”

“That's all I should have needed.”

She started to argue.

The look in his eyes changed her mind.

“Let me help you back to bed,” she said.

“You go watch those Culpeppers. I'm fine where I am.”

“Lola's watching them, Ute is trailing them, and Conner is lying back in the shadows to send up a shout if anyone else appears.”

Case looked out through the crack in the chinking for a long time before he answered.

Nothing moved on the landscape, not even the shadow of a high-flying bird.

In the silence, the metallic sounds of Case uncocking his six-gun seemed almost as loud as the shooting had.

“I guess you've done this a time or two before,” he said.

“Ute figures it's better to plan ahead than to die regretting your carelessness.”

Case grunted. “Sounds like Hunter.”

“Hunter?”

“My brother. He was a colonel back when the South had uniforms of its own and fools dying to wear them. Not that Hunter was a fool. I was the only fool in the family.”

“I doubt that.”

“I don't.”

The emptiness in his voice brought an unexpected ache to Sarah's throat. Without realizing it, she stroked his back again with long, gentle sweeps of her hand.

“Let me help you back to bed,” she said after a time.

“I can get back the same way I got here.”

“But you're hurt.”

Case felt the glide of her hand down his spine and fought to keep from lashing out at her.

Or grabbing her.

“Case?”

“If you don't stop petting me like a tabby cat,” he said in a level voice, “I'm going to grab you and show you just how healthy I'm feeling right now.”

“Tabby cat?” She laughed. “You're more like a cougar than a housecat.”

He started to roll over on his good side and reveal just what was bothering him. But even beginning the movement brought a searing agony, pinning him in place.

Well, that should cure me
, he thought.

But it didn't. Not completely.

Another dose should take care of it
, he told himself.

With grim determination, he rolled over onto his good leg. Ignoring Sarah's protests, he half-crawled, half-dragged himself back across the cabin.

“There,” he said, stretching out on the pallet. “Satisfied?”

She looked at the ashen color of his skin, the sweat standing on his forehead, and his pale, changeable-green eyes slitted against pain.

“You could teach stubborn to those Culpepper mules,” she said angrily.

“No doubt.”

“Do you like making extra work for me?”

He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Look at you. Dirt from head to toe. You'll have to be washed right along with your bandages and loincloth.”

Case wanted to argue, but exhaustion opened beneath him like a whirlpool, sucking him down. The extent of his own weakness shocked him.

“Too…tired,” he managed.

“I'm not. You'll be clean before you know it.”

He tried to object, but the whirlpool pulled him under. His words came out a meaningless mumble.

For a few moments Sarah watched his eyelids flicker and finally close. When they stayed shut, she sighed with relief. Even when he was so obviously spent from pain, she doubted that she could wrestle him into doing anything he didn't want to do.

“Stubborn, stubborn man,” she muttered.

His eyes remained closed.

She couldn't help noticing that his black lashes were thick, long fans that curled slightly at the end. They made him look oddly vulnerable.

“Eyelashes any girl would envy,” she said in a low voice, “and God gives them to a man who's tough enough to eat steel and spit razors.”

If he heard, he gave no sign.

“Thank you, Case, whoever you are, wherever you came from,” Sarah said softly.

He didn't move.

“We've always known the back of the cabin was our weak spot,” she continued, walking over to where he lay. “Conner can't see it from the cottonwoods and Ute can't see it once he comes down off the rim to cover our other flank.”

Case's breathing deepened as exhaustion pulled him into a healing sleep.

She knelt next to him and put the inside of her wrist on his forehead.

Cool. Smooth. Damp with sweat that was drying even as she touched him.

“Well, let's see how bad you hurt yourself defending our backs,” she said quietly.

With quick motions she undid the bandage on his thigh.

No new blood showed, even on the deep wound.

“Thank God,” she whispered. “You're as tough physically as you are thick-skulled.”

A long whistle came from beyond the cabin.

All clear
.

Relief hit Sarah in a wave that left her light-headed.

After a few moments she took a deep breath, gathered herself, and went to work preparing a bath.

Despite what she had told the Culpeppers, there was still a small fire in the cabin. It was just enough to take the bite out of the winter air and keep a bucket of water warm.

“Everything all right in there?” Lola called.

“Case didn't open up his wounds, if that's what you mean,” she answered. “Are the Culpeppers gone?”

“Nothing but dust hanging in the air.”

“Where's Conner?”

“Watching the back of the cabin. Ute's tracking the third son of a bitch.”

“I'll take care of Case and be out as soon as I can.”

“No need. As it is, I'm about as useless as teats on a bull standing around out here. You want a hand at nursing?”

“No,” Sarah said quickly. “I can handle it alone.”

Only after she had spoken did she realize that she was reluctant to have anyone else see Case naked.

It had been one thing when he was desperately ill. It was quite another when he was healthy enough to crawl around the cabin. Somehow it was more…personal.

You're being addlepated
, she scolded herself.
Lola has seen more men naked than I've seen clothed
.

Even so, Sarah rebelled at the thought of the other woman handling Case's sleek, muscular body now.

“When you can,” she called out, “get some more water from the creek.”

“Lordy, gal. What are you going to do with it all, wash them stone cliffs and hang them out on the clouds to dry?”

Sarah laughed softly. No one approved of all the soap and water she lavished on everything that didn't run away.

“No cliffs,” she murmured. “Just a man. A big one.”

When she thought of Case as a man instead of a wounded creature needing her care, her stomach did a funny little flip. It wasn't fear or even nervousness, although it felt a bit like both.

“What's wrong with you, Sarah Jane Lawson?” she asked herself softly, mimicking the rhythm and words of her long-dead grandmother. “A person would think you have taken leave of what smidgen of sense God gave you.”

Unexpectedly, her throat closed around a grief she had never given way to.

She hadn't thought of her dead family in a long time. At first she simply hadn't been able to bear it. Finally it had become a habit.

“The future, not the past,” she reminded herself. “Conner is the future for me.”

The only future.

She would never again allow herself to be put at a man's mercy through marriage. All her hopes and longings for a family were bound up in her younger brother, the brother Ab had threatened just a few minutes ago.

Keep him leashed, else he won't have no fancies to strut in front of the gals
.

Case stirred, then settled deeper into sleep.

Putting everything else out of her mind, Sarah bent over him and began the familiar ritual of unwrapping his wound, inspecting it, putting on salve, and wrapping the injury again with clean bandages.

As she worked on him, she talked softly, describing what she was doing. She spoke aloud because experience had taught her that wild creatures were less likely to startle if she let them know exactly where she was by keeping up a constant, gentle flow of words.

In some ways, Case reminded Sarah of a wild creature—strong, solitary, self-sufficient until man and his guns interrupted the natural order.

The only change in the normal routine of caring for him came after she moved his leg enough to look at the stitches on the back of his thigh. The skin around them was puckered and pulling against the thread.

“Goodness, you heal quickly,” she said in her soft, crooning voice. “Healthy as a horse, as Uncle William would say.”

Again, an unexpected grief gripped her. She rarely allowed herself to think of the bachelor doctor whose only legacy to the world was the black bag of his profession.

“I've taken good care of it for you,” she whispered. “I've kept the instruments clean and bright…Do you know that, wherever you are? Does it make up for all the times I followed you around and pestered you until you taught me what you could before you died?”

No answer came from the silence.

She didn't expect one. She had grown used to asking questions that had no answers.

With shiny, oddly shaped little scissors, she snipped the stitches on the back of Case's leg. When she pulled them out with tweezers, he stirred slightly.

“It's all right,” she murmured soothingly. “I'm just taking out stitches you don't need. Nothing to wake up over.”

She didn't expect an answer from him any more than she had expected an answer from her dead uncle or the wild creatures she tended. Because Case wasn't resisting her in any way, she assumed he was still deeply asleep.

“There,” she murmured. “That's the last stitch. Now I'll just bandage you up again. It won't hurt a bit.”

His eyelashes lifted for an instant, revealing slivers of pale green. He started to tell Sarah that she wasn't hurting him, but it was too much effort.

It was easier just to lie quietly and let her soothe him with words and touches.

“Lola swears this smelly salve keeps infection out of wounds better than soap,” she murmured. “I don't know what my uncle would say, but it certainly worked on Ute and you and the rest of the wild creatures.”

She set down the jar of salve. It thumped gently onto the floor near her patient's shoulder.

The mixed scents of juniper, sage, and other herbs Case couldn't identify flowed over him each time he breathed in. He preferred the sunshine and rose-petal smell of Sarah's skin, but he lacked the energy to tell her.

“That's it,” she encouraged. “Just keep sleeping. I'll have a clean bandage back on in two shakes of a lamb's tail.”

The sensation of her hands on his skin was familiar to him by now, as was the faint brushing of her breasts against him while she wrapped the bandage all the way around his thigh.

His body's reaction was familiar, too.

He didn't bother trying to fight the arousal that came whether he willed it or not. He simply hoped the loincloth covered him.

“Now we'll just stretch out this leg,” she murmured. “It shouldn't hurt for but a moment.”

Her hands slid under the knee and heel of his wounded leg. Gently she guided his leg into a more natural position.

“It's a good thing I only have to move part of you at a time,” she said softly. “You're big even lying down.”

Her hand smoothed gently down his uninjured leg, enjoying the warmth and resilience of his flesh.

“Such strength,” she said. “It must be wonderful to be that strong.”