to live because I’m not letting you die,” she whispered. “I hear Rangers are made of iron. Well, you’d better be. You’re going to come out of this. Hear me good.”
Finally she finished and wrapped the wound where a bullet had dug its way across Wynn’s back. He’d lost so much blood she was surprised he was still breathing, but she could feel the slow rise and fall of his chest and the warmth of his skin against her touch.
Exhausted, she pulled a stool beside the table and leaned her face near his. “You’re going to be all right, soldier. Hang on. I’m not going to let you die.” Her fingers dug into his hair and made a fist. “I’m expecting you to come knocking on my door one day, and when you do you might as well plan on staying because I don’t think I can let you go.”
She fell asleep in the middle of a sentence, with McCord’s shallow breath brushing her cheek.
In what seemed like minutes, someone woke her to tell her breakfast was ready. It took her a minute to realize that twenty-four hours had passed since they’d brought McCord in.
Anna left her meal untouched as she walked around Wynn, checking the wound, feeling his skin for fever. Wishing he’d open his eyes.
Finally, at Cunningham’s insistence, she ate a few bites and drank a cup of tea. Clark ate everything in sight. Men took over the sergeant’s watch by the door so he could get some sleep, and the day passed in silence.
Lieutenant Dodson tapped on the open door to the office just before dark. He waited until she nodded for him to enter, then removed his hat. She had no doubt he’d heard about what had happened, probably including small details like how she’d stabbed one of the outlaws with her scissors when he’d tried to tie her hands after she’d pulled free. Hopefully Clark had left out the ways the outlaw called Luther had threatened to rape her before they killed her. The words he’d used still made her cheeks burn.
Pushing aside the memory, she stared at the pale officer her brother had said couldn’t afford to be too picky in finding a wife. That dinner her first night in camp seemed more like a hundred years ago rather than just a week.
Lieutenant Dodson began talking as if giving a speech. Anna barely followed along. The man liked to hear his own voice.
Anna didn’t say much. Dodson had been politely cold to her both times they’d met and had obviously seen her only as a possible solution to his problem. Now he seemed to look at her quite differently. He even told her he had always admired tall women who could carry themselves well. It appeared, since she’d survived a kidnapping, her value had gone up in his eyes.
The change in the lieutenant bothered Anna far more than his flattery did. She was glad when the sergeant showed up for his nightly guard duty before Dodson lied and said that she was pretty. Anna had always known she was simply plain.
She didn’t want to hear words she knew weren’t sincere; she wanted to see the way a man felt in his face, and read the truth of his compliments in a touch.
All in all, she’d been lucky: two men in her life had been blind enough to see her as beautiful. One had been young and in love with love. The other lay on the table before her. She had no doubt, despite their shortsightedness, that both men had believed every word they said.
The lieutenant invited her to dine with him and Anna declined. She didn’t even give a reason. She just said, “No, thank you.”
The moment he’d gone, Cunningham closed the door. “Anna,” he began in his slow, polite way that hinted they’d been friends for years and not days. “You need to get some sleep. I’ll stay awake tonight and if McCord so much as twitches, I’ll yell out for you. With the tent so close you’ll probably hear him anyway.”
Anna shook her head. “I’d like to have a proper bath and a clean change of clothes, but after that, I’ll be back.”
Cunningham looked like he thought it would be a waste of time to argue.
Chapter 10
McCord felt his body moving through layers of muddy water, floating slowly to the surface. He forced himself to take a deep breath and swore he smelled buffalo. He hated buffalo. Orneriest creatures God ever made. The only thing worse than having them roam over the plains, eating every blade of grass for miles, was seeing the thousands of carcasses rotting after the hunters shot them.
He tried to swallow, but couldn’t. His mouth felt like it was packed with sand.
Opening one eye, he noticed he was lying on what looked like a buffalo hide, and just beyond that was a mass of midnight hair. “Anna,” he whispered.
She raised her head and looked at him with eyes heavy with sleep. Her mouth opened slightly in surprise. “Wynn,” she whispered, as if she’d just been dreaming of him.
She looked delicious. He moved to kiss her and felt the stab of a dozen knives in his back.
“Don’t move,” she ordered, her hand on his shoulder.
Memories came back with the pain. The feel of her beneath him a moment before fire crossed his back. Floating in darkness, unable to open his eyes. The sound of her voice constantly talking to him, pulling him closer to shore, not letting him sink away from the pain…away from life.
He closed his eyes and tried to think. Maybe he had died. It would be just his luck that hell would be full of Yankees and they’d all be talking.
He opened one eye again. No. He was alive and Anna was sitting beside him. He caught her fingers when she touched his hand, gripping tight, needing to know that she was real. Almost losing her had tortured his mind for days, and when he’d watched her fall off the horse he swore his heart stopped until he saw her rolling on the ground.
The fingers of her free hand brushed through his hair. “You’re going to be all right, Wynn. Just rest. You’ve lost a lot of blood. Sleep now.”
He smiled and closed his eyes, thinking of how he liked the way she said his first name. He hadn’t heard a woman say his name in years.
When he woke again, morning shone through the windows, but the face in front of him was Dirk Cunningham’s. The sergeant looked tired, but a smile spread from ear to ear.
“’Morning,” the sergeant said. “You look terrible.”
McCord groaned. “Where’s Anna?”
Cunningham laughed. “She’ll be back. I’m not surprised that my face wasn’t the one you wanted to wake up to, but you could at least act like you’re glad to see me. Anna said if you wake I’m to roll you over like you was a newborn and prop you up.”
McCord swore as Dirk lifted his shoulders off the buffalo hide.
“Stop your complaining. I ain’t never said I was a nurse.”
“That’s an understatement,” McCord managed as soon as the pain subsided enough for him to breathe. “Where is Anna?” Somewhere in his dreams he’d thought he heard someone ask her to dinner.
“She went to tell the cook how to make broth for you. He sent some over that Clark and me thought was fine, but she said it wasn’t near thick enough.” Cunningham shook his head. “That woman’s been giving more orders than the captain
