shirt blood-spattered, his eyes probably wide and wild, and his face pale from the loss of blood. He was certain he looked dangerous, and to a boy that had to seem a lot more exciting than the ranchers and farmers he probably saw every day. Thorn wasn’t really surprised that he dreamed of being an outlaw. Boys dreamed of all sorts of foolish things.
“You are one of them outlaws, aren’t you?” Billy Joe persisted.
Thorn nodded, watching the boy. “Yes, I was with the gang that robbed your bank today.”
“Ain’t my bank, Mr. Thorn—my ma and me, we don’t have so much as a plugged nickel in it. We ain’t got enough money to keep any in a bank. So why are you all bloody?” Billy Joe asked.
“I got shot during the robbery,” Thorn admitted. “I lost a lot of blood.”
“I gotta get you some help,” Billy Joe told him. “The doctor—”
“No, you can’t bring the doctor here!” Thorn cried in alarm, jerking his hand out, though he knew he couldn’t move fast enough to stop Billy Joe if the boy took off—not with his injuries. “He’ll bring the law...”
“But I can’t just let you die!” Billy Joe insisted.
“Even if it was safe,” Thorn tried to explain, “your doc’s got work enough to keep him busy in town tonight.” He was trying to think of how to explain to the boy that other townspeople had been hurt in the robbery—the bank president and the teller—and that the doctor would be tied up tending to them, when both Thorn and Billy Joe froze at the sound of footsteps entering the barn and coming toward the stall.
“Billy Joe, where are you?” called a female voice. “Didn’t I tell you I needed the eggs before I could cook our supper?”
The lad went still, staring wide-eyed at Thorn, and Thorn stared back, equally dismayed. But there was nowhere to hide. The boy’s lips silently formed the words my ma.
“Billy Joe, who were you talking to?” his mother demanded from just outside the stall. “If one of your no-account friends is here distracting you when you should be doing what I asked, he’ll just have to go home. I—”
She pushed open the stall door, then shrieked as she spotted Thorn crouching in the straw. He saw her wrench the stick out of Billy Joe’s hand and take a firm hold on it—as if a stick could protect them from a desperate man. She pushed her son behind her, clearly determined to stand between him and danger. He was surprised she didn’t yell for her husband. Maybe the man was away from the house, still at work?
“Who’re you? And what are you doing talking to my son?” she demanded. “Billy Joe, run and fetch the sheriff!”
But Billy Joe remained rooted to the spot. “Ma, Mr. Thorn—he won’t hurt us,” he said. “He promised.”
It sounded to Thorn as if the boy was making a valiant effort to make his tone sound adult and reassuring, not frantic and whiny like a little kid’s.
“He’s wounded, that’s all. Ma, we gotta help him, we gotta!”
Thorn saw the woman’s eyes narrow as she listened to her son, then she aimed that piercing gaze back at him. There was not an ounce of belief in her eyes that he was anything but a low-down polecat.
Smart lady, Thorn thought. I wouldn’t believe that someone like me could be trusted, either, after looking at me. He braced himself, expecting to see the woman yank her son out of the barn by his collar, if necessary. Shortly after that, the sheriff would appear and the jig would be well and truly up. Thorn had to try to keep that from happening.
He raised both arms, wincing at the effort. He couldn’t raise the one that was wounded all the way up. Even just lifting it halfway hurt like blazes. “I really don’t mean any harm, Mrs. Henderson, ma’am. I just rode in here looking for...” A quiet place to die, he thought, but he didn’t want to say that and alarm her further. The idea of a dead body in her barn might cause the lady to swoon—though she didn’t precisely look to be the swooning type. She was actually rather pretty, in a quiet, careworn sort of way, or she would be, if she ever got some rest. She had hair of a hue he’d heard called ash blond before, and deep-set, gray-blue eyes that saw right through a man’s bluster. But even with the tiredness that etched her face, she had a quiet sort of dignity he respected. He hoped it wouldn’t make her madder that he’d used her name. “Peace and quiet...”
“That may be, but your horse has helped himself to an entire bucket of chicken feed,” Mrs. Henderson replied tartly, jerking her head toward the other end of the barn. “I certainly hope you have the money to square that with us. I can’t afford to buy more feed.”
“Sorry, ma’am, I’ll pay you for it, soon as I can,” Thorn murmured.
The woman made a dismissive gesture, as if she was accustomed to empty promises and had no use for them. “So how did you get injured? The truth now—I’ll know if you lie,” she said.
“I got shot at the bank when the men I was riding with robbed it,” he said, locking her gaze with his while hoping against hope she would read the message in his eyes that there was more to the story than that. Had she noticed the way he’d phrased it, saying that the bank was robbed by the men he was riding with—not by him? “I promise you, I intend no harm to you or your family, nor will I steal anything—beyond what my horse has already taken. I... I just couldn’t ride any farther.”
Her eyes left his and focused on his bloodstained shirt. “How badly are you wounded?”
“I was hit in the shoulder and the leg, and bled a lot. I think the leg wound may just be a graze. With a little care, though, I’m hoping I won’t get lead poisoning,” he added, with more confidence than he actually felt. But he hadn’t expired yet, so maybe there was reason to hope. “Soon as I’m fit to ride, I’ll leave here.”
* * *
Daisy Henderson heard the unspoken questions within his statement—would she provide the care he needed to recover, and let him stay hidden here until his wounds were healed?
“Oh, so you’re a gentleman bank robber, is that right, Mr. Thorn?” she retorted, allowing an edge of scorn into her voice. “So you weren’t the one who shot the bank president, or the teller?”
“Ma,” her son protested, clearly embarrassed that she was questioning his new hero. “He told me he didn’t want to hurt nobody. I think we should take him at his word.”
She rounded on the boy. “Billy Joe Henderson, I’ll thank you not to question your mother when I’m doing what I must to keep us safe,” she said. She wasn’t at all happy about the admiring tone in his voice in regard to the wounded man at their feet, and the way her son seemed to want to protect an outlaw.
“But, Ma...” Flushed and crestfallen, the boy stared at the hay under his boots.
A glance at the wounded man showed traces of discomfort in his eyes as his gaze shifted from her to her son.
“Billy Joe, mind your mother,” he said gently. “She only wants what’s good for you, and she has no reason to believe that I’m no danger to either one of you.” He turned back to Daisy. “And no, I wasn’t the one who shot the bank president or the teller. I was as surprised as the ones who got shot when the lead started flying. Griggs—that’s the leader of
