the lawman. He would have to come now, just as she hoped they could finally head north. The four of them. An odd family at best. Archie and Mac and Reese. Her godfathers, as they jokingly called themselves. All three men had sacrificed for her. Each so different in looks and personal quirks, but ever so dear to her. Mac, the taciturn gunman; Reese, the handsome, easygoing gambler; and Archie, the curmudgeon. Mac was like her father, Archie like a grandfather, and Reese a charming uncle. They were the only family she’d known for the last ten years. She didn’t aim to lose them.
She finished tearing the sheet. They would need a lot of bandages. The lawman’s leg had bled copiously. Bone and muscles were probably damaged. Doctoring his wound was beyond her skills but not Archie’s. He’d been a doctor’s orderly during the Mexican American War.
He was also the closest thing to a doc this place ever had. When Gideon’s Hope had been a roaring, lawless boom town, he was often called in the middle of the night to set a bone or sew up someone, even to birth a baby. After turning fifteen, she’d often gone along with him and helped.
Don’t let there be permanent damage, she prayed. She would never forgive herself if there was, even if the lawman was a threat to the man who’d raised her, protected her, loved her like she was his own.
She gathered up several of the strips and hurried downstairs, her heart pounding every step. She kept seeing the marshal’s face, startled at first, then clenched as the pain hit. Pain she’d inflicted. She bit hard on her lip.
Sam tried to dismiss the thought. Mac’s all that’s important now. She only wanted time for him to heal well enough so they could all go to Montana. They’d talked about building a ranch there someday. Reese had been to Montana and described it in vivid terms: rich grasslands, clear rivers and an endless sky. But it had always been someday. Something had always stopped them. Like not having enough money, or hearing talk of Indian troubles there, or Reese being away on one of his trips through the gold camps.
Why now? Why did the dratted marshal have to come now when they were almost ready. Another month and they would have been gone. Frustrated and still tormented by guilt, she raced out into the street. She handed the torn pieces of cloth to Archie.
“Get Brandy now,” Archie said. “Sooner we get him out of this dirt, the better. Best we drive to the back of the saloon. It’s only a few steps, then.”
She didn’t question him. A quick glance at the lawman made it evident he was in excruciating pain. Dammit, but those midnight-blue eyes would haunt her forever.
In another five minutes she had Brandy—Archie’s old mule—hitched to the wagon and drove him out to the street.
The lawman was sitting up, but the effort was costing him. She saw that right away. His leg was straight out, a bandage wrapped tight around his thigh. The rest of his leg was bare. The soft material contrasted with the sheer masculinity of his powerful muscles.
His eyes were steady on her. He had a day’s growth of beard but it didn’t cover a slight scar on the left side of his face. Sensuous lips had thinned in pain, and a muscle throbbed in his neck. He was a striking man, compelling in a stark way. His face was hard, but that harshness was broken by the barest hint of a dimple in his chin. And those damned dark eyes. Probing. Always probing.
That unfamiliar flicker of heat ran through her again.
“Come on, Sam,” Archie said impatiently. “You’re gonna have to help me lift him.”
She leaned down, picked up her gun and started to replace it in her holster, then stopped as Archie frowned. “Empty your gun.”
“He can’t…”
Archie’s expression made her do as he asked. Removing the remaining bullets, she tucked them in a pocket. Then she knelt and put one arm around the marshal. Archie did the same on the other side.
The marshal tried to help. But he was nearly a deadweight and he probably weighed more than she and Archie together. She was strong, though, and so was Archie, despite the rheumatism plaguing him. With their help, the marshal stood on one leg and slid onto the back of the wagon.
The white bandage was red now. The lawman’s face was pale. She touched his cheek. It was damp with sweat. She sat next to him, trying to protect him from the bouncing that was to come.
“Go,” she told Archie.
Archie didn’t bother to get up on the bench. Instead he led old Brandy down the street to the corner, then around to the back of the saloon. With every bump, the marshal clenched his fingers into a fist, but he didn’t utter a sound.
She knew what was to come would be worse. Much worse.
She wanted to touch him and somehow make his suffering more tolerable. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t take the shooting back and she knew she would never forget this day, this hour, these terrible minutes.
Maybe she should say a small prayer. But she didn’t know any. Preachers hadn’t lasted long in Gideon’s Hope. Neither had teachers. All she knew was what her godfathers taught her and what she’d read in books.
She reminded herself that the marshal probably would have killed Mac. But that didn’t help at the moment, nor did the thought that he hadn’t shot her when he could have….
3
JARED TRIED to help as they dragged him inside what once must have been a busy saloon. But whenever he put any weight on his injured leg, new waves of agony coursed through him.
He ground his teeth to keep an expletive—or worse, a groan—from escaping his lips. He swayed as they entered the building. He tried to take a step with his good leg and sagged against the woman. Her arm tightened around his body. Stronger…than she looked. Hell…of a lot stronger.
A step, a hop.
He fought the fog closing in on him. Too much blood lost in those seconds before the tourniquet was in place. And the worst was yet to come. The damn bullet in his leg had to come out. He also knew the wound would probably need to be cauterized to stop the bleeding and infection.
He was only too aware that more men died in the Civil War from infections and fever than from ordnance. He’d been lucky thus far. He had survived three bullets: two during the war, one while marshaling. Shoulder. Side. Left arm. A bayonet had nicked his face.
He tried to focus on the woman rather than the pain. Who in the hell was she? Thornton’s woman? Must be, to risk her life. Hell, the man must be decades older than she was.
Another step. Why? Why was he being helped inside? As a hostage maybe? To wait for Thornton? The original question pressed him: Why not just a bullet in his heart? Or had she really aimed for his leg? If so, it had been one hell of a gamble.
He might have made the same gamble, though. He was tired of killing. During those few tense minutes outside while he’d tried to avoid a shooting, his mind flickered back to a boy he’d encountered two months earlier. The kid was no more than seventeen, but Jared hadn’t known that then. He’d only seen the gun in the boy’s hand when Jared stepped out of the stable after feeding his horse.
He groaned inwardly, but it was more from the memory than pain. Why now, dammit? Why did those pImages** continue to haunt him? Maybe he should have quit hunting men. He’d been
