he had had second thoughts about marrying her?
* * *
Daniel supposed life had greater ironies than having to hand over your own gun to the woman who’d shot your brother. Or having to steal your own horses so you wouldn’t be suspected in a robbery. Or perhaps being responsible for tracking yourself. Then again, nearly kissing your brother’s future wife, just because she looked in need of a kiss, might top the list.
Rafael sagged against him. “Hell. Didn’t know...be so dizzy.”
Daniel pushed him into the room and pulled the door shut. He guided Rafael to the bed. Then, just in case Anna was inclined to eavesdrop, he shut the window to the courtyard. “You rest. You have to get better fast.”
Rafael eased back, reclining against the headboard. “Hard to breathe.”
A chill ran down Daniel’s spine. “I’ll go get a doctor.”
“No.” Rafael glared at him. If Rafe really thought he was dying, he wouldn’t turn down a doctor.
“Guess you’ve made it this long without—a sawbones will only tell you to rest and quit drinking.”
Wasn’t as if they needed one to dig out a slug; the shot had gone straight through him. He lifted Rafe’s feet and put them on the bed. His brother was likely just impatient with his weakened state. He wasn’t used to being bed-bound, but an injury like he’d sustained needed time and rest to heal. When the cattle were being branded, gelded or culled for slaughter, Rafe wouldn’t sleep more than an hour or two a night until the work was done. Once when he’d been laid out with a bad case of influenza, he’d kept trying to work until Ma dosed him with enough medicine to make a horse sleep.
Rafe heaved a couple of breaths. “’Sides, if I die things will be...right.”
His stomach knotting, Daniel stood by the bed. “No, they won’t. You’ll just mess up everything. So don’t.”
“Ranch’ll be yours.” He breathed using all his body. He held out his hand. “Don’t let Ma—”
“Stop it. You’re not going to die.” Daniel took the proffered hand and squeezed. He couldn’t face the idea of going forward without Rafael, so he determinedly shoved the possibility away. His brother had managed to get himself out of bed and stood—well, mostly stood—for a good ten minutes. He wasn’t on death’s doorstep. “Stop being a crybaby.”
Rafael gripped his hand hard. “Listen.”
Daniel rolled his eyes and tugged his hand free. Much as he adored his brother, he wanted to shake him. Still, he didn’t need Rafael getting all riled up. He needed him resting and getting better. “What?”
“Don’t let Ma tell you...shouldn’t be yours.”
“Okay, Rafe.” Daniel looked over his brother. Rafael’s grip was strong, although his breathing was labored. But surely a man who was going to succumb to a gunshot wound would be worse after twelve hours, not much the same, perhaps even a little better. “You’re just being stupid. Again. You’re not dying. Although you should be after the stunt you pulled.”
“Talk to the lawyer.” Rafael coughed weakly. He rubbed a hand across his sternum. “Hell. That hurts.”
“If you were going to die, you’d be unconscious by now,” Daniel said firmly. He held out the carrot that should make any man look forward to the future. “And you’re going to get married soon.”
“Fine.” Rafael grabbed his sleeve. “You’ll have to occupy her...’til this heals.”
Thinking of the near kiss, Daniel groaned. “I can’t do that.”
“You have to.”
There were a lot of things Daniel had to do: take the horses into the hills, get their mother on board with the new story that Rafael was a sot, get the rifle out of the wagon before Anna fetched it.
They couldn’t take a chance on her looking into the paddock and recognizing the two horses they’d been riding this morning, but spending more time with her was a bad idea. “I’ll supposedly be tracking the thieves tomorrow.”
“Tell her I’m tracking, too.” Rafael rubbed his chest again. “Then I can spend the day...recovering.”
Which would make Daniel have to deceive her again. He had done nothing but lie to Anna since he’d first met her. Still, pretending Rafael had gone out to track would buy him time to heal. Daniel ignored the sour taste in his mouth at the thought of more falsehoods. “Fine. I’ll get Ma to occupy her.”
“Ma’s loco. You.”
Daniel didn’t see the point in arguing any longer. “Right now I have to take her my rifle that you dropped. You have to get better so you can buy me a new one.”
Rafe flashed his teeth in a way that probably would have been an annoying grin if he weren’t in pain. “Go. Tell Ma to check on me through there.” He pointed to the room’s side door.
If Madre was constantly checking on Rafael, nursing him—and she would—he couldn’t expect her to distract Anna for long. Daniel blew out an exasperated hiss. “You better heal fast.”
After unhitching the team and putting them in the corral for the night, Daniel retrieved his rifle from the wagon.
When he entered the main room, his mother greeted him with a round of complaints about Anna turning up her nose at the food she’d been cooking all day. Hell, if his mother took a disliking to Anna, getting her to keep Anna busy wouldn’t work. “I’m sure she’s just tired, Madre. I’m hungry. I’ll eat it soon.”
He spent the next few minutes explaining why Rafael was a drinker.
“No, not ever!” his mother said emphatically.
Which was doing it a little brown, because Rafael did occasionally drink to excess. But Daniel didn’t want to spend the night arguing with her. “This is a good thing, Ma. A better pretense than him having a wound in the same place as the robber.”
Madre twisted her mouth. “No. I will never say this about my Rafael.”
Of course not. Daniel added the coup de grâce. “Rafe thinks it’s a good idea. Then he can make Anna believe she is saving him from drinking.” Or had his mother forgotten why she wanted the marriage in the first place? Their mother hoped settling down would cure Rafe’s increasingly dangerous recklessness, and Daniel hoped for that, too. That was why he’d gone along with the scheme to get his brother a bride. And if Rafe thought an Anglo bride sitting next to him in district court would help them get the title to his land affirmed, then that was good enough for him. “You should go around and check on Rafe. He’s having trouble breathing.”
“He would never drink so much he falls down. He is a good man. You never should have let him behave so foolishly. You should have warned him they will think him a robber instead of stopping the stagecoach for him to see his bride.”
Daniel walked out on his mother’s rant. He’d probably hear it worse when he returned. But first he needed to get Anna settled in and asleep before he took out the “stolen” horses.
