found his way here,” Archie retorted. “Might be others comin’ behind him.”
Sam watched him as he moved slowly up the stairs. She found a tin cup and followed him up. He poured several drops of laudanum into it, then she left, hurrying down to the kitchen. She added a little whiskey to disguise the laudanum, then filled the cup with water from the pump.
The marshal was still unconscious, or seemed to be. She used some water in the pitcher to dampen a cloth, then sat in the chair and wiped the sweat from his face.
He groaned. His eyes flickered, then opened, and he stared at Sam. A muscle moved at the edge of his throat.
She studied him for a long moment, noting again the dark, taut skin stretched over high cheekbones, the thick eyebrows framing midnight-blue eyes.
A hard face with hard eyes. A face that looked as if he didn’t smile much. Or laugh. A sudden empathy filled her, and she had the most ridiculous need to see him smile.
Remember Mac. Remember why this man came here.
Their gazes caught, and again she felt something new and powerful spark a response in her body.
She felt rooted to the floor, though her legs were trembling.
He tried to move, and a muscle tightened in his neck as he fell back. “I was trying to get some water….”
“You were on the floor,” she said. “You must have fallen.”
“Did you get me up…by yourself?”
“Archie and me.”
“Where is he?”
She tried to fight off the intimacy that unexpectedly heated the room. “He had better things to do than nursemaid you.”
He didn’t reply, but suddenly his body tensed. She knew pain had struck again.
She offered him a drink from the tin cup. “I put a little whiskey in it,” she said. He took it in his two hands, but they were unsteady and he spilled some despite what seemed to be an intense concentration. She leaned over and steadied his grip. He drank the cup dry.
She felt his forehead. Hot. He was too hot.
“Trying to get up was a damn fool thing to do,” she said.
“Not as foolish…as shooting a marshal,” he shot back.
“Brave words in your position,” she replied. “I can always finish what I started.”
He tried to move again and succeeded this time, but only a few inches. He sank back against the pillow and closed his eyes as if he was too tired to keep them open. The attempt to stand had taken everything left in him.
His breathing was ragged, then calmed. The whiskey was getting to him, or maybe that drop of laudanum.
She pulled up a chair and sat down. She would wait until she was sure he was asleep. Then she had much to do. They had to be ready to leave as soon as Mac could travel.
But all she could focus on was the figure in the bed, the face tight with pain even in the drugged sleep. She wondered whether those midnight eyes would haunt her forever.
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