A Lady Like Sarah (2 page)

Justin froze. Not sure if he could believe his eyes, he blinked and took a closer look. There was no mistake; the prisoner was a woman!

Even before Sarah Prescott's eyes
flickered
open, she sensed something had changed. The sun didn't seem quite as bright or the heat as unrelenting as it had been previously. SomeÂthing or someone blocked the sunlight, but before she could determine whether friend or foe she drifted off again.

Now, she saw blue. Or was it green?
Something.
She imagined herself running along a sweet-scented meadow, free as the wind that touched her fevered brow.

Then it hit her. It wasn't the wind she felt; it was someÂthing else, something soft and gentle and refreshingly cool.

She tried to sit up, but a weight of some kind held her down.
Hands.
Strong yet gentle hands.
She
lay
back, willing the fog in her head to clear.

A face floated into view, the face of a man—not the lawÂman, but a stranger. A stranger with clear, blue eyes and a handsome, square face that was all at once strong and kind.

He knelt by her side and, cupping her chin in his hand, sponged her forehead with tender strokes. He then lifted her by the shoulders and held a canteen to her dry lips. The water tasted sweet, but it hurt to swallow and she couldn't take much more than a sip at a time.

He lowered her gently. "How do you feel?"

She gazed up at him, still confused. The sun seemed less bright and she realized she lay beneath the shade of a black willow tree. The stranger must have carried her.

She lifted her hand to her head, surprised to find that her handcuffs had been removed. She tried to sit up.

"Whoa, there," he said, his strong fingers pressing into her shoulder. "Take it easy. Some rest and food and you'll be good as new."

She settled back on the canvas roll that served as a pillow, aware that her hat had been removed and her hair had come loose. "Who . . . who are you?"

"Name's Justin Wells.
Reverend Justin Wells."

Surprised, she stared at him. She pictured preachers old and stooped-shouldered, lacking in humor. This one stood straight and tall, his broad shoulders straining against his white shirt, rolled up at the sleeves.

"A preacher, eh?"

"That I am." Her surprise seemed to amuse him, and a glint of humor danced in his eyes. His mouth turned up in a grin.

"Talk about dumb luck."

The grin left his face and his dark eyebrows arched upward. "Is there a problem?"

"No," she muttered. "No problem." She lowered her lashes.
Of all things, a preacher.

"And your name
is . . . ?"

She opened one eye and studied him. The wind ruffled his thick black hair, but his gaze never wavered. "My name's Sarah."

"Sarah, huh?"

Something in his voice made her open the other eye and regard him with suspicion. "You have a problem with my name?"

"Not at all.
I think it's a beautiful name.
A biblical name."

He didn't look like a preacher, but he sure sounded like one. "You're
joshin
' me, right?"

"No, honest.
Sarah's in the Bible."

She considered this for a moment. If what he said was true, why hadn't she heard about it before now? Thinking he might be poking fun at her, she glared at him. But he looked solemn as soap.

He drew the tip of his finger along his upper lip. Unlike most men, he was clean-shaven, and this gave him an open, honest appearance that made her regret having to be secretive.

"Did you know that 'Sarah' originally meant contentious?"

"Contentious?" She repeated the word slowly, trying to think if she ever heard it before.

"Quick-tempered," he offered.

"You don't have to tell me what it means," she snapped. Sooner or later she would have figured it out for herself.

"It wasn't until she turned eighty and gave birth to a prince that she became known as Sarah, the princess," he added.

Sarah had never heard of anything so ridiculous in all her born days. "This Sarah woman had a baby when she was eighty?"

He nodded.

"If
that don't
beat all."

"It was a miracle," the preacher said gently.

"You call it what you want, mister. But any woman who has a baby at that age ain't got both oars in the water."

"I guess that's one way to look at it." He studied her for a moment. "What's the rest?
Sarah what?"

"I ain't got
no
rest," she said. She wasn't about to tell him she was a Prescott. Just '
cuz
he was a preacher was no reason to think he wouldn't recognize her name.

"What should I call you?"

Her eyes met his. "Call me Sarah."

"It's customary for a man to address a woman by her surÂname.
Miss—?"
He waited.

"I never did cotton much to being called miss," she said. "Makes it sound like I'm
missin
' out on
somethin
' just '
cuz
I ain't got me no husband. Just call me Sarah."

He grinned. "You sure do have a different way of looking at things."

She wondered if he meant that as a compliment or critiÂcism. It was hard to tell if he was serious. He didn't speak like anyone she knew. He pronounced each word fully with no clipped vowels or lazy drawls, and she wondered if perhaps he was part Irish.

"Where you from?" she asked.

"Boston," he said. "And you?"

She shrugged.
"Here and there."

He accepted her answer without question. "So what hapÂpened?" he prodded. "Who shot the marshal?"

"Never saw the scoundrel before in my life," she replied. She gave an indignant toss of her head, and the world spun circles around her.

He placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. "Take it easy."

Not one to pay much heed to physical ailments, she pushed his hand away. "The fool man ambushed us and then done stole my horse."

The preacher sat back on his haunches and regarded her thoughtfully. "You better rest for a while." He turned his attention to the marshal, dabbing the man's feverish face with a cool, wet cloth.

"He ain't
lookin
' so good," she said.

She glanced at the two horses grazing a short distance
away, thinking about the attack. She had pleaded with the marshal to stop so she could rest her weary bones. He cuff-linked her to himself and tucked the key into his saddlebags before letting her dangle her feet in the fresh, cool waters of the stream. As she and the marshal returned to the horses, they were ambushed without
so
much as a warning.

"If I ever get my hands on that no-good thief, he'll be cold as a wagon wheel," she vowed. She glanced at the preacher for a sign of objection, but his face was oddly expressionless. Whatever he was thinking, he kept it to himself.

Not that she cared what he thought. That scoundrel shot Marshal Owen in cold blood and left them both to die. What was she supposed to do? Forgive and forget?

"So why is the marshal holding you prisoner?" the preacher asked.

She stiffened at his question. "I reckon that's my business."

He studied her intently but didn't pursue the matter furÂther. "Here, have some more water."

This time he watched her drink from his canteen, unÂassisted. Then he carefully
unwrapped
a small wedge of cheese and a generous portion of hard bread and handed it to her.

"Since you haven't eaten in a while, I think you should take it nice and easy," he cautioned.

Ignoring his warning, she stuffed the food into her mouth.

His dark brows slanted in a worried frown, but he said nothing until she had finished every last crumb. "That should tide you over for a while."

He handed her the canteen. After taking another sip, she tried to stand, fighting off the dizziness. The preacher held her down with a firm hand, and she glared up at him. "You ain't
keepin
' me here
ag'inst
my will."

"I think the marshal has something to say about that," he said, releasing her. "It would save us both a lot of trouble if you just sat back and concentrated on getting your strength back."

"My strength is back," she argued. She tried standing, again, this time more slowly. A wave of dizziness washed over her, but she stubbornly remained on her feet.

"I'm not
stayin
' here," she added when her head stopped spinning. Though still light-headed, she started toward the horses, but in her present state she was no match for him. In one easy movement, he clamped his hand around her arm, surprising her with his strength. He might be a city-born preacher, but he was no weakling.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said in a low, soothing voice, his fingers wrapped tightly around her wrist. He waited for her to stop struggling,
then
he calmly snapped the marÂshal's handcuffs in place.

Furious, she pulled away and lashed out at him. "You have no right to do that! You ain't
no
lawman."

"Sorry," he said, and he actually sounded sincere. "It's for your own good. I don't want you taking off in your condition."

"My condition?"
She studied him from the corner of her eye. "You make it sound like I'm
gonna
have me a baby."

The preacher's face turned red. Obviously, he wasn't used to plain talk. "I-I didn't mean to suggest you were in a . . . f-family way," he stammered.

He looked so uncomfortable, Sarah almost felt sorry for him. "Now don't go getting
yourself
all in a powder," she said. "Take these things off me and I won't give it another thought."

"I'm sorry," he said, "but I can't do that. I need you to stay in place while I take the bullet out of the marshal's shoulÂder." Turning his back on her, he set about stacking rocks in a circle for a fire pit.

Exasperated, she flopped down on the ground and quiÂetly seethed. She decided her only option was to watch the preacher's every move until she figured out a plan. "Know your enemies" was one rule she had learned early in life.

Though, she had to admit, never before had she met a foe more pleasing to the eyes.

It wasn't often that she saw a man whose face wasn't scarred and whose nose was straight as the day he was born. Nor could she remember the last time she'd met a man who didn't smell of whisky and tobacco. Instead, the preacher smelled of sunshine and something else that filled her with a strange and unfamiliar longing.

Trying not to appear obvious, she kept a wary eye on him. He made several futile attempts to build a fire, and she shook her head in disbelief. The man knew about the Bible, but didn't know
horsefeathers
about the fundamentals of plain old
livin
'. He was as useless as a sundial in the shade. If she had to depend on him for survival, she was in worse shape than she thought.

Her disbelief grew as he heaped dry grass onto a mound, tossed in a small piece of green wood, and struck a safety match. As would be expected, the grass burned bright for a moment or two before the flames died in a cloud of gray smoke.

She coughed and turned her head against the haze that drifted her way. "You might try buffalo chips." She nodded toward the trail. He gave her a dubious frown.

"The chips make a nice hot fire, with no stink," she added.

"Is that so?" He sounded like he'd never heard of such a thing, and she could only shake her head in wonder. He tossed the last of the green wood and started toward the area she indicated.

"Be sure you pick out the dry ones," she called after him, though she couldn't imagine anyone doing otherwise. "And don't forget to give '
em
a good kick before
pickin
' '
em
up."

He turned to stare at her, his brows raised in question. "You want me to kick them?"

"You'd be amazed at how many critters live under a chip. If you don't want to end up in a territorial dispute with a scorpion, you best pay heed."

He acknowledged her warning with a tip of his hat and continued on his way.

He returned a short while later, his arms full. He dropped the chips in a pile and started tossing them one by one into the pit. In no time flat, hot flames licked the air.

"See? What did I tell you?" she said.
"Simple as sin."
She immediately regretted her words. Mentioning sin in front of a preacher was
askin
' for trouble. "I mean—"

"I know what you mean," he said.

That was it? No lecture? No sermon? Curious, she studÂied him, noting the warm glow of leaping flames reflected in his eyes.

He looked straight at her and she quickly turned away, irritated at herself for being caught staring.

"Have you done much camping out in the wilderness, like this?" he asked.

Thinking he was mocking her, she stiffened, ready to defend herself. Seeing nothing derisive on his face, she bit back her angry retort.

"This ain't
campin
' out. This is plain old
livin
'."

His mouth dipped in a frown. "Don't you have a home?
A family?"

"Like I told you before, I ain't got
no
husband."

"What about parents?" he persisted. "Or brothers and sisters?"

"I reckon I come down on the short side of family," she said, purposely keeping her answers vague. "But I don't let myself worry about it none. You have to play the fiddle you have." She watched him with keen interest. "What about you? Are you hitched?"

"No, I'm not married," he replied, and she detected a tightness in his voice.

"You have something
ag'inst
gittin
' hitched?" she asked.

"No, nothing like that.
My church work takes up all my time." He studied her a moment. "What's your excuse?"