ChasetheLightning (4 page)

Amanda dropped her handbag and keys on the porch, hardly
aware she had done so as she stared at the stranger. Straight black hair fell
just past his shoulders. His long-sleeved brown plaid shirt and black pants
were covered with alkali dust, as were his boots. He wore a bandanna around his
neck; there was a black leather gunbelt and holster strapped around his waist.
The worn, wooden grips of a revolver jutted from the holster.

The stallion whinnied softly, and she noticed that the
horse, too, was covered with a fine layer of dust, as if it had made a long,
hard journey.

She went down the steps slowly, warily.

The stallion pushed its nose against her shoulder, and she
stroked its neck absently while she studied the man. He was dressed like an
old-time cowboy. She wondered if he was a movie star or an extra, though she
hadn’t heard of any movie companies on location in the area. His face, neck,
and hands were very brown, his features were strong and well-defined. Bent low
over his mount's withers, he seemed to be unconscious.

Lifting one hand, she placed it on, his brow. He was burning
up. It was then that she noticed the dark stain that spread down the back of
his shirt and down his pant leg.

Blood.

She touched his leg gingerly. The material was still damp,
the dust clotted into maroon mud where the blood had flowed.

Where on earth had he come from? If he was with a movie
company, where was the rest of the crew? And what was she going to do with him?

A low groan escaped his lips, and then, without warning, he
started to topple sideways. She threw her arms around him to keep him from
falling, grunted softly as she supported his weight.

His eyelids fluttered open and he stared at her from beneath
straight black brows. His eyes were a deep, dark brown, glazed with pain.

“What…the…hell?” he muttered.

“I’m surprised to see you, too. Here, let me help you down.”

He lifted his right leg over the saddle horn and slid to the
ground. She staggered back under his weight. His shirt was damp beneath his
arm. Lord, he was a big man! She had to get him into the house.

“Can you walk?”

He sagged against her, his head resting on her shoulder.
“Sure, sweetheart,” he replied, his voice thick.

“Good, ‘cause I need to get you to a doctor, and I can’t
carry you to the car.”

He shook his head vigorously. “No! No doctor.”

“But you’re bleeding.”

He shook his head again. “Don’t need…doctor. Not hurt…that
bad.”

She looked at him, at the almost desperate look of pleading
in his eyes. “Well, I don’t know about that. But I’m taking you to the
hospital.”

He pushed away from her, staggered backward, and bumped up
against his horse.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Going.”

Chewing on her lower lip, she stared at the blood on his
shirt. She couldn’t just let him ride away, not when he was bleeding. The most
important thing now was to see how badly he was hurt.

“All right,” she agreed reluctantly. “No doctor.”

He looked at her suspiciously. “Your word?”

“I promise,” she said.

With him leaning heavily on her, she managed to get him up
the porch stairs and into the house. She paused a moment to catch her breath,
then guided him down the hallway to the guest bedroom. She propped him against
the wall, held him there with one hand while she pulled the covers down, and
then slipped her arm around his waist, holding him upright while he staggered
toward the bed, where he fell face down onto the mattress.

He was unconscious again. She stared at him a moment, at the
ugly wet stain slowly spreading across the back of his shirt. Swallowing hard,
she reached down and pulled his shirttail out of his trousers. Lifting it, she
felt her nausea rise. Blood leaked from a neat, round hole in his back. Had he
been shot? She’d heard about realism in movie making, but surely this was
carrying things too far!

She thought of all the old cowboy movies she had seen, the
Westerns she had read. There was no exit hole in front, which meant the bullet
was still in there somewhere.

What to do, what to do? She cursed softly. Why had she made
such a ridiculous promise before she saw how badly he was hurt? She blew out a sigh
of exasperation. She couldn’t just let him lay there and bleed all over her
clean sheets! Thank goodness she had taken a first aid class not long ago. At
least she had some idea of what to do, and how to do it.

Going into the bathroom, she found her first aid kit and a
pair of sharp scissors. Shoving a washcloth into her pocket, she carried the
kit and the scissors into the kitchen. After placing them on the table, she
filled a pan with water and put it on the stove to heat, then went back into
the guest room.

He was still unconscious. She rolled him onto his side as
gently as possible, unbuckled his gunbelt and hung it over the back of a chair.
In addition to the holster, she noticed there was a very large knife in a
beaded sheath.

She removed his shirt as carefully as she could and dropped
it on the floor, removed the kerchief from his neck, then pulled off his boots,
which were badly scuffed and worn at the heels. And a very tight fit: she was
panting with exertion when she finally got them off. She peeled off his
stockings, wrinkling her nose at the smell. Dropping his socks on top of his
shirt, she wondered when he had bathed last. She unfastened his belt,
unbuttoned his pants, and tugged them down his long, long legs.

“What the heck?” she muttered as she dropped his trousers on
the floor. He was wearing what looked like the bottom half of a pair of
old-fashioned long johns. Whoever this guy was, he had really immersed himself
in the part. With a shake of her head, she rolled him onto his stomach again.

She folded the washcloth into a neat square and pressed it
over the bruised-looking hole in his back, which was still leaking a thin trail
of blood. At least it wasn't pumping strongly, which she thought meant the
bullet had missed any major arteries.

As she applied pressure to the compress, she studied his
profile. He had high cheekbones, a square jaw roughened by a dark beard, a nose
that had never been broken, a nice mouth with a full lower lip. And dark
skin—uniformly dark from his face to his waist. Either he spent a lot of time
outside without a shirt, or he was just naturally dark. From the strength of
his features, she thought he probably had some Indian blood in his background.

Going back into the kitchen, she slipped an old apron on
over her clothes, boiled a slender-bladed knife and the scissors while she
rummaged through a drawer for some soft, clean dishrags. She filled a bowl with
hot water and placed it on a tray, along with the dishrags, the sterilized
knife, the scissors, and the first-aid kit, and then, saying a silent prayer
that she wouldn’t faint, she went back into the guest room.

He hadn’t moved. His breathing was steady, but labored and
shallow. She put the tray on the table beside the bed, stood there a moment
gathering her courage, and then began to wash the area around the wound. The
muscles in his back twitched and he moaned softly, then he was still once
again.

She wiped the area dry, then picked up the knife. “You can
do this.” She stared at the blade, at the way it shook in her hand. “Sure you
can,” she muttered, “and when you kill him, you can just bury him out in the
backyard.”

Taking a deep breath, she began to probe the wound,
surprised and grateful when the tip of the blade hit the slug on the first try.
Maybe he was right. Maybe he wasn’t hurt all that bad. The bullet hadn’t
penetrated very far or hit anything vital. Bright red blood oozed from the
wound. She wiped it away with a dry cloth, wiped the perspiration from her brow
and probed a little deeper into the wound until she got the tip of the knife
under the slug. When she thought she had it just right, she gave a little flick
of her wrist and the slug popped out, an ugly misshapen lump of lead covered
with blood.

Dropping it on the tray, she quickly washed the wound and
the area around it and drenched it with disinfectant. After patting his skin
dry with a clean cloth, she covered the wound with a pad made of gauze, and
taped it in place.

She’d done it! She stared at the bloody knife on the tray,
felt her knees go weak. Sinking down on the edge of the bed, she closed her
eyes, unable to believe she had actually dug a bullet out of a man’s back.

Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes, and stared at
him. Who was he? Rising, she took the bowl into the bathroom. After washing her
hands, she dumped the bloody water into the sink, rinsed the bowl, and refilled
it with hot water from the tap. Grabbing a bar of soap and a bath towel, she
went back into the bedroom and washed the man’s face, neck, arms, chest, and
feet. The more private parts of him would just have to wait until he could do
it himself.

When she was finished, she pulled the covers over him,
gathered up his clothing, and went into the laundry room. She filled the washer
with cold water and tossed his bloody clothes in to soak. Removing her apron,
she tossed it inside, too, along with some color-fast bleach, and then she went
outside.

The stallion stood near the foot of the stairs where she had
left it. The horse whinnied softly as she approached, rubbed his cheek against
her shoulder.

She scratched the stallion between the ears. “So, I guess he
belongs to you?”

The stallion tossed its head.

“Well, come on.” Taking up the reins, she led the horse
across the yard and into the barn.

After loosening the cinch, she lifted the heavy saddle from
the stallion’s back; her muscles were really getting a workout today, she
mused, and then spread the damp saddle blanket over a bale of hay to dry.
Leading the horse into the stall, she slipped the bridle off its head, and then
dropped a flake of hay into the feeder.

She ran her hand along the stallion’s neck, then shook her
head. “Doesn’t that man ever brush you?”

The stallion made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a
horse laugh.

Grinning, Amanda patted the stud’s shoulder. “I’ll be back
later to clean you up. Enjoy your lunch.”

Back at the house, she picked up her handbag and keys from
the porch and tossed them on a chair in the living room, and, then went to look
in on her patient. He was still unconscious. What would she do if he didn’t
wake up? Oh, Lord, what would she do if he died?

She laid her hand across his brow. His skin felt as if it
were on fire. Picking up the bowl she had left on the table, she went into the
bathroom. She filled the bowl with cool water, took a washcloth from the
drawer, and went back into the bedroom.

Sitting on the edge of the mattress, she pulled the covers
down, then dipped the washcloth in the bowl. Wringing it out, she ran it over
his broad back and shoulders.

“You’re a lot of trouble, you know that?” she muttered as
she gently wiped his face and neck, his arms, and then his back again. “Kind of
handsome, though, in a rugged sort of way.”

She sat there for close to an hour, dragging the cool cloth
over his face and neck and body, admiring the deep bronze of his skin, the feel
of his hair against her hand. Once, yielding to some urge she couldn’t refuse,
she ran her fingertips over his lower lip.

“Who are you?” she wondered aloud. “Where did you come
from?”

He looked like a cowboy. If he wasn’t missing from a movie
company, he could be a genuine cowboy. There were ranches in the area. Had he
come from one of those? Did cowboys in this day and age wear guns? She supposed
they might. There were wild animals in the hills. Snakes. Even supposing working
cowboys wore guns, she was pretty sure they didn’t go around shooting each
other, although, being men, it was not out of the realm of possibility. The
nightly news was full of stories of men, old and young, who seemed to think
guns and violence were the answer to everything.

She thought for a moment. Perhaps he was one of those
re-enactors, the ones who had made a hobby of dressing up in Old West duds and
firing old-fashioned weapons at targets. Maybe someone had fired wildly, and this
had been just an accident. He was just as wounded as if it had been intentional
though. And how had he showed up here? Her mind raced with questions.

But she wasn’t likely to find the answers to any of them
today.

She sponged him off several times during the day and into
the night, even managed to get him to drink a little water. He was incoherent
the few minutes when he was conscious; but, for the most part, he slept.

It was after midnight when she went to bed, only to awake at
every sound, always aware that there was a stranger in the house. The last
thing she had done before she went to bed was put his gunbelt on the floor in
the back of her closet. She felt safer, somehow, knowing it was in her room,
and out of his reach.

* * * * *

She woke early after a restless night. She started to go
downstairs in her gown and robe, then, remembering the stranger, she decided
against it. She dressed quickly in a long-sleeved tee shirt and jeans, turned
up the heat, and went downstairs to check on her patient.

He was lying on his stomach, his head turned toward the
door. She thought he was asleep, but his eyes opened the moment she stepped
into the room.

He stared at her through narrowed, pain-glazed eyes. “Who
are you? Where am I?”

“Who are you?”

He rolled onto his side, groaning softly. “What happened?”

“Well, I’m not sure what happened, or how it happened, but
you’ve been shot.”

He grunted softly, his gaze moving around the room. “How’d I
get here?” He had a voice like aged whiskey, she thought, warm and smooth. And
sexy.