Sullivan (2 page)

They all breathed with great effort and perspired profusely, flexing bloody fists as she finally claimed their attention. Was it such hard work for six men to beat up one poor soul? Apparently so. It looked as if the outnumbered man had gotten in a few licks of his own, in the beginning. The six men who were able to stand without assistance sported their own battle scars: a couple of swollen lips, a seeping cut just beneath an ear, a freely bleeding gash. One fellow favored his left leg and held his side with one hand. Breathing was obviously an effort for the man, but she couldn't feel sorry for him. They all looked at her like she was daft and said nothing in response to her request.

A potbellied balding tough badly in need of a bath turned away from her, balled his fist, drew his arm back, and hit the victim in the stomach. The beaten man didn't even make much of a sound. He just expelled a whoosh of air as he fell forward and then was yanked back up again.

"What did he do to deserve such a beating?" she asked calmly.

The man with the paunch turned to her, exasperation on his red, fleshy face as he quickly looked her up and down. He was definitely no gentleman! No man of good breeding would look at any woman that way. "Lady, this is none of your business."

"I'm sure that's true," Eden said quickly. And then she waited for a response.

"This damn breed kissed my woman," the same man seethed.

Eden cocked her head to the side and dipped down slightly, trying to get a better look at the battered face. She couldn't see much, with long strands of dark brown hair and drying and fresh blood obscuring her view.

"Well, it doesn't look as if he'll be kissing anyone anytime soon," she said lightly. "Don't you think he's had enough? The punishment does seem rather severe, when you consider that his crime was nothing more than to kiss the wrong woman." The thugs lost some of their steam, as she had hoped they would, and took a good look at the man who had to be propped up to stay on his feet.

"Drop him," the potbellied man ordered tiredly.

Those who held the so-called breed did just that; they loosened their hold and allowed the fellow to fall to the ground. He crumpled and landed face first on the dirt road.

The ruffians who had beaten him so badly turned away and headed into the saloon, the very place where the fight had no doubt begun. They studied their battle scars and wiped away streaks of blood and patted one another on the back.

Eden returned to the wagon, flashing a smile for the children. The fear had faded, though she could still see remnants of terror on their faces. Faces so young should be innocent and bright, not afraid and wary.

"You made them stop," Millie said.

"Yes, well"—Teddy clambered into the bed of the wagon to sit with her trunk and their supplies, and Eden climbed into the driver's seat—"it needed to be done."

She set the horses in motion and they progressed slowly, passing by the prone, motionless, beaten body in the street.

Millie's wide, clear eyes stayed on the man, and she bit her lower lip in consternation. "Will he be all right, do you think?" she asked in a small voice.

Eden reluctantly brought the buckboard to a halt in the middle of the street, sighing softly and refusing to look down. It was one thing to take responsibility for two children who had fallen on hard times. But a full-grown man? She knew nothing about him, but that he had the poor sense to kiss another man's woman.

She turned to Teddy and found that the boy studied the beaten man as intently as Millie did. Mercy.

"Hold these very firmly," she instructed, handing the reins to Millie. "Teddy, I'll need your help."

When she stood over the fallen man she had another gut-wrenching flash of doubt. He was huge. Bigger than she'd realized. He remained facedown in the street, and she had a chance to study broad shoulders beneath a once-white shirt that was now covered with dust and dirt and smudges that could only be blood. His own, and perhaps that of others, as well. His legs were incredibly long, and they were covered in worn denim that had been tucked into large black boots.

She'd lived all her life among large men, overly protective males who'd sheltered and adored her and called her
Little Bit
or
Shorty
. Most of the big men she'd known had big hearts, but it was impossible to tell about this one.

She lifted her head to find Teddy standing very close beside her. He stared at her with wide dark eyes, waiting for her to proceed. Those thugs had called the man on the ground a breed. One look at Teddy was enough to confirm that he was of mixed blood himself; she would've known even if the sheriff hadn't revealed that his late mother's name was Rosario. With deep brown eyes, long black hair, and beautifully warm brown skin, Teddy was a lovely child. And he looked up at her as if he expected her to
do
something.

"Well"—she sighed—"we can't just leave him here."

* * *

He was dead. The air on his face felt cool, the surface beneath his back soft. To his ears there was only blessed silence all around. And so Sinclair Sullivan knew he must be dead.

But as he woke the pain in his face and his midsection grew. Sharp pain and dull, constant and fleeting, deep and superficial. On some part of his body, he felt it all. Surely a dead man wouldn't feel such pain.

He managed to open one eye just slightly. The other refused to cooperate. Night had fallen. All was dark, but for a hint of pale light to his right. The glow of a small campfire, perhaps. To his left there sat a very large chest surrounded by a few smaller pieces of baggage.

It took a moment, but Sullivan finally realized that he was lying in the back of a wagon. The softness beneath his back was a layer of blankets. The coolness on his face was the night breeze. He moved his hands and feet, just enough to make sure he wasn't bound. The only restriction to his movements came from the pain in his arms and hands. And then the silence was broken by a gentle, caressing voice.

"You're awake."

He tried to lift his head and found, to his frustration, that he couldn't.

"Be still," the soft voice urged, and the wagon moved just slightly, dipping with the addition of weight near his feet. He could feel the woman behind the voice moving cautiously past him until her face hovered over his. "We were so worried."

From what little he could see she was still worried. The soft light of the fire illuminated one half of her face and a dismayed, forced smile.

"Who are you?" he asked, but the words were garbled. The lady who bent over him leaned a little closer, and for a moment he had a clear view of her face and a halo of silky, pale hair. He wanted to watch her, to study her, but found he couldn't keep that one eye open.

So he closed his one functioning eye and took a deep breath. She smelled so good. Clean and sweet, but not perfumed. Not like that saloon girl who'd draped herself all over his arm and shoulder and then kissed him just as an ardent suitor walked into the saloon. He felt like he'd been set up, but it could just be his suspicious nature that made him feel that way. The calico might've simply been trying to make her lover jealous.

"Is he awake?" a child's voice whispered. The soft question came from nearby—from the driver's seat of the wagon, most likely. He might've turned to look, if he'd been able.

"He was for a moment," the woman who remained with him answered in a whisper. "Don't worry, Millie. He'll be fine. We'll take good care of him."

Why? He wanted to ask, but neither his lips nor his brain would cooperate.
Why
would they take good care of him? And where was her husband, the little girl's father? What kind of fool was he to allow a woman to get so close to an injured stranger? Maybe the husband was standing nearby, his weapon ready. Just in case.

The woman stayed beside him and lightly brushed a cool cloth over his battered face. If there was a man standing guard nearby, he remained silent throughout. The tender ministrations felt good, until she touched the corner of his mouth. He jerked his head to the side, away from the cloth.

"Sorry," she whispered.

He wanted to answer her, to ask her a hundred questions, to get a better look at her face. But he contented himself with a deep breath of her comforting smell, and then he drifted away.

* * *

Eden placed the gown across the ground and poised above it with a sharp pair of shears. She hesitated for just a moment before she cut the full skirt from the bodice. Pink muslin and lace slipped beneath her fingers, and once she'd begun she didn't have another doubt. Millie needed a new and proper dress, something pretty, and Eden had several suitable gowns in her trunk. More than she needed.

The bodice of this particular dress had been stained with bacon grease. She'd tried to remove the stain, but had found it impossible. There was more than enough fabric in the skirt of this dress to fashion a nice shift for Millie. If she'd had more time, she would've bought a few ready-made dresses and some new fabric in Spring Hill. But traveling to Texas had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, and bringing Millie along had been a last-minute impulse. She'd so wanted to find Millie a proper home before leaving on her journey. She'd been unable to do so, however, and now Millie was her responsibility.

They should be on the road, she knew. Every moment wasted was a moment she wasn't closer to Rock Creek. She was days from her destination, and she didn't want to waste a single minute, much less hours. But this morning she wasn't entirely sure what to do about the man she'd collected in Webberville. He probably lived nearby, and wouldn't want to come to and find himself miles down the road. Besides, she was having doubts about her impulsive decision to put the man in the back of her wagon. It would be best if they parted ways before she went much farther down the road.

But oh, she was anxious to get to Rock Creek! Before she'd packed up and left home, it had been several weeks since she'd heard from Jedidiah. More than two months, in fact. It wasn't that he'd been the best of correspondents in the ten years since he'd left home, but she could usually count on a short missive from him at least once a month. They came from all over, from small towns and large, and rarely from the same town twice. He liked to keep on the move, Jedidiah did.

He'd found trouble again, she was certain. She could
feel
it; she'd been having dreams of her brother lately. Just like she'd had during the war, when he'd been hurt or in danger and she'd felt it, sensed his troubles in her sleep and her quiet moments.

A familiar and insistent tapping began at her shoulder. Teddy might not speak, but he was learning to assert himself in other ways.

"Just a moment, Teddy."

The tapping didn't stop, but increased in speed and in strength until she was sure he would put a hole in that one spot.

Eden dropped the scissors and lifted her face to Teddy. "What is it? Is something wrong?"

He pointed to the wagon, and Eden turned her head.

The man she'd rescued stood in the back of the wagon watching her, and not for the first time since she'd driven the buckboard away from that awful little town, she wondered if she hadn't made a terrible mistake.

Huge and angry and frightful, he stared at her. His beaten face did nothing to alter the menacing image she had of him; it only enhanced the notion. Which wasn't fair, she knew.

"Good morning," she said sweetly, feeling and dismissing the unsteady beat of her heart in her throat.

"Who are you?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"Eden Rourke." She moved the shears aside and stood slowly. Perhaps if she stood he wouldn't seem so imposingly tall. She reminded herself that he stood in the back of the wagon, after all, which gave him an unnatural advantage. And besides, she stood barely five-foot-one. Almost everyone was tall by comparison. "Teddy," she added, turning to the boy, "would you fetch Millie from the stream? We'll be able to travel this morning, after all."

Eden turned back to the man, trying to convince herself that she had nothing to fear. She had saved his life, for goodness' sake. Facing him, that fact didn't reassure her in the least.

"And you are?" she prodded.

He mumbled something unintelligible, and at the questioning lift of her eyebrows he repeated himself more slowly and with evident pain. One word.
Sullivan
.

"Would you like some breakfast, Mr. Sullivan?" She turned to what was left of their campfire. "Some coffee, perhaps?"

Eden busied herself over the pot, pouring out the last cup of lukewarm coffee. When she turned with the cup in her hand he stood right
there
, not a full foot away, and the cup flew out of her hands to soak the front of his shirt. She hadn't heard him leave the wagon, hadn't heard a warning squeak, or even the sound of his footsteps on the hard ground.

"Oh, dear," she muttered, faced with a wide chest soaked and stained with coffee. The shirt, which was stained with dried blood and torn in a couple of places, had already been ruined. Still, she was sure he didn't appreciate a dousing with the last cup of coffee.

He didn't move, didn't even flinch. Eden spun around and reached down, grabbing the bodice of the dress she had just cut in half. She wiped away the coffee as best she could, dabbing and scrubbing with pink muslin and lace. Sullivan didn't move. He was like a rock beneath her hands, and, blast him, every bit as tall and overpowering as she'd suspected he was as he lay unconscious in the Webberville street.

When he was as dry as he was going to get, she drew her hands away and studied her work.

"Thank you, I think," he mumbled, "Miz..." His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Did you say Rourke?"

Eden smiled and lifted her eyes. Just her eyes. Dark hair fell past Sullivan's wide shoulders, and his face was even more battered looking this morning than it had been the night before. That poor face was blue and purple and red, cut and distended and bruised. One eye had swollen shut, and the other was little more than a narrow slit that revealed a piercing dark eye. Not brown, as she'd suspected it would be, but a lovely hazel green.