The Lady Takes A Gunslinger (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 1) (13 page)

"As a matter of fact," Donovan muttered, "it was." He peeled his soaked shirt away from the wound at his side.

She thought she'd be prepared for it. She wasn't. A wave of nausea shuddered through her as she inspected him. Even in the dark she could see the small black hole in his side and another, more ragged one, around the back. The bullet had nipped him at the waist, barely two inches in. Grace hoped he was right about it having hit nothing vital, but it was too dark to tell. All she could do now was patch him up and try to stanch the bleeding until they could get somewhere to clean it properly.

Despite the damage, he was a finely put-together man, Grace mused as she gently pressed the pads of muslin against his wounds. Not an ounce of fat disguised the lean, muscled contours of him. She tried to avoid looking at the track of dark curly hair that arrowed down from beneath his shirt past the washboard belly and disappeared into the waistband of his pants. The inverted V of his ribs rose and fell with each breath as she applied pressure with the pads. With her cheek only inches away from his chest, she could feel his warm breath against her hair.

He held his arms aloft, lifted at the elbows out of her way, and when she looked up, his gaze slid from her hair to her eyes to her mouth.

Unconsciously, Grace moistened her lips. "Can you," she asked, indicating the pad at his back, "hold this here?"

He obliged, lowering his right hand to cover it. She reached around him with the long strip of muslin while holding the other pad in place. With her arms encircling his torso, her cheek nearly pressed against his broad chest.

He rested one hand on her shoulder. "Bet you never did this for Edgar," he murmured against the top of her head.

She went stock-still. "Well, of course I never did."

"Pity."

She looked up in disbelief. "That he's never been shot?"

"No," Donovan answered with a wicked grin. "That he never got this close to you."

Her eyes widened with shock. "What would you know about—?"

She snapped her mouth shut and he winked at her! Gripping the end of the muslin between her teeth, she gave it a savage rip lengthwise. "Has anyone ever told you that you are a rude and arrogant man?"

"Several."

She reached around his back again and with a snort of disdain, added, "Except for that posse on our tail, I'd have half a mind to leave you right here to bleed to death."

He muttered something under his breath about "half a mind is better than none."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said, if you do, you could leave a horse for me—ow! Have a care with that knot!"

"Oh, dear, did I hurt you?" Sending him a wide-eyed, innocent smile, she finished off the strips at his waist and heaved a sigh. "With only half a mind, you see, I couldn't tell."

He rubbed his side with a sidelong glance at her as if to say,
touché
.

"Anyway," she continued, "since we need you and you've given us your word of honor that you'd help us, I'm afraid leaving you behind is entirely out of the question."

"Well, it was worth a try, I suppose."

As he watched her, only inches away from him in the darkness, the humor faded from his grin, replaced by something she instinctively sensed was dangerous and utterly masculine. She resisted the urge to back away from him. Something told her he'd been baiting her intentionally. Whether to make her think ill of him, or to question her loyalty to Edgar, she didn't know. But she wouldn't let him see that he scared her.

It took him three tries to get his feet under him. He stood with legs splayed, and except for the lingering sheen of sweat on his face, all trace of pain was gone from his face.

She stood, too, regarding him warily. His gaze lingered on her, that dark-lashed, piercing look that sent an odd dropping sensation to her stomach and made her mouth go suddenly dry. He wavered there for a moment. Afraid he'd fall, she reached out and grabbed his arm. His fingers closed around her elbow only briefly, long enough to make her heart plunge at the intensity of his look. But before she could think to speak, he let loose of her and pulled himself up onto the horse with slow, deliberate movements.

The moon slid out from behind a thick cloud, illuminating the ground like a lamp. He reached his hand down and offered his stirrup for her foot. "Are you gonna stand there, or get on the horse?"

Her brows dropped in a frown. Her heart was thumping like a drum. She was suddenly sure she didn't want him close enough to feel it. "Maybe I should ride with Brew."

"The gray is bigger and faster than the other horse and will hold the both of us. I'd give the bay two hours, traveling with the two of you, before he's blown out."

The desert silence seemed to close in on them as she stared at his hand. Uneasily, she put her hand in his, allowing him to haul her up. His hand was strong and hard. Nothing, she admitted, like Edgar's soft banker's hand. This time he settled her behind him instead of in front.

The thought of letting him feel the way her heart was pounding right now made her want to leap from the horse. Keeping a good three inches of space between them, she said, "I was thinking..."

"Oh, no."

"Maybe we could tie some tumbleweeds to a rope and I could walk, dragging them along behind. That way our trail wouldn't be so easy to follow. In
Ozark Outlaw,
Lucky Jim Faraday used—"

He rubbed his temples and groaned aloud.

"You said we were leaving a trail a blind man—"

"That trick might fool a blind man, but not an old Ranger like Sanders."

He reached back and drew her left arm around him, closing her unwilling fingers around the cool metal buckle of his gun belt. He covered her fist with his open palm. "Hold on to me here."

She tried to pull her hand away from such an intimate position. "I couldn't!"

He locked it there. "We haven't the time for petty argument, woman. Hold as I say, or take your chances with the ground." The horse turned, prancing nervously. "As for me, I won't be riskin' that elbow again if it's all the same to—"

Stopping short, his eyes searched the darkness to the west. He let out a low curse.

"What is it?" she asked.

Allowing her gaze to follow his, she saw the reason for his concern. In the distance, four, maybe five miles behind them across the flat, dark prairie, two specks of light floated like specters on the horizon, moving in their direction. Donovan's words, when at last he spoke, sent a shudder of foreboding through her.

"They're usin' bloody lanterns."

* * *

The rain came hard and all at once, as if the heavens had rent open, spilling their contents on the parched earth. It fell too fast to quench the thirsty soil, skimming, instead, along the surface in swift-moving streams that met and united into something larger. Washes, which minutes ago had been bone dry, now sang with eddying currents and rushing water.

The horses sank fetlock deep in the shifting mud as they plunged ahead, heads down to the driving weather. Grace pulled the India-rubber rain poncho about her face and leaned closer to Donovan's back.

She was tired. So tired.

Her legs ached, her back hurt, and somewhere, miles ago, her insides had turned to mush. Dawn and the small comfort of daylight was still several hours away, she guessed.

She hoped. She clung to that thought, certain if they could only make it until daylight everything might seem a little less hopeless.

Water ran in rivulets down the oiled canvas cloth of Donovan's duster. Beneath it, she felt him shiver and sway in the saddle. She suspected the only thing holding him upright now was plain stubbornness. She prayed he didn't fall, for if he did, she feared she might go right along with him.

Beside her, she could see Brewster, hunched over in his saddle. He'd been coughing steadily for the last hour, and she could see his strength waning. If they didn't find shelter soon, they'd all be lost.

The hot sting of tears mingled with the cold rain on her cheeks. Dear Lord, what had made them think they could get away with such an idiotic scheme? They'd made a perfect muddle of it, and they'd probably hang for their mistakes when that posse caught up with them. And Luke would die in that awful Mexican prison, thinking she'd forsaken him.

With her arm still locked around Donovan's waist, she felt him give a start as he jerked himself back to alertness. The pads she'd wrapped around him were soaked through with blood. He lifted a hand slowly to his face, swiping the rain from his eyes.

"Grace?" He sounded weak and at the end of his strength.

"Yes, Mr. Donovan?" she called over the pounding rain.

"Can you... do you think you could find Brownsville on your own?"

The defeat in his voice frightened her. "No," she answered flatly, not even wanting to consider the possibility. "I'm quite certain I couldn't, so don't even think about it."

"The Rio Grande runs to the south of here. Find it and follow it east. It'll take you there."

"Don't talk like that. We're not leaving you behind."

"A fella named Gil Lambert. Has a sloop docked there. Tell 'im I sent you. He'll help you. Sanders can't follow over the border. You'll be safe."

"Stop it, do you hear me? Are you giving up? Just like that?" His head dropped forward, and she grabbed his right arm and gave it a shake, trying to keep him awake. He straightened momentarily in the saddle.

"What kind of a hero are you, anyway?" she ranted, ignoring the rain that pelted her face. "Heroes don't quit! Do you think Black Jack Kelly just curled up and died when those banditos chased him into that box canyon in
Escapade on the Santa Fe?
No, he—"

"Bloody—," Donovan muttered.

"—fought them with every last ounce of strength. Even when it looked impossible. He fought until he'd picked every one of them off."

Donovan reined in the horse, weaving in the saddle even as she held him up. He turned his head slowly toward her and said hoarsely over the rain, "I'm no hero, lady. I'm just bleedin' t' death."

Grace found she couldn't catch her breath. Tears gathered in her throat in an enormous lump, blocking her airway. She shoved the hood off her head and tilted her face up to the sky, gulping air and water at once.

He
was
dying, right here in her arms! She could feel the strength seeping out of him as the hours passed. And how could she stop it? Perhaps his death was indeed destined, by rope or slow agony; the blame rested squarely on her either way.

But if their destinies were so tangled, could fate not be simply choices? Each action choosing the final road? Could she not alter the outcome here by refusing to accept the fork they'd chosen? Could he?

Desperately, she searched the darkness for something. She had no idea for what. Shapes shifted in the sheeting rain, tricking her eyes. Some fifty feet away, she thought she saw something, a dark, uneven shape against the inky night, nestled beneath a rock-strewn ridge.

Brew pulled his horse up beside her. Hunched over his saddle, shrunken beneath his poncho, he was coughing hard, his breath a wheezing rattle.

"What is it?" he shouted when he caught his breath.

She shook her head, staring at that shape. "Do you see that?" she called back, pointing at the apparition.

His gaze followed her finger and he squinted into the watery night. "What? That ridge?"

"No, that black splotch to the right, below that outcrop of rock."

"Ain't sure. Can't make it out. Might be a..." He shook his head again. "Hellfire, I don't know."

Donovan sat hunched over the saddle horn, breathing hard. Grace slid the reins from his hand. "Hang on," she told him and turned the horse toward the ridge with a nudge of her heels.

She blinked away the rain as they drew close. She heard Brew coughing again and felt the tug of Reese Donovan's weight against her arm. The rain stung her face and roared against the ground with an angry sound.

She stared at it at first without comprehension. Relief was slow to come, for her senses were dulled by the cold and rain and her pounding exhaustion. No apparition this, but a gash carved into the face of the rocky outcrop. An opening large enough to admit not only them, but their mounts as well.

Dear God, it was a cave.

Chapter 7