The Prospect: The Malloy Family, Book 10 (2 page)

“I am not telling her anything. I am simply tired because I have not been sleeping well.”

Although her sisters kept on about her impending doom, Jo ignored them, knowing they were prone to teasing each other. She knew she didn’t look good and her spectacles kept falling down her nose because she was sweating. Her stomach continued to be unhappy and she barely ate anything when they stopped for dinner. Truthfully, she avoided Maman, choosing to sit by herself beside a nearby rock.

The afternoon was a blur of prairie grass and rolling hills. She walked by rote, her gaze never leaving the ground. Feet obeyed while she barely noted her progress. She floated in a strange, hazy world where muffled sound echoed in her ears but she heard none of it. It was as if someone had stuffed her head with cotton and buzzing bees.

She didn’t even notice the wagons had stopped moving until she heard Declan’s voice.

“God’s blood, what are you doing, lass?” His strong arm grabbed her about the waist. She flailed wildly but couldn’t quite make her body obey. “You’ve walked half a mile past the wagons. Holy hell, you’re burning up, Jo.”

She was on fire? Jo took stock of herself and realized she did feel quite hot. And the buzzing in her head had grown louder. Declan had awakened the bees with his loud voice.

“Shhh, you have disturbed the bees and now they are loud enough to make my head hurt.” Her eyes burned so much she closed them.

“You’re not to have a fit of the vapors around me, lass. I’ll not have it. Let’s get you back to your family.” He scooped her up in his arms and tromped across the prairie. She started to shake, much to her consternation.

“What did you do to me?”

“I’ve done nothing but rescue from your own folly. I think you’ve a fever and you’re definitely talking crazy, about bees and nonsense.” His voice echoed through her chest. She rather liked the way it felt. Rumbly and deep. “Hey, you there—Charlie, right? Where is your ma?”

“Is that Jo? What have you done to her?” Her sister sounded young and scared, which meant something was wrong.

Jo tried to open her eyes, but her lids hardly moved. In fact, her entire body was as responsive as a limp dishrag. She couldn’t even grunt. A wave of blackness roared through her as she finally got her eyes open. The last thing she saw was the deep blue of Declan’s eyes. He really was a handsome man. Too bad he was a thief and a kidnapper.

Her body burned like a roaring blaze in his arms. Declan wasn’t a man given to hysterics or foolish worrying, but he’d never seen a human so hot from a fever. She had been walking as though nothing could ever stop her. He could hardly believe she’d gotten so far without anyone noting her absence.

Now her younger sister bounced around shooting accusing glares at him. He didn’t need anyone to be suspicious of his motives. He only wanted to help Josephine no matter what people thought of him. Truth was, he deserved their censure. Declan was not a good man.

“Where is your ma?” He set Jo down on the back of the Chastain wagon. She was like a rag doll, limp and lifeless. It had only been a few minutes since he found her and she had already gotten worse.

“She went to the store in the fort to buy things. The wagon master said to get there quick.” Charlotte wrung her hands, her face covered in worry. “What’s wrong with her?”

“I dunno, lass, but she has a fever.” Declan reached back into his memory, way back through the cobwebs until he found what he needed. He needed to bring her fever down. “Go find a well and get the coldest water you can find.”

“And leave you here with her?” Charlotte squeaked. “Alone?”

“I’m not going to hurt her. I give you my word.” Declan gestured to the bucket hanging on the back of the wagon. “Now fetch the water quick as a bunny.”

The girl finally did as she was bade, snatching the bucket and running toward the fort as fast as her legs could carry her. Declan returned his attention to Jo. Her eyes were open, but as he feared, they were glassy and unfocused.

“You know, I dream of you.”

He stopped in mid-motion, his mouth falling open slightly. Surely he hadn’t heard her right “Pardon?”

“I am ashamed to admit it, however. A young woman should not have such salacious dreams.” She sounded prim and proper, speaking of naughty dreams. He didn’t know what to say. “I want to kiss you. And more.”

Declan had considered Jo to be attractive, but he tried to keep it to himself, never allowing even a hint of impropriety to enter his mind. Now to discover she dreamed of him, wanted to kiss him and do other things. His body responded with a thick pulse of awareness. It sure as hell wasn’t the time for it, but she had started it.

“It’s not proper for you to say such things to me. I know it’s the fever talking.” He started to step back, to get a few feet between them while he waited for the girl to return.

Jo grabbed his arm and held him in place. She threaded her fingers through his. “No, it is not the fever. I have needed to tell someone about it. It has been inside me like a living thing. I do not know what to do.” Her voice had dropped to a broken whisper.

His sympathy for the girl rose ahead of his foolish body’s reaction. She was an innocent with no experience with men, he guessed. The first time carnal need hit, it was confusing. He remembered fisting his cock in the dark corner of his room, the pain and pleasure roaring through him as he found release. He wondered if she had ever used her own hands to find pleasure, but he doubted it.

“It’s okay, lass. You’re human and feeling lust for another is normal.” He patted her hand, feeling more like a parent than a potential bedmate. It was awkward and uncomfortable.

“No, it is not. I have longings, deep inside me.” She pulled his hand to her belly. “Down low within. I do not know what to do except to copulate. That at least I have been schooled in.”

Declan almost gasped, but it was a close thing. The woman had shocked the wits out of him. Who had schooled her in copulation and more importantly, why?

“Yet no man wants to copulate with me.” She sounded forlorn, as though she’d been asking every man on the wagon train to bed her but been turned down.

Ridiculous.

“Your fever is truly taking a toll on you, lass.”

“Will you copulate with me, Declan?” She asked the question so earnestly, and he reacted with a swift tightening of every muscle in his body. He had to fight the urge to agree to it.

“You’re spouting fevered dreams, lass.”

She frowned. “So you do not want to copulate with me either? What is wrong with me?”

He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. “That’s not what I said.” He leaned in close. “I would take you to bed every morning, noon and night if you were mine. You’d never leave my side.”

There. He’d said it and confessed. He liked Josephine, quite a lot, and her quiet fierceness impressed him. Her dreams of lying with him and finding release, well, he knew what he’d be thinking of when he closed his eyes for the next ten years or so.

“What’s happened here?” Buck Avery’s voice cut through Declan’s thoughts like a sharp knife. He turned to look at the wagon master, his bushy eyebrows drawn into an angry V. “What did you do to this girl?”

Declan bit back the retort that threatened to burst from his throat. No matter how he proved himself to his boss, his past was always there. A stain on his soul no one would see past.

“I brought her back to her family’s wagon. Nothing else happened.” A conversation that no one else would know about but Declan didn’t share that piece of information.

Buck didn’t look as though he believed him. Before he could open his mouth to doubt Declan, Mrs. Chastain ran to the wagon, her hair escaping the tight bun at the back of her neck. She was as beautiful as her daughters, a smart and strong older version of all of them. Better yet, he knew she was a nurse and could help Jo.

“
Mon Dieu
, Josephine.” She assessed her daughter quickly.

“After we stopped, I was helping Miss Edith down when I spotted Jose—er, Miss Chastain walking. She was half a mile away and didn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon. When I got to her, I found her like this. Feverish and babbling.” He had never spoken so much to these folks in the time he’d been with them. They stared at him, making Declan want to scratch an itch he couldn’t find.

“She is running a high fever.” Mrs. Chastain turned her attention back to her daughter. “We need to bring it down quickly.”

“I’m back!” The younger sister appeared toting a bucket, water sloshing every which way as she struggled with it. “I got the water.”

“Charlotte, you are to be commended. We need to cool her down.” Mrs. Chastain took the bucket from her youngest daughter and set it on the ground.

“But Mr. Calla—”

Declan cut her off with a shake of head. Charlotte frowned at him but said nothing further. He didn’t want to call any more attention to himself.

“Mr. Avery, is there a physician at the fort?” Mrs. Chastain took a rag and started bathing Jo’s face.

“I don’t rightly know. Memory tells me there isn’t one, just a former Army medic.” Buck looked at Declan. “Go find out while Mrs. Chastain takes care of her kin.”

Although he wanted to stay and watch over Josephine, he heeded his boss. With a nod, he left the small worried group and walked toward the fort. Declan passed the bustling crowd as the people from the wagon train vied for the wares and supplies sold by the vendors in the fort. Many would probably pay too much, but it wasn’t Declan’s concern, although he could spot a shyster at a hundred paces.

He wasn’t surprised to see Army personnel in residence, but it made him nervous. Not because of the tales he’d heard of Indians attacking whites, but because his former boss, the one he’d shot and buried on the prairie, had a long reach. His size and his appearance were noticeable. He pulled his hat down lower on his forehead and hurried past the soldiers.

Although he had no idea where to go, he headed toward the mercantile, the largest building within the walls of the fort. He stepped in and muscled his way through the people who were buzzing all over the merchandise like a hive of bees. When he reached the counter, there were two blond men tallying up sales and taking money.

“Excuse me.”

They ignored him, and that got Declan’s back up like nothing else had. Josephine was out there, burning up from fever, and these two fools had no idea what kind of shit he was about to rain down on them.

He reached across the counter and grabbed the shirtfront the larger of the men, then yanked him off his feet. Declan shoved his face into the surprised man’s face.

“I need a doctor. Now.” A hush fell over the previously loud store.

“I, uh, what?” The man dropped his pencil and it rolled across the counter.

“There’s a woman on the wagon train burning up with fever and pain in her belly. She needs a doctor.” Declan shook him slightly and the man’s face blanched. “Are ye understanding me, ye great fool?” His Irish accent deepened and he cursed himself for letting it sneak out.

“Yessir, I do. We don’t got a doc, but there’s a medic.” The man shook harder than Declan’s fist. He never thought to use his bulk to intimidate anyone again but this was for Jo. He’d have to deal with the repercussions later.

“And where is the medic?” Declan growled through his teeth.

“Corner building with the fresh whitewash. He takes care of teeth too, and the horses.” The man looked down at Declan’s hand. “Can you let me go, mister?”

Declan forced his hand to open and released the man’s shirt. “If I don’t find the medic, I’m going to find
you
.”

The man’s head bobbed in assent and Declan turned to leave the store. Dozens of people watched as he walked out. Murmurs rippled through the crowd, whispers and accusing stares. He told himself not to react, to continue moving. Jo needed him. The thought of her suffering drove him forward.

When he made it outside, he broke into a run and headed for the bright white building in the corner of the fort. There was no sign or indication this was the medic’s house and he sure as hell hoped the fool at the mercantile was telling the truth.

He burst through the door and found a balding man with a paunch leaning over another man, a pair of pliers in his chunky hand. A pair of spectacles perched on the bald man’s nose. To his credit, he didn’t react to Declan’s entrance. He pushed the pliers further into the other man’s mouth.

“This is gonna hurt, Wendell. You ready?”

“Hurrr.” The man spoke around the bald man’s hand and pliers.

With a quick pull and a gush of blood, the bald man pulled a tooth. The patient clutched his mouth and squealed like a little girl.

“Got it. Aw, don’t be a fool. This thing was rotten as flies on horse shit.” The bald man held up the bloody pliers with a rather gray-looking tooth clutched in its jaws. He gave the other man a rag. “Now pack that for a bit to stop the bleeding. Leave two bits at the door, Wendell.”

The shorter man shoved the rag in his mouth and scurried to the door, scowling at Declan as he passed. The clink of coins in a brass bowl by the door marked the man’s departure, leaving Declan alone with the bald dentist who also served as horse doctor and medic.

“You the medic?”