Wyoming Bride (24 page)

She snickered, because now her hands were no longer shaking, but she could no longer see because of the tears in her eyes. She scrubbed them with the backs of her hands, huffed out a breath, then picked up the needle and threaded it.

Emaline had never set stitches in human flesh, but she’d done more than her share of samplers. She decided to do a cross-stitch to pull the flaps of skin together and close the bullet hole. She started on what seemed to be the more threatening wound, the one near his heart.

The bullet had obviously missed his heart because he was still alive. She deduced that it had also missed his lung, because although his breathing was shallow, it wasn’t labored. Blood seemed to be clotted in the chest wound, and she didn’t want to do anything to start it bleeding again.

“I’m going to stitch you up,” she explained. “I know this will hurt, sweetheart, but it has to be done.”

Emaline realized she was using words of endearment that she’d never before spoken to Ransom. Why had she waited so long? She saw Ransom’s mouth moving, but no sound was coming out.

“I’m sorry, darling,” she said, her voice tender with love. “I can’t understand you. I’m going to start now.”

Emaline plucked up her courage and stuck the needle into Ransom’s flesh. He made a grunting sound, but he didn’t move, which seemed like a bad sign. He must be very weak.

She worked as fast as she could, knowing she was causing pain with every stitch. She tied off the thread when she finished sewing up his chest wound and surveyed her work. The hole was closed, and the only new blood showed in the needle pricks where she’d made her stitches. She brushed a strand of hair that had fallen out of her bun away from her face with the back of her hand and examined the wound on his neck.

His skin was mottled brown with blood, but when she looked more closely, she realized the bullet had merely grazed him, taking out a small chunk of flesh. Other than cleaning the bullet’s furrow with whiskey and putting a sticking plaster on the wound, she left it alone.

She still had to stitch the large, through-and-through wound on his back.

“I don’t want to put you on your stomach,” she told Ransom, “so I’m going to lean you on your side and use Cookie’s pillow to hold you up.” She suited word to deed, dismayed by how little help she was getting from Ransom, whose body was almost a dead-weight.

“This is the last thing I have to do,” she said. “Then you can rest.”

He made a sound, not quite a groan, almost a moan.

She soaked the shirt off his back and doused the larger gunshot wound with whiskey. Her hands were steady this time when she threaded the needle, and she made short work of sewing up the wound. When she was done, she dropped her hands to her lap and felt her shoulders sag as the trembling began again. Tears of relief welled in her eyes, threatening to become a waterfall, and she blinked them back.

She didn’t have the luxury of feeling sorry for Ransom or herself. She had work to do. The sun would soon be down, and she’d only done the first item on her list. It would be a race to get everything finished before dark.

She rolled Ransom onto his back on Cookie’s blanket, then pulled it across the slippery grass until she reached the rectangle of shade created by the bottom of the wagon and the wheels. She’d already pulled Cookie’s sleeping pallet out of the wagon and rolled it out on the ground. She pulled Ransom onto it, arranging him as carefully as she could.

She was horrified when she turned to see a vulture perched on the farthest body, pecking out an eye. She lurched toward it, screaming like a banshee and waving her hands frantically to scare it away.

The bird took flight. But so did her horse.

“Concho! Stop! Come back!”

Emaline watched in horror as the gelding wheeled and galloped away in fright. By the time Concho calmed down he would be long gone. She wondered whether the gelding would be able to find his way back to the barn at the Double C. A saddled horse with no rider would be an immediate clue to Flint that something was desperately wrong.

She realized almost as soon as she felt that flash of hope that it was unlikely Concho would go back to the Double C, since he’d only been stabled there for a day. Would the gelding return to the fort, where he was usually stabled? Her father would have the whole Second Cavalry out looking for her if that happened. It was possible. But not probable.

Most likely, Concho would simply wander. If that happened, what were the chances her saddled horse would be found by some rancher? Even if he was, how would that person know the horse belonged to her? They’d certainly have no idea where to come looking for her.

“You stupid, stupid girl,” Emaline muttered. “You should have staked Concho first. You saw he was skittish around all those dead bodies, and what did you do? You scared the dickens out of him and sent him racing across the prairie.”

Her situation had been dire before. Now it wasn’t only Ransom’s life at risk. Flint didn’t expect to be gone for more than a week, but as she very well knew, accidents could happen. He could easily be gone for longer. If help didn’t come before the scant water in the barrel ran out, she would die, too.

Flint was feeling grumpy. Who’d have thought, when Hannah said she was tired, that she’d meant it. As soon as she got into bed, she turned her back on him and went to sleep. He lay there wide awake, frustrated and feeling sorry for himself.

In the morning, she’d woken up looking delightfully tousled, delectable, in fact, but she got out of bed almost the instant she woke up. She dressed herself and then chided him for being a slugabed. A
slugabed
!

He hadn’t slept a wink. He’d spent the night feeling deprived and depraved, because he’d had visions of undressing and seducing the woman who slept soundly beside him.

Some honeymoon he was having. He couldn’t get back to the Double C fast enough.

He wasn’t in the mood to talk, and they were halfway home before Hannah said anything other than, “I hope we’re home in time to have supper with Emaline.”

He had no intention of sitting down to supper. He was going to ride out and find his brother and then spend every minute he could on the range until Ransom and Emaline tied the knot.

The second half of the ride was as silent as the first, which gave Flint too much time to think.

No one had held a gun to his head to make him marry Hannah. He’d done it of his own free will. She was his wife, like it or not. He didn’t think it was necessary for them to love each other, but his life with Hannah was going to be a lot easier if he made an effort to get along with her. So maybe he shouldn’t go running off the instant they got home.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

He glanced at her in surprise and blurted, “That I’m going to have to learn how to be a good husband.”

She smiled at him, revealing those two entrancing dimples, and he felt his heart skip a beat.

“I think I have far more to learn than you do,” she said. “At least you know how to survive out here.”

“It’s my job to keep you safe.”

“You won’t always be around,” she said. “I think I’d like to have those shooting lessons sooner, rather than later.”

“That can be arranged.” Flint was so busy watching the play of the sun on Hannah’s golden hair, which hung down her back in that solitary braid, and listening to the litany of things she wanted to learn, that they were home before he knew it.

He was torn between staying and going, and compromised somewhere in-between. “I’ll help you put away the supplies and have something to eat before I head out to find Ransom.” Which was a good idea, since he’d skipped breakfast.

“How do you know Ransom isn’t at the house with Emaline?” Hannah asked.

The thought of Ransom and Emaline together in the house didn’t give Flint the same sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that it usually did. He wondered why not. He still considered Emaline a lost love. The difference was, she was truly
lost
. What had once been a possibility could never happen now except in his dreams.

“It’s awfully quiet,” Hannah said, looking around as they rode up to the back of the house.

“Cookie and the boys are working the fall roundup. Ransom’s likely with them.”

“I can already see the advantages of having another woman in the house,” she said. “It must get awfully lonely for women in the Territory when their men are gone all day.”

“I suppose it does.” Flint had never thought much about loneliness because he’d always had Ransom to talk to during the long winter nights. And although they often went their separate ways in the morning, he knew he’d see his brother at the end of the day for supper.

Flint sensed something was wrong the instant they entered the kitchen. He set a hand on the stove and said, “There’s been no fire here today.”

Hannah walked down the hallway leading to the staircase calling, “Emaline? Are you up there?”

When she turned back, Flint was right behind her.

“Wait here,” he said tersely.

“What’s wrong?”

“Do as I say!” He ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. The bed in Ransom’s room was made up. Either it hadn’t been slept in, or Emaline had gotten up early to make it. He checked the pitcher of water that usually sat on the sideboard. It was empty. And bone dry.

He checked his bedroom, just in case, but it was as he and Hannah had left it. He ran back downstairs, told Hannah, “Don’t move!” and quickly searched the downstairs rooms. They were all neat and untouched and vacant.

Flint didn’t know why he had such a feeling of foreboding. It was entirely possible Ransom had decided to take Emaline with him this morning, that she’d felt abandoned and had wanted company for the day. But there was no residual smell of bacon or coffee. Could Ransom possibly have taken her out to the roundup last night?

Flint didn’t think his brother would subject Emaline to the hardships of a camp on the prairie. But maybe Emaline had talked him into letting her spend a night at the roundup. Anything was possible.

“Where do you think Emaline is?” Hannah asked.

“I don’t know. I better ride out and see if I can find the two of them.”

“I want to come along,” Hannah said.

“It might be dangerous.”

“What is it you think is wrong?”

“That’s the problem. I don’t know that anything
is
wrong. It’s a feeling I have. And I’ve learned to listen to my gut.”

“I know what you mean,” Hannah said. “When I walked in, I thought the same thing, but everything’s in perfect order. Wouldn’t things be awry if there was a problem?”

“Not necessarily,” Flint said.

“Which means Ransom and Emaline might be in trouble wherever they are,” Hannah concluded. “I want to come and help.”

Flint debated whether Hannah would be safer if she stayed at home or came with him. She was defenseless here alone. At least if she was with him, he could protect her. On the other hand, she might not need protection if she stayed at the house.

She met his gaze and said, “Please. I don’t want to stay here alone.”

That settled it. “All right. Let’s grab something to eat, make sure we have water and food for the trail, and then go.”

“Do you really want to stop and eat?” Hannah asked. “If something’s wrong—”

“If things go haywire out there it could be a long time before we have another chance to eat. Better to stoke up now.”

Flint wasn’t any hungrier now than he had been yesterday before the wedding or at the reception afterward or at breakfast this morning. But his growling stomach was telling him he needed sustenance. He’d learned during the war to eat when he had the chance, because the next chance might not come for a good long while.

He forced himself to sit down and swallow the leftover stew that he and Hannah found sitting in a pot on the cold stove. It looked like it had been there overnight.

“I wonder why Emaline cooked this if they weren’t going to eat it,” Hannah mused.

“Maybe something happened to draw them both away from the house.” Flint was remembering how he’d warned Ransom to stay away from Ashley Patton. And how Ransom’s neck hairs had hackled at the idea of obeying orders from his older brother.

“I hope to hell he didn’t do something foolish,” Flint muttered.

“What?” Hannah said.

“Nothing.” He rose abruptly from his chair, leaving his stew half-eaten. “Let’s get out of here. I’ve got a bad feeling Ransom’s in trouble.”

“And Emaline?” Hannah said.

Flint’s stomach knotted. If Ransom was in trouble, Emaline was, too.

He grabbed Hannah’s arm and pulled her along behind him. “Come on,” he said. “The sooner we get on the trail, the sooner we can find out what’s happened to the two of them.”

Flint had enough common sense left to know that he might have created a mountain out of a molehill. It was entirely possible he would find Emaline and Ransom enjoying supper at Cookie’s campfire. He was going to feel pretty ridiculous if he did.

On the other hand, Ransom was a young man with something to prove, and Sam Tucker was a fast gun who enjoyed showing off. Flint didn’t want to think what might have happened if the two of them had met up on the prairie. That was a gunfight waiting to happen.