CHAPTER NINETEEN

Lori took Maggie with her to wash clothes while Beth hovered over Nick. Everything she and Nick had was filthy, everything but the dress she still wore out of pure necessity. And Lori desperately needed something to do. Morgan Davis had disappeared early, and Nick had slept much of the morning, taking whatever food and drink offered him. Lori knew, though, that he wasn’t really tasting it. He was simply eating because he needed to, because he had renewed purpose. Deadly purpose.

Nick was more bitter than she’d ever seen him. She knew he blamed the Ranger for what had happened last night—because he couldn’t, wouldn’t, blame her. And she felt so terribly guilty about it. Yet how could she tell her brother that what had happened had been her fault as much as the Ranger’s? That she had made love to a man determined to take Nick back to Texas? That—dear God—she thought she loved the man?

How could she tell him any of that when Nick was so weak?

She tried to talk to him, but he’d turned away. Still, there was no blame in his eyes, only a fierce hatred for the Ranger. She knew he was blaming himself, not her, and that made her feel even worse. And the truth, she was afraid, would hurt him even more.

Only when Beth neared did his eyes lose some of their fierceness. He even tried to smile when Maggie sat beside him and asked him if he still hurt. The child hovered around him, perhaps because he had been the one to free her from the Ute’s grasp. She seemed oblivious to the anger in him, instead her blue eyes were solemn and worried as she watched her mother change bandages.

Lori was going to take her away, but Beth shook her head. “She’s used to seeing me change bandages. She likes to help,” Beth said with a slight smile. “She’s a good little nurse,” she added with a smile so full of pride and love that Lori’s own heart twitched.

And the child was enchanting. Solemn and well behaved, but curious about everything and quick to learn. Lori had observed that yesterday.

Lori watched as Beth finished bandaging Nick and washing him with the hot water, then covering him with the blankets. There was something about the three of them, Nick, Beth and Maggie, that struck Lori as particularly poignant. A gentleness, a sweetness that was almost painful. Lori had noticed yesterday an immediate attraction between Beth and Nick; she had seen it in the first warmth in Nick’s eyes for weeks, in the wry twist of his lips as she nursed him, in the way his eyes followed her, and hers him.

It wasn’t that fierce love-hate storm that racked Lori. There had been only a few minutes of gentleness between the Ranger and herself. A few minutes respite in the turbulence that always surrounded them. So little sweetness. So much challenge and anger.

One of those terrible contradictions again. Lori envied what she was seeing, but she didn’t think she would exchange it for what she’d felt last night, the violent sea storm of excitement and feelings and emotions. She’d felt each to the core of her being. And alive. So alive. As if every emotion she’d ever had was exploding like fireworks in the sky.

She turned away, giving them privacy as she cleaned the dishes from the morning meal. By then Nick was sleeping, and Lori asked Maggie if she would like to help wash their clothes while her mother watched over Nick.

“Would you like to go with me?” she asked Maggie.

Maggie looked from her to Nick, as if weighing the decision.

“Help me wash his shirts,” Lori tempted.

Maggie looked up at her mother, who nodded.

“And we’ll take Caroline,” Lori further tempted. She was increasingly drawn to the young pig. It had gobbled up grain from a sack Beth had brought along and had stolen several biscuits left from breakfast. The pig was greedy, curious, and affectionate, and Lori, who had never been around one before, was fascinated. She’d never thought of a pig as a pet.

The Ranger had simply disappeared. He had taken all the weapons, all the ammunition, and he was very aware that Nick was too ill to try to escape. Nor would Lori as long as Nick was hurt. He knew them very well by now, she thought dryly. But, then, she was beginning to know him. He wasn’t nearly as impassive as he wanted everyone to believe, not just the cold, unfeeling Ranger he tried so hard to be. If only she could believe that he really could do something for Nick …

But he had too much trust in the law, so much more than either she or Nick. They had seen their fill of crooked and inept lawman. They’d paid their share of bribes to operate in a town, to have charges dismissed. To her, justice had always been a matter of money, and Ward-law had money.

She and Maggie gathered her shirt and trousers, then Nick’s bloodstained shirt and his spare pair of trousers. She hesitated at the Ranger’s bedroll. He was wearing the clothes he had bought in Georgetown, but he’d had no chance to wash the ones he had worn for several days. She scooped them up and put them with the others, not even trying to discern her motives.

The sun was bright and warming, the sky ever so blue. A few wispy clouds drifted slowly overhead, meandering across the heavens at about the same pace she and Maggie were making. She turned left at the stream and went downstream from where she and Morgan had been the night before. She didn’t think she could bear returning to that spot.

They found some fine rocks to sit on. Lori wished she had her trousers on, but she tied her skirt up around her knees and started with Nick’s shirt. That would be the worst. Bloodstained and knife-ripped. But the way Nick—and Morgan—were using up shirts, they might need it.

“Want to wash one yourself?” Lori asked. Maggie nodded and took a piece of soap Lori offered, and one of the Ranger’s shirts. She needed no instruction, and Lori supposed she had helped her mother before. She was a remarkably reliant little girl.

Lori started humming “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” and soon Maggie was humming along with her.

“Tell me more stories about the Medicine Show?” she asked when Lori finished the song. So Lori did. She told Maggie about Daniel Webster.

“He’s the smallest man you will probably ever see,” Lori said, “but he has one of the biggest hearts you’ll find.”

Maggie’s eyes widened. “How tall is he?”

Lori held her hand up to what would be a little more than waist high if she was standing.

“And how big is his heart?”

Lori held her hands out as wide as they would go, and Maggie laughed, but she understood. She didn’t have to ask anything else, and Lori’s liking for Beth Andrews grew. She had taught her daughter what was important, that a man’s character and not his size mattered.

“He practically raised my brother Nick,” Lori said, “and he can tell wonderful stories.”

“I like Mr. Nick,” Maggie said.

“So do I, sweetie,” Lori said.

“But the other man doesn’t.”

Lori squeezed the soap from the shirt before answering, distressed at the dull rusted stain that discolored the blue cotton. She hesitated before answering, wondering how much Maggie really understood about what was going on, or whether she just felt the tension.

“No.”

“Why?”

Lori didn’t know how to explain. She couldn’t explain it herself. The animosity between the two men had festered since the beginning, growing even more malignant after last night. She was part of it, but not all. Another part of it, she suddenly realized, was what Beth had seen. They were too much alike in many ways, and neither liked seeing themselves in the other. But she didn’t know how to explain that to Maggie. She didn’t know how to explain any of this to a child.

So she took the coward’s way out. “I don’t know, sweetie,” she said. “But I think he’s a good man too.”

Maggie looked at her doubtfully, and Lori felt a sudden compassion for Morgan. Despite that rigidity of his, he was a good man. He had put up with a lot from both her and Nick when he could have easily put a bullet in her brother. Anyone else probably would with far less justification. She remembered what she’d wondered before: if he was a man who ever bent.

He had last night! Her body quaked as she remembered how he had bent.

Trust me. He had meant that, too. He was trying to help as much as his private and stringent code allowed him to help. But the last was the question. How much could he help under that restriction?

If only she could trust him. If only Nick could.

If only she and Nick didn’t have to depend on Andy and Jonathon and Daniel.

If only they weren’t headed for a showdown in which someone would probably be killed.

She turned back to the Ranger’s shirt she’d just picked up, fingering it. It too had stains. Stains from where she had shot him.

So much blood already between them.

So much hate.

So much …

Lori felt a tear start down her face, and she rubbed it away before Maggie could see it. She turned away, forcing cheer into her voice. “Let’s see if you remember the song from yesterday.”

Morgan purposely stayed away from the camp. He set several snares again, before once more scouting the trail behind, looking for signs of either Utes or the bounty hunters.

He was haunted by Braden’s words, his fury. By the fact that each charge was justified. He could never earn Braden’s trust now, and he knew it. The man had every right to hate him, to distrust him, to want him dead. Morgan had broken every rule he’d ever made for himself, the first and foremost: don’t ever let personal feelings get involved with the job.

They had. They were. And not only with Lori, but also, strangely enough, with Nick Braden. And every mile they traveled, those feelings were becoming more complicated. And more dangerous. For one of the few times in his life, he was unsure about what to do. Unsure about right and wrong. The only other time had been the war.

Even the child had stayed away from him, though she’d so easily befriended Lori and his prisoner. That had hurt. Children were said to be good judges of character. Was he such a monster, then? Perhaps he’d seemed so, when he’d snapped the leg irons on the man who had helped save small Maggie. Perhaps he’d seemed so to Lori when he’d handcuffed her again. He hadn’t known how to explain that he didn’t know what else to do.

He looked up at the sky. It must be near noon. He’d been gone four, five hours now. There was no sign of anyone following. Perhaps he had lost Whitey in Georgetown. And the Utes? Still licking their wounds?

Morgan turned back toward camp, his knees signaling a faster pace. He’d never used spurs. He didn’t need them, and he didn’t like the way they announced the wearer’s presence.

Despite the problems back at camp, he found himself anxious to get there, to see Lori.

To his astonishment he found himself humming.

Christ. It was “Sweet Betsy from Pike.”

Beth smiled with quiet pleasure. Her patient was better. Sleep and hot broth had worked miracles. After sleeping all morning he woke, stretched tentatively, then again with a sigh of relief. Beth had already seen the red rings around his wrists and had noticed during the night how restless he’d been, how he’d fought against the irons. She’d hurt for him, for his lack of freedom.

She had been grateful that the Ranger had left him free this morning, though she had noted the simmering anger between the two men hours earlier. Beth couldn’t even guess as to the depth of what was going on. She did know that the tensions went way beyond the obvious, that between captor and captive.

“Good afternoon,” she said with a smile. “How do you feel?”

Nick looked up at the sky, at the tilting sun. Then back at her. “Better, thanks to you.” Then his eyes searched the area.

“He’s not here,” she said.

He frowned. “Lori?”

“She’s looking after Maggie. They washed clothes all morning, and now they’ve gone after firewood.”

His face relaxed. “She’s good with children.”

“Maggie’s already captivated. And she’s pretty careful with her affection.”

“Your daughter’s pretty captivating herself,” Nick said, rubbing his hand over his bristled cheek ruefully.

“If I had a razor,” she said, “I could help you with that”

His face darkened, a muscle bunching against his jaw. “I’m not trusted with one.” He tried to sit, his lips tightening as he struggled to lean against a tree, the blanket falling from his chest, which was bare except for the white bandage wrapped around it. He looked for his shirt, but it was gone.

“Lori got them all,” Beth said, indicating the shirts and trousers spread over bushes and branches. “I’m afraid she grabbed everything that wasn’t already on.”

He smiled weakly and tried to pull up the blanket.

“Don’t worry about that,” she said softly. “I’ve seen it several times now. Remember?”

She saw that he did, and he abandoned his efforts at modesty. “My thanks,” he said quietly but with obvious gratitude.

She tilted her head. “I’m the one to be thanking you. I could well be living in a wickiup now.”

“The danger of being so pretty,” Nick said.

Beth felt herself flushing. She couldn’t take her gaze from him. She was mesmerized by his eyes. They were so blue, like those of Morgan Davis, but Nick’s had humor in them, and charm. Though he was ill and weak, they seemed to gleam with mischief, while the Ranger’s were always deadly serious.

She much preferred Nicholas Braden’s.

“Can I get you anything?”

“Some food?”

“Ah, that’s progress.”

“The broth was good, but …”

“I’m just glad you’re hungry. I’ll cook some beans. Caroline … ate the leftover biscuits.”

Nick chuckled. “Beaten out by a pig. I must be sicker than I thought”

Beth laughed softly. She couldn’t remember when last she had laughed, either. “Caroline beats out everyone, sick or not.”

A rascally glint came into his eyes, one that was irresistibly charming. “How did she come to be named Caroline? I never met a pig with a name before.”

“She was a precocious pig,” Beth said with laughter. “Caroline seemed to know that her existence depended on something other than normal pig behavior. She started following Maggie around. Maggie had never had a pet, and there weren’t any children around. She just adopted the pig and named it after a girl in a story book. When time came for slaughter, Joshua didn’t have the heart to do it, and gave Caroline to Maggie for her birthday.” Some of the smile left her voice when she mentioned her husband’s name.

“I’m sorry about your husband,” Nick said quietly.

“I am too,” she said. “He was a good man, and he adored Maggie. She … really misses him. So do I.”

She started to get up to leave, but he caught one of her hands with two of his. “Thank you,” he said.

Beth smiled. “You already thanked me.”

“For doctoring me. Not for”—he hesitated—”for not being afraid of me.” The words were obviously difficult, and his gaze went to the leg iron still wrapped around the tree, at the empty band that had been attached to his ankle.

There was something so wistful in those words that they cut to her heart. He was thanking her for something more than just not being afraid. She had handed him a measure of trust, and she realized now how important that was to him. He was wanted for murder, considered so dangerous that a Texas Ranger kept him leashed tighter than a rabid dog. She felt a rising resentment for that.

“I could never be afraid of you,” she said. “And I believe you and … Lori.”

“You are very pretty, you know.” Despite his light words a shield had suddenly fallen over his eyes, just like that she had seen in the Ranger’s. Yet she felt a warmth she hadn’t known since her husband died.

“And you are obviously much better,” she said, tugging gently away.

Nick reluctantly released her hand, and Beth turned toward the fire. She looked back at him. He was still sitting up, his gaze on her. She felt a hot shiver run down her back. Her blood was suddenly warm in her veins. She bit her lip. It was just … that it had been so long since a man had touched her. And she was … grateful. She didn’t want to think that what she was feeling was stronger—more compelling—than what she’d first felt for Joshua. That had been warm and affectionate. But what she was feeling now was different. She wasn’t ready to think how different.

Because he’s an outlaw?

She didn’t believe that, not for a moment. He’d been gentle with Maggie, protective of his sister. Feelings she didn’t, couldn’t, equate with a killer.

He was handsome. In a much more dangerous way than Joshua had been, though Joshua had been well favored. Or perhaps it was the dark beard that covered his cheeks, or the animosity that radiated between him and Morgan Davis. Which made her think again about the physical resemblance between the two, and how extraordinary it was.

She wondered if she truly did see it more than the others. Beth remembered the twins she had known. Each seemed to know what the other twin was thinking, almost before the other thought it. They often finished one another’s sentences. They didn’t wait to catch diseases from one another but seemed to suffer them at the same time, and when one had an accident, the other felt the pain.

And they were perfect images of each other. Nick and Morgan Davis weren’t perfect images of each other, but they came close. Take the mustache from Ranger Davis, smooth out some lines, give him a smile …

She had noticed that Nick was left-handed and the Ranger was right-handed, and the twins she’d known were both left-handed. Still, it was uncanny. For a fanciful moment she wondered whether the Ranger had felt any pain when Nick was stabbed. Then she dismissed the notion. According to Lori, both men were very sure where they were born and to whom.

Her gaze stole back to Nick. He was trying to stand. She thought about chastising him for doing that, urging him to rest and regain his strength, but she sensed it would do no good. There was a determined glint in his eyes.

She looked down. Her hands were bunched in tight fists as she mentally suffered with him, as she felt the will it took to rise and take several steps. His gaze found hers, and he gave her a conspiratorial smile. It was strained, but a smile just the same, and she found herself responding, so very pleased at his success. Her heart tipped inside as she watched him take several more steps, moving ever so slowly over to his horse and rubbing its neck affectionately. She could feel his desire to mount, to ride away, his chagrin at not having the strength to do so.

Beth wished she could help him, that she could saddle his horse and help him escape. But she knew he wouldn’t get far, not with the knife wound. He rubbed the horse once more, whispered something to it, and then returned to where he’d been lying, where his blankets lay strewn around. She saw his gaze go down to the leg irons again, and the look in his face—a mixture of longing and despair, frustration and bitterness—made her want to cry.

Nick sat heavily as if his legs refused to hold him any longer, and he turned away from her and looked toward the mountains to the north. Toward freedom. The heart that had merely twitched before now hammered in her chest. She couldn’t believe how much she wanted to give that freedom to him.

When he first woke up, Nick had looked up at those damn cornflower-blue eyes and momentarily thought he had already gone to heaven. Prematurely, but not by much, if everything worked out as Morgan Davis hoped. That’s what hurt so damn badly. He’d never been so taken with a woman, and now that his life expectancy was about as great as a steer’s at a slaughterhouse, it was his luck to find something rare and … wonderful.

He tried to tell himself it was only because Beth Andrews had patched him up, that it was gratitude on his part, and on hers, and that was why those small hands were so gentle. She was a small woman, but her hands had calluses and her fingers had been efficient when they had worked on his wound. Her eyes were soft, but her back was straight and determined, and he thought how much strength there had to be in her to try to keep a farm going in this country.

And those damn Indians. She had stood there, defying them, holding on to her daughter with all her strength. He had felt like Lochinvar rushing to her rescue—not what he was, what Davis had made him. Familiar anger rushed through him. He still wanted to be Lochinvar to Beth Andrews. Instead, he was a man headed for the gallows.

For a few moments he’d forgotten. His hands were free. His ankles were free. She had smiled at him, sharing a moment of laughter as she told him about Caroline. And then the smile had fled at the mention of her husband, and he knew he had no right even to think of trying to make her care. Even then he had held her hand a moment too long, so reluctant to release that contact, that moment of empathy he didn’t remember ever sharing with a woman before.

When she’d left, he’d tried to stand, hoping the pain and effort would drive away other more intimate physical reactions. And he wanted to test his strength. Damn, Dickens was only feet away, but Nick doubted he could even saddle the horse. He managed to get to his feet, inwardly cursing the weakness in his legs, in his body. But he felt a glimmer of triumph as he managed the steps to the horse, and he stood there, thinking about jumping bareback on the horse as he used to do so often, grabbing Beth and Maggie, and making off for the sunset.

Hell, he could barely stand. He looked around and saw the compassion in Beth’s eyes. Dammit, he didn’t want compassion. He didn’t want pity. He wanted to feel like a man again, a free man. The ache in his soul was so much greater than that in his body as he barely managed to stumble back to his resting place. He hated it. He hated the dangling leg irons that kept reminding him he was a prisoner, but he knew he needed rest. Rest and food. He couldn’t do anything without them.

He turned away from Beth, not wanting understanding. He wanted strength. He wanted freedom. He turned north from where they had come, from his small piece of land in Wyoming, the home he’d hoped to make. Beth would have liked those rolling rich hills. He knew it.

Morgan saw a small antelope on his return and decided to take a chance at shooting it. They all needed fresh meat, Braden most of all.

He’d seen nothing all morning. No sign of life. Mrs. Andrews had said the Ute leader had violated the words of the Ute chief. Perhaps there would be no problem with them; perhaps they would regard the episode as finished, as just punishment for rash young renegades who disregarded their chief.

And Whitey. Morgan knew in his bones he hadn’t seen the last of the bounty hunter. Whitey was smart. Cunning smart. Morgan tried to put himself in Whitey’s shoes. There would be almost no way of tracking the Ranger out of Georgetown, not with all the tracks leading in and out of town. The bounty hunter might hear about a skirmish with Indians, but the Utes sure as hell wouldn’t talk about it, not and bring the army down on their heads for attacking a white woman.

There were three of them now—Whitey and two companions—and Morgan would bet his last dollar that the three would split up, check every possible town along the way, keep in contact through the telegraph. That meant Morgan had to avoid towns, and that meant keeping Beth and her daughter with them for a while longer. It also meant they had to live off the land.

He took his rifle from the saddle scabbard and aimed at the elegant animal. He slowly squeezed off a shot, and the antelope leaped into the air, then collapsed on the ground. Morgan approached it slowly. There was no movement. He thought of the child, little Maggie, and her obvious love for animals, and decided to butcher the animal there.

Morgan took his knife from his belt and knelt beside the dead animal, hoping to hell no one heard that shot.

Curt Nesbitt heard a distant gunshot. He and Ford and Whitey had separated two days earlier. Curt was the best tracker, so he was given the job of trying to pick up the Ranger and his prisoner in the mountains. The other two rode ahead to towns along the Ranger’s possible route.

If they failed in these places, there was always Pueblo.

Curt felt a momentary satisfaction, a reward for his skills as he heard the faint echo. The gunshot might not mean his quarry was near, but instinct said otherwise, and he trusted his instinct. Curt had lost the Ranger’s trail—hell, he’d never found it—but he knew these mountains. He knew that was why Whitey had recruited him.

He had specific orders from Whitey to do nothing on his own and to contact the other two. But he was so damn close. And he thought about the five-thousand-dollar reward, and about not sharing it. He knew Whitey would take the lion’s share even if Curt did all the work. There was only one Ranger. And he was burdened with a prisoner. And a woman. Now that Curt knew what direction to take, he should be able to locate the trail. Perhaps he would try to take the reward himself.

Thinking about the five thousand dollars and all the liquor and women it could buy, Curt Nesbitt headed in the direction of the gunshot.