How to Lasso a Cowboy (22 page)

It had been a long time since he'd touched a woman's hair, since he had smelled the scent of roses.

They reached a stand of trees. She stopped, looking back at Marilee. “I shouldn't go farther,” she said. “I just wanted to thank you. I should have realized she needed a pet. I never had one . . . we always moved. I didn't think . . .”

“The pup needs her as well. She looks half starved,” he said.

“And if I didn't agree?”

“I would have taken the animal,” he said harshly. “Do you think I would abandon it?” He started to turn away from her.

Her hand stopped him. “I . . . I don't . . . no . . .”

Her touch was warm on his arm, too warm. The air around them was charged with electricity as though a storm was gathering. But the sky was clear, the sun red and hot.

He looked down into a face that held wonder. A body that trembled slightly, lips parted as breath came more quickly than normal. He felt a peculiar intimacy, a unique sharing of the moment. And more. The awareness of exquisitely painful feelings they seemed to arouse in one another.

He told himself it was loneliness. That it had been far too long since he had been in gentle company. That Elizabeth McGuire was the last woman he needed.

Yet he stood there, enveloped by feelings he'd never thought to have again.

Remember.

Your brother. Your father. The friends and neighbors who had once made life so fine.

Their aims and needs were opposed.

He wanted what she had: his land.

She wanted what he had every right to have: his sister.

Yet he still couldn't take his eyes from hers. God, they were lovely. This was a woman who cared deeply, loved fiercely. He had seen it in the way she touched his sister, in the way she talked of her father. But now that emotion touched him. And shook him to the bottom of his soul.

Her father was his enemy.

Attraction surged between them. He could kiss her. Her eyes invited him. Lord, how he wanted to.

Marilee is yards away.
The reminder was like a splash of cold water.

Instead of a bridge, Marilee was a chasm. She was a reminder of what had to be done: His brother cleared. The ranch returned to its rightful owners. Some measure of justice for the other Texans whose land was being systematically looted.

Her father was bound to be hurt in the process.

And until he had a future, he had no business courting anyone, much less the usurpers of his land. And Elizabeth McGuire was the kind of woman you courted, not used.

He stepped back and her hand fell from his arm, the warm glow in her eyes fading.

He turned away and walked into the stand of trees. He had no hope of finding the pup's mother. It wouldn't have abandoned its young. But he needed to get away from the pretty picture of Elizabeth and his sister. Of the look in Elizabeth's eyes.

And temper the need in his own body.

A walk didn't accomplish what he needed. Elizabeth's face darted in and out of his mind, the tenderness as she looked at Marilee, the yearning as she looked at him. In those moments, she was incredibly winsome. There was
something about her openness, her lack of guile, that appealed to him far more than conventional beauty.

And, damn, those eyes . . .

He would see her . . . back. Not home. He refused to consider it her home.

He had done what he had wanted today. He had earned the first smile from his sister, the first piece of acceptance.

It wouldn't be long before she would willingly go with him.

He didn't want to think of the ache it would leave in Elizabeth's heart.

 
ELIZABETH CONTINUALLY GLANCED
at Marilee and the puppy on the way home. It kept her gaze from the lean man riding beside them.

For a moment back at the creek, she'd been caught in enchantment. She had forgotten everything except Seth Sinclair's presence. His touch had been sweet, his nearness exciting.

And then he had turned away, making their differences stark and seemingly insurmountable.

Marilee chattered about the puppy. It was the first time the girl had acted like a child.

Elizabeth dreaded reaching home.
Please let Father be gone
. She did not want Seth to find him there. Nor her father to meet him.

But she realized Seth was not going to let her and Marilee drive alone. Not even on their—his—own land. Not after what had happened earlier.

As they approached the ranch, she turned to him to tell
him his presence was no longer necessary. Her words were cut off by Howie darting out of the door and running toward her.

“Your pa's been shot,” he said. “Thank the Lord you come back. I was afraid to leave him.”

Her stomach churned.
Dear God, no.

She tied the reins and leapt down, then helped Marilee down. “Where is he?” she asked.

He cast a quick, wary glance at Seth.

“It's all right,” she said. “He is a friend. Where is my father?” she asked.

“In his room.”

“How bad?”

“Bad, Miss McGuire.”

She raced for the house, only vaguely aware that Seth had dismounted and was following her. Marilee kept pace, clutching the puppy against her chest.

She went directly to her father's room. He was on the bed. Blood stained his clothes and the bed.

“I tried to stop the bleeding,” Howie said.

“Fetch the doctor,” she said. “Hurry.”

She leaned down. Her father's eyes were closed.

“Father?” she whispered.

He didn't move. Bright red blood contrasted with the deeper color of congealed blood.

She tried to peel away his clothing. Howie had packed the wounds with cloth, trying to stanch the blood. Were the bullets still in any of the wounds?

Larger hands nudged her aside.

“Look after Marilee,” Seth Sinclair said curtly. “I'll see to the wounds. God knows I've seen enough of them.”

She turned and saw Marilee huddled in the corner, the terror back in her face, panic reflected in her eyes.

She couldn't leave her father. Not now. She couldn't leave him with someone who . . .

“I don't hurt injured, unarmed men,” Seth said gently, as if he understood she would break at the slightest raise in his voice.

She still hesitated. “The doctor . . .”

“He might well die by the time the doctor gets here,” Seth said harshly. “He's losing a lot of blood.”

She saw the pallor in her father's face, heard the rapid breathing. She turned back to Marilee.

Then reached a decision. She stepped back. “What do you need?”

“Clean linen for bandaging. Needle and thread. Hot water.”

She watched as he efficiently removed her father's shirt to reveal two bullet wounds. A third bullet had plowed a furrow along the side of his head. She approached Marilee and took her and the pup into her arms.

“Is he going to die?” Marilee said in a too-old voice.

“No, I think your brother will make him well,” she said. “Let's get your puppy some milk,” Elizabeth said.

Marilee hung back, her gaze settling on Seth. Elizabeth turned back as well. Seth was using her father's shirt to stanch the flood of blood.

“Go,” she said softly to Marilee. “The puppy will get sick if he's not fed. Put some milk in a glove and make a small hole in one of the fingers. See if she will suck on it. Can you do that?”

Marilee hesitated.

Then the puppy helpfully whimpered, and Marilee turned toward the kitchen, where a little milk remained from the morning.

Elizabeth turned back to her father and the man leaning over him.

“How bad is it?”

“Two wounds are flesh wounds. The third has a bullet still inside. He's bleeding badly. We have to cauterize the wound but not until it's cleaned and the bullet's out.”

“Cauterize?”

His eyes met hers. “Yes.”

She leaned over the bed. “Papa. Talk to me. Papa.” She willed him to talk to her, to acknowledge her presence.

His eyes fluttered open. “Princess?”

She could tell he was fighting to open them and keep them open.

“Papa. What happened?”

“Masked . . . rebel cry,” he said. “Came . . . out . . . of . . . nowhere. Sinclair.”

His glazed eyes moved to the man standing about him. “Who . . . ?”

Elizabeth looked up at Seth. His expression didn't change, but his eyes hardened, became ice cold.

“Have you had any training?” she asked.

He laughed bitterly. “More than four years of it, Miss McGuire. We often didn't have a doctor. We did a lot of our own mending. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.”

He had left it there for her to make a decision.

A low moan came from her father. His eyes opened slightly. He obviously understood a little of what was being said.

“Papa, you're losing blood. Someone has to get the bullet out and cauterize the wound. This . . . gentleman said he will try.”

Her father's pain-filled face turned toward him, nodded slightly, then the eyes closed again.

“There used to be a medical box in the kitchen,” Sinclair said. “Is it still there?”

She was reminded once more that this had once been his home. She nodded.

“What about alcohol?”

She shook her head. She always threw it out when she found some in the ranch house.

She heard him swear quietly before continuing in a slightly louder voice, “There should be a pair of tongs and scalpel in the box. Bring the box and heat a knife. I'll need two pans of hot water, soap, and clean cloth to bandage the wound.” He paused. “I think he's unconscious again but he could wake up. It's going to hurt like hell.” His eyes challenged her.

She leaned over the silent form again. “Papa?” she asked.

He didn't answer, didn't move. She hoped he would remain unconscious.

She went into the small area that served as a kitchen. She located the medical box, put kindling into the cookstove, and lit it. She found the scalpel in the medical box, and washed it with water from a pitcher. When the kindling began to flame, she shoved the steel of the knife inside, shivering as she did so. She poured water into a pan and put it on top of the stove.

It would take a few minutes for the water to heat. She had a moment to look in on Marilee. She must be frightened nearly to death and Elizabeth did not want her to wander into her father's room while Seth was digging out a bullet.

Marilee sat on the bed, holding a glove. The puppy sucked at one of the fingers of the glove.

“She's eating,” Marilee said solemnly.

“I see. She's a survivor.”

“How's Poppy?”

“He is very sick. But your brother thinks he can fix him.”

“He found the puppy.”

Finding a puppy and digging for a bullet were two different things, but she was not going to explain that at this moment. She only hoped her faith wasn't misplaced. “Stay up here, love,” she said. “Take care of the puppy.”

Marilee nodded, cradling the puppy in one arm and holding the glove with the other.

Elizabeth returned to the kitchen and gathered clean towels. “Please God, don't let him die. He's all I have.” Her lips moved with the prayer, yet no sound escaped.

She recalled what he had said.
Masked men. A rebel cry
. The same description fit the ones who'd intentionally spooked her horse. Her father mentioned Sinclair.
Dillon Sinclair
. Could Seth be involved in some way? Was that why he had gone with her on the picnic? An alibi?