Lucas (6 page)

Why didn’t I bring
Noah?

“Liam, please.” Lucy’s
heart pounded heavily in her chest. It was one thing to agree to marry a
stranger after exchanging dozens of letters through the mail, but quite another
to be pawned off on a reluctant groom. “I told you. I want to do it right this
time. I want to fall in love.”

“You want a husband,
don’t you, girl? Babies?”

Heat flooded Lucy’s
face. She couldn’t look at Lucas for fear of the rejection she would see there.
“Of course, but not like this.” She knew Liam felt responsible for her, but
he’d already given her a home and had seen to it that she’d learned what she
needed to survive a life in the west. That was enough.

“Let’s get one thing
straight in all of this,” Lucas looked between them, “I am
not
ready to get
married. To anyone.” He met her gaze fully with a raised brow. “No matter how
pretty…or perfect she might be.”

Lucy’s cheeks burned.
She did not want to be the first one to look away, but heaven help her, if she
kept staring at him, she might forget her place.

Why does he have to be
so handsome?

Cough. Cough. Liam’s
cough was getting worse by the minute.

Lucy broke contact to
look at the man who’d become like a father to her.

Something’s wrong.

His heavily lidded eyes
shone like glass.

“Your father left,”
Liam said simply. “I thought I...I would give him some time to blow off steam,
but...but he never came back. I didn’t believe he would deprive his children of
their grandfather.” His face grew increasingly red and his skin had developed a
tight sheen. “I was...wrong,” he whispered.

“Liam?”

Knock. Knock.

The back door opened
and a dozen ranch hands came in, collected a bowl of vittles, and with nary a
tip of their hats, retreated to the bunkhouse to eat their hot meal. She
wondered why it had taken them so long to come in after they’d returned, but
guessed after being out in the weather, they’d all had to change.

She looked back at
Liam. “What exactly happened out there?” she demanded.

“It’s nothing, Lucy.
I’m just more tired than I thought. Don’t you worry none.” He grabbed the glass
she’d brought over earlier and guzzled the rest of it down as if it contained
something a little more spirited.

She shot a questioning
glance at Lucas.

“We lost the water
tower. He didn’t get hurt, but he was caught up in the runoff and drenched in
the icy water.”

“I’m fine. I think I’ll
just go sit in my favorite chair and read for a spell.” Liam pushed himself out
of his wooden seat and pulled one of the already lit lanterns from the
collection of lights overhead and started for the living area.

He only got a few steps
before he collapsed onto the floor. The lantern shattered and one of the small
floor rugs caught fire. Lucas picked up the woven carpet and beat the edges
together until the flames had been extinguished.

“Liam!” Lucy screamed
as she rushed to him, knelt down at his side, and shook his shoulders as well
as she could from her position. She lifted his head and patted his face. “Liam.
Wake up.”

Cough. Cough. Cough.

She put a hand against
Liam’s forehead. “He’s burning up.”

He moaned, but didn’t
appear able to lift his head on his own.

Lucas picked Lucy up by
the shoulders and set her aside, then crouched down, gathered his grandfather
into his arms, and headed for the door.

“What are you doing?”
Her breathing grew ragged, her heart raced. “What are you doing?” she demanded
again as she followed him out into the near blizzard of a storm.

Lucas pushed through
the gate at the front of the house where grass normally grew. He laid Liam on
the ground and began to scoop snow on top of him. He covered his arms, his
neck, his head, everywhere but his face.

“Stop it!” she screamed
as she pulled hard at his arm and shoulder.

“Ahhhhh!” Lucas cried
out in pain, startling her enough that she took a step back from him.

“Please stop,” she
pleaded. What else could she say?

Please, God, make him
stop.

“Go back in the house!”
Lucas demanded loud enough to be heard above the deafening wind, but he
continued to cover his grandfather until he was completely buried in the cold,
packed snow.

Once Lucas stood up and
backed away from Liam, she rushed toward him, but Lucas grabbed her and pulled
her into his embrace. She pounded against him and writhed as if her life, or
Liam’s, depended on it.

“Shhhhh,” he whispered
against her hair, causing a stream of melting snow to trail the back of her
head and down her neck.

She shivered.

“We have to break the
fever. This is the fastest way I know.” His lips touched the top of her head
with a comforting kiss.

His words made sense,
but it took a moment before she could allow herself to relax against this
stranger who had come into their lives in a whirlwind. It pained her to see
Liam this way.

“Let’s get you inside
by the warmth of the hearth fire and I will sit with him for as long as it
takes. You’ll need to keep the fire stoked,” he instructed, “and be ready with
warm blankets and dry clothes. When his fever finally submits, he’ll sweat it
out and in order to keep him from catching a chill, we’ll need to dry him
quickly and keep him warm.”

She didn’t want to move,
couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Liam on the ground in the snow, even for
a moment. Lucas finally let go of her, but she stayed, despite the growing
chill that triggered an involuntary shudder to cascade from her shoulders downward.

“Either you go of your
own volition or I’ll carry you back in the house over my shoulder.” Lucas’s
warning was firm, but not unkind. His face, determined.

I believe he would.

She stood her ground a
moment longer, but when he started toward her, she held up her hands and turned
for the house.

Although Lucas was a
Deardon, he was still a perfect stranger. She glanced back at him.

Can I trust him?

All she had left was
hope.

Yes,
she determined,
I believe
I can
. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t wire for the good doctor. She
picked up her skirt and headed inside.

Lucas rubbed his bare
hands together and brought them up to his mouth, his breath providing momentary
warmth against the chilly winter’s eve. He looked down at the man lying still
in the mound of snow at his feet, wanting desperately to take away his pain. He
hadn’t left his granddad’s side for the better part of half an hour, watching,
waiting for any sign that the fever had broken. There was still so much to say.
To hear. To repair.

Whoosh!

A fierce gust of wind
racked the boarded windows on the barn and the shutters on the house shook.
Beads of sweat finally appeared on Liam’s forehead.

Lucas jumped up off the
milking stool he had retrieved from the barn and without taking the time to
brush the snow from his grandfather, he shoved his arms beneath the old man’s
ailing body and heaved him upward. When he reached the back door, it flung open
wide.

Lucy had been watching
from the window.

“In here,” she
instructed.

He followed her into the
house, down the hallway, and up the stairs to a spacious room with an enormous
bed in the center and a hearth on one side, aglow with a roaring fire. She
folded back the bedding, handed him a man’s dry night shirt and a large towel.
By their feel, she had taken great care to warm them by the fire. She turned
around to face the stone fireplace.

Lucas gently laid his
grandfather down on the bed, leaning him up against several pillows that had
been recently fluffed. He hastily tugged the man’s clothing from his cold, wet
body and replaced them with the dry, striped night garment. Once Liam was
tucked nicely between the sheets, Lucy handed Lucas a cream-colored linen
bundle.

“I also heated some
rocks in the fire. I thought they might help to keep the bedding warm.”

Lucas lifted the
blankets at the foot of the bed and inserted the toasty package.

“Thank you.” Those two
little words had been extremely hard to voice with his throat so swollen with
emotion. He didn’t trust himself to say more.

“Where is he?” the
sound of a man’s voice carried up from the bottom of the stairs.

Lucy rushed to the
door. “We’re in here, Doc.”

It wasn’t long before a
short little man appeared in the doorway and removed his snow covered hat,
tossing it into a large chair in the corner of the room, as he hurried to
Liam’s side. He placed the back of his hand against the sick man’s forehead and
breathed out a sigh that sounded much like relief.

“I thought you said he
was burning up, Miss Lucy.” The doctor pulled a metal stethoscope from his
black bag, placing the buds into his ears and the flat, round side against his
grandfather’s chest. “He’s scarcely a fever.”

Lucas had seen a
similar listening instrument when the vet had come to check on the horses back
home at the ranch. He didn’t need any tools to tell him how fast his own heart
was beating.

“Mr. Deardon here,” Lucy
stepped toward the physician, pointing to Lucas, “packed him in a mound of snow
out back to cool him down.”

The doctor shot a look
that measured the length of him. “Deardon, huh?” he asked as he returned his
focus to the patient.

“Yes, sir. I’m his
grandson. Lucas.”

“Ah...Gabe’s kid?”

“Yes, sir.”

It still surprised
Lucas how everyone seemed to remember his father, even though they’d been gone
for many years. The folks around Thistleberry all seemed to have lived there a
long time.

“Wasn’t sure we’d see
any of you back around these parts after everything that happened.” The doc
looked up over the end of his nose. “He here?”

And they all know
everybody else’s business.

“No, sir. We have a
ranch over in Oregon territory. He and my brother, Jonah, are handling our
affairs there.”

“Oregon Territory?” The
doc wrapped up his medical instrument and returned it to his bag. “That’s a
might cry from here, son.”

“Yes, sir.”

Liam coughed again,
drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

“He takes after his
granddad, don’t ya think, Thomas?” Liam’s voice was low and scratchy.

Lucas snapped his head
toward the bed. His granddad’s lips looked dry and cracked, but his eyes
fluttered open and he blinked a few times before they stayed that way.

“Good lookin’ boy,
ain’t he?”

The doctor laughed and
shook his head. “You’re as stubborn as they come, Deardon.” The doc leaned over
him, gently pulling at the skin below his eyes and looking them over. “Your
grandson, Gabe’s boy I hear,” he reached up and patted him on the shoulder,
“done real good burying you in that snow out there. Saved your life, if you ask
me.”

An odd sense of pride
seemed to work its way to the surface and relief washed over Lucas. He hadn’t
known what else to do, but he’d seen the doctor back home pack ice around a
child with a fever and had prayed it would work.

Thank you.

“If Liam’s fever was
still as bad as Lucy said it was,” the doc said to Lucas, “he certainly
wouldn’t be awake right now, let alone talking, if you hadn’t been so quick
thinking.”

Lucy raised a large
pitcher and poured some water into a tin cup and set it down on the night
table. She wiggled her way in front of Lucas and gingerly lay down across his
granddad’s chest.

“I thought you…I
thought…”

“Shhhh,” Liam said,
stroking her hair.

Cough.

She stood up, retrieved
the cup, and placed it up against his lips.

Cough.

It spilled a little,
but she was persistent.

“He’s going to need
plenty of rest,” the doctor told them. “I’ll stay in my quarters down the hall
for the night.” He nodded curtly and turned to leave the room, but stopped when
he reached the door. “Where’s Hank?”

Lucy stood up.

“I,” she started and
then cleared her throat. “I’d imagine he’s still at home. With the weather
being what it was, I needed Denver to collect you.” She looked at Lucas.
“Neither one of us was willing to leave his side.”

He nodded
appreciatively at her.

There had been several
hands in the bunkhouse that could have possibly ridden out to get his uncles,
but with the storm the way it was, they hadn’t wanted to chance another mishap
and there was nothing Hank or Sam could have done, except worry. He tried to
justify it in his mind, but the truth was, Lucas wasn’t sure he was ready to
meet them just yet. He’d just gotten his grandfather back. He couldn’t lose him
now.

“Smart girl,” the doc
told Lucy with a wink. He picked up his hat, the curve of a smile touching his
face, and he walked out.

“The doctor has his own
quarters in the house?” Lucas could hardly believe the extent of the wealth
surrounding him at every turn. He thought of his own room back home that he
shared with Noah. The oversized bunks took up the majority of the space, but
they only needed it for sleeping. It had been plenty big. But staying here at
Whisper Ridge, even for a short while, was going to take some getting used to.
Not that he was complaining.

Lucy placed a hand on
his forearm. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”