Promises Prevail (The Promise Series) (4 page)

Damn, calling her by that name stuck in his craw. She should never have been married to that brutal bastard. Jenna struggled to get up. He overrode her with a simple placement of his hand on her stomach.

Behind him he heard Rebecca explaining to everyone, adding a reminder not to forget to pay their bills. She was an efficient, capable woman. She’d make someone else a fine wife.

Beneath his hand Jenna’s seductively soft stomach heaved as she took a deep breath and gasped, “Jonas.”

“What about him?”

“Supper.”

“He’ll no doubt drink it as usual.”

A little shriek escaped the seal of her lips as she lurched against him. He caught her and held her against his chest, tucking her chin into his throat, every pant of her breath ripping him up inside. Damn it, she shouldn’t hurt like this.

“I’m going to look at your leg.”

She clamped her hand down on her skirt and shook her head.

“Jonas,” she gasped again. He tugged at her wrist. She clamped down harder.

She was going to fight him until this was settled, he could tell.

“Son of a bitch, you have got to be the most stubborn woman.” He turned and hollered out the door. “Rebecca!”

She came through the door a second later, her hands filled with dirty plates. “Yes?”

“Is that drunk still here?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “He’s just leaving, and I’m sure he has a name.”

Just what he needed, two soft-hearted, soft-headed women.

“Jonas,” Jenna gasped again the last syllable rising on high whimper.

“Ladle up a bowl of soup and a dessert for him, and send him on his way.”

Rebecca didn’t immediately move. Clint glanced over his shoulder. She was staring at Jenna, not so much with pity but with inquiry.

He swore under his breath, realizing nothing important was going to get done until the women had their way.

“What kind of dessert does Jonas like?” he asked Jenna.

He had to wait through four pants before she found enough breath to answer, “Chocolate.”

Ah hell, first his pie to a dog and now his cake to a drunk. “Give him a piece of the chocolate torte and tell him if the plates don’t come back in one piece I’m taking it out of his hide.”

Jenna was shaking her head again as another spasm took her.

“What the hell is it now?”

“Eat here.”

“No.” There was no way he’d get her to rest if she had someone in the shop.

“Take it,” she moaned.

“That’s what I want him to do. Take his meal elsewhere.”

“I think she means someone will take it from him,” Rebecca offered, putting the plates on the floor by the door.

“Son of a fucking bitch!”

Rebecca gasped and Jenna groaned. With an unnecessary, “Guard her,” to Danny, Clint stormed into the other room. He took his hat with its distinctive band from his head and held it out it to the downtrodden man. “Anyone messes with you—you point to my hat and tell them they’re messing with me.”

Instead of being grateful, the man looked in the direction from which Clint had just come. “Is Miss Jenna okay?”

“That’s Mrs. Hennesey to you.”

“Don’t like that name.”

Clint didn’t know if Jonas meant Jenna didn’t like the name or he didn’t like the name, but since he didn’t like it either, he didn’t have much room to argue. He stood there holding the hat and waited. Jonas stood there with a set to his shoulders that said he wasn’t taking anything until his question was answered.

Was everyone trying to get on his bad side? “She’ll be fine. I just have to take care of her, and she won’t let me do that until she’s sure you’re okay.”

“She’s a good woman.”

His eyes when they met Clint’s were suddenly clear. “You need to take better care of her.”

“I know.”

The clarity left his gaze. “I had a wife once. She was as beautiful as the day was long. A son, too. Just eight years old.”

Clint cut him off. “Do you want my protection or not?”

Jonas reached for the hat. “I’ve got nothing but time.”

Clint thrust the hat into the man’s hands. “Then amuse yourself with it.”

As soon as Jonas touched the brim, he was spinning on his heel. He didn’t trust Jenna to wait for him. The woman had a flare for getting into trouble. As if that thought gave birth to reality, Danny howled. Jenna screamed. And there was another god-awful crash.

“Goddamn, Jenna!” he swore, coming through the door. “I told you to stay put.” She lay on the floor clutching her leg, her face a mask of agony, a new stack of pots around her.

“Rebecca,” he called over his shoulder as he kicked debris out of his way so he could kneel beside her. “Can you get Doc for me? He should be over at Pearl’s. Tell him I need laudanum.”

“I’ll go right away,” she called from the other room. He heard the outside door jingle and then slam. Maybe he ought to reconsider Rebecca. He did like a woman who knew how to obey. Unlike Jenna who’d been shaking her head since he’d mentioned Doc and laudanum. He was through arguing with her.

“You’re taking it.” He couldn’t stand to see her in pain any longer than she had to be.

“Can’t,” she whispered, her gaze skirting his.

He touched her cheek, knowing what she feared. The anger in him fled. “I won’t let you have too much for too long, Sunshine.”

He’d give her just enough to get them both through this.

He stood, grabbed a towel off the counter and tossed it into a bowl. He grabbed the hot tea water off the burner and poured it onto the towel, soaking it. Steam rose around his face. He grabbed a pitcher of water off the counter and poured just enough to take the edge off.

“This is going to hurt, Jenna, but it’s the quickest way to making you feel better.”

He held her hand to her skirt, squeezed her fingers, then slid his hand under hers, gathering the skirt into his palm, drawing the material up over her thighs, revealing the threadbare pantaloons beneath and the dimples in her plump, luscious knees. Before she could stop him, he draped the wet cloth over the spasming muscles and raw nerves. At the same time, he pulled her up into his arms, taking her scream against his chest, rocking her as her nails dug into his collarbone under his shirt. With his free hand, he tucked the towel more securely, and then through its thick folds, started massaging the knotted muscles.

“It’s okay, Sunshine.” At first she arched higher, clawed deeper, but then as the heat and the massage got through, she began to ease. “It’s going to be okay.”

Her nails loosened their hold. Her breath soughed in and out of her lungs as she collapsed against him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“For what,” he asked,

“I scratched you.”

“No big deal.”

He leaned back against the counter and lifted her fully into his lap.

She looked at him like he was loco, then down at his neck where the mark of her nails lingered.

“Is it better?” he asked, feeling the lessening of tension in her muscles that said it was.

“Yes.”

She moved as if to get away.

“Whoa there.” He pulled her back against him. “You know as soon as you use that leg it’s going to get unbearable again.”

He suspected it was only a little less than that now.

Her soft little hands clenched at her side. “I can’t stay like this.”

“Why not?”

“It’s unseemly.”

“No one can see.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“Amazingly enough, I’m not interested in that right at this moment.” He forcibly pressed her head back against his chest. Danny whined. He shot him a glare. “I’m more interested in keeping your pain down until Doc gets here.”

“What if Doc sees us like this?”

The door swung open and Doc strode in, crunching broken pottery under his boots, his hair as always, on end, his light blue eyes sympathetic.

“He’d think his nephew was a damned smart man for keeping the damage down to a minimum.”

Over Jenna’s head, Doc’s gaze met Clint’s. The smile in his eyes said a damned lucky one, too. Doc had always liked Jenna.

“You said it wouldn’t get any worse!” Jenna cried out. She pushed off Clint’s chest to glance at Doc. Clint allowed it because he liked the feel of her hands on him. When she tugged at his hand on her thigh, he simply ignored her efforts and continued his massage.

“Your leg won’t,” Doc retorted, glancing around the disaster area. “But I can’t say the same for your shop.”

Jenna’s thighs tensed over his, and her breath sucked in. Another cramp was building. Clint tilted her face to his, not letting her duck his gaze. “Breathe with me on this one, Jenna. Don’t fight it. That only makes it worse.” He felt along her thigh, defining the extent of the muscle involved as he breathed with her, wishing he could take the pain for her. She didn’t deserve this. As she caught his rhythm, he began to massage.

“That’s it, Sunshine. Let it flow through you. Let it go, and let Doc do his stuff.”

Doc’s stuff was a reapplication of the hot cloth. When he would have taken over the massaging, Clint resisted. He tried to keep it nonchalant, but the laughter in Doc’s eyes let him know that the older man knew it was because he couldn’t bear another man’s hands on her. Jenna rested against his chest, her ear pressed to his heart, breathing as he did, trying to do as he asked. He could tell the peak of this spasm was nowhere near the peak of the last.

When she collapsed against him, he shifted slightly, just enough that her full breast squashed into his chest. Damn, she was something.

The soft pop of a cork out of a bottle brought her up straight.

“No laudanum.”

“You need to rest and those muscles need to relax.” Doc pointed out.

“I’ll apply the warm towels and massage,” Jenna countered, pushing at Clint’s chest. As if he was going to let her go before he had to.

“And how are you going to get to the towels?” he asked, continuing to work the damaged muscles.

Her chin ducked down. “I’ll hop.”

Clint could just see her hopping, losing her balance, and falling headfirst into the hot water.

“No.”

She clenched her hands in her lap. “I don’t want this.”

“I do.”

That shut her up as he’d intended, but didn’t diminish the stubbornness in her expression. He looked to Doc for help.

Doc cocked a grizzled eyebrow at him in reply. Clint sighed. Apparently, since he’d started this argument, he was going to have to be the one to settle it.

“You need this, Jenna.”

Her chin set and though she was too shy to look him in the eye, he’d be a fool to underestimate her devotion to stubbornness.

“I need to keep my shop open.”