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“I’m afraid if I don’t let you get this bullet out I’m going to bleed to death arguing with you.” Jake fell back against the pillow, shading his eyes with his arm again. He wanted to argue, but a heavy lethargy weighing him down made the effort too much trouble. “Have you ever done this before?”
“A thousand times.”
“You’re probably lying, but what the hell. Get on with it. I’ll pay you if I still have my leg in the morning.”
“Your confidence inspires me,” Isabel muttered.
She could sense Chessie’s anticipation, yet she hesitated.
Isabel didn’t like the look of him. She didn’t want to be here, in Elish’s saloon, with half of Whispering Creek downstairs and Chessie hovering. And she didn’t want to touch him.
That feeling both surprised and disturbed her. It was like missing a step in the dark, a jarring sensation that momentarily threw her off balance and left her groping for a familiar feeling to steady herself. She’d never before felt an aversion to touching someone to heal.
It wasn’t that he was so unique, either. She’d cut bullets out of many a man like him, men who killed as easily as they drank whiskey and bedded women. This time, though, some primitive instinct warned her of a danger she couldn’t define.
Isabel pushed the feeling away, reminding herself why she had come. He was another wounded man, nothing more, nothing less. She reached for her basket, irritated to find her hand tremble as she picked out powdered willow leaves and bark and added them to a jar of pale amber liquid that enhanced the pain-killing benefits of the willow.
What was wrong with her that she couldn’t do so simple a thing without behaving as if it meant her own life or death? Who was this man to her but another outlaw who had tangled with someone faster on the draw? Despite the undoubtedly ignoble cause of his injury, she wanted to help him. She’d never questioned her calling, even as a girl. She’d always cared for the sick and wounded, always sheltered those in need, just as her mother and grandmother before her.
She poured some of the elixir into a glass and held it out. “I don’t know if you need this considering the amount of whiskey you’ve drunk, but it won’t do you any harm, and it will help the pain and bleeding.”
Jake moved his arm just enough to glare at her. “What is it?”
“Powdered toad and lizard spit. Drink it.”
He hesitated then took the jar from her and drank it back in one draught. Almost immediately his face convulsed in a grimace. “That tastes like—”
“How would you know? Do you make a habit of dining on it?”
“You’re starting to annoy me, woman.”
“And I’ve only just begun. I’m sure you’ll loathe me by the time I’m finished.”
“It won’t take that long,” Jake muttered, covering his eyes again.
He heard rather than saw her rummage in her basket again and then felt the cold metal of the knife blade as she sliced away his pant leg. He tensed inside, waiting for the blade to cut into him, wishing he’d finished off Elish’s whiskey and asked for another bottle to follow it.
Instead, she touched him first. Her fingertips, cool and smooth, gently circled the hole in his thigh. He expected a painful probing. But she seemed more intent on simply touching, drawing long, gentle strokes on his skin.
At first it annoyed him. He wanted the bullet out of his leg, not a massage.
But gradually, the rhythm of her hands seduced him into focusing on what she was doing rather than the pain.
She began to speak, softly, in a cadence that almost became song. The words seemed to come from far away and Jake couldn’t make any sense of them.
Coupled as they were with the stroke of her hands, it didn’t matter. He could almost believe she was a witch because the combination worked a strange magic. The feel and sound of her might have been a caress—instead it was something deeper and stronger, something that soothed and made him vulnerable to a feeling perilously akin to contentment.
He didn’t like it. It went too deep, forced him to accept an intimacy he didn’t want, even if it was only for a few moments. Yet the rhythm of her voice, the feel of her touch became a seduction too tempting to resist.
When she finally cut into him with the knife, he felt a sharp pain. Then the dream induced by her touch and her herbs took him and there was nothing but darkness.
Isabel breathed a sigh when he passed out. She almost wished Chessie hadn’t come to her about this one; he had an unnerving effect on her she didn’t like one bit. But she hated hurting anyone, even a man who berated her for trying to help him.
She did what she had to do, digging out the imbedded piece of lead, cleaning the wound, applying a poultice of lizard tail to staunch the bleeding and prevent infection. When she’d finished, she straightened with one hand to her lower back, wiping damp tendrils away from her brow with the back of the other.
“You can look now,” she said to Chessie. The young woman stood on the far side of the room, pressed close to the door, her nose practically squashed against it.
“You didn’t cut off his leg, did you?”
“Of course not. Although I’ll admit to being tempted. You’re right—he’s trouble.”
Chessie turned around, casting a lingering glance at the man on the bed. “I suppose he is, but under all that blood and dirt, he’s sure enough all man.”
“I don’t know about that but if you’d come to me any later, he would have been a dead man, whether he’ll admit that or not.”
“Well…I’m sorry about coming for you so sudden like, but I knew no doctor could do for him what you could.” She looked up at Isabel, chewing her lower lip. “I hope you ain’t mad.”
“No, I’m glad you did. You know I can’t refuse when someone’s hurting. Although this once I might have been tempted because I’ve probably wasted my time here. Look at him and tell me he’s not the kind to go right back out and get himself shot up again.”
“I hope you’re wrong about that.” Chessie moved over to the bed and brushed her fingertips over the man’s rough stubble. “He’s one fine man, I can tell. Losin’ him’d be a waste. And besides, I ain’t sure he’s that kind, though he does look it.”
“Oh, he’s that kind all right. I’d put money on it. But—” Isabel shrugged and began to gather up bloody cloths and her pouches of herbs “—with the grace of God and any luck, he’ll be back on his feet and out of town before we find out.”
Chessie watched her, anxious again. “Will you be all right, Isabel? I mean leavin’ here alone. You bein’ a decent woman, I know some people, well…”
“Don’t worry about me.” A mischievous grin twisted the corner of her mouth. “The women in my family stopped caring what people said about us a long time ago.”
She looked once more to the bed. The man lay still in the grip of deep sleep, yet even in this rest he didn’t look peaceful. She thought she had been right in guessing his character, but she also could understand Chessie’s admiration. Without the grime and the blood and the ragged beard, he would be compelling, if not handsome. And that combined with his aura of danger and mystery had no doubt been the downfall of more than one woman.
But not her. Never her. Never again.
“He should sleep until morning,” she told Chessie. “I’ll come back then and bring something for the pain and to prevent infection. He should be fine in a few weeks, perhaps sooner.”
“I sure hope it’s sooner. I don’t think he’s the kind to be happy sittin’ around waitin’ to get well.”
He probably isn’t, Isabel thought, and it’s just as well. The sooner he leaves Whispering Creek, the better.”
Isabel pushed open the kitchen door and swung her basket onto the counter, the savory scent of a hearty beef stew reminding her she’d scarcely eaten since dawn. The door, hanging slightly askew on its rusted hinges, slapped against its wooden frame several times in her wake.
“Ah, pepita,” Esme said, turning from the stove, “I was beginning to worry.”
“It took longer than I expected. Chessie’s man turned out to be a gunslinger with a bullet in his leg.”
Esme went back to stirring the pot on the black cast-iron cookstove, clicking her tongue in distaste.
Isabel moved to put an arm around her grandmother’s shoulders, giving her a quick hug. “Now don’t start, Nana. You’d have done the same thing. You have done the same thing.”
The old woman’s expression softened. “S?, but I did not set foot in a place like Elish Dodd’s saloon. Every devil who comes to Whispering Creek beds there.”
“Yes, well, I don’t think you would have wanted Elish to bring this particular devil here.” An image of wild black hair, the scent of leather and denim, the feel of hard muscle, flashed through Isabel’s mind. The vision provoked a shivery feeling in her, something akin to uneasiness, except darker, more complex.
Shaking her head to rid herself of the image, she pulled out a chair and sank into it, resting her elbows on the smooth pine table in front of her.
“You must be starving, child.” Esme grabbed a bowl and ladled out a liberal portion of the succulent stew, holding up a hand to stop Isabel’s protest at the large helping. “You did not eat breakfast.”
“Oh…Nate split a seam on his shirt and then Matt needed help with his sums, and Mr. Davis—”
“S?, s?, I know.” Esme poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down across from Isabel. She stared at her granddaughter a moment in silence then shook her head. “You take too much on yourself.”
Isabel swallowed a spoonful of stew. She knew she was practically inhaling it, but the morning’s excitement had left her famished. “No more than any woman with a family to care for.”
“You are young, beautiful, but so often the jewel you are is buried deep behind your tired eyes.”
Isabel laughed. “This jewel has no desire to come out and be polished for some man’s pleasure, if that’s what you’re hinting at, Nana. I was a wife once, I can’t imagine ever meeting another man with the power to convince me to become one again.”
“You can hardly call yourself a wife, you were married for so short a time. You are not an old woman, nor are you blind and deaf. You cannot truly be so uninterested in what a true man can give you.”
“And what is that? A home? I have that, and my children and you and now Katlyn as well. What else is there?”
“You know there is more. Much more. In your heart, you yearn for it. Yet you deny yourself because that man you called a husband broke your heart.”
“He didn’t…it was never like that.” Isabel glanced down at her bowl, not quite able to face the disbelief on Esme’s face. “He taught me that my dreams of building a home with a husband were something I could live without if I had to.”
“Perhaps, but it was not always that way, no matter what you tell me. Your heart is too tender. You will never prize freedom above loving.”
Isabel smiled a little. “Well, I will certainly never find a man who will give me the freedom I have now. What man would want to be husband to a woman who leaves his bed because she must go to a saloon to cut a bullet out of another’s man’s leg?”
“The man who loves you above all else. But if you refuse to see him, you will never find him.”
“I hardly think I’ll find him in this town whether I’m looking or not,” Isabel said, laughing. “You wouldn’t want me looking too closely at the kind of man I usually see.”
“And what kind is that? The man you went to help today?”
For some reason, Isabel felt her face flush. “Don’t start spinning any romantic dreams of him as a potential husband. He’s more the kind to bed all of Elish’s girls in a night, drink down most of his whiskey, shoot up the bar, then throw on his boots and ride out of town, bad leg or not.”
Esme swallowed the last of her coffee and shoved back from the table. “A dangerous man. S?, you are right to stay away from that one then.” She said nothing more, but gave Isabel an appraising look.
Isabel got up quickly and took her bowl to the sink to rinse. “I must go to the shop for a few hours. Will you need help with dinner?”
“Of course not. Go then, since you are determined to listen to no one but yourself.”
“I always listen to you, Nana,” Isabel murmured, giving her grandmother a quick kiss on the cheek. “But all I have is enough. I don’t need the complication of another man in my life.”
Enough. Of course I have enough, Isabel told herself as she let herself into the front room of her house where she kept her shop. Her boys were enough. Esme and her newfound sister Katlyn were enough. Her borders were enough. Her work helping people was enough. The house was more than enough! Besides, if something—or someone—were missing in her life, it—or he—would have to have a lot more to offer than one of Elish Dodd’s reckless wanderers.
She knew that breed, and she’d had more than enough of them!
Isabel awoke early the next morning, determined to get to the Silver Rose, pay her obligatory call on Chessie’s wounded outlaw, and be done with him. Especially him. She rose before the boys, washed and dressed quickly, packed their lunch pails, and put a batch of cinnamon-and-raisin biscuits in the oven.
Just as she closed the heavy cast-iron oven door, Matt followed Nate into the kitchen.
Katlyn hurried in after them, looking, as usual, unsettled by the early daylight. It was later, fortified by breakfast and copious amounts of cold water, that Katlyn came alive in a burst of restless, infectious energy which often earned her raised eyebrows and disapproving frowns from Whispering Creek’s more staid residents.
But Katlyn, with a toss of her tumbled red curls and a flash of those lovely blue eyes, managed to charm them all and earn their indulgence for even her most outrageous acts.
“Oh, coffee,” she breathed in delight as Isabel offered her a mug. She tossed her haphazard pile of books and papers on the kitchen table and sniffed appreciatively at the steaming brew. “Cream and honey, too. You are an angel, Isabel. And you’ve made those wonderful biscuits.”
Nate rubbed his palm to his stomach. “Yum-my, does that smell good. My stomach’s aching this morning.”
“You have to save more for me this time,” Matt said, shoving past his brother. “Mama, he always gets more.”
“That’s ’cause I’m older and bigger.”
“It’s not fair!”
Isabel laughed. “Don’t I get a hug and a good-morning kiss?”
Both boys ran to embrace her, and she hugged them close, cherishing the warmth of the moment.
“Are you goin’ back to the Silver Rose again today, Mama?” Nate asked as he took his seat at the head of the small table.
“Yes, I have to check on the man I told you about, the one with the injured leg.”
“He sounds dark and mysterious to me,” Katlyn said around a mouthful of biscuit. “My kind of man,” she added, laughing when Isabel shook her head and shot her a disapproving look.
Esme came into the kitchen rubbing at the arthritis knotting her thin hands. “Good morning. I am glad you lit the stove so early, Isabel, there is a chill in the air today.”
Matt moved from Isabel to Esme. “Mornin’, Nana. It’s not cold, you’re just always cold.”
“That I am. It is because I am an old woman.”
“I like you old.”
Nate rolled his eyes at his brother. “That’s ’cause you never knew her any other way,” Nate interjected. “Mama says Nana was a real beauty when she was a girl. Isn’t that right, Mama?”
“Of course it is right,” Esme answered for Isabel. “That’s why your Mama is so beautiful. When she takes time to brush her hair and change her dress, that is.”
Instinctively, Isabel tried to smooth her wayward mass of hair. She realized in her rush to get up and dressed this morning she’d forgotten to braid her hair. Deftly, she twined heavy locks into a long braid and tied it with a bit of ribbon she kept in her apron pocket.
“Better?”
Esme answered with an ambiguous shrug.
Katlyn stifled a giggle, smiling back ruefully at Isabel as she put a hand to her own wayward hair. Though they looked very different—Isabel favoring their father and Katlyn her mother—they both laughed often over their shared inability to ever look neatly polished.
While the boys and Katlyn devoured the biscuits, Isabel organized her thoughts, deciding what medicines to take to the Silver Rose. She glanced outside, looking over the bunches of herbs, withered and faded by the sun, swinging on the long poles outside her windows. A dozen chimes, made from broken glass, bones, and stones, hung from the eaves and sang odd faraway music in cadence with the wind. The air smelled like pine and wood smoke and the scent of the drying herbs.
The chimes sang, a lark called, and Isabel suddenly felt fiercely glad to be here. This was her home, her family, and nothing and no one could take them from her.
