The scar was an old one. It was none of her business, she told herself as she applied a warm, soapy cloth to his shoulders. My God, what on earth…?
She took one more look at the peculiar scar, but except for the parts that needed attention, she avoided looking at his naked body again. One way or another, she vowed silently as she gently cleansed what looked like a knife wound on his thigh, she vowed that whoever had done this cowardly thing would pay for their sins if she had to blow up Devin’s hill and every last tunnel that riddled it.
“In fact, it might be just the diversion we need to make our escape,” she said thoughtfully.
Facing the wall to hide his embarrassment, Jed frowned. The woman rattled on like a dried gourd in a high wind, but…
Our escape? He knew damned well where he was going, and the last thing he needed was a traveling companion.
“The trouble is,” she confided earnestly as she poured liquid fire in his open wounds, “I don’t know a blessed thing about dynamite, do you?”
“Dynamite?” He managed to open one eye just as she stepped away from the bed. That was a bit extreme, even for him. All he wanted was to find McGee and get the hell out of here. He’d leave Satan to mete out any punishment due.
He managed to roll onto his back again unassisted, pulling the tapestry throw over his privates. She looked at him worriedly and asked if he was hurting.
“No,” he lied. Nowhere except for his ribs, his head, his back and his left ankle. Except for roughly two-thirds of his body, it didn’t hurt a bit.
“There, you see? You’re getting better already.” The smile on her face made her look almost pretty. Not as pretty as Vera, but pretty in a different way.
“Now, I’ve decided to bind up your ribs in case any of them are broken,” she announced. “I have the strips right here, but if you’re tired, we can wait a little while until you’ve had time to rest up from your bath.”
“Mm.” Meaning, just go away and leave me for the next few years, I’ve had about all I can take for one day.
She looked as if she wanted to say something. He didn’t want to hear it, whatever it was, but as exhausted as he was by the last half hour’s activities, he owed her that much. She was trying her best to help him, and she didn’t know him from Adam.
“Name,” he said. His voice sounded like rusty water poured over gravel. “Jed—Blackstone.”
Her face brightened until it was…not exactly pretty, but nice. For the first time he noticed that her eyes were all the colors of the forest—green, brown, gold and gray. She said, “How do you do, Mr. Blackstone, my name is Eleanor Mayne Scarborough. At least, I was a Scarborough before I married Devin Miller.”
Ask a simple question, Jed thought, amused in spite of feeling worse than the floor of a cattle car after a five-hundred-mile trip. He hadn’t even asked her name…although he didn’t mind knowing. If he had to deal with the woman for a day or two longer, it might help to know what to call her.
“Could I ask you a personal question?” Holding the basin on one hip, the towels on the other arm, she tilted her head. “How on earth did you get that odd scar on your, um—posterior? I couldn’t help but notice when you were—when I was—that is… Well, it looks just like two snakes, side by side.”
He closed his eyes, feeling fresh anger sweep over him from something that had happened eight years before.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Well, I do, of course—living here all alone for so long, I’ve lost every sense of decorum I ever possessed.”
He didn’t know about decorum—he’d have to look that one up—but she hadn’t lost her sense of kindness, Jed thought as he watched the blushing woman scurry away. If she hadn’t been there—if she hadn’t been the one to find him, he might not have made it through the night. As it was, he had not only made it, he was going to damn well recover in time to get his money from that Asheville bank and shove it down Sam Stanfield’s throat.
Yeah, he was. Just as soon as he could breathe without lightning striking every vital organ in his body. The binding would help, but it would need to be tight to do any good. He was pretty sure his ribs were only cracked, not broken, but he wasn’t about to risk any sudden moves.
As for his ankle, it was probably only sprained. He could already move his foot, although it hurt like hell. The truth was, he didn’t know anything for sure. With a horse or a cow, he could tell at a glance, but when it came to his own anatomy—not to mention a few other subjects—there were still some crater-size holes in his education. He’d managed to patch up a few of them, but he kept tripping over new ones.
She’d been a schoolteacher. She’d told him that while he’d been pretending to sleep. Taught little kids. Just his luck to fall into the hands of a good-looking woman who could see right through what little polish he’d been able to achieve to the big, dumb oaf underneath.
Not that he was in any condition to take advantage of her, even if he’d wanted to. He’d been too busy since George had wired him about the threatened foreclosure to enjoy his usual pursuits, what with handling all the red tape concerned with any land transfer and making sure the deal was kept secret until he could pay off Stanfield. The land agent had insisted on having a paper record dating back to when God invented dirt. Never in all his days had Jed signed his name on so many documents, most of which he could barely read.
But he’d taken his own sweet time scanning all those big words in the fine print as if he knew just what each one meant. Scare ’em out of trying to put anything over on him. Every now and then one of the black-suited men would harrumph and spit toward the cuspidor, meaning, “Get on with it, you dumb-head.”
But Jed hadn’t allowed himself to be rushed. Instead, he had stared at them, lifted one eyebrow and gone back to reading a bunch of meaningless words on the contract. Then he had signed his name—Jedediah O. Blackstone—right above where someone had printed it out in neat black letters. Added a few extra flourishes for good measure.
The O stood for nothing. He didn’t have a middle name, but that was nobody’s business but his own.
“Jed? Are you still awake?”
“Mm,” he said. He’d been awake more than he’d been asleep almost from the first, only he’d let her think he was sleeping. Woman could talk the hind leg off a three-legged jackass. He wasn’t up to answering any questions, so he’d pretended to be out of it. But now that he’d sized up the situation, he needed some answers. Needed to know the best way off this damned anthill, and what the odds were of running into the same stinking redneck weasels again. If the widow Miller could be believed, there was no way down without wading through the middle of their nest.
“Well,” she said, standing beside the bed, so close he could smell her woman’s scent. Smell whatever it was she’d been cooking that smelled like vanilla. “I’m making you some bread pudding. It’s soft enough so you won’t have to chew. And some soup.”
He said “Mm” again, because the truth was, he was afraid if he tried to open his mouth, his lips would split wide-open. He hated the taste of blood, he purely did. Tasted it a few too many times in his younger, rowdier days.
“Well,” she said again, and stood there, the look of bright expectation slowly fading.
“Thank you,” he managed without doing any damage to his swollen mouth. He owed her that much at least. Hell of a lot more, only it would have to wait. First thing he needed to do was get back on his feet, find a way out of here, and