That jaw angled to the west but his eyes held her. “Just passing through, ma’am. Looking for work.”
“Mama—”
“Shush, Christian.”
“But Mama—”
That old, uncomfortable feeling of maternal ineptitude flooded through her, bringing a tightness to her tone. “Christian, mind me.”
And then Mr. Logan Stark appeared to bunch all his muscles and loom toward her, like a massive black thundercloud that would swallow her up. “Ma’am, don’t move,” he rasped.
One hand reached for her, long fingers outstretched toward her...no, toward the rifle, as if he meant to yank it from her arms. With his other hand, he slowly drew a long, black-handled blade from his waistband. This outlaw, Logan Stark, meant to kill her, take her son, her only cow, burn her house and all her strawberry plants. She could see it in his eyes...in the flash of sunlight upon that blade. The world tilted beneath her feet.
“Stay!” she shrieked, taking wavering aim upon the expanse of his chest. Her fingers stumbled over the trigger when he advanced toward her, as unstoppable as a locomotive. He murmured something she couldn’t decipher. Her focus blurred upon his fingers curled about that black handle, an instant away from plunging it into her throat. She should pull the trigger...now...now!
“But, Mama, the snake! The one you scared! He’s by your foot there! You’re gonna step on him, Mama!”
A mind-numbing terror engulfed her, prompted by Christian’s warning or by her inability to stop Logan Stark, she would never know. Snake or no snake, she could not tear her eyes from this man, certain that he was the more lethal of the two. She felt the heat radiating from him, the icy resolve in his eyes, and she retreated, God help her, one step. Only, her foot snagged on the exposed root, twisted, and her other foot tangled in her torn hem. Her knees buckled, and the rifle angled crazily skyward as her burning arm muscles turned traitor on her. And then Christian’s terrified howl rang out—or was that her own scream torn from her throat when sunlight flashed upon the blade, as Logan Stark flexed his wrist? The knife stood poised like a viper.
She closed her eyes and pulled the trigger. The world became a deafening roar of flame and smoke, and then she was falling through sunlight and dry, hot wind, until cool darkness pressed in around her, cradling her like the arms of the mother she’d never known.
* * *
Jessica blinked at the blue sky overhead. Waves of pain radiated from the back of her head. She closed her eyes, expecting at any moment to come to the full realization that she lay dying in the dust from a knife wound. But where? She uncurled her stiff fingers from the rifle and wiggled her toes. She shifted her shoulders and bent her knees. Nothing, save the relentless pounding in her skull.
“Mama.” Christian’s smudged face appeared a scant inch above her, framed by brilliant blue skies. He sucked in swift breaths. “Mama, you shot Mr. Stark.”
Jessica chose to overlook the marked disbelief in his voice and her resulting chagrin and pushed herself up on her elbows. She found herself staring at the soles of a pair of very long black boots. Motionless black boots.
“I shot him,” she whispered, struggling to her feet. She stared at a very still Mr. Logan Stark.
“Mama!” Christian shoved a stubby finger at the ground. “Don’t step on the snake. Look, Mr. Stark killed it. With his knife. I saw him.”
There it lay, not inches from the dirt-stained, sagging hem of her gown—a fat brown rattler, pinioned to the dust by the blade protruding from its throat. Its jaws still sagged open.
Jessica stared at the dead snake, then at the man lying in a gathering pool of blood, eyes closed, mouth slightly parted. The man who had more than likely saved her life, and her son’s. “My God, I killed him.”
Christian frowned at her. “No, ya didn’t, Mama. He fell and hit his head, just like you. An’ he’s sleepin’. But ya got him real good. He’s bleedin’, Mama. See, Mama?”
“I see,” she whispered, dropping hesitantly to her knees beside Stark. The dark cotton covering his chest expanded, stretched taut, then relaxed with his every breath. Slow, even breaths. Despite the full measure of her relief, her fingers wavered over the gaping wound oozing a warm flow of blood from his shoulder. The bullet seemed to have cut a narrow path clean through the outer curve of sinew where his shoulder met his upper arm.
Jessica forced the bile back into her parched throat. Her fingers pressed gently around the wound until the feel of rock-hard muscle prompted her to snatch her fingers back. A peculiar feeling washed through her as her gaze drifted hesitantly over him. Here he lay, silent, still, and intensely vulnerable for so fearsome a man. His mouth in repose seemed oddly prone to a pleasant curve, the creases all but vanished from his face. And his impossibly long, dark lashes rested upon his cheeks like those of a young child.
Dust billowed about her, catching at her skirts and swirling about Stark and his wound. She leaned slightly over him, wondering dimly why she still felt an odd compulsion to keep a safe distance, as if at any moment he might rear up and swallow her whole.
“Mr. Stark?” she said. No response, save his even, deep breathing. “Mr. Stark, can you hear me?” Her hands pressed against his chest, then quickly retreated. “We have to get him inside,” she said, getting to her feet.
Christian gave her a wary look, then crouched and lifted Stark’s dark head, now bereft of his hat. “I can help, Mama. See?”
“I see,” Jessica murmured distractedly. Stark was too blasted big. Bigger, wider, longer, and no doubt heavier, than any man she’d ever seen. How the devil would she and a five-year-old child move him?
She eyed the distance to the house, judging it to be no more than ten feet. Yet the space yawned like an unbreachable chasm. She should run for Doc Eagan, or at least to Willard Fry’s for help. A woman couldn’t possibly do this sort of thing alone. A woman couldn’t tend a farm alone, or raise a child alone, for heaven’s sake, or so the townsfolk, and Avram in particular, were wont to remind her on a daily basis. So how the devil could she move what had to be a two-hundred-pound beast of man, alone?
She set her teeth. She’d shot him, she’d take care of him, blast it. After all, she’d tended wounds before. How difficult could a superficial gunshot wound be to clean and bandage? Stark looked more than capable of surviving it. Besides, she didn’t quite feel inclined to present a full account of her shooting abilities for the local gossips to banter about for months to come, a sure penance to pay if she summoned Doc Eagan or Willard Fry to help.
Furthermore, Avram would no doubt see this as a prime opportunity to resume his lecture on keeping herself to gentle, womanly pursuits and insist all the more vehemently that she marry him this very day, sell this bothersome farm, and come live with him in his small house within the safe limits of Twilight. Yes, best that she tend to this matter herself. She’d devise some explanation for Avram if it became necessary, of course. But how did one hide a two-hundred-pound strange man from one’s fiancé?
“No, you get his feet, Christian.”
Without hesitation, Christian let Stark’s head fall with a dull thud into the dust and scrambled to those black boots. “He’s heavy, Mama,” he said, his tongue curling out of his mouth as he managed to hoist those boots a fraction of an inch from the ground.
Jessica bent and stuffed the sagging hem of her gown into her waistband, then hooked her elbows beneath Stark’s armpits. A breath wheezed through her bared teeth when her arm muscles bunched and rebelled against the weight of him. She planted her feet and attempted to pay little attention to the dark head lolling against her breasts. The pounding in the back of her head intensified. “I’m going