Something dripped into his eye. Water... No, the sweat again, beading on his brow. He felt the heat pulsing in his skin. The world resumed its spinning. Damn.
Frank Wynne’s wife moved swiftly, her grip surprisingly firm upon his good arm. A warm, lemony scent seemed to emanate from her, so fleeting he would have been compelled to lean closer to her to fill his lungs with the elusive scent. Rance felt his chest expand, and fiery talons clawed at his shoulder.
“Ma’am.”
“Hush, please, Mr. Stark. You need to rest. And get out of this sun. I do rather owe you, do I not?”
Owe him? If only she knew.
“No, ma’am, you don’t owe me.” He tensed his arm, resisting her tugging, and she glanced swiftly at him, a frown of concern hovering over her brow. He stood a good eight inches taller than she, and a soft haze had fallen over his eyes, yet he could detect the dusting of freckles upon her nose. As if she had been kissed by the sun. She looked God-almighty young.
Her gaze locked with his, then skittered away. Color bloomed through her face and spilled down the slender length of her neck. Still she tugged upon his arm. “To the house, Mr. Stark. I’m afraid I can’t drag you there again.”
“I helped,” Christian chirped, dancing about in the dust. “Didn’t I, Mama?”
“You helped like a big boy,” Frank Wynne’s wife murmured. She took a step, and Rance resisted, trapping her hand between his forearm and his biceps. “Mr. Stark—”
“I can walk, dammit,” he growled.
She stared at him, full pink lips compressing. “I’d rather you didn’t speak like that, sir.”
“Quit calling me sir. And let go of my arm.”
“I won’t. You’ll topple like a felled oak, Mr. Stark.”
“Logan.” He forced the word through his teeth, though he couldn’t fathom why this was suddenly important to him. “Call me Logan.”
“See there, you’re swaying and I’m still holding onto you. Really, sir, is your pride worth so much to you that you would risk your life?”
What could this woman know of a man’s pride?
He closed his eyes. “I’m just dizzy, and someone is pounding a very large drum inside my head. Annoying, but hardly a threat to my life.”
“Your pride could be, sir. As you wish. There. I’ve let go. How do you feel?”
Damned stupid. Swaying and dizzy and remarkably stupid for allowing himself to be shot by Frank Wynne’s wife and for coming here in the first place.
He took a step, what he thought was a well-done step directly to the front. But the wind blew again, filling his shirt, and the ground rose up and angled crazily beneath him. This time, he reached for her, his fingers gripping the fragile length of her upper arm.
“Christian, get the door. That’s it, Mr. Stark. Lean on me. One step at a time.”
He complied, though it ate like hell at him. And he let her take him back into the house and into her room, again, despite his protests.
“Where do you sleep?” he asked the hovering Christian.
“Upstairs,” the boy replied. “But you can’t sleep in my bed. Mama says a made bed can’t be messed up till nighttime.”
“Hush, Christian.”
“I prefer the floor,” Rance muttered, falling rather solidly to that hooked carpet on which he’d earlier bled. He stretched his legs and closed his eyes. What could only be described as a groan of relief spilled from his lungs before he could snatch it back. Frank Wynne’s wife adjusted the pillow beneath his head, and he opened his eyes to find her leaning over him, peering closely at his shoulder. She blurred, and one golden, lemon-scented curl plopped upon his nose, then skimmed like silk over his chest, leaving a trail of fire in its wake.
Her voice seemed to swirl about him, and he closed his eyes again and immersed himself in it. Oddly comforting, it was, that and the calming warmth of her breath upon his grimy face. Hell, only a fool would find comfort in these circumstances. On this day, he knew of no bigger fool.
“Sleep, Mr. Stark. I’ll tend to the bandage. Allow me. I’m...” Gentle fingers touched his skin, and those fires threatened to consume him. “I’m so very sorry, sir. You saved my life. And Christian’s. I’ll be forever grateful. Yes, just sleep.”
* * *
The kitchen door slammed, accompanied by the scrape of boot heels upon scrubbed floorboards. Yanked from sleep, Rance opened his eyes and stared at a ceiling in dire need of paint. He blinked. The ceiling remained in focus.
“Jessica!” A man’s voice ricocheted through the house. “God help me, Jessica, where are you?”
Jessica. The name left Rance’s lips in a hoarse whisper. Her name was Jessica.
“Jessica, my dear, are you there?”
The kitchen door slammed again, and Christian’s agitated voice retorted, “I told you she’s in there.”
“But I can’t go in there, in her... I mean, that’s your mother’s private...private.”
Bare feet plunked purposefully upon the kitchen floorboards. “He’s in there.”
“Who’s in there?”
“The outlaw.”
“The what?”
“He robs trains and stagecoaches. He has a knife.”
Rance shoved himself to a sitting position and instinctively reached for the weapon he kept in his waistband. Only none was to be found. He’d left his gun in his saddlebag with his misplaced horse, and his knife stuck in that rattler. Unarmed and wounded, he felt grossly incomplete and too damned vulnerable, particularly because this man’s voice rang with the sort of puffed-up indignation that typically preceded a brawl. Or a gunfight. And then heavy footfalls echoed through the short hall, just moments before a dark head peeped around the door jamb.
“Good God in heaven,” the man said, his voice choked, his narrow face paling.
Rance watched the man’s Adam’s apple work frantically in his throat and wondered why he felt so damned compelled to apologize. For being in this room? For killing Jessica Wynne’s husband? For taking a rifle shot through the shoulder? Or perhaps for the sudden surge of protectiveness stealing through him?
Christian scooted into the room. At his side dangled a waterlogged white cloth that left a puddled trail in his wake. “Oh, you’re awake. Here. This is for your head. Where’s Mama?”
“Get away, Christian,” the man bellowed from the doorway with all the self-righteous pomp Rance could have imagined. Christian didn’t move from Rance’s side. In three staccato strides, the man stood tall and angular, trembling and red-faced, not two feet from Rance’s boots. He was no younger than Rance, perhaps only an inch or two shorter, and boasted the long, slender limbs common to men of leisure. He was narrow of shoulder, cleanly shaven and shorn, with round wire-rimmed glasses perched regally upon his beaked nose. A gentleman, garbed in a gentleman’s collar and coat and smelling like mothballs, of all things.
“Do you want to get up, Mr. Stark?” Christian whispered for all to hear. “Are you gonna fight Reverend Halsey?”
“I demand an explanation of you, sir,” Halsey bellowed. “You there are in my fiancée’s private...private. You are aware of this?”
Rance grunted and managed to get to his feet, only once gripping the four-poster, which seemed to provoke the good reverend beyond measure.
“Avram! Good heavens, Avram!” She materialized,