The soft leather of his glove skimmed her temple, tangled in her hair before curving behind her ear, taking the annoying strand of hair with it. “Pardon me, duchess, but what you know about about my job wouldn’t fit on the head of a pin.”
She carefully placed her hands on his thigh, feeling very bold. Women of her station did not get this close to strange men. It was nothing like touching her leg. There was no softness beneath her fingertips. Just rockhard muscle. Which only led her to wonder how else men were different. “I do not think I need to know a ranger’s job to know what I see.”
“And what do you see?”
Muscle bunched under the press of her fingertips. She glanced up, catching his gaze. The answer just popped out. “Trouble.”
For one heartbeat Sam didn’t react, and then he laughed, a deep soft sound that slipped over her nerves like warm honey. She slid her hands higher toward the blood-soaked bandage.
“On that you’ve got the right end of the stick.”
“So maybe I have the right end of other sticks, too.”
“I wouldn’t lay money on it.”
She noticed he didn’t deny it outright. Sam Mac-Gregor was an honest man, if maybe a little evasive. The makeshift bandage was stiff with dried blood. It took her a few minutes to work the knot free.
When she parted the edges, she had full view of the hole in his pants and a glimpse of the raw wound beneath. Her stomach heaved. She swallowed it back. She no longer had the luxury of weakness.
“I think I will decide for myself where to put my money.”
And right now everything she had was riding on Sam. Placing the dirty bandanna on the floor, she indicated his pants. “As I have laid my money on you, I would appreciate your help.”
The humor clung to his expression as he pushed his hat back. “You want me to shuck my pants?”
Her blush rose and her mouth went dry. “This would be helpful.”
Again the brush of his fingers over her temple. And then his fingers were under her chin, lifting her face up. Her senses tuned to the four points of pressure, the softness of the leather glove, the scent of his skin, the cool blue of his eyes.
“You ever ask me that with something more lighthearted in mind, I’ll have them off before you can blink.”
It took her a second to process the meaning through the intensity of awareness arcing between them. He was telling her no. She blinked the cobwebs from her mind. That was unacceptable. “They need to come off now.”
So she could get to that ugly-looking wound, among other things.
The fire popped. The aroma of roasted fish drifted closer. Isabella wrinkled her nose. Sam grinned. His thumb touched her lips.
“Hand me the flask and the kit.”
He couldn’t mean what she thought he meant. “Why?”
“Because I’m tired, and hungry, and I’m not wearing long johns.”
Now, that was an interesting fact. “You cannot treat yourself.”
His smile broadened. His thumb pressed harder. Her breath caught as her lips parted. The scent of leather and smoke—the scent of Sam—invaded her mouth on a lazy drift, strong enough that she could savor the illusion of his taste. “I can do a lot of things that would stretch your imagination.”
“We are no longer talking about stitching your wound, are we?”
“We should be.”
His fingers pressed upward in a silent command. The stiffness in her legs made standing more difficult than it should be. The hunger in his eyes made staying put even more difficult. Even Tejala had not looked at her with such want.
“For future reference, Bella, getting on your knees in front of a man is not a good idea.”
“Why?”
His grip shifted to her upper arm as he helped her up the last few inches. “That you will have to ask your husband.”
It was not her imagination that his fingers lingered on her upper arm. Nor that where his fingers lingered, tiny fires seemed to start under her skin. “I am not married.”
“Then you’ll have to wait for the why until you are.”
“This would require patience.” She stepped back, the heat from his gaze strangely finding a home under her skin. “I do not have much patience.”
“So I’m beginning to understand.” He reached into the top of his boot. “Turn around.”
“Why?”
Pulling out a wicked-looking knife, he slid it into the hole in his pants. Material ripped under the lethal blade. “Because today’s been bad enough without you puking up your guts on the floor.”
He saw too much. “I can control my stomach.”
He stuck the knife blade in the fire. A quick glance showed the furrow carved in the hard muscle of his thigh. Blood seeped out in a sluggish flow. Her gorge rose and for a split second she thought she would actually throw up.
With a sigh, he stood. She felt like a monster when he winced. As a result, she offered no resistance when he took her shoulders in his hands. “Do us both a favor and show me how tough you are tomorrow.”
With that, he turned her around. The weight of his hands was not unwelcome. Her reaction to him was very confusing.
The minutes stretched. No sound came from him. Isabella would have felt better if he had moaned or groaned. The silence left her with nothing but her own imagination to fill the emptiness.
“You should let me help.”
He grunted. Something fell to the ground with a small thunk. “Nothing much to do. It’s just a crease.”
“Then why do you need the knife?”
“The bullet was stuck a bit under the skin.”
The small thunk. “It is out?”
“Yup.”
She turned around. He was tying a fresh bandage over the wound. “You did not sew it.”
“No need.”
“It will scar.”
The thought of that bothered her.
“One more isn’t going to kill me.”
“It is unnecessary.”
“A needle and thread is what’s unnecessary. Especially with dinner waiting.”
Isabella couldn’t forget the size of the furrow now hidden by the white bandage. The scar would be large. Unnecessarily so, forever marring the beauty of his thigh. The danger of infection was very real. “Your leg is more important.”
He grabbed up the flask. “Tell that to my stomach.”
Anger, unreasonable and hot, snapped through her. He hadn’t sewn the wound, and now he would waste the only thing they did have to treat it? She snatched the container from his hand. “You are not so big and bad that an infection will not visit.”
“Hand that back, Bella, before I paddle your butt for messing with a man’s liquor.”
The warning in his tone just fed the resentment pouring through her. He had no right to talk to her so, threaten her like a child. Risk himself so needlessly.
She dumped the liquor over the bandage. Too late, she realized what she’d done. She dropped the flask. “¡O, madre de Dios!”
Sam’s face flushed red and his mouth settled into a grimace of agony. She’d never heard such words as what came from