Harlequin Historical September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: The Lone Sheriff\The Gentleman Rogue\Never Trust a Rebel (11 page)

Chapter Twelve

J
ericho's back hurt as if the tines of a hay fork were biting into his flesh. Sandy rode on one side of them with Doc on the other, and before another hour passed, Rooney Cloudman and Colonel Halliday galloped up with the discarded weapons rolled up in two horse blankets and tied behind their saddles.

The colonel took a long look at Jericho's arm wrapped tight around Maddie's waist, then flicked Cloudman a look. Rooney looked steadily at the trail ahead and didn't crack a smile. Jericho wanted to punch them both.

Maddie didn't say much for the entire ride back to Smoke River.

* * *

Main Street was deserted when they reached town, probably because of the afternoon heat. Sandy stopped at the jail and took charge of the stash of guns. Rooney and the colonel headed for home, and Doc, Jericho and Maddie rode slowly to Sarah Rose's boardinghouse behind the honeysuckle-swathed white picket fence. Doc's hospital, as the graying physician called it. He boarded there, and the two large upstairs rooms served as his infirmary.

Mrs. Rose met them at the gate, her lips pinched. “What on earth?”

“Guess we're gonna open up the infirmary again, Sarah,” Doc said. “Johnny's gotten himself shot and this young lady needs some attention, as well.”

The gray-bunned widow shot Maddie a look, then shooed Jericho upstairs with the doctor. “Bet you'd like a bath, wouldn't you, um...Miss.”

Maddie could have kissed her.

“I'll heat up some water, dearie. You come on back to my kitchen and strip off those dirty clothes.” She shook her head and tsked. “I can't believe Johnny made you wear boots and jeans, but I've given up trying to figure out that man.”

Maddie was too tired to explain. Instead, she toed off Sandy's overlarge boots, stripped off the filthy, blood-soaked jeans and her sweaty shirt, and sank into the copper hip bath Mrs. Rose filled.

“You related to Johnny in some way?” the elderly woman inquired, peering at Maddie over the top of her glasses.

“No,” Maddie said. “I posed as the sheriff's cousin, but you know that he doesn't have a cousin. I am a... I was sent from Chicago to help him.”

“I figured something like that.” Mrs. Rose chuckled. “I'll bet Johnny wasn't thrilled to find you were a female, was he?”

Maddie had to laugh. “As a matter of fact, he's been furious ever since I stepped off the train.”

“Do him good,” Mrs. Rose said. “About time he—Oh! My cake's burning!” She wrapped her apron around her hand and snatched a square pan from the oven. “Pshaw, now I'll have to...”

Maddie closed her eyes and blotted out the woman's voice. What she thought about was Jericho Silver. In spite of his brusque responses and the fact that he did not want a woman, even a trained professional Pinkerton detective, interfering in his plans, or his life, she had to admit she liked him.

She liked him very much, in fact. He was short-spoken to the point of rudeness, single-minded to the point of being pigheaded, and stubborn—oh, yes, he was stubborn. Yet she knew she could trust Jericho Silver with her life.

She had never felt that way about a man before, not even her father. Jericho's blue-black eyes could be as hard as coal nuggets, but they always looked straight into hers. Sometimes they looked troubled, or puzzled, or angry, and sometimes, when he thought she wasn't looking, the expression in them was oddly hesitant, as if what she said or did actually mattered to him. Mrs. Rose was right. Jericho was hard to figure out.

But in spite of everything, she did like him. When he looked at her a certain way, or inadvertently brushed his hand against her, a sweet, hot jolt of something settled behind her breastbone.

Doc Graham wanted to check her wounded leg once more, and Mrs. Rose insisted she stay for supper. “No point in limping into the hotel, now, is there, when you can stay right here?”

Maddie rinsed the soap off her arms and back, feeling clean and decidedly more female for the first time in two days, and dried herself with a thick, oven-warmed towel. Then she donned the yellow seersucker skirt and lace-trimmed shirtwaist Sandy had retrieved from her hotel room and slipped out the back door to visit the mercantile. And the bank.

Later, when she entered the blue-wallpapered dining room on the supporting arm of Doc Graham, she still limped but the bullet wound no longer ached.

The two men at the long mahogany dining table bolted to their feet. One was the graying but still handsome Rooney Cloudman, the retired army scout Jericho had told her about. Rooney seated her with a flourish next to himself. The other man was young, shiny-faced and tongue-tied in her presence.

“Reuben Parry,” Doc Graham said by way of introduction. Reuben goggled at Maddie in silence and when she smiled at him, he turned scarlet.

“Where's Johnny?” Rooney demanded.

“Asleep upstairs,” Doc explained. “At least I hope he's asleep. Gave him a good dose of laudanum so he'd stop giving me orders.”

Two elderly women were also seated at the table, both eyeing Maddie with curiosity. Doc Graham introduced them as retired schoolteachers from Portland, Iris DuPont and her sister, Mrs. Elvira Hinksley.

“What a lovely yellow dress,” one remarked. “Don't you agree, Iris?”

“Agree? Of course I agree. Like spring daisies or daffodils. Are you visiting someone in Smoke River, my dear?”

The question caught Maddie off guard. She certainly could not admit she was a Pinkerton agent to them; agents on assignment were instructed to remain strictly incognito. She had evaded the issue with Sarah Rose, even though she knew she could trust the older woman.

“Yes, I am visiting,” she lied. “I am visiting my...cousin, Sheriff Silver.”

Both women raised silvery eyebrows. “We were not aware Johnny had a cousin,” Elvira said.

Johnny again. Half the town seemed to have adopted the sheriff. Maddie unfolded her linen napkin. “Actually, the sheriff is my second cousin. Twice removed.” She did hate being dishonest, but at that moment Mrs. Rose caught her gaze and held it just long enough to assure Maddie that her real reason for being in Smoke River was safe.

Mrs. Rose's towheaded young grandson, Mark, marched in with a platter of fried chicken, followed by the landlady herself with a china tureen large enough to float toy boats in. When everyone had filled their plates with chicken and mashed potatoes, Rooney Cloudman lifted his cup for some of the coffee Mrs. Rose was pouring.

“How's Johnny doin', Doc? Looked mighty peaked when you brought him in.”

“I'd say he'll probably pull through. He's still unconscious, though.”

“Unconscious?” Maddie blurted. “Why—”

Doc Graham lifted the chicken platter. “Well, Mrs. O'Donnell, in addition to the wound in his back, he's suffering from shock and fever from a nasty infection.”

“He will be all right, though, will he not?” To mask her concern and quiet her erratic heartbeat, Maddie sipped from the coffee cup Mrs. Rose had filled.

“Most likely. But one never knows with bullet wounds.”

Maddie picked at her supper of chicken and mashed potatoes until she could not stand one more minute of talk about wheat crops or summer tomatoes or the weather. At dinner in Chicago, one might discuss city politics, the Illinois state fair, or Mrs. Ulysses Grant's inauguration ball gown. She had to remind herself Smoke River was a farming community, full of...well, farmers. She would die of boredom in a small country town like this.

As soon as she could, she excused herself and quietly climbed the stairs, pausing on the landing to determine which room was Jericho's. It must be that one, with a faint light showing under the doorway. She slipped inside and then wished she had not.

The lantern was turned down low, casting a soft glow across the still figure on the bed. Jericho lay on his stomach, breathing heavily. A wide swath of white gauze and tape encased him from hip to shoulder blade. No blood showed, but the bandage was sticky with a yellow liquid draining from somewhere underneath.

“Jericho?” she whispered. After what Doc Graham had said, she was growing uneasy. How would she finish her assignment if Jericho...well, until he was well enough to ride?

“Jericho?” she said again. “Sheriff Silver?”

No response. He drew a breath in and expelled it with a harsh sound, but his eyes remained closed. Maddie bent over him.

He smelled of leather and wood smoke and sweat. Movement beneath his lids told her he was dreaming. A china basin of water sat on a nearby table, smelling faintly of peppermint, and a damp cloth was draped on the rim. Someone must have been sponging him off.

Careful not to jar him, she perched on the edge of the bed, dunked the cloth in the basin and wrung it out.

“Jericho, perhaps you can hear me, perhaps not. But I have some things to tell you.” She smoothed the cloth over the side of his flushed forehead and across the back of his neck.

“I visited the bank this afternoon. They will delay the gold shipment until we send word.”

No response. She rinsed out the cloth and drew it across his bare back above and below the bandage. His skin was so hot! Good gracious, his whole body was on fire. Again she dipped and bathed his face and neck, then his bare arms and shoulders.

“Jericho, I hope you are listening. I know you think I talk too much, but this is important.” She waited five heartbeats, hoping for a response—a twitch of a finger, a shrug of his muscular shoulders, anything.

“I have also visited the mercantile. You remember that tall, gawky boy you thought might be Carl Ness's cousin? He is not really Ness's cousin. Or his nephew or anything else. He is just a temporary helper. And...”

She paused to cool the cloth in the basin. “I think that boy might be part of the Tucker gang. For one thing, when I stopped in, he was wearing that red-orange bandanna around his neck, the one we recognized on the train. And for another, I noticed the back of his knuckles on one hand were badly scraped. I believe one our bullets grazed him.”

She dipped, squeezed out the water and again smoothed the cloth over his back. “What beautiful skin you have,” she murmured. “Though I do not suppose a man cares about such a thing.”

She studied the top half of his frame. “In fact, the whole of you is quite pleasing. Your shoulders, especially.”

She straightened suddenly. What on earth was she saying?

“Believe me, Jericho,” she said on a sigh, “it is no fun talking to you this way. It is much better when you order me around, even when you tease and make jokes. I like it when you do that—it makes our conversations interesting.”

More passes with the cooling cloth. “Jericho, I do wish you could hear me. We need to discuss what to do about that boy at the mercantile. Could you arrest him just on suspicion? No, I suppose you would not do that. Another sheriff might, but not you.”

She brushed the straggling dark hair off the back of his neck. “But it still bothers me that someone is tipping off the gang about the gold shipments. That, in my opinion, is why we found those outlaws camped so near the railroad tracks.”

Jericho's breathing hitched and a moan drifted out of his open mouth.

“Jericho?”

A groan this time.

“Jericho, are you awake? Can you hear me?”

“Hmm,” he rumbled.

Maddie's hand shook as she wrung out the cloth. “Jericho? Oh, I do wish you would say something.”

“Damn,” he rasped.

Her heart skipped at least three beats. “Yes? Yes? Damn what?”

He tried to roll over but gave it up. She leaned down and put her ear close to his mouth. “Damn what?”

“Damn, you smell good.”

Maddie jerked upright. Speechless, she stared down at what she had thought was an unconscious man. His dark hair was damp with sweat. Perhaps he was delirious?

“Sheriff,” she said in her best no-nonsense voice. “I am certain that you are awake. Open your eyes and look at me.”

He moved not one muscle except for his lips. “Dammit, Maddie, stop nagging.”

She almost wept with relief. He was much more alive than he looked lying there on Mrs. Rose's carved walnut bed swathed in bandages. His chiseled features were flushed with fever and his back, under Doc Graham's handiwork, still looked swollen, but he was breathing in and out and even talking.

She knotted her fingers together until they ached. Men could die from gunshot wounds. Had he been delirious with fever when he said she smelled good? Perhaps to a man in his condition, a stack of newspapers would smell good.

Jericho painfully heaved himself over onto his back. “Put a towel under me,” he croaked. “Don't want to stain the sheet.”

Maddie grabbed a towel from the top of the bureau and folded it in half. With some effort Jericho sat up part way so she could slip it under his back. Then he sank back, exhausted.

“Gettin' shot sure takes the vinegar out of a man.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “You are not the least bit delirious!”

“Not now, anyway. Had some pretty wild dreams, though. Glad I didn't talk much.”

In fact, Jericho hoped to hell he hadn't said a single word. He'd dreamed about Maddie. In his fevered state, his feelings about her were no longer puzzling, they were as plain as freckles on a kid's nose. Downright explicit, even.

He forced his eyes open and looked up at her. Her mouth was doing funny things, looking kinda trembly, and then she caught her lower lip between her teeth.

Jericho winced. “You upset about something?”

Maddie scrambled off the bed and paced back and forth between the bed and the window. He noted the limp in her gait.

“Why, no, I am not upset,” she said, her voice tight. “My associate is almost killed and I—” She broke off. “Of course I am upset.”

Her cheeks were turning the prettiest shade of pink. Hell, maybe he was delirious; he wanted to run his tongue over her flushed skin.