Patricia Potter (14 page)

Lobo wondered at the casual acceptance of a stranger until the doctor turned to him, his gaze moving from the gloved hands up to his eyes and settling there a second. “You’re the one who has been helping them.”

It was not a question but a statement, and Lobo saw no reason to answer. In fact, he saw no reason to linger. The street in front of the saloon was busy, and he didn’t care to be seen and recognized. Lobo ignored the doctor’s piercing look, spinning around and heading for his horse.

Night was falling, and it was too dark to fix the fence or anything else. Lobo did not want to go back to the Taylor ranch. He did not want to see the doctor—the sawbones, he thought derisively—and Willow Taylor together. He did not want to watch something he did not, could not, would never have.

He would fulfill his promise to Chad in the morning, when the doctor and Willow were gone. He thought of Willow’s invitation to dinner, of the warmth in her eyes. And he wanted both; he wanted them badly.

Yet he suspected Dr. Sullivan Barkley would not be so easily satisfied about him as Willow Taylor had been. The doctor would recognize the brand of death that he and others of his kind wore. Somehow he couldn’t bear the thought of Willow Taylor knowing who he really was, and seeing her face turn white with fear and disgust…even if that had been his original purpose.

With a muttered curse he swung away from the road and headed toward his camp on Newton’s ranch.

W
ILLOW WAITED AND
waited for the man named Jess. She even prepared the meal herself, not wanting to scare him away forever with Estelle’s cooking.

Sullivan came and tended Chad’s wound, sewing the wicked gash and fixing a splint to the fingers. He teased Chad briefly about throwing around posts and gave him a dose of laudanum. But minutes later, in the kitchen, his face was grim. “Those fingers may never heal normally,” he said.

Willow swallowed. “Perhaps we should move back to town.”

Sullivan grimaced. He wanted to agree, but he also knew how much Willow hated to back down from anything, and furthermore how much she had come to love her place.

Willow went to the window and looked out. “I don’t think he’s coming,” Sullivan said gently.

“He said…he would fix the fence.”

“It’s a little dark for that.”

Willow turned back to him. “It’s so odd…the way he always appears when we need him. And then disappears.”

Sullivan silently agreed. There was something about her visitor that disturbed him, but he couldn’t exactly identify what. He knew damned little about him, only what Willow had told him, and Willow was anything but objective on the subject. He was worried about Willow’s growing dependence, even obvious infatuation if her shining eyes were any indication, on the stranger.

Neither were the others objective. Chad certainly held the man in awe, and even Sallie Sue smiled at the mention of him. The twins couldn’t stop talking about the way he’d rescued Jupiter, and Estelle, well, even Estelle didn’t seem as frightened of him as she was of other men, although God knew she had reason to be afraid of anything that wore pants.

Sullivan didn’t like it. The visits were too convenient, the insinuation into the lives of the family he’d adopted too strong. And the man’s face was so hard, his eyes so unfathomable. He sure as hell didn’t fit Sullivan’s idea of a white knight. There was something wrong about the whole thing, but he didn’t know what. He just damn well couldn’t piece it together.

Jess. That was what Willow said his name was. At least it was a start. He would try to find out more about the mysterious stranger.

“The offer’s still open,” he said now as he carefully watched Willow’s face. “I’ll take the boys if you want to move back.”

For the first time, Willow really considered the suggestion. There had been too many accidents, and she knew she had been lucky beyond normal expectations. They couldn’t always depend on the stranger. But the animals? She would have to get rid of them. Of Jupiter, if he was found, Sallie Sue’s chickens, the extra horses. She couldn’t afford to keep all four in the livery stable. No one would want the old bull; he was more trouble than he was worth. And Estelle? She had gained some measure of happiness and security on the ranch. As Brady had.

“I’ll talk to the others,” she conceded.

Sullivan hesitated. He didn’t like leaving her there alone. Brady was gone. Chad was incapacitated. He compromised with himself by saying he would return tomorrow to check on Chad.

He refused the offer of dinner. He’d been fed, he said, at his last stop, and he was tired. He put his hand on Willow’s shoulder. “If you need anything—”

“I know,” she finished for him. “I’ll find you.”

After he left, she ate dinner with the children, but her mind was elsewhere. She’d always beheved that if she wanted something bad enough, she could have it. She had always believed that things worked out the way they should.

In the year and a half they had lived on the ranch, they’d survived very well. They’d had none of the accidents they’d had in the past few days.

And yet it seemed as if a higher being had waited with his bagful of mishaps until there was someone to look after them. Their own palladin, their own Odysseus. It was as if it were a sign to stay.

That night she read more of the adventures of Odysseus to the children. “Odysseus and his men,” she recounted with drama, “landed on the shores of the Lotus-Eaters, and there they found the most enticing plant, the lotus.

“They ate of this plant, this lotus, and suddenly they forgot all about their homes and families. They forgot all thoughts of duty, and they wanted nothing more than to dwell in Lotus Land, and let the memory of all that had been fade from their minds.

“But Odysseus had avoided tasting of honey-sweet flowers, and tricked his men back on ship, chaining them there until they had left Lotus Land far behind,” she concluded with a sigh.

How could she make Jess stay? What kind of lotus plant would attract him? The thought was ridiculously fanciful, but Willow couldn’t let it go.

“And then what happened?” Jeremy’s expectant voice broke into her whimsy.

“They sailed away to confront another danger—the Cyclops, a wild race of one-eyed giants,” she said with a gleam in her eye.

The twins wanted her to continue, but she said no, they had to wait until tomorrow.

When everyone was finally abed, she went outside. Jess was someplace near. She knew it. Just as she knew he would be back the following day to fix the fence.

She would offer him a job. She knew she didn’t have much to pay him with, but he didn’t seem to have anything steady.

With a hopeful smile on her face, she finally went inside and changed into a cotton nightdress. She blew out the light but she couldn’t sleep. She kept seeing turquoise-colored eyes and a mouth that twitched ever so slightly at the corners as if it were totally unfamiliar with smiling. She recalled that momentary gentleness as he looked at Chad, and the bright, flaming intensity as he had stared at her.

She’d never met anyone like him. She wanted to know everything there was to know about him, and yet she sensed he would fight bitterly to keep himself uninvolved.

Willow smiled. He didn’t know how determined she could be.

8

H
e was at the ranch when she arrived the next afternoon.
His shirt was off, and his bare chest glistened with sweat and seemed to glow with the sun as he wrestled with fence posts.

Chad was watching, sitting on one of the repaired rails, his hand lying protectively in his lap as Jess very efficiently set a rail in place and secured it with wire. Muscles rippled along the full length of his body as he moved, and Willow thought she had never seen anything quite as gloriously perfect. Like a Greek statue pictured in one of her books.

He was, she thought fancifully, nothing less than poetry in motion.

He had looked up when she had driven by, but then went back to his task, his face as impassive as always. The twins bounced down from the buckboard and ran over to watch, their mouths pursed full of questions. Even Estelle was on the porch, cautious but interested.

Willow watched as he finished with the last railing, and she neared. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and his hands were still red and raw-looking. But she couldn’t tell he was feeling any pain at all from the way he handled the tools.

He gave one last look at the fence, apparently satisfying himself that it was completed, and started for his horse as he fingered a pair of new gloves. Willow plotted a collision path with him, and he stopped just seconds before he would have crashed into her.

She took his hands, preventing him from hiding them within the gloves. She touched them lightly, turning each hand one way, then another, so she could see how they were healing.

Lobo had thought he’d be gone before she returned. And he intended to leave, but her touch was like a cool breeze against the skin of his hands, soothing the aching, burning rawness renewed by the physical effort. He was aware that several blisters had broken but had ignored the fact in his haste to finish the job and get the hell out of Newton. He had promised the boy, and there was no telling what the kid would do if the job wasn’t completed. Lobo was supposed to be getting the lot of them out of there, not helping them to stay. But there was something about the damned kid and those trusting eyes. Lobo wasn’t about ready to admit to himself there was also something about the woman.

“Please come inside,” Willow said. “I want to talk to you.”

He hesitated. All he wanted was to make a fast getaway.

Instead, much to his own amazement, he found himself nodding.

When they arrived in the kitchen, they found themselves followed by a trail of children. Willow grinned as she looked from one fascinated face to another, then chased them outside. “You too,” she told Estelle, who was hovering in the background. When all the curious ears were gone, she looked at him, her face solemn, her eyes searching.

“I have a proposition for you,” she started.

One eyebrow arched.

“I…” she said, hesitating.

The eyebrow went higher, but the eyes were as unreadable as always.

“I’d…better see about those hands,” she continued awkwardly, not sure whether she could present the offer she’d intended. He looked so forbidding.

“No need.”

“But—”

“I’ve had worse burns,” he said.

“But not because of me,” she countered.

“It wasn’t you. I don’t like to see animals wasted.”

“And Brady…”

“If I’d known he started it, I would have left him there.”

It was a condemnation, and she winced at the harshness of it. She suspected it wasn’t true, but his look challenged her to believe it. He was willing her to accept it.

His face was a study in indifference. It seemed impregnable until she remembered the previous night, the way he had looked at Chad before he had caught himself. There had been compassion in that look, and understanding. And Willow knew she had not imagined it.

The memory gave her courage. “I…we…were wondering if you…possibly needed…a job.”

He glared at her with disbelief.

She hurried on. “I can’t pay much, and there’s not even a barn now to stay in, but you could sleep in the room with the boys and there would be meals and…”

And we need you.
The words were unsaid, but they hung in the air.

There was a flicker of amusement in his eyes, and then they went totally blank again as he frowned. “You mean you really plan to stay. Lady, don’t you have any sense?”

She looked wounded by his words. “I told you yesterday I had to stay.”

He grated his teeth in frustration before answering. “What about the kids? Don’t you give a damn about them?”

“We took a vote last night. Everyone wants to stay.”

“A vote?” Willow cringed at the disbelief in his voice. “Lady, you’re as crazy as that damned bull of yours,” he continued.

“Willow,” she insisted. “My name is Willow.”

He sighed heavily, as if he were in the presence of a madwoman.

“Why did you fix the fence if you didn’t think we would stay?” she asked suddenly.

Damned if he knew, he had to admit to himself. The craziness must be contagious, like cholera, and every bit as deadly. “I promised the boy,” he said shortly. “I didn’t want him trying it again. But for chrissakes, I thought you’d have enough sense to give up after all that’s happened.”

“That’s why we need you,” she said with the sweetest, most trusting smile he’d ever seen. It struck right to the core of his gut.

“Why are you so set on staying?” he finally asked.

“I’ll tell you while I put salve on those hands,” she said.

He glowered at her, his eyes hard and frosty. Finally he nodded, but with such reluctance that she suspected it was far more difficult for him to accept help than to climb down into a well full of rattlesnakes or drag a reluctant bull from a flaming barn.

“Sit down, and I’ll go get the salve,” she ordered, her head indicating a seat at the large kitchen table.