Rexanne Becnel (15 page)

“No.” She had only to think of how eager Martha would be to tend him to know that that possibility would never do. “No. You saved my life. It’s the least I can do.”

“Your Christian duty?”

Their eyes met and held a long, silent moment. It was more than that, and they both knew it. But her father was just a few feet away, and anyway, what could she actually say to Tanner? You do funny things to my insides? Every time I see you my heart speeds up and my mind goes blank?

No, better to say nothing at all.

She braced herself on one of the tent supports as the wagon lumbered forward, and stared down at her patient. Where was she to begin?

“Victor Lewis said he’d tie Tulip behind his wagon so he could keep an eye on her,” she said, though she knew she was only avoiding what she knew she must do.

Tanner’s face darkened. “If she can’t stay up with us, I don’t want her just left behind. I’ll have to put her down.”

“You mean shoot her? But why? Her leg’s not broken.”

“If she can’t walk, she’s easy prey for any animal that comes along. Even buzzards.” He stared again up at the canvas ceiling. “Better for her to die fast and clean than slow and tortured.”

Abby tried to swallow the large lump of guilt that had formed in her throat. “I should have been watching the children more closely. This would never have happened if I …”
If I hadn’t been so consumed with jealousy when I spied you speaking with Martha.

“They’re not your children, Abby. They’re not your responsibility.”

She perched on a crate and pulled her rumpled skirts to the side. “We’re all responsible for every child around us. As adults we always have to set the example. Always watch out for them. Even children we don’t know.”

“It’s their parents’ responsibility, not yours.” Abby eyed him sagely. “If that’s your philosophy, how do you account for why you came to Carl’s rescue? According to what you say, he’s not your responsibility.”

“I came to
your
rescue.”

The tiny wagon enclosure seemed suddenly charged with tension, like the air before a violent thunderstorm. Abby’s scalp prickled, and every square inch of her skin raised up in goose
bumps. “I … I’m not your responsibility,” she finally whispered.

He frowned, just a faint creasing of his brows at her words. “No,” he agreed. But his eyes remained locked with hers, telling her otherwise. Had the wagon not lurched, throwing them both hard to the side and eliciting a groan from him, Abby was not sure how the moment would have played out.

“Are you all right?” She bent over him, not sure where to begin. “Where does it hurt?”

To her relief he kept his eyes shut. “My right knee,” he grunted. “And my ribs.”

“Well, we’d better get you comfortable first,” she said, relieved to have something concrete to do. “Can you remove your boots and belt?”
And your trousers and shirt,
she silently added.

He must have been thinking the same thing, for he chuckled despite his pain. “Turn around. I’ll take care of the undressing.” But when he tried to sit up, he groaned again, and beads of sweat popped out on his brow. He fell back onto the bed with a grunt. “Maybe not.”

His pained expression was all it took to stir Abby to action. What was wrong with her that she could be thinking improper thoughts about him when he was hurting so? Concentrating on her task, she moved to the foot of the bed.

First one boot, worn and dusty, followed by the other. Then his socks. They both had holes in the toes, but she could mend them. The sight of his bare feet, however, sent the oddest sort of quiver through her. Though she beat it down, she wondered at her own perversity. Did the Song of Solomon have anything to say about the allure of bare feet?

She dragged her eyes away from his feet. “I need to check your ribs. Can you help me to remove your shirt?”

He tugged his shirttail free of his trousers, then unbuttoned it. One button was missing, she noticed. She could mend that too.

“Can you roll onto your side?”

He complied, and one side of the shirt fell away from his chest. Tan skin. Dark, curling hair. That’s all Abby glimpsed, but it was enough to make her want to look anywhere but at him. There was something far too intimate about this, something that had her heart beating a thunderous tattoo in her chest, flaming her cheeks a telltale scarlet.

In a vain effort to control her wayward thoughts, she concentrated on the faded chambray fabric, on the frayed stitching on the collar and the mended tear on one shoulder. The stitches were neat and even. His, or some woman’s?

Stifling a groan of her own, Abby unfastened the button on the cuff and carefully pulled the sleeve free of his arm. The cloth was so warm, dusty and sweaty too. It needed to be washed. But for all her mental wrangling, she still could not stop herself from staring at this first full view she’d had of his chest. She swallowed hard. “Roll the other way,” she muttered.

He did, but not without a muffled grunt of pain. Abby hurried as fast as she could, tugging the bunched cloth from beneath his side, then gently pulling it down his arm. When he rolled onto his back again, she could see he was hurting, and she felt even more guilty. He was suffering, and she was mired down in improper thoughts about the pattern of hair on his chest and the curve of muscles down his back Even the lingering warmth in his shirt was causing her to behave like a fool. He needed someone to tend his injuries and all he was getting was a blithering idiot.

“Let me see your side,” she said, forcing herself to focus on the matter at hand.

“What about my pants? How can you examine my knee if you leave my pants on me?”

Abby went beet red, and he started to laugh. But his laughter swiftly turned to a groan of pain.

“Damn, but that hurts.”

“Don’t curse in this wagon,” she muttered, covering her humiliation with a show of affronted dignity.

He let out a slow sigh. “I’ll try to remember that.”

They didn’t speak as she checked his side, running her fingers along the length of each rib. She tried to keep her touch light, but sometimes she had to probe harder in order to feel the bone beneath the hard ridges of muscles, and she knew she hurt him. But he lay still, eyes closed, his breathing shallow and regular—almost inhumanly so.

When at last she was justified in removing her hands from him, she let out a profound breath of relief. He’d been in their wagon less than ten minutes and already she regretted her impulsive insistence that she be the one to tend him. It was going to be awful—and wonderful, she knew. Torturous. Yet she would not give up this chance to be so near him for anything in the world.

“I don’t think any bones are broken. But you
are
going to have a pretty bad bruise. Already I can feel some swelling.” She rummaged in a cloth bag that hung from one of the spars. “I’m going to wrap your chest. You should leave it that way for a few days. But first … well, you might want to bathe…” She bit her lip and stared at him uncertainly. “Can you manage alone?”

Tanner wanted to laugh, only he knew it would hurt like blazes. Besides, she would have been even more embarrassed than she already was. He had kept his eyes shut during her gentle exploration. He’d controlled his breathing, keeping it shallow and steady—mentally counting to maintain the rhythm. He had managed that, but only barely. The pain in his side had been a welcome diversion.

But he would never be able to manage if she tried to bathe him.

“I can bathe without your help,” he muttered, still avoiding her anxious face.

“Well, all right. I’ll … I’ll get a pan of water for you—it’ll be cool, though, not hot. And a towel and soap.”

“Fine,” he retorted, knowing he sounded like an ungrateful jerk. But he couldn’t help it. There was something about her sincere concern and tender ministrations that was getting to him. She was a fine-looking woman—for a slender brunette. But when she touched him with her fingertips … When she bent near and he caught the faintest scent of flowers that clung to her …

He’d teased her about helping him to remove his worn denim pants, but it was no joke, he realized. She was not the kind of woman to be jested with—at least not about sex.

He heard her rummaging about again, but he determinedly kept his eyes shut and his head turned to the wall of the wagon.

“I have to go get the water.” She hesitated, then, when he only responded with another terse “Fine,” made her way through the crowded wagon and leaped down.

Tanner heard the top of the water casket drop and dangle from its rope tether,
bumping the side of the wagon as she dipped into the reservoir. The wagon rolled on, slow and steady. When he lifted his head, he could see one of the oxen—the one she called Eenie, lumbering behind, limping noticeably. Then Abby appeared back at the wagon gate and thrust the deep pot up onto the wagon bed. She gathered her skirts and made a light bound, to land sitting down. Then she swiveled around and rose to her feet, all the while oblivious to his scrutiny.

She was like a little girl in many ways, Tanner realized. A woman fully grown, yes. But she was innocent and incredibly naive. No wonder her father feared for her around a man like him. The women Tanner knew were world weary and cynical long before they reached their twenties. They struggled to survive, using the only things of value they possessed: their youth and their bodies. In his own way he did the same.

But Abby had lived a different sort of life, and though she was attracted to him—and he to her—they were like night and day. For brief moments, like dusk and at dawn, they might meet and connect, but the rest of the time they were on opposite sides of the earth.

“Can you manage?”

She had placed the bucket beside the bed and set a clean wash rag and round bar of soap on a wooden crate crammed beside it. Now she stared at him as if torn between wanting to stay and wanting to flee. He saw her eyes stray to his chest, then jerk back up to his face, and he had to stifle an insane urge to grab her hand and make her stay. Make her remove his pants and bathe his hard, sweaty body. Make her—

“I can manage,” he bit out. To prove that, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and forced himself to sit up. The searing pain in his side and the throbbing in his knee were welcome alternatives to the intense desire that burned in his belly. “Go on. Get out of here.”

Abby did not wait to be told twice. He was in a foul mood, although, she admitted, he had every right to be. But more, she was behaving like an absolute idiot. She needed a little time and space to get her haywire emotions under control.

She stood beside the slow line of wagons, letting them proceed without her as she slowly took stock of the situation.

All right. He would be staying with them for a few days. She could sleep beneath the wagon with her father. She could easily manage the extra cooking. She could wash his clothes and tend to his injuries.

But could she bear to spend so much time with him? Could she be so near him and still keep her composure?

The memory of the kiss they’d shared rushed over her, bringing with it the same confusion she’d felt then. Something inside her yearned for him, something that was intensely physical, for her belly burned and her very limbs trembled from the force of it. Yet it was more, for her heart was affected too.

The wind blew her hair in stinging disarray around her face, and she automatically put up a hand to hold it back. She’d left her bonnet in the wagon. Nor did she even have her apron anymore. She was bareheaded, standing alongside the trail in only her dress. Inadequately garbed both inside and out, the absurd thought struck her. The good folks of Lebanon would never recognize the proper Miss Abigail Bliss if they were to see her now. Her nails were scruffy and her hands rough. Whatever spare pounds she’d carried before had long been walked off, so that she was lean and firm where she’d once been softer. Her hair was a mess and her clothes, as usual, were dusty.

But those were nothing compared with the changes inside her. She lusted. It was as plain and simple as that. Abigail Bliss was—horny. The word Tanner had used suddenly came to mind. She was horny and all because of some rough-and-tumble trail hand. Passages from the Song of Solomon filled her head, and the most inappropriate feelings roiled around inside her.

The irony of it all, however, was that the man in question knew they were ill matched. Her father thought Tanner the blackguard, yet it was Tanner who’d had the good sense to put a stop to their kiss, not her.

She shook her head, letting her hair blow where it would. Her skirts belled out before her, catching in the grasses as she trudged forward.

“I wish you were here, Mama,” she said out loud.
To tell me what to do. How to act.

Her father had revealed that he’d not been particularly impressed with her mother on the occasion of their first meeting. But time had obviously changed his mind. Could Abby change Tanner’s mind as well? Did she even dare to try? It was hard to know and might be even harder to do.

Abby heard a call but ignored it. She needed to think. But the call came again, and when she looked up, it was to find Martha McCurdle bearing down on her.

“Abby, wait.”

Go away,
Abby wanted to reply. But she didn’t. She didn’t slow down, though. By the time Martha caught up with her, the woman was panting from the effort.

“What … what happened back there? And how is poor Tanner?”

Tanner, was it? Abby’s eyes narrowed resentfully.

“I’m afraid he’s been quite crippled. Temporarily,” she added, though ungraciously.

“Oh, my. I must bring him my special elixir, then. That’ll help ease the poor man’s pains,” Martha boasted.

Her special elixir. Abby glared straight ahead at the undulating horizon, but instead saw in her mind the bounteous curves the widow McCurdle was so prepared to offer Tanner. “I have matters well in hand,” she stated.

Martha laughed, a mirthless sound that made Abby turn her head back toward the shorter woman.

“You’d be better off holding on to your preacher, Abigail Morgan. Tanner’s not the kind of man for someone like you.”