Winter's Touch (16 page)

He turned and sat with his back to her.

“One of us,” she said, “is the wrong height.

He peered at her over his shoulder. “How’s that?”

“Either you are too tall, or I am too short.” She braced her hands on the ground to push herself to her knees so that she could see the back of his head better.

“Stay,” he said. “I’ll get shorter.” He stretched out in front of her where she sat on the buffalo robe and propped himself up on one elbow. “Better?”

“Hmm,” she murmured, reaching for the back of his head. Gently, with the tips of her fingers, she eased thick strands of black hair aside to get a look at the gash. “How did this happen?”

“A bullet creased me. Your father said it was Crooked Oak. That’s two I owe that bastard,” he muttered, barely loud enough for her to hear.

He had laid the bedding out close to the fire. It was a small fire, but enough to heat the water and give off light. The sky was turning from deep purple to true black. Dozens of stars were already visible. On the mountainside, everything was black. She pulled one of her father’s packs close, tilted it toward the light of the fire, and pulled out a rag she hoped was clean. Wetting it from the willow bark tea that was not yet warm enough to steam, she brought it back to Carson’s head.

Carson sighed despite the pain of having the gash washed. The warm dampness felt good, but not nearly as good as her fingers stirring his hair. He couldn’t remember the last time someone, a woman, had stroked his hair. She laid her palm against his head and he felt a different warmth, stronger, deeper. The pain seemed to ease as if by magic. If she promised to keep at it for another hour, he just might be willing to die for her.

But she needed looking after worse than he did. With a great deal of reluctance, he bit back a groan and pushed himself up and turned toward her.

Light from the small fire sent flickering shadows alternating with dancing light across her features. In this light she didn’t appear so pale, but the dark circles stood out beneath her feverish eyes. He pressed the backs of his fingers to her cheek.

“Damn. Your fever is worse. I should have been taking care of you instead of the other way around.”

“You are making tea for me.”

“I’m also checking your bandage.” He reached for the fringed bottom of her doeskin tunic. One look at the fresh blood soaking the pad over her wound in her back had him swearing. “Dammit, why didn’t you say something?”

“What was there to say? We couldna stop for a wee trickle of blood.”

“Turn your back toward the fire so I can see better.” When she did, he unwound the bandage from around her waist. The soaked pad fell away. “You’ve pulled a stitch or two loose.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine with a fresh bandage,” she offered quickly.

“If I thought that would do the trick, I’d be the first to agree. But I’m going to have to stitch this again, and neither one of us is going to enjoy it. Do you want me to dig out your father’s bottle of whiskey?”

“Nae,” she said quietly. “Just be gettin’ it done.”

Easy for her to say, he thought sourly. She wasn’t the one who was going to have to poke a needle through bruised and torn flesh.

No, you idiot, she’s just the one whose flesh you’re going to poke another hole in.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know what to do. He’d stitched a wound or two in his day. Hell, he’d even sewn himself up once during the war. But this was different. This wasn’t some battle-hardened soldier with skin like leather. This was a woman with skin as soft and smooth as silk. Her flesh was tender.

It was on the tip of his tongue to say that this was going to hurt him worse than it was her, and the thought nearly made him laugh out loud. His father used to say the same thing to him right before he took a switch to his backside for skipping out on chores, or some other transgression, when he’d been a kid.
Believe me, son, this will hurt me much worse than it hurts you.
Humph. One of the more outrageous lies that fathers told their children.

What he wouldn’t give to hear his father say those words to him again.

But it wasn’t going to happen. Edmond Dulaney was dead and buried, and his son had a woman’s tender flesh to sew. And he’d better be getting it done before his beautiful, courageous patient froze to death. It was getting damn cold, and the fire was too small to offer much more than the thought of warmth.

He eased her down onto her side, with her back to the fire. After pulling the edge of the blanket over her, he dug into the packs. It took him several minutes to locate the small pouch he’d seen Innes use before. In it he found the needle and thread he needed.

“Do you want the leather strap to bite on again?”

“Nae.”

The way she said it, with dread covering her attempt at bravery, made him curse under his breath. He shouldn’t have asked. Pride made her refuse.

He thrust the strip into her hands. “Take it anyway. It might not help you, but I’ll feel a damn sight better.”

Damn, he didn’t want to do this. But he knew he had no choice. He had to lean so close to the fire to see to thread the needle that he nearly singed his hair. Then he pulled the blanket aside and bared the back of her waist. “Ready?”

“Aye.”

He waited one heartbeat, two, but instead of putting the strap between her teeth, she gripped it tight in one fist.

He touched her back. Her skin was hot. Too hot. Swearing under his breath, he caught the edge of her torn flesh with the needle.

She jerked and sucked in a sharp breath.

“I’m sorry. You can swear if you want.” After pulling the thread through, he caught the flesh on the other side of the hole and pushed the needle through.

She let out a small yelp. “Does swearing help?”

“Does for me, when I’m under the needle. One more.” He poked the needle through again and pulled slightly to bring the ragged edges of flesh together before tying off the thread.

“Are you under the needle often?” she asked, her voice breathless with pain.

With a small pocket knife from the leather pouch, he cut the thread. “More often than I’d like. There. That’s done.”

She let out a long, slow breath. “Thank you.”

Before bandaging the wound, Carson took another willow twig and peeled down to the soft inner bark. He cut off a slice no longer than the end joint of his little finger and chewed it to a soft pulp. This he pressed over the wound in her back before covering it with a fresh pad from the remnants of Bess’s petticoat.

The wound where the arrow had come out was holding its own, so he decided to leave it alone.

“I’m going to sit you up so I can wrap the bandage around you, but you let me do the work. I don’t want you pulling out my fancy stitching.”

“All right.” Winter Fawn held her breath against the pain to come, but he was true to his word about doing all the work himself. He slid his arm around her shoulders and lifted her.

Winter Fawn was not used to being taken care of. It did not sit comfortably with her to have someone take care of her. Yet if she had to get herself shot and tended to, she couldn’t have chosen a better man to do the tending. He was even more gentle with her than her father had been. Wondering where he had learned to chew the willow bark that way, she held her tunic up out of the way while he wrapped the long strip of bandage around her waist three times to hold the pads in place over her wounds.

The tea he gave her was bitter, but hot. She insisted that he drink some, too.

Kneeling between her and the fire, he took the slab of bacon from one of the packs, then pulled her belt knife from his boot.

“Don’t fix any for me,” she told him as she finished the last of her tea. She reached around him to set the cup next to the fire, then eased down on the bedding, too weak and miserable to sit up any longer. “I’m not hungry.”

He turned his head to look at her, but at that angle, his face was in shadow and she could not read his expression. “I don’t imagine you are, but you’ll eat.”

“No, really, I’m not—”

“Yes, really. You haven’t eaten anything all day. If you don’t eat now, you’ll be half dead tomorrow.”

Winter Fawn wanted to argue, but she didn’t have the strength, and she knew he was right. She must eat. “You are right. I’m sorry. I do not mean to be so much trouble.”

“Humph.” He turned back and took another slice of the bacon slab. “Go ahead and get some sleep if you want. I’ll wake you when the food’s ready. Girls who save my life are rarely any trouble at all.”

“I wish you would stop saying that. You make it sound so…noble. It was nothing like that.”

“Seemed like it to me.” His voice was sharper than he intended, but he still couldn’t get past what she’d done. “Noble, brave. Foolish.”

“Oh, aye, now you’ve got the right of it.”

Her words were slightly slurred with exhaustion or fever, maybe both. Yet there was humor in her voice. Humor, in the shape she was in. Carson shook his head, amazed.

“Might I be askin’ you a question, Carson Dulaney?”

He tossed the bacon into the skillet and set it over the fire. There was no wind yet tonight, so the smell shouldn’t carry far. “Sure. What do you want to know?”

“Where is your ranch?”

“Down along the Huerfano. It’s got water year-round. Good grass.”

“Megan’s mother. She must be missing her daughter something fierce. Be she waiting for ye there?”

Her Scottish burr, he noticed, grew thicker with exhaustion, as it did when her emotions ran high. “Megan’s mother died three years ago.”

“Oh, I am sorry. I didna know.”

Carson didn’t say anything. He figured that was best. He didn’t want to talk about Julia. Didn’t want to think about her.

Behind him, Winter Fawn fell silent. He glanced over his shoulder and found her fast asleep. When the bacon was done and the biscuits after them, he hated to wake her. But he’d meant it when he’d told her she had to eat. She would be as weak as a newborn kitten by morning if she didn’t.

Looking at her while she slept made him want to touch her. Stroke that soft, soft cheek. Trace the curve of her lips with a fingertip.

Damn fool thoughts.

He woke her and helped her sit up.

“I’m really not hungry,” she mumbled.

“I know, but eat anyway.” He passed her a tin plate with a pan biscuit and a slice of bacon, and poured her the last of the tea. She managed, with a great deal of prompting, to eat what he’d given her, but no sooner had he taken the plate from her fingers than she eased back down onto the bedroll. She fell asleep instantly. On top of the buffalo robe.

It took some doing, but he finally got her tucked beneath the warmth of the cover. He figured he’d jostled her pretty good, but she hadn’t wakened. Poor girl. Poor foolishly brave girl.

It was too dark to make it safely down the hill to the stream again, so he turned one tin plate face down over the other to keep the bugs out, what few bugs there might be on a night that gave every indication of getting downright cold. He’d wash the plates in the morning.

He checked on the horse and mule, shivering in his undershirt before he made it back to the meager fire. Then he pulled the sticks from the fire until the flames died completely, leaving nothing but glowing coals.

It was a good thing Winter Fawn was fast asleep, he thought as he crawled beneath the buffalo robe, tucking the canteen in with them to keep the water from freezing during the night. He’d heard the Arapaho placed a high value on chastity among their girls and women. She probably wouldn’t appreciate sharing her bed with a strange man. Not that he had in mind anything other than sleeping warm. But a man would have to be dead not to have wants around a woman like her. Carson Dulaney might have a few more holes in his hide than usual, but he damn sure wasn’t dead.

Around him the mountain was quiet save for an occasional skittering in the underbrush, the far off call of a wolf, the hoot of an owl. There were so many stars overhead it was dizzying to lay there and look at them. They looked different from here than they had back home. That was one of the first things he’d noticed last year when he’d come west. Maybe it had something to do with the altitude.

Beside him Winter Fawn shivered in her sleep. Without thought, he rolled to his side. Slipping one arm beneath her head and the other over her hips, he pulled her close against him and closed his eyes against the exquisite pleasure of holding her.

This was even better than holding her in the saddle. No need to worry here about keeping her from falling. Here he only needed to keep her warm.

Had a woman ever felt this good pressed up against him? He couldn’t remember, but he didn’t think so. Maybe she felt so good because it had been so damn long since he’d been with a woman.

It didn’t matter, of course. Neither of them was in any shape for him to take advantage of the situation. Even if he had been, he wouldn’t. She was Innes’s daughter. Innes trusted him, as he trusted Innes with Megan and Bess.

More important than those reasons, Winter Fawn trusted him.

So he held her close against the cold that crept in from the night, and prayed that Megan and Bess were safe and warm.

Three miles down the mountain, Crooked Oak prayed, too. For patience, for victory. For an early sunrise in the morning with good, clear light.

It was not the danger of the mountains at night that had finally halted their pursuit. It was the simple lack of light by which to track their prey. Light had still teased the tops of the taller trees, but deep shadows across the ground had forced them to stop for the night. If they could not see the white man’s trail, they could not know if they were still following him, or if he had circled and headed back down the mountain.

Crooked Oak gnashed his teeth in frustration. Like the men with him, he sat huddled around the fire. None of them had come prepared for a cold mountain night. They had ridden out of camp in the heat of the moment, anticipating catching the escapees in a matter of hours. Instead, they’d been on the trail for two days, and still the white man eluded them.

“I am troubled,” said Long Chin.

Crooked Oak barely managed to bite back a snarl. Long Chin was always troubled about something.