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  Parker waved his hand over his head. “Now that ain’t fair, Dalton, and you know it. He healed up just fine.”

  Harrison frowned. “Who healed up?”

  Jacob shook his head. “Just ask, but wait until after you’ve finished your breakfast.”

  Harrison followed the sheriff while asking questions about Nell’s last bookkeeper, but the old man only laughed and said accidents happen.

  Jacob watched the two men climb into an old buggy the sheriff used when his arthritis was really bad. After he tied his horse onto the back, Harrison sat straight and tall as he took the reins. Parker looked like his bones were slowly curling him into a ball. Within a minute they’d disappeared into the blackness between Nell’s place and town.

  Jacob went back in the house to say good night.

  Gypsy was halfway down the stairs with a load of bedding, and Nell waited in her wheelchair. Jacob noticed the small couch had been turned toward the dying fire in the drafty old room.

  When he entered, Jacob also didn’t miss the exhaustion in Nell’s eyes as she looked up from her desk. He slowed, memorizing the way she looked at him. The way she always looked at him. Her eyes seemed to welcome him home. Even when she was angry at him about something, she took him in from head to toe as if making sure he’d come back whole.

  “Mind if I bunk in your barn?” he said as he neared.

  She smiled. “It’s yours. Or I’ll have Gypsy make up one of the rooms upstairs for you. The one you used when you brought me back here only needs dusting, and it’ll be ready.”

  Gypsy mumbled about being overworked as she reached the ground level with her load.

  Jacob shook his head. “Too many ghosts walking around up there.” He moved closer, knowing where she planned to sleep tonight. Gypsy or Marla couldn’t carry her up the stairs. The big open room was already growing cold with the night air and by morning would be chilled, even if Gypsy woke up every hour to feed the fire. The couch wouldn’t be a good place for Nell.

  He leaned over, placed one arm around her shoulders and slipped the other between her knees and the wheelchair. “Let me walk you to your door, miss.”

  Nell started to argue, then lifted her arms to circle his neck. He swung her up and walked toward the stairs. He’d carried her like this before in the first weeks after the accident. He knew how to lift her so that she didn’t suffer too much pain.

  “If you take me up, you’ll have to carry me back down tomorrow morning.”

  Jacob smiled. “I’ll do that if you’ll feed me breakfast. When I’m gone, I miss Marla’s cooking.”

  “So, you’d leave me upstairs to starve if it weren’t for my cook?”

  “Pretty much. Or, marry you off to Walter Farrow.”

  Nell tapped her fist against his chest. “He was a terrible man.”

  Jacob laughed. “True, but he loved you sight unseen.” He slowed, in no hurry to reach the top of the stairs. “At least as long as you came with land.” They passed Stockard’s painting halfway up the stairs. “Maybe you should have tossed in that painting his uncle did. Then he would have fought a little harder for your hand.”

  They paused, looking at the ugly drawing.

  “I always thought it looked like dying flowers fuzzy with decay.”

  Jacob turned his head to the side. “I thought it was an ocean washing on a dirty beach.”

  “It’s midnight in the mud,” Gypsy yelled, “and worthless.”

  Jacob laughed. “Then Walter must have loved you.”

  “He loved my land sight unseen,” she added. “Why do you think he was so interested in the Stockard place? It’s probably the worst ranch I’ve got. It’s small, rocky, and full of rattlers. I’ve heard the stream dries up by midsummer, and the water in the well isn’t always fit to drink.”

  Jacob shoved Nell’s bedroom door open with his shoulder. “I don’t know. Some say Zeb Whitaker hid out there for a while. Maybe Walter’s looking for the old buffalo hunter’s gold.”

  Nell turned her head away from him.

  “I’m sorry,” Jacob said, realizing his mistake. Nell had been shot because of the lost saddlebags of gold. Zeb Whitaker had always claimed three women robbed him after they knocked him out and left him for dead in the middle of nowhere. Only all three women swore they never took a single coin. They’d all three married good men and were Nell’s adopted family. She took it personal when Zeb and his gang came after them. The old buffalo hunter died searching for his lost gold.

  “There’s no need to say you’re sorry,” Nell whispered. “It’s not something I forget about. Every day I think about what my life would be like if I hadn’t borrowed the buggy Lacy always drove to visit Bailee and Carter’s ranch. Zeb and his men thought they were shooting at Lacy, not me, but I can’t help but think, what if I’d driven slower, would the buggy have overturned? Or, if I’d been going faster could I have somehow outrun the bullets? Sometimes I even panic and think, what if Lacy had been there? She could barely handle a horse. She might have died.”

  Jacob carried her to the side of the bed but didn’t lower her. His arms held her to him a little longer. “If you’d been going slower, they might have had time to aim and pump more shots into you. If you’d been moving faster, the fall when the buggy rolled might have killed you.”

  Nell’s laugh had no humor. “So, you’re telling me I’m lucky.”

  “No,” he whispered against her ear. “I am. You’re still alive.”

  Nell leaned back and stared at him.

  He saw confusion in her brown eyes, maybe a little anger, and hope, as well. Maybe if he could ask her to marry him, he could tell her how much she meant to him. Surely she knew she was a part of him, his past, his future. He couldn’t imagine them not being friends.

  Gypsy clambered into the room with her load of blankets, and they both looked at the old woman as if neither wanted to face what they saw in the other’s eyes.

  “I’ll turn down your bed,” Gypsy said as she hurried around Jacob to complete her task, then rushed to the wardrobe for Nell’s gown. “I watched the nurse enough times. I should know what needs doing at bedtime around here.”

  “Lower my legs,” Nell ordered Jacob. “Let me show you how I can stand.”

  Slowly, Jacob did as she asked.

  “Now, step back and give me room.”

  He stepped just far enough so that he wasn’t touching her, but stood ready to grab her if she began to fall.

  Her fingers rested on his arm from time to time to steady herself, as Nell began unbuttoning her top. “I’m not helpless anymore, Ranger Dalton. I can dress and undress myself. It may seem a small thing, but not to me.”

  She set the last button free and opened her blouse, then slowly tugged off one sleeve at a time. Her movements were like a circus performer balancing on a wire as she moved.

  Jacob raised his eyebrow at the sight of an ivory colored camisole lined in lace. The silk was so thin he could make out the shape of her breasts beneath the single layer of fabric. He wasn’t all that familiar with ladies’ underthings, but guessed this one was expensive and made just for Nell.

  She laughed as she unbuttoned her skirt and let it fall. “Don’t look that way, Jacob. You know full well that I’m far more dressed even in my undergarments than any of the girls who haunt these hallways.”

  He’d never known Nell to be modest. In fact, a few summers when she’d been a kid, he’d had to pull her naked from the river because she wanted to swim in the moonlight, and Fat Alice had been afraid she’d drown. She’d been beanpole thin and slippery as an eel.

  How could she be modest growing up in a whorehouse? But he’d hoped that finishing school back East had taught her a few things about what not to do in front of a man. When she’d been so near death those first few weeks after the accident, Jacob had stayed by her side. He’d helped with her care, including changing bandages over most of her body.

  But caring for a wounded girl was a far cry from staring at a ful
ly grown woman in lace within arm’s length of him. When he managed to find his voice, he said, “But the ghosts don’t have much flesh and blood beneath their skimpy attire.”

  She laughed, and he finally managed to raise his eyes to meet hers, then felt his face warm at the realization that she’d noticed where he’d been staring.

  “Tell me, Jacob, is it my flesh or my blood that makes you gawk?”

  He grabbed the nightgown from Gypsy and lifted it over Nell’s head. “I wasn’t gawking. I was just noticing how pale you’ve gotten,” he said, angry at himself. He thought of adding and rounded but figured it would be safer not to mention any curves he noticed. “You get any whiter and folks will think you’re one of the ghosts around this place.”

  Nell poked her head through the gown opening and moved her arms into the proper holes with his help. As she buttoned the cotton gown to her throat, she swayed slightly, and he steadied her with a touch at her waist.

  Her body let him take her weight, and he carried her the last few feet to her bed. “How long can you stand?”

  “You’ve seen my only act, I’m afraid. Within a few minutes my legs give way beneath me.”

  He covered her as he knelt by the bed. “You’ll get stronger.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” She looked tired. Her long brown hair spread across the pillow as she turned her face to the side and closed her eyes. “You don’t have to offer to marry me, Jacob; just be my friend.”

  He kissed her forehead. “I am, Two Bits. I always will be. We’ll talk about getting married in the morning.”

  She was already asleep by the time he stood and walked from the room.

  He strolled to the barn deep in thought, then took care of his horse before bedding down in the loft where he had a good view of the front of the house. A light burned low in her room, and he wondered if she’d call out for Gypsy in her sleep. He knew the pains sometimes came late in the night.

  He frowned. If he planned to talk her into marrying him, he’d have his work cut out for him. She was dead set against it, and he didn’t have a clue how to court a woman. He thought about the day and decided he probably didn’t get off to a very good start. She’d done everything to discourage him except shoot at him.

  But on the bright side, she was still speaking to him, and she did let him sleep in her barn.

  He covered his face with his hat. “Hell,” he swore to himself. “I should have kissed her on the lips, not the forehead.” If he wanted her to think of him as husband material, he had to stop treating her like she was still a kid.

  One thing he knew for certain, he decided as he remembered the lace covering her breasts. She was no longer a kid.

  CHAPTER 7

  AS ALWAYS, NELL SLEPT SOUNDLY FOR A FEW HOURS, then awoke when she attempted to roll over. Next she spent an hour trying to get comfortable again. Moving pillows. Adjusting covers. Listening to the clock tick away the night. She hated the darkness when she hardly slept, and when she did, the old nightmare returned to frighten her once more.

  The dream started out the same as every night. She was driving a borrowed buggy on a rough road. Her thoughts were full of worry about her three dear friends. They were being threatened by an old buffalo hunter who thought they’d stolen his gold. She held the reins easy between her fingers as she planned how to help them. One of them was safe in town, another hidden away. Bailee would be the easiest to get to on her farm outside of town. Nell pushed hard, wanting to get to her friend as fast as possible.

  Then, without warning, shots rang from nowhere. For a moment, she thought someone must be target shooting or hunting. Suddenly, bullets pinged against the buggy, spooking the horse. Frantically, she tried to drive as it rained bullets. She ignored the first sting on her arm. One more plowed into her back a second before the horse missed a curve in the road. Then, she was tumbling . . .

  Nell always woke before the tumbling stopped. She had a fear that if she didn’t, she’d die.

  She struggled through the rest of the night, losing the battle to sleep more often than not. Lying in the darkness before dawn, she tried to ignore the pain. Sometimes she played a game. She’d pretend that the ambush never happened and there was no bullet lodged in her back. In her mind, she’d jump from the bed and run across the room to open the huge bay windows. Curling up in a blanket, she’d sit on the sill while she watched the sun rise. With her feet ice cold, Nell would dart down to the kitchen and make hot tea.

  Once the water boiled, she’d snuggle against the cooking hearth, like she had a hundred times in boarding school, her legs curled beneath her, while she warmed and listened to the house awaken. She’d hear Marla up dressing, getting ready to start the bread, and Gypsy snoring away in the room beyond the back porch.

  Nell loved everything about the morning. The steamy water she saw herself hauling upstairs for her morning bath. The smell of breakfast. The way houses creaked with age as they warmed to the day.

  Fighting tears, she returned to reality. She couldn’t watch the dawn, and there would be no hot tea until someone remembered to bring it to her.

  Nell pulled herself up as the night turned from black to gray. She wanted to be fully awake to face the day, like an old warrior preparing for battle. A tiny part of her believed that if she didn’t stand ready at dawn, she’d miss a whole day of her life. The fear might have been born that first month after she’d been shot, when all hours blended in pain. Each time she could get her thoughts together enough to speak, she asked the same question, “What day is it?”

  Those around her always seemed to pick a day at random, for when she closed her eyes for only minutes, they’d change their minds and name another.

  She shoved the covers aside and slowly scooted her legs to the floor. With her hands on the iron railing, she moved from the bed to the invalid’s chair. The movements might look like only a small victory, but Nell considered it a mountain conquered when she no longer had to call for assistance to use the chamber pot.

  If Gypsy had left the wheelchair near, she might have been able to twist enough to get in it. But the housekeeper had rolled the chair where Mary Ruth always insisted it be . . . out of the way in case Nell cried out in the night and the nurse had to rush across the room in the shadows. The chair by the window might as well have been a hundred miles away. She’d never be able to walk to it.

  Nell struggled back to the bed and reached for her brush. Hopefully, Gypsy would wake up in time to help her dress before Jacob came in from the barn. Nell felt like swearing. She’d been so tired last night, she hadn’t told Gypsy or Marla to sleep across the hall. They were probably both downstairs drinking coffee, totally unaware that she was awake.

  Leaning onto her pillows, Nell listened, waiting for the sound of footsteps on the stairs. They’d check on her as soon as it was light, she told herself, hating her helplessness.

  In the silent dawn, Nell heard the sound of a rider coming from the direction of town. It took her a moment to realize that whoever it was traveled fast. A dangerous thing to do in the shadows. During the day, riders passed by the house heading for the ranches past the tracks, but the trail was rarely used after dark. The ground wasn’t level and curved enough times to be dangerous at night unless the traveler knew the path well.

  She pushed herself up as she realized the rider must be heading straight toward them. What might have happened that could be so important someone in town had to notify them at once? Dalton. If there was trouble in town, Parker would send for the ranger who slept in her barn. Jacob had backed the old man up a hundred times over the years. Maybe he was needed now.

  Nell knew Jacob well enough to bet he’d already be on his feet, probably with his gun in his hand.

  She expected the rider to slow, pull up his horse at the broken gate, but he didn’t. The horse thundered past her window at full speed.

  Nell clawed at the sheets, wishing she could see out. A shot rang out in the gray dawn with the sharp pop of a whip. Glass shattered and ech
oed across her bedroom.

  Nell jerked, remembering how, months ago, the same sound rang in her ears a moment before pain exploded through her body.

  She’d felt helpless that day. As helpless as she did now.

  Other shots rang from the barn in rapid succession as the intruder rode past the house and barn. Then she heard Gypsy scream and footsteps tapping up the stairs. A heartbeat later, the front door sounded like it had been rammed, and heavy stomps took the stairs in great strides.

  “Nell!” Jacob yelled from the hallway.

  “Yes.” Nell tried to call back, but fear choked her answer.

  Then, as always, he was there, her own private Texas Ranger ready to fight whatever frightened her. His big Colt was in his right hand, his rifle in his left. “Are you all right?” he asked as he crossed to the window.

  “I think so,” she answered, realizing his boots crunched glass when he moved from one window to the other. “What happened?”

  “Someone rode past and fired at your window. I returned a few shots, but I don’t think I hit him.”

  Light filled the room enough now to see his movements. He looked angry, deadly, but Nell was glad to see him. He bent over her wheelchair at the window, then laid his rifle across the arms of the chair and holstered his Colt.

  He turned up the lamp Gypsy left burning low, then crossed to Nell. “Are you sure you’re all right? There’s glass everywhere.”

  “I’m fine.” She spread her hands out over the covers, expecting to touch pieces of the window.

  Gypsy and Marla ran into the room buzzing like horse-flies in a cow lot. They both asked the same questions, echoing one another before Nell had time to answer. Gypsy got her robe and Marla found her slippers, but when Nell asked for her chair, Jacob shook his head.

  He lifted her up and carried her downstairs, ordering Marla to run through the trees to town for the sheriff and telling Gypsy to roll the chair after them.