Loner's Lady Read online

  Maybe he didn’t need it. With those predatory eyes he could probably see in the dark.

  A shiver crawled up her backbone as she opened the door to her bedroom. Lamplight made the blue patchwork quilt, and the puffy matching pillow covers she’d sewn, glow with inviting warmth. She moved to pull the curtains shut and caught her breath.

  Was he watching her window from the barn? Quickly she blew out the lantern flame.

  The sooner he was gone, the better. She didn’t want to look into eyes that hungry any longer than she had to.

  Chapter Two

  The rooster woke her. With a groan Ellen planted her bare feet on the floor and forced herself upright. Peach-gold sunlight spread through the cozy room, glinting in the framed mirror on the chiffonier and washing over her needlework basket and the ticking clock on the night table. This morning the light looked soft and creamy as buttermilk.

  She washed, then hastily caught her unruly curls with a strip of calico at the back of her neck. On impulse, she leaned forward to inspect her face in the mirror.

  Merciful heavens, what a sight! She looked every bit as tired as she felt, even more than the last time she’d looked, which was…let’s see…Easter Sunday? Her skin was sun-browned and freckles were sprinkled across her nose. The area around her mouth looked pinched, and her eyes…

  Her eyes looked weary, as if ten years of trouble had been added to her life. Worse, there was a hopeless expression in their depths she didn’t like one bit. She looked like Mama had before she died. Worn-out. Was this what he saw?

  Didn’t much matter, she guessed. A woman alone as much as she was got used to the darker side of things.

  While she dressed in her blue work skirt and a clean blue shirt of Dan’s, she thought about the stranger sleeping in her barn. For no reason she could name, she didn’t trust the man.

  Come now, Ellen. You must not judge a person by his appearance alone. Even a man with eyes she couldn’t read and a way of moving that reminded her of a cat. A big cat, with slim hips and a quiet way of speaking. He set all her nerves on edge.

  With a sniff and a quick shake of her head, she marched down the stairs to the kitchen. Nerves or no nerves, she had a farm to run.

  Another half bucket of milk sat just inside the back door. Blast the man. All right, she’d fix his breakfast. But first she had to sprinkle some mash for the chickens and turn the cow into the pasture.

  She took two steps into the chicken yard and halted. The hens were clucking contentedly over fresh mash already spread in the wooden feeder. Well, of all the…

  Ellen headed for the barn.

  Florence was not in her stall. And the horse was gone! “Tiny? Where are you, boy?”

  She searched the barn, then the yard. If he’d gotten into her carrots again she would scream.

  Not in the garden. Not nibbling on green apples in the orchard. Not anywhere she could see.

  Damn! That man had stolen her horse!

  Oh, how could he? After a summer so scorching she’d watered her vegetables with bathwater and sprinkled down the henhouse at night, losing her horse was the last straw. Why could she not have one single day without feeling as if all the sand inside her was dribbling out?

  Unaccountably, she started to cry. Stinging tears slid down past her nose and dripped onto her shirt front. Let me have just one day, Lord, when nothing bad happens. When I think I can make it through this.

  No wonder she had aged a decade since Easter.

  An insidious question needled into her mind. Was it worth it to hold on?

  The answer came almost instantly. It was worth it. This farm was the only piece of ground that had ever belonged to her, and she’d be damned if she’d give it up. She held on to it partly for Dan, but mostly for herself. She’d scratched a vegetable garden out of a patch of bare earth, planted honeysuckle to spread over the privy, roses and black-eyed Susans and…

  Yes, she worked hard to make ends meet, but she loved the place. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

  Besides, she had nowhere else to go.

  Sniffing back tears, she marched out the barn door and slammed it shut, wondered why she’d let that drifter stay.

  Because you are lonely. Because she wanted to hear the sound of another person’s voice. She wrapped her arms over her belly and shut her eyes. She hurt so much she didn’t realize how furious she was until she began to tremble.

  Oh, for Lord’s sake, pull yourself together.

  She snapped open her eyes. Just as she took a step toward the house, something moved in the alfalfa field beyond the creek.

  Florence! Thank God. At least he’d left her the cow. Brushing the tears off her face with her shirtsleeve, she gathered up her skirt in one hand and began to run toward the animal.

  Her breath hitched, and when she reached the creek bank, she felt a bit dizzy. No time to remove her boots. Instead, she hiked her skirt higher and splashed into the burbling water.

  The thin, sharp-faced man behind the counter sent Jess a look of disbelief. “You say Miz O’Brian sent you?”

  Jess tightened his lips. “No, I didn’t. I said I’d come for her supplies. She didn’t send me.”

  “Fine distinction, mister,” the mercantile owner said. “We kinda look out for the lady, see. Ever since her husband run off. No one’s ever bought supplies for her before.”

  Jess shifted his weight to his good leg. “I didn’t say I was buying the goods, just delivering them.”

  “With what?” Gabriel Svensen had sold sundries in Willow Flat for thirty-five years; no one had ever gulled him out of so much as a stick of peppermint candy.

  “I’ve got a horse outside.”

  “Yeah, I recognize Tiny all right. You ain’t never gettin’ a barrel of molasses on that snake-blooded old nag.”

  Jess bit his tongue. Most times he didn’t have to ask for anything twice. But that was back when he was well known. Those days were long gone. “Don’t want molasses. What I—Miz O’Brian—needs is a sack of sugar.”

  “White or brown?” the proprietor snapped.

  “White.”

  Svensen’s gray eyebrows shot up, but he said nothing, and Jess pivoted to survey the bushel baskets of produce arranged at the front of the store. “And a dozen lemons,” he added. “And six oranges. She’s got credit here, doesn’t she?”

  Svensen opened his angular jaw with a crack. “She does. You don’t. And Miss Ellen’s not one to add the fancy things onto her bill. You sure she wants white sugar? And oranges?”

  Jess grinned in spite of himself. “I’m sure. She…needs them.”

  “Hell, maybe she’s makin’ a batch of marmalade, or a cake, like every other woman in town. What do I know? I’ll just wrap ’em up if you’d care to look around.”

  “I’ll wait. It smells good in here.”

  Svensen spread a length of brown wrapping paper on the counter and went to work. “Reckon that good smell’s coming from Iona Everett’s bunches of lavender hangin’ there on the beam.” The shopkeeper tipped his chin up to the timbered roof. “And the shipment of spices and brown sugar that came in yesterday. The ladies are havin’ a big cake-baking hoo-rah on Sunday, raisin’ money for the new church.”

  As he talked, he rolled up each orange in a square of paper—“special for Miss Ellen”—laid them on top of the ten-pound bag of sugar and corralled the lemons into a paper sack. Then he bundled all the items up in one neat package and tied it with grocery twine.

  “Remind Miz O’Brian about the cake do, will ya? She deserves an afternoon off.”

  Jess nodded. “She does.” He scooped up his package and had turned to go when he heard Svensen’s raspy voice.

  “You watch your step around Miss Ellen, mister. She’s a real lady, even if she does work a farm.”

  Jess nodded again and strode outside to the hitching rail where he’d left the horse. Tiny, was it? He chuckled. The only “tiny” things were the other horses tied at the rail. The huge head of th
e plow horse towered over all of them.

  He plopped the bulky package on Tiny’s sturdy back and heaved himself up. The horse was so broad his saddle wouldn’t fit; he’d left it in the hayloft with his saddlebag, and ridden bareback. Clicking his tongue, he walked the animal down the main street and onto Creek Road.

  Ellen. So her name was Ellen. He wondered how long it would take before she let him call her that. She didn’t know it yet, but he planned to stay. For as long as it took.

  He reined up at the sagging front gate and slipped off the horse to wrestle it open. It needed another screw and ten minutes of his time. He’d do it after breakfast.

  His stomach gurgled as he led Tiny through the gate and maneuvered the rickety thing closed. Maybe another hinge, as well. And some real wood, not these curlicue pine branches she’d used.

  At the back porch steps he halted and peered through the screen door. “Miz O’Brian?”

  The kitchen was empty. He scanned the garden and the spindly looking apple trees at the back fence. Where the hell was she?

  He tramped into the house, checked the neat parlor, where crocheted doilies lay on the arms of the faded green velvet settee, then climbed the stairs and checked each of the four bedrooms. All empty. Maybe the barn?

  By the time he’d rubbed Tiny down with an old gunnysack and given him some oats, there was still no sign of Ellen. An odd prickle swept up the back of Jess’s neck. He headed for the henhouse, but found nothing but clucking brown chickens and one lordly rooster. Maybe she was visiting a neigh—

  He heard something. He shushed the chickens and listened.

  A voice. Thin-sounding and some distance away, but calling out at regular intervals.

  “Miz O’Brian?” Jess shouted. He took a step toward the sound. “Ellen?”

  Another faint cry, and Jess headed toward the creek. What was she doing down there? “Ellen? Miz O’Brian?”

  A weak cry carried to him and his breath stopped. She was hurt. A cold sweat started at his hairline. Oh, God, no. What had they done to her?

  Without thinking he began to run.

  Chapter Three

  She lay in the creek bed, the lower part of her body half in the water, her skirt rucked up to her knees. Her head rested on a lichen-covered stone, and he could see one leg was folded under her at an odd angle. Jess stumbled down the bank and splashed across to her, a rock lodged in his gut.

  She looked up at him with weary eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  Jess knelt beside her, his heart hammering. “A better question might be what are you doing here?”

  She tried to smile. “Chasing the c-cow into the pasture, and I s-slipped on a rock.” Her voice sounded close to breaking. Her body shivered violently, and Jess reached to touch her arm. Her skin was like new snow.

  “How long have you been here?”

  Her eyelids fluttered closed. “Since dawn. I got up to milk…” Her voice trailed into silence.

  “I milked earlier,” Jess said.

  “Tiny was gone, and… Anyway, the cow…”

  Jess leaned over her. “Don’t talk, Ellen. Save your strength. I’ve got to get you out of the creek, and it isn’t going to be easy.”

  “Hurts when I move,” she murmured.

  “Got any laudanum up at the house?”

  She shook her head.

  “Whiskey?”

  “Just some wine. Port. In a decanter on the top shelf. It was a…” she gave a soft laugh “…wedding gift.”

  “I’ll get it.”

  He started to stand up, but her fingers grabbed at his arm. “No. Don’t leave. Please don’t. I will manage without it.”

  Jess studied the position of her body. Looked like a broken tibia. Should he straighten her leg first? Or lift her up and let the injured limb right itself? Either way it would hurt like hell. Maybe he could pull her backward up the creek bank, see if her leg would straighten naturally.

  He straddled her, one knee in the cold creek water, the other on the bank, and dug his hands into the mud beneath her armpits. As gently as he could, he hoisted her farther up the slope. Her face went white as parchment. Her breathing hitched and she balled her hands into fists, but she didn’t make a sound.

  Dragging her was no good, he realized. Too painful and too slow. He needed to get her to the house, and fast.

  “I’m going to be sick,” she moaned. Clamping her palm over her mouth, she stared up into his face, a desperate, trapped look in her eyes.

  “It’s okay, Ellen. Listen to me. I’m going to lift you up. It’s going to hurt, but it’s the only way.”

  She nodded once.

  “Put your arms around my neck and hold on,” he ordered.

  When her cold, shaking hands met at his nape, Jess carefully scrabbled away the wet earth under her shivering form until he could slide one hand under her shoulders. Gritting his teeth, he bent and slipped his other hand under her knees.

  When he lifted her from the muddy bank, she released a strangled cry, but he stood up slowly, cradling her body in his arms. Her injured leg unfolded and she cried out again.

  A choking sensation closed his throat. Trying not to jostle her any more than necessary, Jess picked his way up the slippery incline, concentrating on her jerky breathing rather than the ache in his own leg. When he reached level ground, he started toward the house. It seemed a hundred miles away.

  He stepped every inch of the way with her moans of agony in his ear, his nerves twisting at every inarticulate sound she made. Jess unclamped his jaw. “You all right?”

  “Of course I’m not all right,” she muttered through clenched teeth.

  He kept moving. Halfway across the yard, she tugged on his shirt, and he heard her whisper, “Talk to me.”

  “I can’t think of a damn thing to say,” he admitted.

  “Talk to me anyway.”

  His mind went blank. What could he talk about? He hadn’t had a woman in his arms since… He didn’t want to think about it.

  After a long minute, he began to sing in a low, scratchy voice. “‘Whippoorwill singin’, and the owl’s asleep. I’m beggin’ you, Lord, my soul to keep.’”

  Ellen pressed her ear closer to his chest. Underneath the smell of damp mud, he caught the faint scent of roses from her hair. “More,” she murmured.

  “That’s all there is. Kind of a one-verse song.”

  “Either you sing,” she said in a tight voice, “or I’ll start screaming.”

  Jess sucked in a long breath. “That might be better than my singing.”

  “Not for me,” she snapped.

  It sounded as if her jaw was clenched. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Don’t think, Mr. Flint. Sing.”

  “Yes, ma’am. All right, here goes. ‘Tater has no eyes to see, sweet corn cannot hear. Beans don’t snap, date palms don’t clap, that’s why I like my beer!’”

  What a choice. He was drunk when he’d made it up, and drunk when he sang it. He sure as hell wasn’t drunk now.

  He reached the back porch steps, angled sideways and yanked the screen door open. It fell to one side with a clatter. He’d repair it after breakfast, he thought. With Ellen down, there would be more to do than fix screens and gates.

  In spite of himself, he smiled. Now she’d be forced to have him stay on as a hired man. Things couldn’t have worked out better if he’d planned it.

  Upstairs in the blue-papered bedroom, Jess stooped to lay her on the bed, but she stopped him with a sharp “No!”

  “What do you mean, no? I’ve got to take a look at your leg. Might have to splint it. You’d best be lying flat.”

  “My skirt is muddy.” She gestured with her hand. “My grandmother’s quilt…”

  Without a word Jess dipped toward the bed and pulled the pretty blue quilt onto the floor. It smelled faintly spicy. The whole room did, he noted. Maybe a bunch of Iona Everett’s lavender…

  He laid Ellen down on top of the sheet. After breakfast, there�
��d be a washing to do, as well.

  Ellen gritted her teeth. God, oh God, it hurt! She couldn’t feel her toes, but somewhere between her thigh and her ankle, a saw was slicing into the bone. “Get the port,” she managed to gasp.

  She heard his boots clump down the stairs, then back up. In his hands he held the decanter of purple-brown liquid and a water glass. She shut her eyes against the nausea sweeping over her, listened to the clink of the decanter neck on the edge of the tumbler, and the gurgle of the wine as it sloshed out. She could tell by the sound that he filled the glass to the top. She could hardly wait to swallow a big mouthful.

  He steadied her hand around the glass and lifted her head off the pillow so she could drink. “Wonderful,” she breathed as the warmth of the first gulp spread down into her belly. “Tastes like melted raisins.”

  “Drink some more. Then I’m going to look at your leg.”

  “I don’t want to move, so can you leave my skirt on? Just pull it up?”

  Jess hid a smile. It wasn’t the first time he’d tossed up a woman’s skirts. But this time sure felt less arousing.

  “Ready?”

  She downed another mouthful and nodded.

  He unlaced her wet boots and drew them off, trying not to listen to her gasps of pain. Raising the sodden hem of her skirt and the petticoat underneath, he gently lifted the fabric up to her waist. At the first sight of her drawer-covered limb he knew what had happened. The front leg bone had snapped just below the crest.

  From her undergarments rose the smell of soap and something spicy. Too bad he’d have to cut that lacy material away. He pulled the ruffled cotton petticoat to discreetly cover her bare knees. He might have traveled on the shady side of the law, but he was still a gentleman.

  “Your right leg is broken,” he said carefully. “You’ve got two choices, Miz O’Brian. I can take Tiny and ride for a doctor, or I can set the bone myself.”

  She groaned. “Dr. Callahan—he’s my uncle—lives in town. Too far.”

  Jess bit his lower lip. “How close is your nearest neighbor?”