The Horseman's Bride

“No.” She moved the bottle aside. “There’s only a little bit left, and we’ll need it to disinfect the wound.”

“Hell’s bells, what happened to the rest? Have you been imbibing, Mary?”

The older woman’s mouth twitched. “I’ll have you know I’ve had that same bottle for six years, and it’s only been used for medicinal purposes.”

“Now, you I’d believe.” Jace’s head was swimming. He fought to stay alert. For all he knew, he could pass out and wake up in handcuffs, on his way to jail.

“Be still and lie down.” Clara maneuvered him onto the pillow. “You can talk after we get this knife out of you and dress the wound.”

Jace lay with his head cushioned, trying to imagine her bending over him under very different circumstances. His fantasy didn’t help much. The blade was buried a good six inches in his shoulder. This already hurt like hell. And it was just going to get worse.

“Here, bite on this.” Mary was pushing something between his teeth. It felt like a table knife wrapped in layers of cloth.

“Just get it over with,” he muttered around the obstruction in his mouth.

“Ready?” Clara knelt beside him, the whiskey bottle beside her on the porch. Her nimble fingers ripped away his shirtsleeve, exposing the flesh around the wound. Then her hands closed around the knife. Her eyes narrowed. Her jaw tensed.

“Now!” In one swift move she pulled the blade free.

Jace gasped, muttered and passed into darkness.

The knife dropped from Clara’s shaking fingers and clattered to the porch. Blood was soaking Tanner’s shirt and pooling below his collarbone. It seeped into the towel she was using to stanch the flow. She struggled to ignore her lurching stomach. Blood had always made her feel queasy.

“Let it bleed a little more.” Mary would have tended to Tanner herself, but a bad knee made it painful for her to get down beside him. “It’s a deep wound, and Lord knows what was on that knife blade. The more dirt washes out, the less the chance of festering. That’s the real danger now.”

“But there’s so much blood. You’re sure it’s safe?”

“I’ve seen worse.” Mary’s mouth tightened, and Clara knew she was remembering the long-ago day when her youngest son had lost an arm in a threshing machine accident. The boy had survived and grown up to be a teacher. Mary had eventually considered the injury a blessing because, when he was of age, it had kept him from going to war.

“Tanner should be fine as long as we can keep the wound clean,” she said. “But any sign of infection, and we’ll need to get him right to a doctor.”

Tanner’s eyelids fluttered open. “No doctor,” he rasped. “I’ll be fine.”

“We’ll see about that.” Mary handed Clara two more clean towels, dropped the wrappings in the rocker and turned to walk inside. “Go ahead and stanch the bleeding, Clara. Then you can disinfect the wound with whiskey. I’ll need a few minutes to make a poultice.”

Clara wadded one of the towels and held it against the wound, leaning forward to increase the pressure of her hands. His eyes watched her, blinding blue in the shadows of the porch. The ripped shirt showed a glimpse of fair skin with a virile dusting of light brown hair.

“How do you feel?” she asked, unsettled by his nearness.

“Like hell.” He managed a grimace. “But thanks for asking.”

“You’re in good hands with my grandmother. She makes her own poultices with herbs the Indians used in the old days—yarrow, cedar bark, pitch pine and things I can’t even name. There’s nothing better for wounds.”

“Let’s hope you’re right. I don’t take well to being a patient.” A grunt of pain escaped his lips as Clara increased the pressure of the towel.

“It may take time to get your strength back,” she said. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. And by the way, I haven’t thanked you for saving us.”

“I wasn’t sure you needed saving. You seemed to have the situation well in hand with that vicious little paring knife.”

A beat of silence ticked past before she realized he was teasing her. “They were going to take Foxfire,” she said. “Nobody takes my horse.”

His eyes narrowed. “That sounds like a warning.”

“Take it any way you like,” she said.

“Whatever you might think, I’m not a thief, Clara. Galahad, as you named him, was borrowed—with his owner’s per mis sion.”

He bit off the end of the last word, as if realizing he’d said too much. Questions flocked into Clara’s mind. Where had the stallion come from? Why would anyone lend such a prized animal when an ordinary mount would do? She willed herself to keep silent as she lifted the towel and checked the wound. Showing too much curiosity might put Tanner on alert.

But he’d just given her the perfect opening, Clara reminded herself. She’d be a fool not to seize it.

The bleeding had slowed. Applying a fresh towel to the wound, she cleared her throat. “Speaking of Galahad, I’ve a favor to ask.”

Tanner’s left eyebrow quirked in an unspoken question. Clara took it as a signal to plunge ahead.

“I have two fine mares, both of them champion quarter horses. They’ll be coming into estrus soon. I’d like to breed them with your stallion.”

Tanner’s brows met in a scowl. “You’re quite the little negotiator, Miss Clara Seavers. First you get a man helpless on his back. Then you ask him for a favor. What would you do if I said no—stick that knife in my shoulder again?”

“Of course not. If it’s a question of money, I’d be happy to pay you a reasonable stud fee. How much would you want?”

He winced as she lifted away the towel. “Maybe you ought to ask Galahad.”

“Be serious! This is important to me.” She picked up the whiskey bottle and twisted out the stopper. The bottle was nearly empty. Less than an inch remained in the bottom. “Brace yourself, this is going to sting.”

Before he could argue or stop her, she splashed the whiskey into the open wound. He shuddered, mouthing curses between clenched teeth. Seconds passed before he exhaled and spoke.

“I am being serious. I wouldn’t feel right about taking money for Galahad’s services, especially from you or your family. But as a gesture of goodwill, why not? If Galahad and I are still around when your mares are ready …” A shadow flickered in the depths of his eyes. “You can borrow him on one condition.”

“Name it.” She laughed nervously. What was she getting herself into?

“Just this. If I ever need it, promise you’ll grant me one request.”

Apprehension tightened Clara’s throat. Her voice emerged as a whisper. “What sort of request?”

“I won’t know until the time comes. But trust me, I’d never do anything to put you in harm’s way.”

“You sound as if you’re asking for my soul.”

His laugh was quick and harsh. “And you’re looking at me as if I were the devil himself.”

“For all I know, you could be.”

He laughed again, flinching at the pain in his shoulder. “Would the devil be lying here bleeding on your grandmother’s porch, Miss Clara? Galahad’s a champion Thoroughbred with a pedigree as old as the Mayflower. I can’t show you his papers but I can promise he’ll sire damned good foals. So what’s it to be, yes or no?”

“What if it’s no?”

“Then it’s no loss to either of us—and no gain.”

Clara hesitated. At the age of six, on a visit to her uncle Quint in San Francisco, she’d survived a frightening ordeal at the hands of kidnappers. And while that story had a happy ending, having brought her uncle Quint and aunt Annie together, the experience had left her with an excess of caution. She tended to seek out familiar situations where she felt safe. That need for security had colored her choices, including the decision to stay on the ranch instead of going away to school.

Now she quivered on the edge of what she feared most of all—the unknown. Tanner’s stallion could sire a line of superb horses, maybe the finest in Colorado. But to get that line demanded risk—perhaps more risk than she dared take.

The man intrigued her as well—his air of mystery, the virile energy that drove his body and the secrets that lurked in his eyes, like a flash of darkness in a blue mountain lake.

How could she trust him?

How could she walk away?

Mary’s heavy tread echoed across the kitchen floor. Any second now she’d be coming outside. Tanner lay watching, waiting for his answer. His eyes blazed with challenge, measuring her courage, daring her to step off the precipice.

Mary’s footsteps were approaching the door. The words trembled on Clara’s lips. She drew a sharp breath.

“You have my answer,” she said. “It’s yes.”

Chapter Three

Jace’s breath hissed through clenched teeth as Clara laid the steaming poultice on his wound. The heat of the cudlike herbal mass reminded him of the mustard plasters his mother had used on his chest when he was a boy. But the concoction smelled more like a mixture of swamp mud, skunk cabbage and cow manure.

“What the devil’s in this stuff, Mary?” he muttered.

The older woman had taken a seat in the nearby rocking chair. “Nothing that would hurt you. When Soren and I settled this land there were no doctors and none of the medicines you can buy now. An old Indian woman—a Ute, as I recall—showed me the plants her people used. I’ve kept a stock of them on hand ever since.”

“Grandma’s shown me a few things for doctoring horses. But I’ll never be as good as she is.” Clara smoothed the edge of the poultice and covered it with a folded square of clean muslin. She had cut away the sleeve and shoulder of Jace’s shirt with Mary’s scissors. Through the haze of pain he felt the brush of her fingertips on his bare skin. She had small, almost childlike hands, the nails clipped short and the palms lightly callused. They worked with quiet efficiency. Tender, sensible little hands.

Her breath warmed his ear as she leaned close to wrap the dressing in place. Her hair smelled of fresh lavender soap.

“You mean to say your only doctoring experience is with horses?” he teased her.

“Horses and men are pretty much the same.” Her eyes flashed toward him. In the shade of the porch, their color was like dark maple syrup flecked with glints of sunshine. For a breath-stopping instant her gaze held his. Then she glanced down again, veiling the look with the black fringe of her lashes.

Jace exhaled the breath he’d been holding in. Lord, didn’t the girl realize the effect those eyes could have on a man? She seemed so artless, so damnably innocent.

The lessons he’d like to teach her.

Jace gave himself a mental slap. If he didn’t get his mind back above his belt line, he could find himself in serious trouble.

Resting his arm across her knees, Clara wound the wrapping over his shoulder and around his arm, once, then twice more before she split the end and tied the tails in a knot. “There, it’s done.” She glanced up at her grandmother. “Now what?”

“Now he needs to rest.” Mary rose from her chair. “I’ve got some tea brewing that will ease the pain. Help him inside, Clara. He can stretch out on that spare bed in my sewing room.”

“Now wait a minute,” Jace protested. “I’ll be fine. There’s no reason to—”

“I won’t have you getting up and keeling over on me,” Mary snapped. “The bed’s made, and you’re going to rest until you’re stronger. Come along now while I get the tea.”

Jace gave in with a sigh. He respected Mary Gustavson too much to argue. Besides, he felt like hell.

He waited while Clara braced herself beneath his good arm. Her body was warm and curvy against his side. Thankfully, he was in no condition to take advantage of her nearness. His shoulder throbbed, his vision swam in and out of focus and his knees felt like rubber.

“Here we go.” She supported him with one arm and used her free hand to open the screen. Jace swore silently. He felt as helpless as a baby. If these two females wanted to turn him over to the law now, he’d have no chance of getting away.

Leaning to balance his weight, she guided him across the floor to the little room that opened off the kitchen. The curtains were drawn, but in the dim light Jace could see the treadle sewing machine in one corner and the patchwork quilt on the narrow bed. Glancing at the door, he was relieved to notice that it had no lock.

Mary followed them into the room holding a blue china mug between her hands. She thrust it toward Jace as he sat on the edge of the bed. “Drink this before you lie down,” she said. “It will help you rest.”

The molasses-colored liquid was barely cool enough to drink. Its taste was bitter, but Jace knew better than to argue or to ask what was in it. He emptied the mug in a few swallows, suppressing the urge to gag.

“Give me your feet.” Clara worked Jace’s boots down over his heels and dropped them on the floor. It occurred to him to wonder whether his socks smelled, but it was only a fleeting thought. By now his eyelids were leaden weights. His body seemed to be sinking into the patchwork coverlet. The instincts that had kept him free for the past four months were screaming in his head, but he had no power to act on them.

Clara leaned over him, her eyes dark smudges in the pale oval of her face. “Rest now,” she said. “I’ll be back tomorrow with the mares. You should be feeling better by then.”

Remember … one favor. Jace struggled to speak, but his lips refused to form words. He only knew that the promise he’d extracted might turn out to be the one chance of saving him, like a hidden ace up a gambler’s sleeve.

But now it might already be too late. He was losing his grip, sinking into a black fog.

He kept his eyes on her face until the darkness pulled him under.

Clara took the colt at an easy trot toward home. The sun was at high morning, the sky a blazing blue that promised a hot afternoon. But the weather was the last thing on Clara’s mind.

She’d left Tanner asleep on Mary’s spare bed, his shoulder dressed and bandaged, his senses drugged by Mary’s potent jimsonweed tea. Knocking him out was the only way to make sure he’d stay put. His body was in shock and he’d lost enough blood to make him weak. He needed to stay off his feet, at least until tomorrow.

After he’d slipped away she had lingered a moment, looking down at him. In sleep he’d looked strangely vulnerable—tawny hair tumbling over his forehead, mahogany lashes lying still against his tanned cheeks.

Where the shirt had been cut away, his skin was like warm ivory. A ray of sunlight, falling between the curtains, made a golden pool in the hollow of his throat. He was a beautiful man, Clara thought—as beautiful in his own way as the stallion he rode.

But who was he and what was he hiding?

Resisting the urge to touch him, Clara had unfolded an afghan from the back of a chair and laid it over his sleeping body. Then she’d tiptoed out of the room and closed the door behind her.

Before leaving, she’d unsaddled Galahad and loosed him in the corral with Mary’s two geldings. The power of the big stallion had thrilled her. Tomorrow she would bring her two mares to the farm and turn them out together in the same pasture. When they were ready to breed, the stallion would know what to do.

She could only hope Tanner would stay around long enough for it to happen.

She was putting way too much trust in the man, Clara lectured herself. For all she knew, he could disappear some night, taking her mares with him.

But that didn’t sound like Tanner. The scenario would be too simple, the crime too easily solved. Tanner had said he wasn’t a thief, and she was inclined to believe him. But other secrets lurked behind his intriguing manner. Clearly he wasn’t the man he pretended to be.

She passed through the opening in the fence where Tanner had planned to build a gate. Seeing the place again brought home the memory of lying on her back, opening her eyes to the sight of his face. For that one heart-stopping instant, his blue eyes had pierced her, held her, touched her in some deep place. Then he’d spoken angrily, shattering the spell.

What had she agreed to when she’d accepted his bargain? An open promise in exchange for the use of the stallion—she must have been out of her mind! He could ask any favor of her and she’d be honor-bound to grant it.

What would that favor be?

Tanner had stepped in to save her and her grandmother. But that didn’t mean he was a good man. For all she knew, he could be plotting something wicked and scheming to make her a part of it. When he’d urged Mary not to call the marshal, she had backed him. But it was her heart, not her head that had made the decision. Tanner was a compellingly attractive man, the stuff of a young girl’s dreams and fantasies. But she couldn’t allow herself to be naïve about him any longer.

It was possible that she really had made a bargain with the devil.

Across the pasture, the two-story Seavers home rose above a flowering orchard. Painted pale cream, with tall windows and dark green shutters, the spacious house was as stately as it was comfortable. Beyond it, the barn, sheds and stables stretched toward the far paddock. Clara had grown up here, with her parents and her younger brother and sister. There was no place on earth she would rather be than here on the ranch, surrounded by her beloved horses and her family.

Slowing Foxfire to a walk, she pondered how much to tell her parents. Judd and Hannah Seavers were protective of Mary and would welcome any excuse to pluck her off the farm and settle her in their home. But Mary was fiercely independent. She’d insisted that Clara not tell them about the two men who’d come by. Clara had reluctantly agreed. But sooner or later, her parents would have to know about Tanner.

Say too much, and they’d go flying over to Mary’s to make sure she was safe.

Say too little, and they’d suspect her of keeping something from them. Either way, there could be trouble.

Clara was still weighing her words as she approached the open pasture gate. The sight of milling men and horses surprised her until she remembered. This was the day her father and the hired cowhands would be driving the cattle to summer pasture in the mountains. It appeared they were about to ride out.

Relief swept over her as she rode into the yard. Her father would be away for at least a week, maybe longer. Hopefully, by the time he returned, the mares would be bred, Tanner would be gone and there’d be no need for questions.

There would still be her mother to get around. But one parent would be easier to manage than two.

Her brother, Daniel, grinned at her as he reined in his skittish horse. He loved going off with the men on the spring cattle drive, and he was in high spirits. Katy sat pouting on the front steps. She had begged her father to let her go along, too. He had given her a firm refusal.

Clara unsaddled Foxfire and turned him out to graze in the paddock. When she returned to the house, her father and mother were saying goodbye on the porch. What a striking couple they made, she thought. Judd Seavers, nearing fifty, was tall and lean, his handsome features leathered by sun and wind. His wife, Hannah, a decade younger, was a classic beauty with thick wheaten hair and a lushly rounded figure. Even after two decades of marriage, they had eyes only for each other.

Katy was still huddled on the top step. Reaching down, Judd ruffled her corn silk hair. “Don’t be upset, Katydid,” he said, using his pet name for her. “You’ll find plenty of adventures around here.”

In response, she turned, wrapped her arms around his legs and hugged them hard. Clara stepped up to embrace him next. “Take care of things, girl,” he whispered. “You’re the one I can always count on.”

Guilt stabbed Clara as she kissed his cheek and stepped aside to make way for her mother. Her father was honorable to his very bones. He was depending on her, and here she was plotting behind his back.

She could only hope that her scheme would turn out for the best.

Judd and Hannah’s kiss was long and heartfelt. Hannah had sent her husband off and welcomed him home countless times over the past twenty years. But each time they clung together as if the parting would be their last. It was almost as if they were two parts of the same soul, neither of them complete without the other.

Clara was well aware of the six-month interval between the date of their wedding and the date of her own birth. She’d never discussed it with her mother, but it didn’t take a mathematician to figure out that Hannah had been a pregnant bride. Clara had come to accept the fact, and refused to let it trouble her. Her parents loved each other. They had raised a close and loving family. The past was, as her grandmother would say, water under the bridge.

Judd released his wife, strode down the steps and mounted his horse. Clara stood on the porch with her mother and sister, watching as the men rode down the long drive and out the gate. Only when the dust had settled behind the horses did the three of them turn and go into the house.

Run!

The word screamed through Jace’s mind as he galloped the stallion across the open fields. By now the police would be arriving at the house. When they discovered his abandoned Packard in the drive and his muddy boot prints on the carpet, they’d be after him like a pack of bloodhounds.

The roads would be blocked. His best chance of a clean getaway depended on catching the midnight train. If he could scramble aboard unseen, leaving the horse to find its way home, he’d be well into Kansas by morning.

By now the westbound freight would be approaching the Wilson’s Creek Bridge. When it slowed down for the crossing he’d have one chance to leap aboard—but only if he could get there in time.

The midnight wind was bitter, the moon a pale scimitar veiled by tattered clouds. Behind him, Rumford’s grand plantation-style house rose out of the flatland, growing smaller with distance. Jace thought of his comfortable apartment in town—gone, like everything else he owned. If he went back for so much as a toothbrush the police would close in and he would finish his life at the end of a rope. He had no choice except to run and keep running.

The train whistle screamed through the darkness. Jace pressed forward in the saddle, cursing as he lashed the horse with the reins. On the far side of the field, the headlamp glowed like a great yellow eye as the engine raced toward the bridge. A ghostly plume of steam trailed from the stack.

Even then, he knew he wasn’t going to make it. But something drove him on. Maybe it was the madness of what had happened tonight—what he’d seen and done and all it implied. Or maybe he was just in shock. The rhythm of hoofbeats pounded through his body. The moon blurred. The wind moaned in his ears.

By the time he neared the bridge, the engine had reached the far side of the creek and picked up speed. Boxcars and flatcars rattled along behind it, going fast, too fast. Could he still do it? Could he fling himself out of the saddle and make the leap? Catch something and hold on?

Would it matter if he died trying?

The whistle shrilled a deafening blast. The stallion screamed, leaping and twisting in terror. Flung out of the saddle, Jace felt himself flying, falling, tumbling toward the rushing wheels …

He woke with a jerk, damning the dream that haunted so many of his nights. The room was dark, the stars glowing faintly through the gauzy curtains. His body felt chilled, his skin paper dry. Only when he tried to sit up and felt pain shoot down his arm did he remember the knife wound and how he’d come by it.

Sinking back onto the pillow, he eased himself to full awareness. He was lying on the bed in Mary’s sewing room, where she’d insisted he stay. A lacy crocheted afghan covered his legs. His shirt was cut away and his boots were missing, but otherwise he was fully dressed.