Cactus Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (30 page)

      
Asa grimaced and Charlee giggled. Just then Lee walked in, still brushing trail dust from his clothes. His smile lighted on Charlee and its radiance filled the room. “Aah, smell that! What sweet aromas come from this kitchen since you've returned to us,
chiquita
. Only last week the fragrance of sulphur, blackstrap molasses, and castor oil greeted me at the end of a long, hard day on the range.”

      
Weevils shrugged. “Them's th' fíxins fer th' best damblasted tonic in six counties!”

      
After they all shared a laugh over the vile brew the old cook was always foisting on ailing cowhands, Lee sobered. “Seriously, I wish there was something to help Jim's side heal better. He's in a lot of pain, even though he tries to hide it.” He looked at Charlee as he spoke.

      
She gave a disgusted shrug and said, “And he calls me a Missouri mule. Dr. Weidermann told him not to ride so much until those stitches come out, but that stubborn, willful, gunshot man just won't listen!” With a sigh of exasperation she returned to her kneading.

      
“Best thing in the world fer any wound, gunshot, knife, whutever...” Weevils paused and looked speculatively over at the window where Hellfîre reclined, eyeing him warily. “…is fer a person ta take th' first two joints o' a cat's tail, rub 'em over th' sore place, then bury ‘em. Two days 'n th' wound's healed. ‘Course, a body's gotta find a cat thet's willin'...” His voice trailed off as the feline in question flicked the appendage in question in a most agitated manner, glaring hostilely as if he understood every word.

      
The fat man shivered. “Sometimes I git me th' most eeriest feelin' ‘bout thet critter.”

      
Everyone laughed.

      
“What's the joke?” Slade stood slouched in the kitchen door, his casual pose belying the ache in his side that only the tight set of his mouth revealed.

      
Asa guffawed, “Weevils here's got a cure for your injury, but friend cat won't see clear ta cooperate.”

      
Again everyone burst out laughing except Jim who saw no humor at all in the abominable throbbing of his slowly healing wound. Asa explained the proposed cure while Charlee put the finishing touches to shaping six large, neat loaves. Lee watched her efficient but tense movements as she worked furiously, noticing that she was careful not to look at Jim.

      
In the three days since her return, she and Slade had barely spoken, avoiding one another like the pox. Although Charlee refused to tell Lee what had happened in town, he could venture a fair guess that Tomasina Carver had much to do with the rift. Shaking his head sadly, the youth wondered how things would ever sort themselves out. At least they were both back at Bluebonnet together. Just then Slade's words jarred him from that train of thought.

      
“I have some business in Houston. I'll be leaving in the morning, Lee.”

      
“But Dr. Weidermann specifically said those stitches should come out this week. You've got to—”

      
Interrupting Lee's angry plea, Slade turned to Charlee. “I haven't got time to ride the opposite direction. We've got a lady here who can sew a fine stitch. No reason she can't unsew a few just as easily.” He looked at Charlee with a challenge lighting his eyes to amber fire.

      
She blanched. “I never did anything like that! Deborah's trained as a nurse, not me.”

      
“Either you do it or my clumsy
compadre
here gets a stab at it, and he can't even buckle a cinch without getting his fingers caught in the straps.” Slade gestured carelessly to Lee, who immediately took several steps backward, consternation written like a brand across his face.

      
Charlee's eyes slitted and glowed with an unholy light. “You asked for it, but I won't guarantee you'll be riding anywhere tomorrow.”

      
Charlee carefully washed and scalded her mending scissors and a small crochet hook that Jim had dug out of one of his mother's old trunks. She had heard Deborah discuss such sanitary precautions with Dr. Weidermann and understood that they occasionally prevented infections.

      
Slade was standing in his bedroom, calmly stripping off his shirt, when she came in with the instruments, fresh salve, and bandages. She stood in the doorway, silently watching the ripple of lean, corded muscles across his back as he flexed his shoulders and carelessly tossed the shirt onto the bed. Remembering how those strong arms had felt embracing her, Charlee experienced a surge of that old, hateful weakness deep inside her belly. Damn and damn again! He turned and looked at her as if he had read her innermost thoughts. Smiling, he stretched out on his bed and awaited her ministrations.

      
She was nervous, not only because such a delicate operation was beyond the realm of her experience, but because it meant sitting close to Jim on the very bed where he had first seduced her. She took a shaky breath and set the tray on the bedside table. Acidly she said, “This is going to hurt like hell.”

      
“No doubt,” he agreed, seeming completely unconcerned.

      
Once she had unbandaged the puckering slash and looked at the crusting dried threads protruding from the reddened flesh, she felt her concentration return. At least there seemed to be no great degree of swelling or discoloration to indicate suppuration. The thread was easily visible, and with a steady hand she should be able to snip and pull each stitch free. Mechanically she set to work, surprising even herself with how quickly and efficiently she was able to complete the unpleasant task. When it was finished, she allowed herself to look at Slade's face for the first time. He had made no sound or movement all the while she had worked. Now he looked faintly pale beneath his tan, with sweat beading his forehead; but otherwise he was unshaken.

      
“Did it hurt much?” she had to ask.

      
“Not nearly as much as you'd have liked,” he replied with a grin, touching the slash gingerly with his fingertips. “Actually, it's a relief to have those itchy drying threads out. They were what was aching me the most.”

      
“Now just don't pull the whole da-accursed thing open again,” she shot back angrily, reaching for the bandages and salve.

      
He grabbed her wrist and then took the little hand in his. “Still determined to be a lady and not cuss—at least unless you're really good and mad.”

      
She tried to pull her hand free, but he held it fast. “Let me go,” she snapped in an unsteady voice.

      
Slade's eyes moved over her face, the long plait of hair tossed carelessly over her right shoulder, then settled on her hand, which he pulled over to his mouth. He kissed the palm softly with his warm, persuasive lips. She felt herself melting beneath this curiously gentle assault.

      
As if sensing her temporary paralysis, he said, “Charlee, I have to talk to you before I go. I want you to wait here until I get back, not try another escape. Markham could kill you yet if he decided to.”

      
“I can take care of myself,” she retorted hotly, once more trying to pull free.

      
“The way you did with Brady?” he questioned gently.

      
“Why should you care? If I'm gone, your ladylove is safe. That's what you really want, isn't it, Jim?” Her eyes made a silent plea for him to refute her assertion.

      
He made none, but still he did not relinquish her hand. “I won't deny I want to protect Sina, if I can.” He felt her stiffen and grabbed her other hand, holding her prisoner on the bed as he willed her to listen. “She's a fool, but maybe no more than that. Markham's used her for his own ends, and right now the first thing I have to do is take care of him. Then, maybe I can sort out some other things. But for now I want you safe, out of his clutches.”

      
“And I'm supposed to accept that,” she said almost wistfully. “‘Just sit tight, Charlee, wait until I can make up my mind whether to keep you on as my mistress or discard you once the danger's over.’ I may not be a fancy lady like your Sina, but I am a woman with finer feelings, too. I have my pride.”

      
Slade's face darkened as he fought the inescapable logic of her forthright statement. “If I told you that I needed to convince Sina that we were still going to be married, would you accept that?” He struggled with the unaccustomed need to confide in a woman, something he had not done since boyhood.

      
“You aren't going to marry her?” Her eyes were clouded, but a glimmer of brightness began to surface. She waited.

      
As he swung his feet off the bed and sat up beside her, he uttered several exceedingly vile Anglo-Saxon vulgarities. “I never had much respect for a man who'd use a woman the way Markham has used Sina. Now I'm doing the same thing. Dammit, I don't know what I'll do...what I'll have to do! I owe her family. Her father and mine settled here together, were lifelong friends. Now everything's changed. She's changed.”

      
“Do you still love her?” The question seemed to ask itself. Charlee had to know, since he was using her without qualms.

      
He didn't blink on that one. “No, not the way I did when I first met her, or even the way I did last spring when Jake died and I came courting again. But it's more complicated than that. Hell, I'm not sure I'll ever know what love is, at least the kind you read about in books. What I'm trying to say is that I have obligations I can't get clear of yet, but I want you here, safe, waiting for me so we can settle this thing between us.

      
“I don't know if I love you, either, but I can honestly say no other woman has ever affected me the way you do. Say you'll stay, Charlee, please?” He raised both her hands to his lips now and kissed the backs of them while his eyes locked with hers. It was as near pleading as she would ever hear from Jim Slade, and Charlee knew it. Wordlessly she nodded her agreement.

      
The next morning Slade was gone at first light, off on another of his mysterious errands. If Lee knew where he went in Houston or why, he would not speak of it. Charlee fretted about his half-healed injury and wondered how several grueling days in the saddle would affect it, but she knew no one could keep Jim from doing what he deemed necessary.

      
Slade rode for nearly two days, making a dry camp the first night, pushing Polvo hard and himself harder. He must meet Houston face to face quickly. However, he was not going all the way to Houston City as he had told everyone, but only to the junction of the San Marcos and Guadalupe rivers, for a meeting he and the president had arranged earlier.

      
As he camped the second evening, Slade watched for signs of Houston and for signs of Indians and other marauders. Anything was possible in the wilds of Texas. A man traveling alone was easy prey if he was inexperienced, something Jim Slade decidedly was not. A matched set of .36-caliber Wilkinson over-and-under pistols nestled securely in the sash around his waist, and two Pennsylvania Long Rifles were primed and ready on Polvo's saddle scabbards.

      
When Houston and his entourage arrived around dusk, Slade had coffee made and waiting for them with a small thirst-quenching libation to cut the bitter taste of the strong black brew. Without looking up, he poured a tin cupful and spoke. “Your scouts are slipping. I've heard you clumping around in the brush for the past quarter hour.”

      
“Don't you know I'm supposed to be in Galveston inspecting a customs house? No wonder I lost my way, stumbling around through the bushes!” Houston's laugh boomed out as he reached for the proffered mug. Waving aside the flask, he said, “I no longer imbibe, Jim-boy. Mrs. Houston has reformed a thoroughgoing scoundrel, I'm sad to say at times like this.” With obvious discomfort he squatted on the ground, favoring his bad leg slightly. The shattered ankle had never healed properly.

      
Slade greeted two of the rangers who accompanied the president, men he'd known and worked with since he was a new recruit in a Bexar ranging company. They were rough and unshaven, hard-eyed men who never relaxed their guard while out in the open, seldom even when in civilization. He offered them coffee and then set to fixing a simple meal of beans and hardtack as he and Houston talked. He knew there were at least four more men standing guard at strategic points around the campsite.

      
“I figure we have all night to talk, then I have to ride like hell to Washington-on-the-Brazos in the morning. I received your little pecuniary offering, courtesy of the Comancheros, along with the written communication.” Houston's eyes were fixed on Slade, waiting for him to speak his piece, noting the way he favored his injured side. Little escaped those penetrating, shrewd eyes.

      
“
Little
offering,” Slade retorted. “Then your treasury isn't as bankrupt as you report, Sam. The money's only a small part of it, though, you're right there. I was glad you asked for this meeting. Since we sent that package to you, I've found out a good deal about our friend Ashley Markham.” Slade watched the older man's face, but as usual, the poker expression gave nothing away. Quickly, Slade reviewed Charlee's kidnapping, Brady's death, and Sina's confession. Houston listened to the whole recitation in silence, sipping his coffee and staring into the fire.

      
“You trust her to tell you the truth after all that's happened?” It was a straight question with no overtones of cynicism.

      
“I don't know. God help me, I don't know. Now that I look back over the past years, I see all kinds of things that I never put together before, patterns in her behavior that would’ve made me suspicious of anyone else.”