Chastity (5 page)

    
"Surely you jest!"

    
"Bradford Dillon begged me to marry him!"

    
"The fool thought Father was rich! He beat a fast retreat when he learned your inheritance would be modest, at best!"

    
"He was devastated when I refused his suit!"

    
"Not true."

   
"He suffered terribly!"

    
"Hogwash!"

    
"Harriet, how crude!"

    Aunt Penelope had maintained to the end that marriage was the safest and best road for her to take. Aunt Harriet had urged with relentless zeal that she maintain her personal independence.

    But she had cherished a dream of her own.

    She had been very young when her aunts had assumed her care. It did not take her long, however, to discover the loving natures they found difficult to display. But those dear women were gone now they had died within months of each other. She supposed she should have expected it to happen that way. One sister had never allowed the other to surpass her.

    Her eyes still closed, Chastity reached up to clutch her locket. She had started out a week earlier to make her cherished dream come true, only to find herself involved in this distressing dream that showed no signs of ending.

    Chastity slowly opened her eyes and looked down at the bed.

    This was no dream.

    Staring down into the parson's face, Chastity felt a familiar quiver in the pit of her stomach. The unanswered question returned. What was she doing here? This man with the clear blue eyes and irritable disposition had not spoken a civil word to her, yet she had put aside her own priorities in order to care for him. She had suffered insult and humiliation, and she had actually let her own integrity lapse by allowing the misconception to prevail that she was his
wife
.

    Why?

    That question joined the others as Chastity scrutinized her sleeping patient more closely. The parson's strong grip on her hand had loosened. The medicine had obviously taken effect and he was sleeping soundly at last.

    Chastity glanced at the chair in the corner where the pillow and blanket lying there beckoned her to sleep. Cautiously sliding her hand from his palm, she jumped with a start when Reed's eyes snapped open abruptly. She saw the flash of panic there a moment before he began struggling anew.

    "No, Reed!" Frightened by his sudden anxiety, Chastity grasped his hand and gripped it tight. His gaze met hers with startling intensity as she whispered, "See, I'm still here! I'm sitting on the bed beside you."

    Reed went abruptly still. He blinked as he strained to identify her. Her relief knew no bounds when the tension left his body and his eyes closed.

    Glancing again toward the chair in the corner, Chastity withheld a sigh. Her back was breaking and her eyelids were as heavy as lead. She was so tired. She looked at the unused portion of the bed beside her patient and gave a wistful sigh.

    She was so, so tired.

    It was morning. The night had been filled with confused dreams. His head hurt. His thoughts were muddled. Images of Jenny swam in his mind. He struggled to dismiss them and the familiar anguish they raised.

    Reed opened his eyes slowly. He blinked at the bright glow of the rising sun. Every bone in his body ached. He tried to move, only to realize that the effort was somehow beyond him.

    Where was he? Squinting past the throbbing in his temples, he observed faded wallpaper and mismatched furniture that were vaguely familiar. Yes, he remembered. Jenny was dead, killed in a rustler's raid, and he had made it his mission to see that someone paid for her death. He had received a wire saying that Morgan and his    men had been seen in Sedalia. He had made arrangements to come to Sedalia to meet the fellow who had sent him the wire. But the infection in his leg had worsened, and his journey had become a nightmare. He had finally arrived in Sedalia, and that was where the nightmare had ended.

    But… what was that noise?

    A soft snoring snapped his head toward the bed beside him, and Reed was startled to see a woman in a wrinkled black dress sleeping there. She turned in her sleep, facing him, and memory stirred.

    Her name was Chastity Lawrence. She had wanted to talk.

    He didn't.

    She had said he needed help.

    He didn't want any.

    She had said she wouldn't bother him.

    She did anyway.

    Reed stared harder, uncertain. Was she really lying beside him?

    The woman's eyelids fluttered as if in response to his silent query. Her eyes opened and she met his gaze with a start. Gasping, she sprang to a seated position so quickly that the bed rocked with the force of her movement. He grabbed his leg as the motion started his wound throbbing anew. He groaned aloud as she jumped to her feet and reached for her glasses on the nightstand. They were affixed firmly in place when he managed to say at last, ''What are
you
doing here?"

  "What am I doing here?" Those annoyingly familiar, brownish-green eyes studied him intently through the hideous spectacles. "Do you remember who I am?"

    He glared. "How could I forget?"

    "Who am I?"

    "Don't you know?"

    "I asked a civil question."

    He chose not to reply.

    It occurred to Reed through his pain that Chastity Lawrence's gaze had turned deadly.

    Oh, he really was an odious man…

    Breathing deeply, Chastity struggled for the control fast eluding her. It was almost beyond comprehension that this rude, insolent individual was the same man who had whispered so lovingly to herto his Jennya few hours ago. It was even more difficult to remember that he was a man of the cloth!

    Reed pushed his coverlet impatiently to his waist, revealing the broad, naked expanse of his shoulders and chest, and Chastity's discomfort increased. She reminded herself that he was ill, in considerable pain, and not fully responsible for his behavior. She attempted to assess him clinically. She saw that his hair, formerly dark with perspiration, was a soft, sun streaked blond against his furrowed brow. His gaze, formerly disoriented and bright with fever, was clearer, and the skin of his cheeks, where visible above his ragged beard, appeared less flushed. He   jerked back as she attempted to touch her palm to his forehead.

    Chastity's lips twitched with annoyance. "I was merely trying to see if your temperature was normal."

    "I'm fine."

    "No, you aren't." Chastity forced a level tone. "Your leg is infected. Dr. Carr was worried that he might be forced to remove it."

    The clear blue of his eyes frosted. "That would've been a mistake."

    The sound of the door opening behind her prevented Chastity's reply. She turned toward Dr. Carr as he entered. Suddenly realizing that his misconception about their relationship was about to be humiliatingly revealed, she took an unsteady step back.

    "Are you all right?" Immediately at her side, Dr. Carr assessed Chastity's lack of color and the shadows beneath her eyes. He patted her arm. "It's nothing a little rest wouldn't cure, is it, dear?"

    Dr. Carr turned to face his patient without waiting for her reply. He smiled. "Well, well… lucid at last." He extended his hand. "My name is Dr. Carr. Most people call me Doc. If you don't mind, I'll continue to call you by your given name, Reed. You're not wearing your collar, and I'm more comfortable with things that way." Shaking Reed's hand firmly, he then touched his palm to Reed's forehead. "Your fever's down, too. So, let's take a look at that leg."

    Throwing back the coverlet, exposing Reed's   semi- nakedness without warning, Dr. Carr began removing the bandage on his thigh. Reed's gaze snapped to hers, and Chastity felt her color rise. She was somehow unable to move as Dr. Carr continued in a more serious tone, "I wonder if you're fully aware how dangerous your condition was, Reed. I heard part of your conversation with Chastity as I entered. I can understand that you were disturbed at the thought of possibly losing your leg, but I'm not pleased by your attitude. Of course, since we were able to draw much of the poison from the wound, there's not much chance of such drastic measures being necessary now."

    He paused, his gaze narrowing as he looked up. "That is, unless you do something stupid, like trying to be up and around before you're ready." Dr. Carr's gray brows knit as he posed a question he had asked several times before. "How did a parson manage to get a bullet wound, anyway?"

    "I made the mistake of getting in the middle of a gunfight."

    Dr. Carr frowned. "You should've had more sense." He turned toward Chastity. "Why did you let him do such a crazy thing?"

    Reed replied sharply in her stead. "What I did had nothing to do with her."

    "That's enough of that talk!" Chastity jumped at the unexpected harshness of Dr. Carr's response. Her eyes widened as the gray-haired doctor continued with no lessening of fervor, "I won't have you talking to this woman that way!

   You don't seem to realize what you owe her. To my mind, Chastity accomplished something just short of a miracle in managing to get you from the train station to Main Street all by herself. And I have no doubt at all that if Tom Wright and Jerry Potter hadn't helped her out, she would've gotten you the rest of the way to my office by herself, too."

    Dr. Carr glanced back at Chastity where she still stood frozen to the spot. "I have to admit I wasn't too easy on her at first, blaming her the way I did for letting your wound fester. But she redeemed herself in my eyes that first night, and it's pretty obvious to me now that you're a hard case and probably not easy to live with, even if you do wear a parson's collar. A fact you might try to keep in mind while you're lying there is that I worked on you for three hours straight after Chastity got you into my office, and
she
worked right beside me. She took my orders without complaint until
I
was too tired to go on. After we brought you here, she stayed with you and watched over you while I went to get some rest. You couldn't ask much more than that from any woman! So, I expect you to keep a civil tongue in your mouth with Chastity while I'm present, or I just might forget how sick you are."

    Appearing unfazed by the doctor's rebuke, Reed replied tersely, "I'm not sick."

    "You are, too, dammit!
I'll
be the one to tell you when you're not! And don't you forget it!"

    Uncovering the wound at last, Dr. Carr nodded. "All right, take a look at that, and then tell me you didn't have a close call."

    Chastity caught her breath. The exposed wound was red and swollen. Pus oozed from a small, round point of puncture made by a single bullet. Somehow more affected at that moment than she had been the first time she saw it, she felt herself sway. She caught herself as Reed glanced sharply in her direction.

    Dr. Carr continued, "As bad as it still looks, it's much improved. But we're going to have to keep drawing out the poison." He looked at Chastity. "Your job isn't over yet, dear."

    Dr. Carr looked back at his patient. When Reed stared emotionlessly at him, he stated flatly, "You're a strange fellow, for a parson. If I hadn't seen how you really feel about this woman when you were fevered and unable to hide it, I'd think you were as cold as ice. As it is, all I can say is that anybody but a fool would realize that you're a lucky man to have a woman like Chastity for a wife."

    …
a
wife…

    Dr. Carr had said it.

    Chastity closed her eyes, silently groaning as she waited for Reed's explosive reaction.

    It did not come.

    Cautiously opening her eyes, Chastity saw Reed staring at her.

    "I'm going to bandage your leg lightly for the time being." Apparently attributing the uneasy silence to his harsh reprimand, Dr. Carr continued, "No sense in doing anything else right now,   since Chastity'll be applying hot compresses on it again as soon as you've had time for breakfast."

    "I'm not hungry."

    Ignoring Reed's curt reply, Dr. Carr turned toward Chastity. "Make sure he eats and drinks a lot of water, too. If you're not too tired, you might help him wash up a bit afterward. He could use some freshening up."