Desperate Hearts (11 page)

At the opposite end of town, Jace spotted
Doc Sherwood’s house. Its windows were as dark as the others.

“
Goddamn it to hell!” he
swore viciously. A piece of paper nailed to the front door
fluttered in the chill wind that moaned down the corridor of
abandoned buildings. He dismounted and took the porch stairs in two
leaps to read a weather-bleached note that said Dr. Miles Sherwood
had passed away last spring.

So be it, then, Jace decided grimly,
crumpling the paper in his gloved fist. He didn’t know why the job
had fallen to him, of all people. But it was up to him to take care
of Kyla Springer Bailey.

* * *

“
All right, all right, I’m
coming! Keep your britches on and stop that pounding.”

The long shade covering the door of
DeGroot’s Mercantile flew up, and Jace stared at the balding,
bespectacled man who gaped at him from the other side of the glass.
A napkin was tucked into the collar of his shirt and behind him, a
light shown from the living quarters in back of the store.

Several seconds passed before Albert DeGroot
tore his astonished gaze away to fumble with the lock and open the
door. The familiar scents of coffee, cured meat, and spices rolled
over Jace, along with the smell of an evening meal.

“
Jace Rankin, I’ll be
danged! If this ain’t a surprise! It’s been a long time since you
were through these parts—why I b’lieve it’s been a year or better.
It was after that sorry day at the Rose and Garter. I was just now
setting down to supper. The missus and I usually eat about this
time of—”

“
I need to buy some
things,” Jace interrupted, pushing his way into the store. He’d
forgotten how yappy the man was.

Albert glanced down at the Henry in Rankin’s
hand. “Well, uh, sure, sure!” He yanked the napkin from his
shirtfront and hurried behind the counter to light a lamp.

Jace fired off a list that included
bandages, canned food, coffee, and another bottle of whiskey.

“
I only have moonshine from
the Grover sisters,” Albert reported, holding up a mason jar full
of honey-colored liquid. “We don’t get hardly any whiskey shipments
through here anymore.”

“
It’ll do,” Jace
countered.

“
What brings you to
Misfortune this time, Mr. Rankin?” He glanced over his shoulder and
shot Jace an eager, confidential look. “Hunting a bank robber?
Maybe a killer? ’Course I have my hands full with this store, but I
always thought my true calling was to be a lawman of some
kind.”

Jace stifled the urge to laugh. He’d
encountered this attitude more times than he could remember: men
with safe, boring lives who postured before their shaving mirrors,
pretending to face make-believe outlaws. Men who rarely even
handled firearms and imagined that being a bounty hunter was
exciting.

He had never thought of it as exciting,
except for those times when someone like Hobie McIntyre pointed a
gun at him, holding his life on the point of a moment. That wasn’t
the type of excitement he wanted—the kind that triggered his
survival instinct and left his insides churning for hours
afterward. But he couldn’t let the pressure show—he had to keep it
hidden. That kind of life could tell on a man eventually.

He walked over to a stack of boys’ clothing
and rummaged through them until he found a small pair of jeans and
a blue shirt. If Kyla had to dress as a boy, she might as well have
clothes that weren’t bloody or gunshot. He threw them on the pine
counter. “Put these on the bill, too.”

Albert peered over the tops of his
spectacles at the denims, his wispy brows raised. “Those pants
ain’t going to fit you.”

Jace stared at him and made no response.
Nervously, Albert whisked them into the pile of other
merchandise.

“
This town has changed
plenty since you were last here,” he said, moving from shelf to
shelf to fill the order. “It’s gotten nigh on to impossible to keep
this store. If it weren’t for the farmers—”

“
Where are Travis and Chloe
McGuire?” Jace asked.

As if the question signaled a pause for
conversation, Albert stopped and rested his elbows on the counter.
“They moved to Baker City. Let’s see . . . they left in June, a few
weeks after old Doc Sherwood died. That McGuire feller made a big
gold strike up in the hills here. He and Chloe wanted to go
somewheres more lively, I guess. Can’t say as I blame them.” He
shook his head and chuckled. “The old-time prospectors around here,
Lordy, they were mad enough to chew horseshoe nails. Who’d have
guessed some outsider would come in here and dig up a fortune,
considering the rest of ’em have been scratchin’ around up there
since—”

God, the man was a lunkhead, Jace thought
irritably. He had no sense of urgency, no hint that he was getting
on Jace’s nerves. He leaned close until his face was mere inches
from Albert’s. “I’m in a hurry,” he said softly, letting impatience
slide into his tone.

Albert lurched upright. “Oh, sure, right
away.” He grabbed a sack of sugar. “Did you say you were here to
visit McGuire?”

“
No, I didn’t say. What
about the house? Who owns it?”

“
Well, I guess they still
do. McGuire paid off the mortgage and it ain’t like there was
someone around here begging to buy it. He wouldn’t tell what they
planned to do in Baker City. It was always so blamed hard to get
information out of that feller.” Albert shrugged. “They just took
what they could carry away in a wagon, happy as two peas in a pod,
and left the rest. They could sure afford to buy whatever they
needed when they got there. That was a real step up for Chloe, I’ll
tell you. She scraped along for years after her father died. You
know that’s how she and that McGuire feller came to meet. Looking
for a blacksmith, she was and he . . .”

The man prattled on, but his voice faded to
a drone in the back of Jace’s mind. That was good news about the
house, and it explained why some of the furniture was still there.
They wouldn’t mind, then, if he and Kyla had to stay there for a
while.

He glanced out the window—full darkness had
fallen. He needed to get back to her. She was burning with fever
and hadn’t eaten for two days. He inhaled the aroma of food
again—

“
You said you were just
sitting down for dinner?”

Albert waved a hand affably. “Oh, well now,
don’t you worry about that. It’ll keep for a few min—”

“
What are you
having?”

“
Mrs. DeGroot makes the
best chicken stew in eastern—”

“
I’ll take that, too.” He
plucked a crock from a pyramid of jars on display. “Put it in here.
I’ll pay you for the jar and the stew.”

“
But that’s our—I mean—our
supper—”

Worry and fatigue exhausted his patience.
Jace pulled five silver dollars out of his pocket and began
flipping them at the astounded shopkeeper, one at a time. Five
dollars was more than any meal was worth.

Albert scrambled to catch the coins, but a
couple of them bounced off his chest and rolled across the
floor.

Jace reached across the counter and gently
grasped Albert by his shirtfront. He pulled him close, and
murmured, “Now you shut up a minute and listen to me. I’ve got a
sick boy to look after and I don’t have time to think about how
we’re going to eat. I’ll buy this stew from you, and I’ll pay your
wife good money to cook and bring the food to the McGuire house
every day until we leave.” He released him and tossed the last
dollar to him. “Have we got a deal?”

Albert, speechless for once, could only
nod.

“
Good. Then I’ll take that
stew now.”

The shopkeeper gripped the crock in an
unsteady hand and disappeared into the back for a moment. A moment
of heated murmured discussion followed, punctuated by the sound of
an indignant female voice. At last Albert reappeared with the jar,
redolent and steaming with stew, and placed it in the box
containing his other purchases.

“
Mrs. DeGroot said she’d be
happy to do your cooking, Mr. Rankin,” he said, his smile wobbly on
his now-ashen face.

Jace nodded and paid for the merchandise.
“I’ll expect her tomorrow morning, then.”

Hoisting the box, he turned and walked out
the door. He glanced back once and through the window saw Albert
DeGroot scuttling around on his hands and knees picking up the
silver dollars.

Maybe Kyla was right, he pondered as he
untied his horse. Maybe every man did have his price.

CHAPTER FIVE

“
Leave me alone!” Kyla
thrashed and kicked on the bed, scowling at Jace as if he were a
murderer, her eyes wild and unseeing, Her boot heel connected hard
with his arm and he scowled back.

“
Ow! Damn it, Kyla, hold
still!” he snapped, tired and frustrated.

Where did she find the energy to fight like
this, sick as she was? Some private demon chased her through her
delirium, he was certain of that, making his job too hard.

After he’d put the horses away in the shop,
he carried her upstairs to this bedroom, grateful to find a
bedstead here, as well as one in the small adjoining room. The
mattress was, bare, but it beat sleeping on the ground in the rain.
In the hall he had found a battered chest of drawers that contained
threadbare linens, including patched towels and sheets, all worn as
thin as tissue paper. How to make the bed with her on it was a
chore he would think about later.

Right now, he was trying to undress her, and
having no luck. The best he’d been able to do was get her out of
her coat and pull off one boot. He reached for the other one.

“
Don’t you dare touch me
again, Tom!” she warned. Her husky voice was full of anger and
fear. “I swear I’ll get Pa’s shotgun and blow your goddamned head
off!”

Hardesty, again, he thought, adding another
black mark to the man’s name in his mind.

“
I’m not Hardesty, Kyla!”
he shouted back, trying to make her see reason. “I’m
Jace!”

He jammed his hand through his hair. This
was ridiculous, they were getting nowhere. He stood with the boot
in his hand, wondering how to proceed. Her struggling had caused
the wound on her arm to begin to bleed again, and it had to be
tended. But she fought like a wild mare every time she felt his
touch.

Wild mare.

An idea came to him. This was an area he
knew something about; he had gentled his share of horses. A quiet
voice and a light touch sometimes worked wonders. Maybe the
technique would work with Kyla, too. He pulled a spindle-backed
chair close to the bed and sat down.

“
Kyla, girl, listen now,”
he said, keeping his voice low and soothing. He leaned close.
“You’re safe. No one is going to hurt you. We’re in Misfortune, in
the McGuires’s house. Travis and Chloe moved away, but they won’t
mind if we use the place. We’re going to rest here for a while,
till you’re better.”

Her face was still flushed and damp.
Checking for fever, he touched her forehead. She jerked away. If
anything, she felt hotter than before. For a lucid instant her eyes
locked with his and he saw her terror. He had no idea if she
understood what he was saying, or was just responding to the
sound.

He hurried on, trying to quell her fear.
“We’ve done some hard traveling lately, and that shoot-out in Cord
really put a kink in our rope. Your arm is starting to fester and
we need to take care of it.”

Her eyes drifted shut, and a small frown
lodged between her brows and stayed there. She turned her head from
side to side, but she was quieter, mumbling now and then.

Carefully, Jace put his hand over hers where
it rested on the blue-striped mattress tick. She didn’t pull away.
It was hot, too, and surprisingly soft considering “Kyle’s”
roughneck appearance. Her fingers were long and slender, their
smoothness a remnant of the woman who remained hidden. It felt nice
to lay his palm over her hand, he admitted to himself. Nicer than
he wanted.

She stopped fussing.

He broke the contact. Leaving the chair, he
paced to the end of the bed.

“
Well—we’ve got to change
your clothes. There are no two ways about it.” He kept his voice
down, but his tone became businesslike. He’d never felt as awkward
as he did now. A flush crept up his neck and heated his
face.

He had undressed women in his time, slowly
and quickly, depending on the urgency of the moment, with no
hesitation or fumbling. But this was the damnedest situation he had
ever found himself in. It had nothing to do with pleasure. If it
had, at least he’d know what to do. But he was Kyla’s doctor by
default and that seemed to make things more difficult instead of
easier.

For a moment he considered going to the
general store to bring DeGroot’s wife back here to help. He rubbed
his stubbled chin. No, that wouldn’t work. She was probably as nosy
and annoying as her husband. And anyway, he had to protect Kyla’s
true identity. Eventually, Hardesty’s men were going to come after
them again. Whether it was Hobie McIntyre or someone else, the
fewer who knew about her the better.

Like it or not, he was the man for this
job.

“
I made a deal with the
owner of the general store to have his wife to cook for us,” he
continued conversationally. “After all, you won’t be up to shooting
any rabbits for a few days. But I didn’t tell anyone who you are or
why we came here.”

Kyla settled down, stilled by his words. He
grasped her ankle and pulled off her other boot, dropping it on the
floor.

He knew that sitting her up to take off her
shirt would be impossible; she would start fighting him again.
There was only one thing to do. He reached for the long-bladed
hunting knife at his waist. It would be tricky, but the blade was
sharp and he was fast—