Lynna Banning (24 page)

“T
here he is!” a voice shouted. “Up on the rim!”

Shading her eyes from the glare of the sinking sun, Jessamyn stared up the mountainside where Zed Marsh pointed. A dark figure on horseback was silhouetted against the salmon-and-lilac-flamed sky.

His head bent, holding the horse’s reins with one hand and keeping the other arm close to his body, the rider labored along the steeply descending trail. Five pairs of eyes followed his every halting move.

“Damn,” Gus swore softly. “He’s really hurtin’. Look how he holds himself. In all the years I’ve known him, I never saw Ben ride so stiff.”

Carleton Kearney kneed his horse forward. “He looks saddle-drunk to me. I’m going up after him.”

Jessamyn lifted her reins. “I’ll go with you.”

“No, you won’t,” Gus said quietly. “You got enough petticoats on under that skirt to sink Miz Boult’s mare in the middle of the river.”

“All right, let’s go,” Gus called. “Zed, you and Silas find some solid footing this side of the ford.” The big Norwegian kicked his mount into a canter to catch up with Carleton’s chestnut, already bounding toward the river shallows.

Jessamyn watched the two men skirt the bank of the tumbling Umpqua. When they reached the smoother waters of the ford, they swam their mounts across to the opposite side and started up the mountain. Straining her eyes, she watched the bent figure of Ben Kearney jolt down the trail toward the two men riding to meet him.

Slowly, far too slowly to suit her, the distance between them narrowed. She fidgeted on the mare, expecting Ben to pitch out of his saddle at any moment. The farther down he got on the sloping trail, the more clearly she could see how he swayed on the gelding’s back.

She sucked in her breath. Dear Lord, don’t let him fall! The effort of remounting or, worse, being carried down the mountainside would probably kill him.

Silas and Zed stepped their horses forward and Jessamyn reined her mare in behind. The animals’ hooves clattered on the rock-lined riverbank, the sound like hundreds of pot lids clashing in an echoey kitchen. Jessamyn thought of Cora, her eyes wet, her wide jaw trembling at the news that Walks Dancing had gone with Jeremiah and the sheriff had been shot. The housekeeper had insisted the men bring Ben to the white frame house so she and Jessamyn could “tend him proper.” It was only common sense, the widow reminded them.

Common sense, Jessamyn thought with a surge of emotion, wasn’t so common. Waiting for the man who was turning her heart—and her life—upside down, she realized how much she valued the down-to-earth good sense people showed out here in the West. They seemed able to rise to any challenge. More than all the riches of the Orient, she valued Cora Boult and the four men who now worked to bring Ben safely down the mountain.

“Hurry up!” one of the men shouted ahead of her. “They’ve almost reached him!”

Without thinking, Jessamyn kicked her mare. Her petticoats
fluttered out from under her skirt as the animal jolted forward. She hadn’t taken time to change into her jeans, but instead had hastily bunched up her skirt to mount astride. Propriety be damned—it was time that mattered here. Ben’s life hung in the balance.

She raced to the fording place and halted. The waters of the Umpqua shone like polished copper where the current eddied about huge, black boulders. Tipping her head up, Jessamyn saw the shadowed figure of the tall man slump forward over the saddle horn.

She cried out, covered her mouth with her hand and watched Gus and Carleton struggle up the trail to reach him. Carefully the two riders turned their horses on the narrow path. One man dismounted and reached out to catch the gelding’s bridle; the other stepped his horse close and laid his arm across Ben’s inert body. The three men inched their way slowly down the mountain to the river’s edge as the sky overhead purpled with the setting sun.

Jessamyn fought back sobs. He was dead. He must be, otherwise he would sit upright. Tears slipped down her cheeks, bathed her chin. Choking with grief, she swept them away with the back of her hand.

He couldn’t be dead, he just couldn’t! Only a few nights ago he had given her a new, wondrous understanding of herself and her life. He could not leave her after that. God simply would not let him!

Rage tore through her. It wasn’t fair! The glorious, frighteningly intense thing they had found with each other—it couldn’t be over forever. She refused to believe it. God would not show her such beauty with a man and then let her live without him.

Silas’s voice rang out. “They’re coming across! Get another rope!”

Jessamyn slid out of the saddle. Shaking, she stumbled past Zed Marsh’s horse and waded out into the water. She
had to reach him, touch him. Even if he was dead, she had. to be with him.

“Jessamyn!” Gus shouted from the middle of the river. “Go back! Go back!”

She froze, felt the current tug at her petticoats. A rope sailed out to her left, settled over the dark gelding swimming ahead of Gus’s white mare. Another rope dropped over her own shoulders.

She fought on toward Ben, saw Carleton loop the rope around the tall figure slipping into the water. “Pull!” he yelled.

The rope went taut.

Carleton rode toward her, water spraying from his hair and his clothing. He grabbed her outstretched arm. “He’s alive!”

Oh, thank God.
Thank God!
She turned back toward the bank, clutched the rope as it tightened around her shoulders. A hand grasped her elbow from behind, propelled her forward into Zed Marsh’s bony arms. Behind her, horses splashed and clattered onto the river bank.

“Got him,” Gus yelled. “But I sure hope Miz Boult’s got some water boiling. The man’s spent.”

Her clothing drenched, Jessamyn rode at Ben’s side, one hand holding on to his shoulder. Blood seeped under her fingers. Carleton rode on the opposite side, his arm steadying his brother’s limp form.

Jessamyn gripped Ben’s shoulder with all the strength she had left. “Don’t you dare die, Ben Kearney,” she sobbed. “And that’s an order! I’ve got lots and lots to give a man—things I’ve been s-saving up all my life. So you just keep breathing, and you stay on this horse until we get to town. Do you hear me, Ben? And…and then—”

Her voice broke. And then what? Was he so weakened by his ordeal no doctor could save him?

“Stay alive!” she choked out. “Damn your Rebel hide, I’ll n-never forgive you if you don’t live through this!”

Carleton flashed her a look over Ben’s still form. “You’ll be lucky if you both don’t die of pneumonia. You’re soaking wet and shivering. Here.” He tossed her a blanket, then spread another over his brother’s back.

Cora, Jessamyn thought irrationally, will have a fit with this water all over her floor. As she rode, she tried to wring out the excess moisture with her free hand.

The elderly housekeeper met them at the front porch, a lantern in one hand, a bottle of what looked like whiskey in the other. Gus dismounted. Bolting up the steps three at a time, he snatched the whiskey out of her grasp and kissed her soundly on both cheeks.

“Stop your lollygagging!” Cora snapped. “Neither of us got time for any such tomfoolery. Take Ben right on into the kitchen—Doc Bartel’s waitin’.”

The four men locked their wrists and forearms to fashion a dead man’s carry, then edged Ben’s limp figure down the hallway. Jessamyn stumbled after them.

In the warm kitchen the men laid Ben out on the long wooden table. Red-haired Dr. Bartel bent over him, one ear to his bare chest. “Still beating,” the physician muttered. “But for the life of me, I don’t see how.”

He straightened. “Clear out, all of you,” he said. “You, too, Jessamyn. Gus, give her a shot of that whiskey—she looks white as Cora’s bedsheets.”

Too exhausted and heartsick to climb the stairs and change out of her wet garments, Jessamyn went down the front steps and squeezed her sodden skirts out on Cora’s prize damask rosebush. All at once she remembered that afternoon in the kitchen when Gus and Silas, and finally Ben, had come calling.

“Don’t marry
him,”
Cora had instructed, watching both the liveryman and the sandy-haired rancher out the kitchen
window. About Ben she had said nothing, and now Jessamyn understood why. More common sense. If Jessamyn was not smart enough to see Ben’s quality for herself, she didn’t deserve to be his wife.

Cold and weary as she was, she laughed out loud. But she
was
smart. And she most certainly did see!

She wanted Ben Kearney more than anything else in the world.

Cora’s voice woke her out of an exhausted sleep. “Jessamyn! Come quick!”

Jessamyn scrambled out of bed and raced down the stairs in her white lawn nightdress.

Cora met her at the door of Ben’s room. “He’s awake! He’s askin’ for you.”

Tears burned into Jessamyn’s eyes as she hugged the older woman. She tiptoed to the bed as the door shut quietly behind her. “Ben?”

The dark lashes twitched, then lifted. Gray-blue eyes tried to focus on her face. “Jess?”

“Yes, Ben. I’m here.” She laid her hand on his forearm.

He turned his palm up, moved so his fingers pressed hers. “Last night when I got to the river, were you wearing petticoats?”

“Petticoats!” Jessamyn frowned. What did her petticoats have to do with anything? He must be out of his head with fever.

“Yes, I was. But that was four nights ago. You’ve been here at the house for the past three days.”

“Thought it was you,” Ben said, his voice weakening. “All the way down that mountain I saw something white moving across the river. I told myself it was you. I kept riding toward those white ruffles—figured if you could mount a horse in petticoats, I could damn well live long enough to take a good look.”

“It was me, Ben. I came with the men—Gus and Carleton and the others—to find you.”

“Yes. I knew if I kept moving toward you, toward all those starched white ruffles down below me… I knew it had to be you. Nobody else wears that many petticoats.”

Jessamyn started and withdrew her hand from his. “Now, how would you know that?”

Ben ignored the question. “Think I might not have made it if you’d—”

Jessamyn held her breath.

“—covered up your underclothes.”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. What a thing to say to a lady.

“Should always wear petticoats,” he murmured, his voice drowsy. “It gave me something to…”

Ben shifted his body, his breath hissing in as he moved. “Jeremiah?” he asked, his voice gravelly.

“He’s gone, Ben,” she said softly. “Jeremiah said he’s just following your orders. Try to look beyond it.”

Ben caught her hand, held it hard against his cheek. “When I get up out of this bed tomorrow, I want you to ride out from town a ways with me.”

“Of course,” she soothed.
Ride!
The man had no notion how seriously he’d been injured.

“Shoulder hurts,” he mumbled.

In a tumbler of water, Jessamyn mixed half a teapoon of the laudanum Dr. Bartel had left, and held it to Ben’s fevercracked lips. She got three swallows down him before he drifted off to sleep.

Too keyed-up to go back to bed, Jessamyn dressed and went over to the news office. She tried to work, struggled to keep her thoughts focused on writing out her stories and setting them in type. But her mind was on Ben, not the newspaper.

W
ith a groan of exhaustion, Jessamyn managed to lock up the last frame for her weekly
Wildwood Times
edition. It was a good issue, she acknowledged. But it was four days late. Unable to sleep after Ben had finally regained consciousness, she’d worked all night at the news office. After breakfast she’d slip into his room, just to check on him.

Just as she finished wiping the grime off her hands, the news office door swung open and the sheriff strode inside, his spurs chinging.

“Ben!” she gasped. “What in the world are you doing out of bed?”

He chuckled. “You know, that’s just what Cora said.” Gingerly, he leaned his tall frame against the wood door frame.

Jessamyn scooted off the high typesetter’s stool. “Ben Kearney, does Cora know you’re here?”

“Oh, hell, yes, Jessamyn. I heard about the bath those gentlemen gave Goliath.”

“Bath?”

He gestured toward the iron printing press. “It won’t happen again. I’ll ride over to Scottsburg to press my point.”

“Ride! You just got out of bed. You’re not able to— Ben, it doesn’t matter. The press doesn’t mat—”

Ben held up a restraining hand. “Before I go, Cora said to give you a message.”

“A message? What message?”

“She said to tell you to remember the view out the kitchen window.”

“She said
what?
The kitch—Oh!” A flush of heat warmed her cheeks. “Oh, yes. I—I do remember.”

His eyebrows rose. Shaking his head, he addressed a remark to the ceiling. “I never will understand a woman.” A flicker of pain crossed his tanned features.

Jessamyn smiled up at him. “You don’t have to understand me. You just have to…” She moved to face him. Gently, she touched his chest.

Ben sucked his breath in between his teeth.

“It still hurts, doesn’t it?” Jessamyn asked quietly.

“Some. I’ll get over it.”

She shot him a quick look. “All of it? Whatever it was between you and Jeremiah? And…and Lorena?”

Ben hesitated, then reached out and pulled her into his arms. “All of it.”

She smiled into his smoke-colored eyes, felt his arms tighten around her, his hands stroke up and down her spine.

She leaned her forehead against his shirtfront. He needed her. She had given her body, her soul, to this man, and she knew it had helped him come to terms with himself. If he could just accept her love, he could learn to see the beauty, the excitement, of life again.

“It won’t be easy, will it?” she breathed. He knew what she meant—he wouldn’t be standing here holding her like this if he didn’t.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, Jess, I want you with me.”

She hesitated. “I—I want to be with you, Ben. Like we were at the cabin.”

He was silent a long time. When he spoke, his voice was low and gentle. “We don’t have a cabin here, honey. There’s only Cora’s extra bedroom and the sheriff’s quarters across the street. Either way, it’ll cause talk. You’re a respectable lady, and I’m—”

“I—I know. But it will be worth it”

Ben groaned deep in his throat. “I can stand up, Jess. And I might be able to ride. But with this bullet hole in me, I’m not going to be able to…”

“It won’t matter. I want to be with you,” she insisted, her voice quiet. “It’s worth everything, Ben. Trust me.”

He tipped her chin up and studied her face, a thoughtful expression in his eyes. “If I thought…”

Suddenly he pulled her close. “You weren’t thinking of marrying me, were you?” he said against her hair.

Jessamyn tilted her face up to his. “Oh, no,” she said, her voice dreamy. “I certainly wasn’t.”

He kissed her, his mouth gentle at first, then moving on hers with purposeful invitation. “Good,” he whispered when he released her. “I wouldn’t hold much hope in that direction if I were you.”

“Oh, I won’t,” she promised.

But she knew better. She’d known it ever since that night at the cabin. Ben Kearney had given her his body because he’d already entrusted her with his heart.

She’d waited days for him to realize it. She knew he wanted her as much as she wanted him, that he needed her, longed to spend the rest of his life with her. It was just hard for him to say out loud.

And it really didn’t matter, because it was what she wanted, too. Her heart would stop beating if she couldn’t be with him.

His arms went around her again. Bending his head, he
brushed her lips with his, then caught her mouth under his with sweet, hot urgency.

“In that case,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “how about next Sunday?”

Jessamyn laughed softly. Lacing her fingers behind Ben’s neck, she stretched up on tiptoe until her mouth again grazed his.

“I wouldn’t think of it,” she lied.