One Texas Night (40 page)

Sergeant Cunningham returned with whiskey he claimed was for McCord when he woke up. Anna hardly noticed the sergeant moving around the room trying to find a comfortable spot. She talked only to Wynn as she worked, telling him everything she was doing and what kind of scar he’d have when she was finished. Over and over, she said, “You’re going to make it through this. Hang in there. You’re going to be good as new once you heal.”

Finally, when she leaned back to rest her back a moment, the sergeant placed his hand on her shoulder. “He’ll come back to you, Anna.” He barked out a laugh. “Hell, if a fine woman like you ordered me to, I’d come back from hell itself, and I reckon McCord feels the same way.”

An hour passed. Cunningham began sampling the whiskey. Clark slept on a cot in the corner, snoring away. Anna worked, with memories of a hundred hospital camps after a hundred battles floating in her mind. All of the horror she’d worked through, all the exhaustion, all of the skills she’d learned, all boiled down to this day, this time, this man.

If she could save him, all the years would be worth it.

“I’m never giving up on you, Wynn, so you might as well decide to live because I’m not letting you die,” she whispered. “I hear Rangers are made of iron. Well, you’d better be. You’re going to come out of this. Hear me good.”

Finally she finished and wrapped the wound where a bullet had dug its way across Wynn’s back. He’d lost so much blood she was surprised he was still breathing, but she could feel the slow rise and fall of his chest and the warmth of his skin against her touch.

Exhausted, she pulled a stool beside the table and leaned her face near his. “You’re going to be all right, soldier. Hang on. I’m not going to let you die.” Her fingers dug into his hair and made a fist. “I’m expecting you to come knocking on my door one day, and when you do you might as well plan on staying because I don’t think I can let you go.”

She fell asleep in the middle of a sentence, with McCord’s shallow breath brushing her cheek.

In what seemed like minutes, someone woke her to tell her breakfast was ready. It took her a minute to realize that twenty-four hours had passed since they’d brought McCord in.

Anna left her meal untouched as she walked around Wynn, checking the wound, feeling his skin for fever. Wishing he’d open his eyes.

Finally, at Cunningham’s insistence, she ate a few bites and drank a cup of tea. Clark ate everything in sight. Men took over the sergeant’s watch by the door so he could get some sleep, and the day passed in silence.

Lieutenant Dodson tapped on the open door to the office just before dark. He waited until she nodded for him to enter, then removed his hat. She had no doubt he’d heard about what had happened, probably including small details like how she’d stabbed one of the outlaws with her scissors when he’d tried to tie her hands after she’d pulled free. Hopefully Clark had left out the ways the outlaw called Luther had threatened to rape her before they killed her. The words he’d used still made her cheeks burn.

Pushing aside the memory, she stared at the pale officer her brother had said couldn’t afford to be too picky in finding a wife. That dinner her first night in camp seemed more like a hundred years ago rather than just a week.

Lieutenant Dodson began talking as if giving a speech. Anna barely followed along. The man liked to hear his own voice.

Anna didn’t say much. Dodson had been politely cold to her both times they’d met and had obviously seen her only as a possible solution to
his
problem. Now he seemed to look at her quite differently. He even told her he had always admired tall women who could carry themselves well. It appeared, since she’d survived a kidnapping, her value had gone up in his eyes.

The change in the lieutenant bothered Anna far more than his flattery did. She was glad when the sergeant showed up for his nightly guard duty before Dodson lied and said that she was pretty. Anna had always known she was simply plain.

She didn’t want to hear words she knew weren’t sincere; she wanted to see the way a man felt in his face, and read the truth of his compliments in a touch.

All in all, she’d been lucky: two men in her life had been blind enough to see her as beautiful. One had been young and in love with love. The other lay on the table before her. She had no doubt, despite their shortsightedness, that both men had believed every word they said.

The lieutenant invited her to dine with him and Anna declined. She didn’t even give a reason. She just said, “No, thank you.”

The moment he’d gone, Cunningham closed the door. “Anna,” he began in his slow, polite way that hinted they’d been friends for years and not days. “You need to get some sleep. I’ll stay awake tonight and if McCord so much as twitches, I’ll yell out for you. With the tent so close you’ll probably hear him anyway.”

Anna shook her head. “I’d like to have a proper bath and a clean change of clothes, but after that, I’ll be back.”

Cunningham looked like he thought it would be a waste of time to argue.

Chapter 10

McCord felt his body moving through layers of muddy water, floating slowly to the surface. He forced himself to take a deep breath and swore he smelled buffalo. He hated buffalo. Orneriest creatures God ever made. The only thing worse than having them roam over the plains, eating every blade of grass for miles, was seeing the thousands of carcasses rotting after the hunters shot them.

He tried to swallow, but couldn’t. His mouth felt like it was packed with sand.

Opening one eye, he noticed he was lying on what looked like a buffalo hide, and just beyond that was a mass of midnight hair. “Anna,” he whispered.

She raised her head and looked at him with eyes heavy with sleep. Her mouth opened slightly in surprise. “Wynn,” she whispered, as if she’d just been dreaming of him.

She looked delicious. He moved to kiss her and felt the stab of a dozen knives in his back.

“Don’t move,” she ordered, her hand on his shoulder.

Memories came back with the pain. The feel of her beneath him a moment before fire crossed his back. Floating in darkness, unable to open his eyes. The sound of her voice constantly talking to him, pulling him closer to shore, not letting him sink away from the pain . . . away from life.

He closed his eyes and tried to think. Maybe he had died. It would be just his luck that hell would be full of Yankees and they’d all be talking.

He opened one eye again. No. He was alive and Anna was sitting beside him. He caught her fingers when she touched his hand, gripping tight, needing to know that she was real. Almost losing her had tortured his mind for days, and when he’d watched her fall off the horse he swore his heart stopped until he saw her rolling on the ground.

The fingers of her free hand brushed through his hair. “You’re going to be all right, Wynn. Just rest. You’ve lost a lot of blood. Sleep now.”

He smiled and closed his eyes, thinking of how he liked the way she said his first name. He hadn’t heard a woman say his name in years.

When he woke again, morning shone through the windows, but the face in front of him was Dirk Cunningham’s. The sergeant looked tired, but a smile spread from ear to ear.

“’Morning,” the sergeant said. “You look terrible.”

McCord groaned. “Where’s Anna?”

Cunningham laughed. “She’ll be back. I’m not surprised that my face wasn’t the one you wanted to wake up to, but you could at least act like you’re glad to see me. Anna said if you wake I’m to roll you over like you was a newborn and prop you up.”

McCord swore as Dirk lifted his shoulders off the buffalo hide.

“Stop your complaining. I ain’t never said I was a nurse.”

“That’s an understatement,” McCord managed as soon as the pain subsided enough for him to breathe. “Where is Anna?” Somewhere in his dreams he’d thought he heard someone ask her to dinner.

“She went to tell the cook how to make broth for you. He sent some over that Clark and me thought was fine, but she said it wasn’t near thick enough.” Cunningham shook his head. “That woman’s been giving more orders than the captain and, unlike the orders we usually get from him, every man on the place does what she asks.”

McCord wasn’t surprised. She’d ordered him to come back from the dead, and he’d done so for fear she’d follow him down and spend eternity complaining that he didn’t listen.

“I swear,” Cunningham mumbled. “I have a hard time believing that woman don’t fight for slavery. She’s a natural master.”

They both laughed. They’d never had slaves or believed in owning slaves. Like most Texans, they’d fought for Texas rights and it had cost both dearly. If either had anyone close to them they wouldn’t be doing such a dangerous job. McCord had been alone so long he barely remembered how it felt to have family. The war had left him with nothing but land that had gone wild in the years he’d been gone, and no one who cared.

McCord forced down the pain in his back and his heart. “How long have I been out?”

“Three days, and she’s barely left your side.”

“I know,” he answered. Every time he’d come close to waking, he’d known she was beside him.

Cunningham offered him whiskey, but he declined.

“Water,” he said.

The sergeant frowned. “I don’t know about that. With all the holes in you, you’re liable to spring a leak.” He poured a cup of water and held it while McCord drank.

When he finished he asked, “What happened after . . .”

Cunningham knew what he wanted to know. “A dozen of the boys went back for the bodies. Both the men who kidnapped Clark and Anna were dead. The gambler’s body and the man on watch, who Clark shot, were easy to recognize, but the man in black is a mystery. We brought the bodies back to the camp, but no one seems to be able to identify him. He could have been Thorn, who headed up the gang. From what I’ve heard about the man, he might have come alone, thinking he’d have time to torture Anna before the gambler killed her.”

Anna entered, ending the conversation. She smiled when she saw McCord propped up.

The sergeant stood away from the table and showed the patient off. “I did what you said. I turned him over. He may look like trampled death, but he’s well enough to complain about my nursing skills.”

“She can see that,” McCord grumbled. “Mind getting me a shirt from my pack in the barracks?”

Cunningham frowned. He didn’t seem to like the idea of leaving. “Oh, all right, but she’s been looking at that hairy chest of yours for days.”

“And take your time,” McCord said to Cunningham’s back.

The sergeant nodded as he moved to the door. “I should have known you’d wake up meaner than a wet snake. You got no gratitude in your bones, McCord. If it weren’t for knowing you’d do the same for me, I’d have left your bloody body out there in the middle of nowhere.” He closed the door, still complaining.

Anna’s eyebrows pushed together. “Aren’t you going to thank him?” She set the soup beside his bed.

“He knows I’m grateful and he’s right—I would do the same for him.”

“It never hurts to say the words, Wynn.” She pulled a chair beside his bed and picked up the spoon as if she thought he’d let her feed him.

McCord watched her, thinking how proper she looked. “Is that why you kept talking to me when I was near death, Anna? You thought there were words that needed saying?”

“I guess.” She didn’t look up at him.

“I don’t know if I heard everything, but I remember you telling me over and over to stay.” He took a drink of water and waited for her to say something. When she didn’t, he added, “You commanded me to come back, not just from death, but to you.”

She set the spoon down and laced her fingers, but still did not look up.

He saw the red burning across her cheeks, but he didn’t stop. “You said when I came back to you it would be to stay. You told me I belonged with you.” He grinned. “I think I even remember you yelling at me one night about how I was your man and I couldn’t die unless you said it was all right.” He laughed.

His Anna was a strong woman who’d never hesitated to tell him what she thought, but she remained silent now. Maybe she’d never said those words before. Maybe she had thought he was too far gone to have heard. He didn’t care. She’d said them and that was all that mattered to him.

“Give me your hand, Anna.”

“Why?” She finally met his gaze.

“I want to touch you.” When she laid her hand in his, he tugged her toward him.

“You’re still very near death.” She tried to pull away.

He grinned. “I’m also very near heaven. If touching you kills me, I can think of no better way to die. Unbutton a few buttons on that very proper dress of yours, darlin’. I’ve been thinking of how soft you feel and how it might taste to kiss my way down your throat again.”

“I will not, Wynn McCord!” She twisted free and opened the pot of broth. “I can’t believe you’d even ask such a thing.”

“I’m thinking more of doing than of asking,” he said, still smiling, “and I’m thinking you’ll let me too.”

She stared at him and he had his answer in the need shining bright in her eyes. Her fingers trembled as she lifted the bowl of soup. “Now, eat your broth or I’ll call the sergeant back and he’ll pour it down you.”

He didn’t push touching her. He knew what lay beneath that plain blue dress and he’d wait. He couldn’t stop smiling though. She’d been shy with him when she hadn’t known where she stood, but the minute he had pulled her close, she knew how he felt. Nothing had changed between them. They both knew he needed her, but she’d come to him on her own terms, and he’d let her take her time.