Sagebrush Bride (24 page)

Cutter’s
gaze never faltered. “No.” His tone remained unyielding.

“Why
not?” Elizabeth retorted. Then, seeing the set of his jaw, she appealed, her
voice breaking suddenly, “He’ll die!” She couldn’t believe Cutter could be so
cold.

“We
can’t be sure he’s alone,” Cutter stated matter-of-factly. “If he’s got friends
out there, then we’re better off not drawing attention to ourselves. Besides,
Lizbeth, the man’s already dead—I’ve seen that look too many times not to
know. You can’t save him,” he said bluntly.

“How
can you be so heartless?” she asked him. “Certainly they would understand that
I mean to help him?”

Cutter’s
expression remained shuttered as he shook his head, his jaw setting all the
more stubbornly.

“Can’t
take that chance,” he said evenly. If it were only himself he had to worry
over, he’d have done so without a second thought. But he wasn’t alone. And he
wasn’t about to risk Elizabeth.

Furiously
Elizabeth turned on him. “I don’t think you understand, Mr. McKenzie. I don’t
intend to let this man die! Fact is, if you don’t start that blasted fire, then
I will!” Again, she added a compress, giving a concerned shake of her head.
“He’s lost so much blood already... can’t lose much more.” She glanced back up
at Cutter, her heart in her eyes. “Please, Cutter,” she appealed. As he
watched, her eyes glazed with unshed tears, startling him with their
heart-wrenching intensity. “Please.”

When
she put it like that, Cutter couldn’t begin to deny her. Disgusted with
himself, he spun away. Cursing to himself, he buttoned up his shirt and hastily
tucked one side into his denims.

As
he’d feared, the fire took quite a while to kindle with the wood so wet, and
sent up a considerable amount of smoke in the process. Shaking his head, he
watched it curl upward with no small measure of concern.

In
the meantime, Elizabeth had cleaned the wound area as best she could without
removing the bandages. She could only hope that the rain had managed to clean the
laceration itself sufficiently, because she didn’t dare remove the bandage and
start the bleeding all over again. At least not until she was ready to
cauterize. He’d lost too much blood already. As it was, it was still flowing,
only much slower than before. And all the while, the Indian brave lay without
moving, not even a twitch of his brow. He seemed completely unaware that anyone
was tending him at all.

When
the fire was lit to his satisfaction, Cutter retrieved his knife from the
dugout, where he’d tossed it, and held it over the flames, trying in vain not
to gawk at Elizabeth’s dusky areolas through her threadbare camisole. It was a
good thing the brave was unconscious, he thought viciously, because he might
have to kill the bastard if he so much as set eyes on Elizabeth at the moment.
Her breasts were so close to the-Indian’s face... and for a moment he imagined
himself lying there instead, his lips so close...

His
face contorted suddenly.

What
the hell was wrong with him?

A
man lay dying before him—a man whom, at any another time, Cutter would
have likely killed for, all for the blood they shared—and here he was
with murder on his mind, for the sake of a woman.

But
not just any woman.

As
much as he hated to admit the fact... Elizabeth Bowcock had gotten under his
skin. The spine-tingling fear he’d felt when he’d spied her running headlong
into danger was something he’d never forget... not if he lived a hundred
lifetimes.

She’d
somehow become as vital to him... as nothing ever had been before. And though
he hesitated to put a name to the emotion, he suspected it nonetheless.

And
it made him sick to his gut.

Because
it made him susceptible, and he didn’t like that one damned bit.

Once the blade was hot enough, Cutter handed it to
Elizabeth, hilt-first, and watched in disbelief as his little mouse did her dirty
work, never flinching, or even hesitating in her duty. The transformation in
her was startling. He’d been well aware of the sparks beneath her surface, but
the woman before him seemed wholly different from the one he’d thought he knew.
He’d have offered to help had he not been so stunned by her proficiency. As it
was, he couldn’t tear his gaze away, even when the stench of burning flesh
reached his nostrils.

For the briefest moment, the brave opened his
eyes, catching Elizabeth’s gaze, and she immediately wrenched the burning knife
away, not wanting to hurt him, but his lids fell again without his ever having
acknowledged her.

Squaring her shoulders, Elizabeth finished with
the wound, and then again began tearing strips from the length of her skirt. With
it, she bound the man’s chest. And then very quickly—unable to stand her
state of dress any longer—she slipped the much-shortened skirt on,
deliberately avoiding Cutter’s gaze as she laced up. Finally, kneeling again,
her cheeks as warm as the Indian’s appeared, she drew a blanket up to his chin
in order to conserve his body heat.

Shaking her head gravely, she contemplated the
bright flush in his face, determining that he would need an infusion for the
fever before long. Liquids, too—she was certain that they had a little
salt in Cutter’s satchel. She’d add that, as well—to help replace his
body fluids. Of course, there was no way she could administer any of it while
he was unconscious, but she could certainly have it prepared for him when he did
wake.

Instinctively she examined the man’s forehead for
fever, sliding her hand down his face to his scalding neck. There she turned
the back of her hand against his skin.

“Cutter,” she began, thinking that surely there
was something... some herb growing in the area that she could use for an
infusion. There had to be. She glanced about, quickly surveying the area. White
willow bark would be perfect, but as far as she could see, there were only pine
and oak... as well as a few birch.

Unable to help himself, Cutter stared at
Elizabeth’s dignified profile as she, in turn, perused the landscape, her
lashes so dark, her eyes slitted slightly as she concentrated on the view.
Inadvertently meeting his gaze, she looked quickly away, sliding her hand
beneath the woolen blanket to probe at the Indian’s bare flesh. Against his
will, Cutter’s own body jolted in response, reacting purely out of instinct,
feeling the heat of her hand as though it were upon his own flesh.

Damn him, anyhow, he groused—he’d never have
believed the passion with which she was treating the Indian. It didn’t seem to
matter to her at the moment that he was nothing more than a heathen
savage—her own words—only that he was a man, and that he needed
her. And that knowledge crumpled the last of his armor.

And damn her, too, because without even trying,
she’d managed to reach in and fill that part of him he’d once thought would
never see the light of day again. The farthest reaches of his hard-as-hell
heart. Uneasy with the intensity of emotion he was feeling suddenly, he cleared
his throat, and Elizabeth finally looked up at him, her expression troubled.

If she could feel so much for a stranger, he found
himself wondering, how much more could she give to the man she loved? Cursing
himself roundly, he shook off the thought, turning away.

“Cutter?”

He stopped, though reluctantly, and turned back
toward her.

“Would you watch over him? Please... while I see
what herbs I can locate?”

Her tawny eyes pleaded with him, though they
needn’t have, because it was suddenly as important to Cutter that she save the
man as it seemed to be to her.

As he saw it, it didn’t pay much to get
sentimental over anything, not people, not horses, not even life itself. He’d
learned long ago that in this world, things came, and then they simply
went—just like that. And there wasn’t a damned thing anybody could do
about it. Uncharitable as it may have been, he hadn’t felt much for the Indian
brave, except maybe an odd sense of futility—hell, he could have sworn
the man was dead in the saddle. But maybe, just maybe, Elizabeth could save
him. Her desire for it sure was infectious. Maybe sheer will alone could do it.

“He’s already much too warm,” she entreated again,
mistaking his hesitation for reluctance.

His throat too thick to speak, Cutter nodded, and
Elizabeth smiled gratefully, leaping up to hug him quickly before he could
think to change his mind.

With his booted foot, he kicked at a clump of wet
sod, and then sank down upon the corner end of the bedroll. “Just stay within
sight,” he muttered after her.

Nearly an hour later, to Elizabeth’s dismay, she
had found nothing of use. There were coneflowers, gayfeathers, fameflower, even
some larkspur—the former all worthless, and the latter? Well, her intent
was to cure the poor man, not kill him. When finally she gave up and returned
to camp, she returned empty-handed.

Watching her approach, Cutter stood, shaking his
head at the unspoken question in her eyes. Slapping his hat—which he’d
retrieved in her absence, along with his other boot—upon his knee, he
gave her a grim twist of his lips, and then replaced the hat to his head with a
deep sigh.

At his unspoken revelation, Elizabeth’s shoulders
wilted a little further. With a weary sigh of her own, she dropped herself into
the very spot Cutter had warmed, nodding dejectedly as her gaze returned to the
unconscious Indian.

Considering her, Cutter watched a moment longer,
before turning away. Without a doubt, he knew he couldn’t leave her to go off
hunting—not while she was so distracted. He was sure the man wasn’t
alone. Even if he had been, the fire was smoking so much—probably sending
off signals for miles. He stared at it with disgust, following the smoke into
the sky a moment as he contemplated that thought.

The river was within sight, so he found himself a
sturdy stick, along with a thick tree to set his back against while he worked.
Sprawling backward and raising a knee, he unsheathed his blade and began
whittling a spear to fish with, all the while watching Elizabeth from a
distance and admiring her professional dedication to the Indian. She worked
diligently, never abandoning hope. It wasn’t until she’d examined the man’s
face and skin for fever the umpteenth time, without a single sign of recovery,
that he shook his head over the futility of it all.

He was almost finished with the lance when the
throbbing of his foot began to bother him. Rising, he made his way down to the
river. Sitting, he jerked off his boot and sighed as he examined the clean slice
in the arch of his left foot. He had no idea what he’d stepped on, only that it
smarted like the dickens. But he’d had worse, so he washed it out as well as he
could in the river, and then headed back to camp, spotting a bramble bush on
the way. They hadn’t eaten anything but jerky all day long, and he knew
Elizabeth was sure to be famished by now, so he gathered up a handful and
carried them to her, dumping the blackberries unceremoniously into her lap.

It didn’t surprise him much when she didn’t stir
at first. What concerned him, though, was that even after a long moment, she
still didn’t seem to realize he was standing there watching her. Like a gloomy
statuette, she continued to watch over the unconscious brave. And when she did
finally acknowledge him, it took her another long moment to ascertain that he’d
placed something in the folds of her ragged skirt. But seeing it finally, her
eyes lit up.

Her eyes widened ever so slightly. “Blackberries?”
she whispered with a note of enthusiasm.

Cutter looked at her a little uncertainly.

“Where’d you get them?” she demanded at once,
snatching one up, inspecting it with a strange shimmer in her eyes.

Cutter opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him
off.

“Merciful Lord!” she exclaimed suddenly. “Please
tell me there are more!”

Hell, Cutter thought, he’d known she’d be hungry,
but for the life of him, he couldn’t see her reaction to the berries as normal.
Frowning at her in earnest, he rubbed at his beard with concern.

“Oh, Cutter!” Elizabeth exclaimed happily, glancing
up at him briefly, then back to the berry in question. “Do you know what these
are?” She laughed infectiously. “Do you know what these are?” she repeated with
glee, still staring, wild-eyed now, at the berry poised like a precious gold
nugget between her delicate fingers.