Wanted (50 page)

“Do I look as bad as you do?” she asked suddenly.

Not only was his face covered by several days' beard, but his skin was bruised, his clothes filthy, and he sat as if a couple of ribs had been cracked. He studied her carefully before answering. As always, his stare was painfully honest and direct. His jaw set, and the smile disappeared.

“I don't know how bad that is, Miss Lori, but as a guess I'd say we're pretty equal. You're going to have a shiner for a few days.” Lori barely detected a glint of humor in the words, in the “Miss Lori” he used to bait her with. He needed practice with humor. Lots of it.

She winced, but the corners of her mouth turned up.

He leaned over, and his hand gently picked pine straw from her hair. “I like the way this straw got there the last time better,” he said quietly.

Lori's heart thumped. Memories flooded back. His body on hers, his hand doing the same thing then, brushing away a piece of pine straw as he gazed at her with such … surprised wonder.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “Thank you for coming after me, for helping Nick.”

Something in his face changed, hardened suddenly, and he looked away. Lori didn't understand it. He and Nick had made peace. He'd said as much and then proved it by letting Nick go.

“Morgan?” she said tentatively.

He didn't look toward her as he increased their pace.

“Morgan? What's wrong?”

She saw a muscle flex in his cheek. “If Nick wasn't your brother …?” he began.

She didn't understand. She tipped her head in question.

He didn't say anything for a few seconds, then plowed on, obviously at a loss. It was endearing for a man who prided himself in always being in control. Endearing until she started listening to his words.

“You and I … is it just because I look like Nick?”

Lori was stunned. The two men were so completely different that she didn't even think of the resemblance anymore except as a curiosity. Yet she sensed how troubled he was by the thought.

“Of course not. Nick's my brother.”

“But if he wasn't?” Morgan persisted.

“Why?” she asked suddenly. “Why do you ask that?”

Morgan wanted to tell her, though he feared the answer. He wanted to tell her there was a very good chance that Nick Braden was really Nick Davis, and no relation to her. Who would she want then? He had little doubt. There was such an easy camaraderie between Lori and Nick, and though he'd seen damned little of it himself, he knew Nick was legendary for charm. He, Morgan, was legendary for something that had absolutely nothing to do with charm.

He had caused them enough pain, Nick and Lori. He wouldn't inflict any more. He would clear Nick and wish them well, though it would destroy his newly discovered heart to do so.

Morgan owed them that at the very least.

“Morgan?” Her usually lilting voice was full of question. The minute she'd mentioned Nick, something dark had fallen over his eyes, something secretive. And his question had been so odd, so unexpected.

The first storefronts came into view now, and he used them to avoid the question. “I'll take our friends here to the sheriff. You go on to the hotel and get a room. I'll ask the sheriff about a doctor.” He saw familiar rebellion in her face. “Please,” he said in a tone she couldn't refuse. “Then we can both get some badly needed rest.”

Lori felt herself melting. She always did when he disarmed her this way. She nodded. “But if you aren't there in thirty minutes, I'll send a bounty hunter after you.” It was a poor joke at best, even tasteless, but it brought a small smile to his solemn face.

“Yes, ma'am,” he said altogether too courteously.

Beth waited a long time for Nick to return. Daniel had returned without Nick, had spoken in whispers to Fleur, and then they both had disappeared into the wagon, along with Jonathon. Andy had spread out his bedroll under the Medicine Wagon.

Beth had checked on Maggie earlier. She was happily asleep on a feather mattress in the amazing wagon, which hadn't ceased to fascinate her. There was room there for Beth, too, and curtains that separated the sleepers from one another. Then she went back out and waited for Nick's return. She'd heard from Jonathon what had happened with Whitey. She knew that Nick had agreed to return to Texas with the Ranger. But something else had happened, too.

A new tension radiated in the air, like the prelude to a vicious storm. She felt as if her newfound friends were all walking on tiptoe between shards of glass.

She had no idea what time it might be. She knew how tired Nick must be, and she couldn't understand what kept him away. She couldn't quiet the feeling that Nick needed her. She knew she needed him, after this day. She needed him just to hold her. Finally, throwing caution and discretion to the cold wind now blowing through the camp, she went in search of him, drawing a shawl around her.

Beth knew he and Daniel had taken the horses for water, so she started toward the stream where she'd washed clothes earlier while nervously waiting Nick's return. He wasn't there. She didn't dare go farther for fear of missing him altogether. She sat down next to the stream, shivered in the cold, and waited.

Minutes passed. Maybe an hour. She didn't know. She felt the cold, but the outside cold wasn't nearly as painful as that inside her. She hadn't realized exactly how much she cared about Nick until today, until he had kissed her with such wistfulness, such incredible tenderness. She hadn't wanted to let go, and she'd known then she never wanted to let go.

She heard the clopping of hoofbeats. Slow. Tired. She stood as he drew into sight, his shoulders slumped, almost defeated. So unlike the proud, defiant man who had fought the Ranger with every breath he took.

“Nick?”

His head lifted then, and she knew he saw her. His broad shoulders straightened, and he dismounted, leading his horse over to where she stood.

He looked down at her, his eyes veiled in the darkness. “You shouldn't be here alone,” he said.

“Neither should you, I think,” she replied. “I … was worried. Mr. Webster looked upset.”

He put his left arm around her and drew her up close. She shivered, and he released her, taking his coat from his shoulders and putting it around hers. Then he stood apart from her, his body taut, nearly rigid.

“What's wrong?” she said softly. “What did Daniel say?”

“That my life is a lie,” he said bitterly.

She didn't know how to respond. The bitterness was deep, deeper than she'd ever heard in his voice, even deeper than when he'd been so angry at Morgan Davis. He swallowed hard, as if trying to down a particularly unpalatable meal. “Daniel just told me my family isn't my family at all. That … Morgan Davis is my brother. Twin brother.”

Beth winced at the bitterness. She took his hand. It was cold. She brought it to her mouth and touched it with her lips, her hand trying to rub warmth into it.

Suddenly she was in his arms, held so tightly she could barely breathe, and now she knew the extent of his desperation, of the loss he felt, the confusion, the need to understand. She wanted to say something. She wanted to ask if it was really so bad. He wouldn't lose what he already had, he wouldn't lose their love, that was obvious, and he could gain something very important. But he had to come to that conclusion on his own.

“
He
knew,” Nick said brokenly. “Davis knows. Why didn't I? Why couldn't I have known my own brother?”

“Tell me what Daniel said,” she said softly.

He did. In short, painful sentences, each obvious an effort. Beth realized he was still trying to grasp the reality of what he'd been told. She wondered how she would feel if someone told her she was not the daughter of James and Elizabeth Carroll, but someone else altogether, that she was related to someone she had come to think of as an enemy.

She couldn't even imagine.

“Mr. Davis didn't know until just recently, and then because of the birthmark,” she finally said. “So how could you possibly know?”

“I should have … felt something.”

“You did,” Beth said gently. “You just wouldn't recognize it because … of the anger between you. Lori told me how you helped him during that snowstorm, and then … you were so good together when you rescued me and later when you were attacked by the bounty hunter.” She hesitated, then continued carefully. “You didn't have to go back for him tonight. From the beginning I saw something similar, natural, between the two of you. I always wondered about a kinship, but Lori told me it was impossible.”

“Hell, I don't even like him.”

She smiled. “Did you ever think about the fact that you both have bay horses, which are very much alike? His is Damien. Yours is Dickens.”

“Bays are common.”

“Or the same quirk of the lips.” She put her hand up to where his lips did that. “Not quite a smile … more like acknowledgment.”

He looked at her suspiciously. “I've never seen him …”

But she interrupted. “Or dimple?” Her hands roamed to the dimple in his chin, deep like a cleft.

He tried to catch her finger in his mouth, but she was too quick. “Even your eyebrow lifts in the same way.”

He lifted it now. Her hand moved up to it, her fingers massaging the area around his eyes.

“You've been paying too much attention to him,” he said suspiciously.

“Only because he resembles you,” she said. “In some ways.”

She earned a slight grin. “Thank you for that, at least,” he said.

She leaned against him and snuggled inside his arms. “Is it so bad, finding a brother?”

“Hell, anyone but him.”

“Whitey Stark?” she asked innocently.

“Almost anyone,” he amended.

His arms went around her, gathering her close to him. She snuggled deeper. “He might have been your brother in any event,” she said. “He and Lori are in love.”

“That's an indecent thought.”

She looked up at him, trying to gauge his expression. Lori, after all, was apparently no blood relation to either man.

“My … brother marrying my sister,” he explained. He'd realized tonight the depth of Morgan's feeling for his sister, in that farewell kiss, in the sacrificial act itself. Nick ran his fingers down Beth's hair. “She'll always be my sister. Since she was little more than a babe, she always came to me with her hurts. So did Andy.”

“Nothing daunts her, does it?”

“Sometimes I wish it would,” Nick said. “She always just plunges into life. Into trouble, more likely. Trouble like Morgan,” he grumbled.

Beth smiled to herself. Just talking seemed to have sapped some of the tension from Nick. He seemed almost reconciled to the fact now, if not pleased by it.

She twisted her head until her mouth was just inches away from his. “I wish I was more like her,” she said wistfully.

“Ah,” Nick said, “this from a lady who tried to run a ranch herself in the midst of Indians, who struck out at night all on her own. You have your own share of grit.” His voice ended in a whisper, or more of a sigh, just before his lips met hers.

And then there was no more Morgan and Lori.

There was only Beth and Nick, and the night.

The sheriff in Pueblo was anything but a happy man when wakened from a deep sleep in one of the jail's empty cells. He eyed Morgan's stubbled face, his dusty clothes, and his obviously well-used six-shooter with dislike. Even the Ranger's badge made little impact. Then his gaze moved to Ford Nesbitt, who was standing next to Morgan, handcuffed. His frown deepened.

“Why in the hell didn't you come here when you first came into town?” he asked Morgan. “That's usual courtesy.”

“I wanted as little attention as possible,” Morgan said. “I knew these two were looking for us.”

“Well, apparently they found you,” the sheriff said dryly. He was a tall, lean man with hard eyes. Morgan instantly judged him as one of the good lawmen. He'd seen his share of bad ones.

Morgan nodded and related the recent events, starting with the kidnapping of Lori.

“Where's your prisoner now?”

“With his family outside of town.”

The sheriff's brows furrowed together. “Trusting sort, are you?”

No one had ever called Morgan that before. He grinned suddenly. “No, but this is rather an unusual case. He quite possibly saved my life.”

“Well, it's your business, I guess, but I don't want any more trouble in my town.”

“There won't be. I want to prefer kidnapping charges against Nesbitt here. Lori Braden will be here in the morning to sign anything you need.”

“Where is she now?”

“The Trader's Post Hotel. I need to find a doctor for her.”

The sheriff looked at his face, the stiff way he stood. “I'd say you need one, too.”

Morgan shrugged.

“Your business,” the sheriff said. “Doc Simpson is in the building across the street. I'll take care of Nesbitt here and send someone after the undertaker for the other one.”

“Thanks,” Morgan said.

“Next time come to me first,” the sheriff said, “and have the lady in here in the morning.”

The doctor spent about thirty minutes with them at the hotel, bandaging several cuts on Lori and taping Morgan's ribs, one of which the doctor suspected was cracked. He took one look at the battle-scarred body, including the new scar on his left shoulder, and shook his head. “How and why you're still alive must be one of God's wonders.”

“You're not the first to think that, Doc. Thanks.” He gave the man a five-dollar piece and closed the door behind him. They were in Lori's room, Morgan having taken a second room next door. He'd brought the doctor directly to Lori, and then stayed to have his own wounds attended.

It was time to go. He knew it. Lori was grateful to him now, and he didn't want gratitude. She was vulnerable. Hell, he was vulnerable. For the first time he could remember, he was vulnerable to a woman, to another human being. Dammit, though, he couldn't turn the knob in the door. Those great golden eyes of hers were asking him so many questions, and he didn't know how to answer them. Not until he got things settled with Nick.