Never Love a Lawman by Jo Goodman

Author:Jo Goodman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2009-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

Wyatt’s fever broke some ten hours later. Rachel was in the adjoining sitting room bent over the round dining table while she pinned a muslin pattern to Estella Longabach’s moss-green sateen. Her head came right up when she heard swearing and thrashing coming from the bedroom.

“Don’t you move!” she called to him, dropping her shears. “Don’t you dare move. You’ll split your stitches.” He was propping himself on his good arm when she got to the threshold and kicking the covers off his bed by the time she reached his side. “I swear, Wyatt Cooper, if you—”

“You don’t.”

Hands planted on her hips, Rachel stared hard at him. “I don’t what?”

“You don’t swear. I’ve never heard you swear.”

“Well, it’s not because I don’t know how. Lie down. Let me look at you before you start pacing the floor. Dr. Diggins might still be in the hotel. I can get him.”

It was improbably comforting to know she was as bossy as he remembered. He rolled onto his back. “Don’t take too long.” Rather than elaborating, he looked significantly in the direction of the bathing room.

Rachel blinked but didn’t blush. “I’ll help you there in a moment.”

Wyatt wasn’t certain he’d let her, but he didn’t argue about it now. He smelled the stink of sickness on him and didn’t know how she stood by without turning up her nose. Her movements were efficient, just as they were when she was cutting a pattern or placing her stitches. She briskly unbuttoned his nightshirt and laid it open so that she could tend to the bandage on his shoulder. Lifting it, she examined the wound and gave him a sour look.

“You’re bleeding.” She washed away the blood and saw that he’d only cracked the scab, not torn the stitches.

“You don’t look very happy that I’m going to live.”

“Happy that you didn’t rip my best work.”

“Your best work?” He winced as she pressed a clean bandage to his shoulder. “What does that mean?”

Ignoring him, Rachel tugged carefully on the bandages that covered his chest wound. Her small, neat stitches still closed his skin. There was no foul-smelling pus or weeping around the injury, and his skin was warm, not hot. She replaced the bandages, then closed his shirt. “The fever’s left your body.”

“Good riddance, I say.”

She nodded. “Let me help you up.” Rachel slipped an arm under his shoulders and lifted. He’d lost considerable strength, but he still assisted her effort. “Put your legs over the side. Would you like your robe and slippers?”

Now that he was sitting up the urgency was upon him. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll go as I am.”

Rachel understood. She placed his uninjured arm around her shoulders and supported him as they came to their feet together. He was about as wobbly legged as a foal for the first few steps; then he managed to find his balance. Rachel stayed with him until he got to the bathing room door. “I’m going to find Doc Diggins,” she said. “I won’t be gone long.

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