Cactus Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (25 page)

      
“Anything like dispatches, maps, any notes about ranger or militia movements. Or money—gold for buying whiskey or guns—you get the idea. Jack Hays is the only law I trust and he's out of town now. Forget the local law. I want this information for Houston.”

      
When he mentioned the president's name, she hesitated, then turned and quickly ran toward the roan. “Whoa, there. You're as ugly as your owner. Oh, got a disposition to match, huh,” she said as the big beast laid back his ears. She grabbed the reins with no nonsense and held them steady, all the while talking to the horse until he calmed. Then, she methodically went through the saddlebags. All the usual possibles were there, hard biscuits, a bottle of cheap whiskey, cooking utensils. Then her small hand dug out a heavy leather sack. She opened it. Gold—a whole pile of American ten-dollar gold pieces!

      
“Jim, I've found a sack of money, just like you said!” Coming to the end of her search, she hefted the pouch and ran back to where Slade was kneeling.

      
He was quickly scanning a scribbled list of dates and place names. “Someone in San Antonio had one hell of a source of information. I have to talk to our friend Ashley Markham,” he said grimly as she helped him up.

      
When she gasped at Markham's name, he looked at her sharply. “Markham's the one who sent him—Brady—to kidnap me. I saw him and Tomasina together. They were...Jim!”

      
Slade's face had been growing increasingly ashen as blood pumped through the soaked rags binding his torso. Suddenly, he could see Charlee's face grow fuzzy and dark before his eyes. Her words did not register as he began to black out.

      
Charlee grabbed him, staggering under the vast weight differential between a one-hundred-sixty-five-pound man and a hundred-pound woman. “Get on Polvo. No more arguments or you'll bleed to death!”

      
Somehow. she managed to get him on his horse, all the while marveling that a full five minutes must have elapsed since three shots were fired and no one had even peeked down the deserted alley to inquire about it. “I see why he didn't want to bother with the law,” she muttered to herself as she led the big buckskin and its crippled rider from the alley.

      
The next hour was pure pandemonium. By the time she had reached the Plaza, a crowd had gathered and a boy was sent to bring Dr. Weidermann to Deborah's place. With the assistance of several townsmen, Charlee had gotten Jim back to the boardinghouse and upstairs into her bedroom.

      
While Dr. Weidermann cleansed and sutured the ugly gash in Slade's side, Charlee held him and threatened to box his ears if he didn't lie still and let the doctor finish. Brady and Markham could wait.

      
No sooner had the doctor left, giving her instructions for the care of her recalcitrant patient, than he was attempting to get out of bed. She sat on him. Once assured he would not move and further injure himself, she promised to give the note and the gold to Lee and tell him all that had occurred. She agreed to talk to no one else about Brady or what had happened to her. Swearing she would not venture from the premises unescorted and chance another kidnapping, she finally got him to take a light dose of laudanum and rest.

      
Deborah had been beside herself with worry when a very bedraggled Charlee had trudged up the front steps with two strangers behind her carrying a bleeding Jim Slade. Following Slade's instructions, Charlee had told Deborah only that she had been grabbed by Brady and rescued by Jim.

      
After Slade drifted off to sleep, Charlee dispatched Chester to bring Lee to town and then was persuaded by Deborah to take a soak in the tub. She felt unclean from Brady's touch and was more than willing to bathe after checking on her sleeping patient once more.

      
That night Charlee brought a light supper to Jim who had awakened from his drug-induced nap in a signally foul humor. Looking around at the dainty pale green curtains and seeing Hellfire stretched out comfortably in the window sill, he quickly surmised whose room he had been settled in at the boardinghouse.

      
“I can't stay here, and it's not safe for you, either,” he said before she could even set the tray down.

      
“You can, and I'll be fine. Lee's right down the hall. He'll sleep in Mr. McCurdy's room tonight. I told him everything and I gave him the note and the gold. That ranger friend of yours, Mr. Hays, returned to town. He's ridden to the president for you. Now, are you satisfied?” She stood with her small hands on her narrow hips, bronze hair spilling on her shoulders like a curtain of metallic satin. A green silk robe was belted tightly around that incredibly tiny waist, outlining her petite curves in a very disconcerting way.

      
Slade looked her up and down. Flushed and smelling of wildflowers, she was obviously fresh from a bath. He shifted uncomfortably in bed, struggling to sit up and let the pain take his mind off how desirable she appeared, standing there like a miniature ValKyrie.

      
“Watch out, you'll reopen those stitches.” She quickly slipped over to his side and helped him sit back, plumping up pillows behind him. “Try and eat something. You'll feel better.” Seeking desperately to hide her nervousness, she reached over for a bowl of chicken soup and a spoon. Why was it, every time she wasn't mad enough to clobber him, she was skittish enough to run from those burning golden eyes?

      
“I can feed myself,” Slade growled, wincing as he shifted to avoid the spoon she was hefting with determination toward his mouth.

      
“Open.” Her voice was calm and authoritative, but she feared her hand would start trembling if he didn't cooperate immediately.

      
Ungraciously, he swallowed the hot liquid and then placed a strong brown hand around her wrist, neatly removing the spoon with his other hand. “Just hold the bowl.”

      
She acquiesced, letting him finish the soup by himself. When he complained he needed more solid nourishment, she said primly, “Dr. Weidermann said only a liquid diet until tomorrow.”

      
He grimaced, then laughed. “I'm surprised he didn't offer you a sample of his Indian stew. Bet he's still got some bubbling in that ghoulish office of his. Crazy Russian.”

      
Charlee looked puzzled. “What do you mean, ‘Indian stew’?”

      
“I forget you're a recent arrival in San Antonio. About two years ago, a big fight between the town fathers and a group of Comanche chiefs ended in a massacre of the Indians.”

      
“Lee told me about it,” she said.

      
“Old Doc was in on that shootout and wanted to gather a few specimens, it seems.” He smiled in remembrance.

      
“Specimens?”

      
“Skeletons. For his anatomy laboratory. He selected two of the likeliest-looking of the dead braves and took to rendering them down to be reassembled for the edification of his patients.”

      
Charlee gulped in revulsion. “You mean he cooked them? That nice, harmless-looking man with the courtly European manners?”

      
He laughed at her horrified expression. “Well, they were dead and cluttering up the council house.”

      
“But to cook them!” Her green eyes were enormous.

      
“How else could he get the meat off the bones?” he asked reasonably. “The real trouble came a few days later when he emptied his 'stewpot' into the town sewage system. The women out to do their laundry were a trifle upset.”

      
“I guess that's for sure,” she retorted vehemently. “I assume he was suitably punished.”

      
“Oh, yes, by Texas standards he was. The court fined him ten dollars. I imagine he's kept his cooking to himself ever since.” His golden eyes were dancing as he chuckled at her discomfiture.

      
“And to think Deborah works with him as a nurse!” Charlee grimaced, irritated at the cavalier attitude Slade was exhibiting. Texas violence and crudity were still hard for her to accept at times.

      
“He's a good doctor, trained at the best European universities. He's just not very...ah...orthodox for a Russian,” he added, unable to resist the awful pun.

      
In spite of herself, Charlee grinned as she set the bowl on the bedside table. Although reluctant to break the charm of their momentary camaraderie, she knew she must tell him about Tomasina and Markham.

      
“Jim, I already told Lee this afternoon, but he said I should talk to you about it...” Her words trailed off, and she avoided meeting his eyes.

      
Something niggled at the back of his consciousness; but Slade could not remember what, only that it was decidedly unpleasant. “Go on, what is it?”

      
Nervously, she stood up and began to pace as she recreated the whole series of events leading up to her abduction, carefully repeating verbatim everything she could recall of Tomasina and Markham's conversation. When she had finished, she looked over at him warily, uncertain of how he would take it.

      
Jim sat very still, listening intently and sensing her agitation as she spoke and paced. Something inside him tightened painfully when she described Markham's grabbing Sina, the action that had led to her catching sight of Charlee in the upstairs window.

      
“Lee told me you saw Sina and Markham at the Rojas place over a week ago,” he said tonelessly, his best poker face in place.

      
Charlee stood very still now, crossing her arms over her chest, skewering him with cloudy green eyes. “And do you think I'm telling the truth?” She had to know if he loved Tomasina Carver enough to deny her treachery.

      
“Yes” was his level reply. His cool golden eyes met her challenging green ones. “Sina's involved with a British agent—that much is clear. Just leave it to me now. Stay out of the whole dangerous mess.”

      
“With pleasure,” she said sharply and scooped up the tray, departing the room with an abrupt slam of the door. So, he'd protect the bitch even if she was spying for two hostile foreign powers. The big war hero, willing to betray his conscience for a cheating, conniving woman who had tried to have her killed!

Chapter Ten

      
Charlee tossed and turned in the makeshift bed she had set up in Deborah's room. It was past midnight and she still could not sleep. Finally, she threw off the covers and glanced over at Deborah, sleeping peacefully. Silently, she swung her legs over the side of the cot and sat up. It was either get up and go raid the pantry, or lie in the stillness of the night, tortured by her thoughts, until she gave way to tears. She had already shed too many tears over Jim Slade.

      
She resolutely pulled on her sheer silk wrapper and belted it securely. Barefooted, she padded silently from the room and down the hall, hearing old Mr. McCurdy's loud snores and Adam's soft voice as he babbled in his sleep. When she came to her own room, Charlee stopped and placed her hand on the knob. She must have stood frozen in indecision for several moments, debating with herself. Should she check on him? He seemed stronger tonight, and Sadie said he had refused the laudanum before going to sleep. Still, he had been shot, even if he was too perverse to admit he was in need of help.

      
Charlee told herself she was a fool, grieving for another woman's man. She was just about to turn away when a muffled moan issued from behind the door. With a soft click the latch lifted and she swung the door wide. Her room was bathed in moonlight. Flickering shadows made by the gently swaying cottonwoods outside her window stretched across the gleaming plank floor. The room was cool and the rustle of the shiny leaves was soothing.

      
As she closed the door carefully, her eyes quickly swept to the bed, where Slade's long body lay. All the covers had been kicked off. He was naked, save for the wide swaddling of bandage around his waist!
He's probably the type who sleeps in the altogether anyway,
she sniffed to herself, unable to stop her eyes from traveling the length of his lean frame. One long foot dangled over the bottom of the bed, while the other leg was pulled up and bent at the knee. One hand was flung, palm open, across his forehead, and the other hung off the side of the bed, its fingertips touching the rug lightly. He was too long to fit comfortably on her small mattress.

      
Like a sleepwalker, she approached the bed, listening to the sound of his steady, even breathing, hearing no more moaning. The bright moonlight made the thick hair on his chest and legs gleam like gold. That startlingly handsome, forbidding countenance was half hidden by his hand, the unsettling cougar eyes closed in sleep.

      
Almost against her will, she reached down and felt his cheek. Cool. No fever. Satisfied that her mission of mercy was unnecessary, she began to straighten up, only to have her wrist enveloped by Slade's powerful fingers. His compelling eyes pierced her as he held her fast, roughly pulling her to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. With his other hand he reached beneath the pillow and pulled out a wicked-looking Bowie knife, then slid it back to its resting place.

      
“A good way to get killed is to sneak into a man's room, Cat Eyes.”

      
Charlee gasped at the sight of the knife and tried to pull free of his bruising grasp. “Let me go,” she croaked.

      
“What the hell are you doing here?” His voice was whispered and harsh.

      
“I didn't come in to slit your throat in the night, if that's what's bothering you,” she answered tartly. “I heard you moan in your sleep.”