Mail Order Cowboy (Love Inspired Historical) (13 page)

J
osh stated he felt well enough to attend church, and whistled from the back of the wagon all the way there. Bobby, as usual, tried to wiggle his way out of going, but his uncle insisted that if he was going, Bobby was going, too. So the boy finally clambered aboard, his cowlick firmly wetted down and wearing his Sunday clothes.

Milly was grateful that their presence kept Sarah from speaking to her about the confrontation with Nick. Her feelings were too raw, too uncertain to talk about it. She already dreaded the end of the service, when someone was sure to ask her why her handsome British “cowboy” hadn't come to church with her this time.

She felt like a wooden puppet as she entered the church, greeted others, sat down with her sister, Josh and Bobby and sang the hymns. She was just going through the motions.

Nicholas Brookfield had nothing but contempt for her now, and as soon as Josh was completely back on his feet, he would leave. He thought her a coward for not
being willing to employ the four homeless men because of Waters's threats.

But you just don't understand the risk,
she argued with him in her mind.
I'm responsible for the welfare of my sister and the employees I already have, Josh and Bobby. How can I continue to feed them if the Matthews ranch is nothing but a smoking ruin? Where would Josh, as old as he is, get a new job? Where would Sarah and I live, in a tent?

“My message today,” began Reverend Chadwick, “is taken from the sixth chapter of Micah, verse eight, ‘What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?'”

Inwardly, she groaned. How could refusing to give those men jobs be “doing justly”? Employing them would be showing mercy, but what if it caused them to come to harm at the hands of the mysterious “circle”? Surely it was better to let them move on to somewhere where their lives would be safer?

Even if she wanted to change her mind, though, those men were already gone—she knew this because she had peeked inside the barn while Bobby was hitching up the wagon. There was no sign of them, though the dishes and forks were neatly stacked in a corner of the stall on top of the folded blankets.

I'll show mercy next time, Lord, I promise, and act justly, I promise. I'm sorry I did the wrong thing this time. But how am I to make this right with Nick? Is it too late for that, too?

“Don't worry, it's all going to work out,” Sarah whispered to her, as they stood to sing the final hymn.

Milly gave Sarah a grateful look. She was always so
perceptive. Milly had pretended to pay attention to the sermon, but her sister had sensed the presence of the turmoil within her.

Now she had to run the gauntlet between the church door and their wagon.
Please, Lord, don't let anyone ask me about Nick…

“Now, where's that handsome gentleman I saw you waltzing with just last night, Milly Matthews?” Mrs. Patterson cooed. “My, he is a good-looking man! And I just
love
the way he talks, don't you?” She aimed the remark not at Milly but at Mrs. Detwiler, to whom she had been speaking when Milly and her sister drew near.

“I…uh…” What should she say?

“Evidently
foreigners
think it's all right to lie abed on the Lord's Day after a party,” Mrs. Detwiler sniffed. “As for the way he talks, why, I don't know what's wrong with plain
American
speaking. It was good enough for me when my George walked this earth.”

“We let Mr. Brookfield get some extra rest today,” Sarah said, stealthily squeezing Milly's elbow. “It seemed only fair, since he was up on top of those rafters as much or more than any other man there. I noticed several of the men were missing this morning.”

“Yes, my husband, for one,” Mrs. Patterson said. “He's so stiff and sore this morning he could hardly get out of bed. I reckon he did too much, trying to keep up with the younger men like Mr. Brookfield. I told him the Lord would understand if he didn't come to church this morning.”

Mrs. Detwiler was neatly caught. She could hardly
continue to criticize Nick for not being there if Mrs. Patterson's husband had stayed home, too.

“Good seeing you ladies,” Milly said. “We must be getting home to start dinner.”

But they were unable to make it to the wagon without encountering Caroline Wallace and Emily Thompson, who were accompanied by their two new beaus from the coast and looking happy as butterflies in a field full of bluebonnets. Fortunately, they were so wrapped up in their own joy that they accepted the same excuse Sarah had given the other two women at face value.

“Pete, Mr. Markison, Emily and I are going to have a picnic on Simpson Creek this afternoon,” Caroline burbled. “Why don't you and Nick join us?”

“Oh, and you, too, Sarah, naturally,” Emily added quickly.

Milly saw Caroline flush with embarrassment at her inadvertent gaffe.

“Oh, thanks, but after all the excitement yesterday I think I'd just like to rest,” Sarah said imperturbably.

“Me, too, I'm afraid,” Milly said. “Thanks for asking us. Another time, perhaps.”

“We'll count on it.”

After that, they made their escape to the wagon, where Josh and Bobby were already waiting.

“I'm sorry Caroline left you out of the invitation,” Milly said, as she steered the horses back out onto the road. “She never seemed so giddy and thoughtless before.”

Sarah patted Milly's hand and smiled. “She's not thoughtless, Milly, just excited. I'm pleased for her that
it's going well so far. I wasn't feeling left out, I promise you.”

Milly sighed and clucked to the horses to urge them into a trot. “You're a much better person than I am, Sarah.” Although she, too, was pleased for the other ladies, her heart had ached that she couldn't accept their invitation—she wouldn't have had an escort either.

When they drew up at the ranch, she spotted Nick up on a ladder already slapping paint on the barn.

“Where did you get that?” she asked, pointing to the bucket from which he was brushing white paint onto the raw timber.

Nick had turned around when the wagon pulled into the yard, but now he turned back to his work. “Mr. Patterson brought it when they came yesterday. I thought he'd mentioned it.”

“No. How thoughtful of him,” Milly said, wishing Nick would turn around again, disappointed that he evidently hadn't gotten over his anger at her while she'd been gone to church. But she was a fool to have hoped he would, she told herself. “We'll call you when dinner's ready,” she said, trying to sound bright and cheerful.

“I'm not hungry,” came his curt reply.

Milly exchanged a look with Sarah.

“Well, come down from there and have some lemonade at least, and rest this afternoon,” Sarah urged. “It's going to be too hot to be out here painting this afternoon. You'll have a sunstroke.”

Nick turned half-around, then. “Thank you, Miss Sarah, but after a decade in India, I'm used to the heat.” He might have been speaking to a stranger, he was so polite. “You needn't worry.”

“But it's Sunday!” Milly protested, before she could stop herself. But she was once more speaking to his back.

“This needs to be done, Miss Milly,” he said, plying his brush. “It would be a shame to let termites or rain damage such a new building.”

“I'll be right out to help you, soon's I eat, Mr. Nick!” Bobby called, full of eagerness to help his hero and oblivious to the tension stretching between the man on the ladder and the woman on the ground.

“Let him go, Milly,” Sarah whispered. “He'll come in when he's ready.”

But he did not come in until supper, ate silently and quickly, then excused himself to go to the bunkhouse, muttering something about a headache.

“It ain't surprisin' he's got a sore head, bein' out in the sun all day like that,” Josh commented, looking after him with shrewd eyes.

 

Nick had just asked her to partner him in the Virginia reel. In the illogical way of dreams, the Englishman showed no sign that he remembered their earlier disagreement. He wore the gray dress uniform of a Confederate officer, complete with a saber dangling from a sash around his waist. He laughed as he bowed to her from the line of gentlemen that faced the ladies while the fiddler played the introductory notes of the tune.

“Miss Milly, Miss Milly!” Bobby's urgent shout pierced the pecan wood door and the fragile bubble of her fantasy.

What on earth? Another Comanche attack?
But no war whoops pierced the stillness outside. Throwing a
wrapper around her nightgown, Milly dashed to the door of her bedroom, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she went.

Bobby stood there clutching a lantern, the light transforming his worried face into that of a nightmare creature.

“What is it, Bobby? Is Josh w—”

“Naw, it's not my uncle, it's Mr. Nick. He's sick, Miss Milly, and shaking so hard I'm afraid he's gonna fall outta bed. And he's talkin' outta his head. Uncle Josh says you better come.”

While he'd been speaking, Sarah's door had opened across from hers and Milly saw her sister standing there, taking in every word. “You go ahead, Milly,” she said. “I'll get out some willow bark and start brewing a tea and bring it out to the bunkhouse as soon as it's ready.”

Pausing just long enough to throw her shawl over her wrapper, Milly dashed after the boy, running to keep up with his long-legged stride. What could have struck Nick down so quickly? He'd worked too hard out in the heat all day, of course—could this be sunstroke, striking so many hours later?

Josh already managed to light a couple of lanterns in the bunkhouse, banishing the shadows to the far corners of the room and underneath the bunks. He'd been bent over one of the cots, but when he straightened and turned at the sound of the door banging open, his weathered, worn face was as apprehensive as Bobby's had been.

“Miss Milly, he wuz sound asleep when me 'n' Bobby came in t' bed down, but a few minutes ago he
woke us up complainin' about the cold, and beggin' fer blankets,” Josh said, shaking his head in amazement at a body needing blankets on a July night. “We piled every bit a' covering we could find in here on him, but it didn't seem to warm him at all. Then he was shoutin' about a tiger about t' spring on him, an' mumblin' some outlandish foreign gibberish.” He took a step backward, sagging into the chair behind him, and Milly could see the cot on which Nick lay.

Even before she reached his bedside, Milly saw the sheet over Nick fluttering from his trembling beneath it, and heard a rhythmic clicking. She thought it was the legs of the bed shaking against the floor planks, but then she realized it was it was Nick's chattering teeth. His face was pale and his skin bumpy with gooseflesh.

“Nick!”

His eyes were slitted open and seemed to track the sound, but there was no recognition in them. “Ambika…” he said, and mumbled some unintelligible phrase.

Ambika?
What—or who—was Ambika? Was he speaking some tongue he'd learned in India?

“Sarah's coming with some willow bark tea,” she murmured over her shoulder to the old man and the boy. “Hang on, Nick.”
Oh, Sarah, hurry!
She collapsed onto her knees next to the bed.
God, save him! Don't let him die!

S
he appeared to him in his dream—Ambika, youngest daughter of the rajah. Her name meant Goddess of the Moon. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, with her thick, lustrous, raven-black hair like a river of silk. Aptly named, she could be mysterious as the moon, too, favoring him with one of her rare smiles and letting him see the gleam of her fathomless dark eyes in one moment, pouting and veiling herself the next in the filmy, iridescent fabrics trimmed with pearls and sparkling gems. She wore anklets and bracelets with tiny golden bells, so her walk was as musical as her voice.

She'd promised him much with her eyes, and even knowing it could never work, he'd fallen in love with her. But now, in his dream, she was watching his ceremony of disgrace, just as she had on that day. He thought he heard her laughing at him, and not even her veils could muffle the acid scorn in it.
“No wonder they call you Mad Nick…”

Mad Nick.

Millicent Matthews was there in his dream, too,
but she was not laughing. Instead, she stood opposite Ambika, with the assembled ranks of the Bombay Light Cavalry between them. Compassion and sorrow etched her face. She seemed to be reaching out to him, stretching her arm as one did to a drowning man, but even though he extended his arm to her, he could never seem to make contact. He was being swept away, not by water, but by rows and rows of uniformed soldiers, mercilessly pushing him onward.

Maybe someday he'd stop dreaming of a woman who, in the end, had only caused him pain.

 

As she watched, he stopped shivering and the pallor of his face was gradually replaced with flushing. She reached out a hand to touch his forehead and yanked it back, alarmed at the intensity of the sudden heat. He was burning up! Where was Sarah with that tea?

“We got t' take them blankets off him, Miss Milly, so he kin cool off, afore he gets so hot he has a fit,” Josh told her, and she yanked the coverings away until Nick was once again covered only by a sheet.

“Fetch me some water, Bobby!” she said, and when he ran back in with a bucket from the well she drenched the bandana hanging on his bedpost and sponged Nick's sweaty face. He yelped in alarm at the first cool, wet touch of the cloth, then sank back, eyes closed, still shivering as he submitted to her ministrations. She sponged his face, then uncovered one arm at a time, then the other, wiping them down with the cool wet cloth as she had seen her mother do when Sarah had come down with a fever as a child.

Sarah arrived an eternity later, carrying a cupful of
the tea, and with Bobby helping to raise him up, they managed to ladle the tea into him, spoonful by spoonful. Eyes screwed shut, he grimaced at the taste, but in some recess of his heated brain, he must have known they were trying to help him, for he allowed them to continue until he had taken the entire cupful.

“Bobby, you'd better ride for the doctor,” she said. The boy nodded wordlessly and pulled on his boots.

Nick raised his head off the pillow and muttered something that sounded like
“Kwine…ih v'lees…”

“What, Nick? What are you saying?” Milly asked. More Indian words?

But he said nothing more, his head falling back on the pillow once again. While she waited, she prayed silently.
Please, Lord, save him! You sent him to help us, didn't You? So You wouldn't let him die of a fever when we need him so badly, would You?

Then she realized how bossy her prayer sounded. Surely it was wrong to talk to the Almighty like that.

Lord, I'm sorry for speaking to You that way. I'm just so afraid for him! Please save him, I beg of You! If he dies, I don't even know how to notify his family… But Your will be done…

Across the bed she saw Sarah, her eyes closed, her lips moving. She was petitioning Heaven, too.

An hour passed, and as she watched, ever so gradually the dry hotness of his skin became damp, then wet. Great pearls of sweat rose on his forehead and dripped down his cheeks. When she touched him, he felt cooler, though still overwarm, and she saw that the sheets on top and beneath him were drenched with sweat.

“We've got to change these sheets or he'll get chilled
again,” Milly muttered. “Sarah, could you please get some dry sheets from the house?”

As soon as her sister returned, with Josh insisting on helping despite his stifled grunts of pain, they turned the unconscious man on his side, first to one side of the bed, pulling out the drenched sheet beneath him and replacing it with a fresh dry one and repeating the process until he was once more surrounded by clean, dry sheets. He never woke. When he was once more lying on his back, Milly stared, hypnotized by the regularity of his chest rising and falling beneath the covering.

By now, Josh was snoring in his bunk. Sarah's head nodded forward as she fell into slumber, then jerked herself upright, blinking as she struggled to regain full alertness.

“Sarah, go back to the house,” Milly told her, gently touching her sister's shoulder. “I'll send Josh if I need anything.”

Sarah shook her head. “I couldn't sleep,” she insisted, her words belying the yawn that escaped from her right afterward.

“Well, at least curl up on one of those empty bunks over there,” Milly said with a wry smile. “You almost fell out of the chair just then.”

Sitting in a cane back chair by Nick's bed, Milly had nodded off herself when, some time later, she woke to hear his voice calling her name.

“Yes, Nick?” she said, leaning toward him and feeling his forehead. Once again, it was hot and clammy to her touch. His eyes were open, and he shivered, but there was a spark of recognition in his red-rimmed blue eyes.

“
Lareea
. Need
kwine
…quinine,” he corrected himself, jaws clenching in an obvious attempt to keep his teeth from chattering again. “My v'lees.”

She didn't understand the first word, or the last, but finally comprehended quinine. “Quinine? You need quinine for what's ailing you?” Where was she to get that?

“In my v'lees,” he said again. “Under…th' bed…”

Kneeling, she felt underneath the bed, her hand coming in contact with something solid and made of leather, and pulled it out by the handle. It was the leather grip he had brought with him from the boarding house. Ah, he'd been saying
valise!

“In…s-side,” he said, motioning for her to open it. “Bottle…quinine. Drops…put a few drops in water…”

She did so, finding a small amber bottle with a stopper atop some papers. She grabbed a cup that was sitting on his bedside and poured a glass of water, then carefully tipped the bottle to allow a few drops of the quinine to mix with the water before swirling it around. He drank it down as if his life depended on how fast he could swallow, and for all she knew, it did. Then she almost giggled at the awful face he made as he drank the last sip.

“Nasty, dr-dreadful stuff…bitter…”

The effort of drinking the quinine water seemed to exhaust what little energy he had left, and he sank back on the pillows, his eyes closing once more in sleep.

 

“Milly, it's morning,” Sarah's whisper and her gentle touch on her arm, roused Milly from sleep in the chair by Nick's bed.

Milly jerked herself upright, conscious of needles of pain from her stiff neck. Startled that she had fallen asleep when she'd meant to keep vigil, she immediately turned to look at Nick. The Englishman still slept, one arm atop the sheet, the sound of his breathing regular and unlabored. His color looked all right, though a little pale, but just to reassure herself, she reached out a hand and touched his forehead. His skin was dry and warm, but not overly so.

Outside in the yard, the rooster announced the rising of the sun.

“Why don't you go back to bed in the house for a while?” Sarah said, still whispering. “You can't have slept very well, all scrunched over like that.”

Milly stretched, yawning, pushing an errant strand of hair from her braid out of her face, and reached a hand back to knead her stiff neck. She looked at Sarah, then back to Nick, hesitating.

“Josh is awake, and he can watch over him for a while. I'll check on him every little bit. Go on, now.”

Milly looked around. “Where's Bobby? Didn't he ever come back from the doctor's?” The boy's bunk was empty.

“Doc Harkey's at a ranch between here and San Saba, delivering a baby. Bobby left a message to come when he could. He's out spreading hay for the horses.”

Surrendering, Milly started for the door.

“Th-thank you, ladies…”

They whirled to see that Nick was awake, his eyes open.

“I'm sorry, we didn't mean to wake you,” Milly said, going back to the bedside. “How are you?”

“Weak as a cat, I'm afraid…but it would have been worse without your help,” he said, his voice raspy. “The quinine's…only thing that helps.”

“Do you know what caused your fever?”

He nodded, eyes closing with the effort, then opening again. “Malaria…”

“Malaria? Malaria caused your fever?” Milly said, catching sight of the alarm that flooded her sister's face.

Nick had evidently seen it and interpreted Sarah's expression, too. “Not…not c-catching,” he said. “It's…a souvenir of my…time in India…returns every now and then t' remind me. Not…often… The quinine helps…shorten the attack somewhat… But it's not over…there'll be more…”

“So how can we help you recover? What do you need?” Milly asked.

“W-water…” Nick's eyelids drooped, as if the few words he'd said had exhausted him.

She poured a fresh cup of water from the pitcher; then with Sarah helping to prop him up, Milly helped him sip it. He drank thirstily until the cup was empty.

“Th-thanks,” he said again. “Sleep now…”

He was asleep as soon as Sarah lowered his head to the pillow.

 

It was three days before the cycle of chills, fevers and sleeping, followed by lucid intervals, was over and
Nick, assisted by Bobby, felt well enough to leave the confines of the bunkhouse for a chair on the porch, where Milly waited in one of the rocking chairs.

He felt a great deal better now that Bobby had brought him hot water and assisted him to wash and shave, but his legs felt about as strong as pudding. He hated to have Milly see him this way, pale and leaning on the boy. What a bad bargain she must think she had made, depending on him for help with the ranch!

And how beautiful she looked in her simple calico everyday dress, her face lit from the sunlight on her right, her dark hair gleaming with reddish highlights.

“Thanks, lad,” he said, as he sank into the rocking chair. “I'm much obliged to you.”

“Aw, 'tweren't nothin', Mr. Nick…” the boy mumbled.

“Nonsense. I wasn't fit for the company of a lady before you helped me clean up,” Nick insisted, and the boy smiled shyly.

“You're welcome. I—I'd better get on with my chores. Holler when yer ready to go back to bed, or you need anything,” Bobby said, clumping down the steps. He strode back across the yard to the corral.

“Would you like some coffee?” she said, indicating the pot and cup on the low table between them.

“Indeed, I would,” Nick said, savoring the excuse to just sit there and watch her as she poured the steaming brew into the cup, then handed it to him before pouring a cup for herself.

He closed his eyes in bliss as he swallowed. “Ah…that's wonderful stuff. I'm getting quite fond of your
Texas coffee, Miss Milly. It's making me forget all about tea.”

“It's Arbuckle's brand,” she said. “It's new this year—the first coffee that comes pre-roasted. It's actually made by Yankees, but we drink it anyway,” she murmured with a wry smile. “Each bag comes with a peppermint stick—Bobby always begs for that.”

Nick cleared his throat. “I…I'm sorry you had to see me like that, Milly—when I was delirious with the fever, I mean. These malarial attacks don't happen often. In fact, it hasn't happened for so long I didn't recognize the signals and thought I was only overtired from the heat. If I'd recognized it, I'd have drank some quinine water and perhaps have succeeded in heading it off.”

She looked surprised. “Becoming ill is nothing to apologize for, Nick. I…we…just felt sorry for you, and wished we could do something to make it go away more quickly.”

He winced inwardly. Sorry for him was not at all the way he wanted her to feel.

“You said you got this malaria in India,” she went on. “What causes it? Why don't we have it here?”

He shrugged. “I don't think even physicians know exactly. But it seems to be prevalent in marshy areas, so I should think it's too dry here for that.”

She nodded her understanding, then took a deep breath. “Nick, I…I just want to say I'm sorry for the quarrel that we had Sunday, about the ex-slaves. You were right, and I was wrong. I was being a coward.”

He looked down at his hands for a moment, then back up at her. “It's all right. I was wrong, trying to impose
my wishes on you. You know best what the realities are here after all.”

“It's good of you to say, but no, I was totally at fault. I realized it, sitting in church. I let my fear of confronting men like Bill Waters make me afraid to do the right thing. And we
do
need help around here.”

“Yes, my falling sick rather proved that point, didn't it?”

Milly sighed. “Of course it did. I…I don't suppose it would be possible to find those men and bring them back?” she asked, with a tentative smile.

He felt the grin spreading over his face. “When I sent them on their way, I told them about the cave over by the creek, and the fish they could catch there with the poles we left in the cave. With any luck they're still there. Bobby could go out there and tell them you're willing to offer them jobs.”