Never Love a Cowboy (18 page)

Dr. Hickerson unfolded his body, his bones creaking. “That’s up to you.”

“Damn it, man, that’s all you ever say. Can’t you
give me something a bit more substantial?”

“You want me to tell you that you’re going to start walking tomorrow or next week or next month, and I can’t do that because I don’t know. If you had come to me with that many broken bones, I would have amputated your legs, so I don’t know everything I should to help you walk again. I know it’s frustrating, but it’s going to take time.” He opened his black bag and brought out a jar. “I made some salve that you can work into your legs when your muscles start cramping.”

Harrison took the jar and set it on the bed. He would have preferred to sling it across the room, but his legs ached more often than not, and they always felt so damned tired. He even felt exhausted, which made no sense, when he did nothing all day. He’d been less weary herding cattle.

Dr. Hickerson picked up one piece of the broken figurine. “What happened here?”

“It offended me.”

Glancing at the mirror, the doctor shook his head. He touched a finger to his brow. “The healing has got to start here before it can start there.” He pointed to Harrison’s legs.

“There is nothing wrong with my head.”

“Except visiting you is about as refreshing as being burned at the stake.” He grabbed the crutches and laid them against the bed. “Try using them.”

Despair swept through Harrison. “I have tried.”

“I don’t know how to help him.” Jessye lay on her back, the warm, gently flowing water of the river
soothing her as she stared through the canopy of leaves above.

“These Englishmen are a proud lot.”

Jessye watched Abigail Rhodes dip her three-month-old son Colton in the water. “I guess you’d be an expert on that, being married to one and all.”

Abbie smiled. “I don’t think any woman ever becomes an expert on men. Just when you think you’ve got them figured out, they do something you’d never expect.” Her smile withered away. “But I do know whenever Grayson visits Harry, he comes home, grabs a hoe, and beats at the ground like there’s no tomorrow.”

Jessye straightened. The water wasn’t deep in the center of the river, and when her toes settled against the silt at the bottom, the water lapped at her waist.

Colton released an excited screech, and Jessye watched his feet kick the water, sending droplets flying. Abbie laughed joyfully.

“Abbie, can you come here a moment?” Grayson yelled.

Jessye dunked into the water until it covered her shoulders. She saw Grayson peering through the brush at the edge of the river, around the bend where he’d taken the other three children to swim as though sensing that Jessye needed to talk with Abbie woman to woman. Yet even knowing that his gaze wasn’t fastened on her, she blushed furiously.

“Will you hold Colton?” Abbie asked.

“Sure.” Jessye took the child, keeping her eye on him as Abbie waded through the water. “Wonder what your pa wants?”

Colton slapped his fists against the water. His feet
made contact with her chest. He gave an unexpected shove that nearly forced her to lose her grip on him. “You’re a strong fella, aren’t you?”

She crooked her leg and raised it until his tiny feet could find purchase. Careful to keep his head above the water, she watched him bob as he bent his knees.

“Having fun?” Abbie asked as she returned.

“Yep. What did Grayson want?”

Abbie smiled. “A kiss.”

Jessye felt the heat warm her face more than the summer sun. “I’m sorry. I’m imposing—”

“Don’t be silly. We come to the river to swim almost every afternoon. Grayson insists we play an hour each day. Funny. Before we were married, it seemed like I didn’t have enough hours in the day to get the work done, and now…well, I reckon some of my priorities changed.”

“You look younger,” Jessye told her, then grimaced because the compliment sounded more like an insult.

Abbie’s smile grew. “I think it’s the laughter, or maybe it’s just the smiles.” She shrugged. “I only know he makes me happy.”

Jessye felt the tiny feet walking along her leg as Colton reached for his mother. “He’s walking here!”

“It’s the water. Holds him up so he thinks he’s a big boy.” Abbie tickled him before playfully snatching him away from Jessye.

Jessye furrowed her brow. “So he’s not walking?”

“No, it’ll be months before he’s walking on the ground.” She blew air against his belly. He kicked frantically at the water. “But he can kick.”

“You say you come every day?”

“Mmm-hm. I think that’s why he has such strong
legs. I don’t remember my other children having a kick this strong.”

Jessye flopped back, arms outstretched, and the water lifted her to the surface. She’d never noticed how easy it was to move in the river. She jerked upright. “Abbie, I got a big favor to ask of your husband.”

And she prayed Harry would forgive her.

“A
re you out of your mind?” Harrison
asked, staring at Grayson Rhodes. “Accompany you and your family on a picnic?”

“My son is three months old, and you’ve yet to see him.”

Harrison waved his arm magnanimously through the air. “So bring him to my prison. I’m allowed visitors.”

“Self-pity doesn’t become you, Harry.”

He watched with increasing dread as Grayson jerked aside the curtains and the morning sunlight spilled into the room. “It’s a beautiful day, the sun is shining—”

“It’s August. It’s hot.”

Grayson turned. “All the more reason to go outside where you can at least sit in the shade or feel a bit of breeze. It’s unbearably stuffy in here.”

“In case you’ve failed to notice, I’ve lost the use of my legs.”

“I’ll carry you.”

Harrison slammed his eyes closed. “As though I were a child—”

“As though you were the closest thing to a brother that I’ve ever known.”

Harrison’s throat tightened as he opened his eyes. “I can’t, Gray.”

Grayson crossed the room in long, easy strides that Harrison hated himself for envying.

“I placed the wagon behind the saloon. We’ll go out the back door. No one will see. When we ride out of town, people will have no idea how you came to sit on the bench seat. Besides, it’ll be well worth your efforts. Abbie has prepared the tastiest picnic.”

“This isn’t one of those large community affairs she’s fond of, is it?”

“No. Just my family on our land, a pretty little spot by the river.”

Harrison scratched his beard. He’d allowed it to grow back. In defiance, he supposed. Whatever closeness had developed with Jessye he’d severed with his surly attitude. “Do your children know about my…condition?”

He nodded. “It won’t matter one whit to them.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because they’re children.”

“Children taunted you for being a bastard.”

“Not young children. It’s only as we grow older and more cynical that we hurt others in an attempt to turn attention away from our own faults.”

Within the pit of his gut, Harrison knew he was making a mistake, but it wasn’t the first, and he seriously doubted it would be the last. “All right, I’ll go on one condition.”

“And that would be?”

God, he hated asking, despised the dependency.
“That you bring me some hot water so I can wash up. I’m a bit rank.”

Grayson smiled. “You always were one for understatement.”

Harrison had tried sitting with his back against a tree, but the pressure on his hip was more than he could bear. It hadn’t healed properly, but he knew nothing could be done now but to accept it.

So he’d stretched out on the quilt, on his left side, raised up on an elbow. He’d never expected to envy the illegitimate son of a duke. In his mind, he had no doubt that Grayson was happy. Abbie obviously adored his friend, as did the children from her first marriage.

Her daughter, Lydia, greatly resembled her mother. At nine, her oldest son, Johnny, looked much like his father, but he lacked his father’s serious nature. The youngest boy, Micah, was six. He had his father’s dark hair but his mother’s violet eyes, enlarged by the spectacles he wore until he resembled an owl. Micah squatted in front of him, his gaze intense as though he could see into Harrison’s sordid soul.

“You and me are the same,” he croaked after a while, in a voice that had always reminded Harrison of a frog.

“In what way, lad?”

He blinked his eyes. “I cain’t hardly see, and you cain’t hardly walk.”

Harrison’s stomach tightened. He couldn’t walk at all. After the doctor had left two days before, he’d tried again to use the crutches within the privacy of his room. He’d fallen flat on his face. His only com
fort had come from the fact that he’d regained enough strength in his arms that he could pull himself into bed. Reaching out, he touched the rim of the boy’s spectacles. “But these help you see, do they not?”

The lad bobbed his head, the locks of dark brown hair flapping against his forehead. “I bet somethin’ could help you walk.”

“I don’t think so, lad.”

“Uh-huh.” He jumped up and ran off to join his brother at the edge of the river, where he stood with a fishing pole in his hand beside Grayson.

“Children have such faith, don’t they?”

Harrison jerked his head around at the familiar smoky voice. The horse snorted as Jessye dismounted. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

Shrugging, she threaded the reins through the branches of a nearby bush before plopping down beside him. “I was out riding and thought I’d stop by.”

He resented like the devil that he couldn’t even sit up without making a gruesome spectacle of himself. “Gray told me this was a secluded spot.”

She nodded, her gaze on the river. “I was out here yesterday. Went swimming with Abbie.”

“Well, Abbie returned to the house right after we ate lunch. She took the baby and Lydia with her. So if you want to see her, that’s where you need to go.”

Jessye began plucking up blades of grass. “I didn’t come to see her.” She gave him a sideways glance. “Yesterday, I played in the river with Colton, and his little legs were kicking. He can’t walk, but in the water…” She dropped her gaze. “I thought if you went swimming, maybe your legs would remember—”

He started laughing, long and hard.

“It’s not funny. You haven’t used your legs in months, and it occurred to me that you just needed to start over, from the beginning, learn to crawl—”

He abruptly stopped his laughter. “Oh, I can crawl, Jessye, on my belly like a slug creeping out from beneath a rock at night.” He jerked his gaze toward the river. “Gray!”

But all he saw was the water lapping at the shore. Grayson and the boys were gone. Suspicion lurked and knowledge dawned. He snapped his gaze back to Jessye. “Bloody damned hell! You arranged this.”

She nodded. “Don’t be mad at them. I didn’t know how else to get you out here. I knew you wouldn’t come if I asked.”

Impotent rage surged through him. “So now I am to be a prisoner here until Gray returns and hauls me—like a sack of potatoes—to your room at the back of the saloon? I can’t even live in my old room because it’s at the top of the stairs. Have you no idea of the humiliation I feel at being dependent—”

“I do know, damn you! I do know and that’s why I’m trying so hard to help you. Do you think I would have given up my daughter if I’d been independent? If I’d had money or a man’s name? I know the humiliation of not being able to control my destiny—and I know the strength required to take that first step to never again be dependent upon anyone or anything but yourself.” Tears flooded her lovely green eyes and spilled over onto her cheeks. “Let me help you, Harry.”

With his thumb, he captured her tear. “It’s not the same.”

“It’s not that different. Why do you think I invested
in the cattle venture? Why do you think I risked my reputation and my life? Because I never want to be dependent on anyone again.”

She reached out and then drew back, as though fearing his rejection. She clasped her hands tightly within her lap.

Clenching his teeth against the pain, he struggled to sit up. He scooted back until he could roll onto his left hip and lean against the tree. “You were supposed to go with Kit.” It was an inane comment, with no bearing on the argument at hand.

“I couldn’t leave you.”

“Why?”

She shook her head and studied her hands. “Don’t look to me to give you a reason to walk. That’s got to be within you.”

“You don’t think I
want
to walk?”

“I think you’re scared. You want to walk so badly that it’s frightening, almost paralyzing. As long as you don’t try, there’s always the possibility that you might walk. But you’re afraid that if you try and fall, it’ll mean that you’ll never walk. When all it means is that you fell and need to try again. If you don’t try, I dadgum guarantee that you never will walk.”

“Fine words from someone who doesn’t trust any man to be honorable simply because one man wasn’t.”

“You’re right.” With a sigh, she jumped to her feet. “Spend your life lying in the shade. I’m gonna swim in the sun.”

He watched her run the short distance to the water’s edge. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as she hopped up and down, tugging off her boots. She pulled her shirt over her head, and his breath caught
at the sight of her white chemise. She draped the shirt over a nearby bush.
Take off the chemise
, a little voice inside his head dared her.

But she left it in place and jerked off her trousers. Christ, he would have traded his soul to the devil to have the ability to go after her. The skimpy undergarments left little to his imagination. Ah, to see her in the sunlight instead of the shadows of the night…

He glanced around quickly. If Grayson were hiding behind some bushes watching, he’d have to kill him. But all he saw were a couple of squirrels, some mockingbirds, and butterflies fluttering low to the ground.

He turned his attention back to Jessye. She waded out a few steps before crouching and diving into the water. Graceful, so incredibly graceful. She came up to the surface, rolled to her back, and spread her arms out. He saw her small feet kick against the current.

“Come on, Harry! The water’s warm,” she called out.

And his body was fevered with need. He didn’t have the best view in the world, but he could tell the soaked material was plastered against her skin. Her face was turned toward the sun, away from him. Even if her eyes were open, she’d be unable to see him.

A short distance away from him, a tree stood nearer to the bank. He lay on the ground. Ignoring the pain in his side, he stretched out his arms and pulled himself forward, inch by agonizing inch. He was taken off-guard by the sense of accomplishment that filled him as he reached the tree and worked his way into a sitting position, hoping she hadn’t noticed the journey he’d taken.

God, he nearly laughed, as though he were playing hide-and-seek as a child might.

She twisted in the water, her gaze falling on him, her smile bright. “Come on in, Harry.”

“I’d drown.”

“Colton didn’t drown.”

“Yes, well, I’m certain someone held the lad while he was in the water.”

She stopped floating and began to bob in the water, her arms moving in a constant circle. “I’ll hold you.”

His stomach knotted at the smoky allure of her voice, the images that flashed through his mind. He almost shouted for her to close her eyes so she wouldn’t see his ungainly entrance into the river.

But pride held him back. Pride and fear. Fear that he would indeed drown—or have to be rescued. To discover that not only could he not walk but he also could no longer swim—

She released a quick screech and went beneath the water.

“Jessye!” He stretched up as much as he was able—and couldn’t see her. Frantically, he scanned the river. “Gray! Gray!” Damn the man for leaving. He’d hoped he was at least within shouting distance.

Jessye popped back up to the surface and just as quickly went under. Terror seized him. “Jessye!” Nothing. He fell to his stomach, raised up on his elbows, and dragged himself to the water’s edge. “Bloody damned hell!”

He sat up and pulled off his boots, his gaze trained on the river. “Jessye!”

Still nothing. No bubbles, no arms, no legs, no light green eyes. Ah, Christ, if she’d drowned because he
hadn’t been able to move fast enough—

He took a deep breath and slid into the water. He kept his head above the surface. The scent of the river, mud, fish, and plants filled his nostrils. “Jessye!”

He heard the huge splash as she came up from the depths of the river. Relief surged through him, quickly followed by suspicion. He furrowed his brow. The depths of the river. With only his arms, he’d pulled himself to its center and his knees skimmed the bottom. “It’s not deep.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not.”

“I thought you were drowning,” he said sharply.

“I figured you might.” She lifted a shoulder, having the grace to look slightly ashamed. “I reckon I cheated.” She waded toward him. “But I just thought if I could get you in the water, you’d see that you could move your legs here like you can’t out there, and if we could get your legs to work again—”

“I didn’t kick to get out here. I only used my arms.”

“How about now?”

“I’m on my knees.”

“Does it hurt?”

Her question took him off-guard. The water moved gently around him. He wasn’t truly on his knees. He kept afloat by moving his arms, but the pressure on his hip was less than it had been in a long time. “I can’t stand.”

“You don’t need to. But you can float, and little by little, your legs will start working again.”

Her eyes held such hope that she almost had him believing her words. “What if they don’t?”

“What have you lost? You’re out of the bed, out of
your room, outside. The sun is shining and the birds are singing—”

He skimmed his finger along the curve of her chemise. “And you are very nearly naked.” He raised a brow. “There might be some advantages to this endeavor.”

“Let’s take off your shirt.”

Although he was surrounded by water, his mouth went dry as she unbuttoned his shirt. When she pulled the shirt over his head, he lifted his arms and sank beneath the surface, experiencing a heartbeat of panic before he felt her arm go around him and bring him back up.

She smiled brightly when he dragged his hand down his face to get the water out of his eyes.

“Keep yourself afloat while I hang this up to dry,” she ordered.

“What about my trousers?”

“I think you’d best keep them on.” She trudged toward the bank.

“I’ve no objection to you removing all your clothes,” he called after her.

She laughed as she draped his shirt over a bush before gliding back to him.

“So how is this supposed to work?” he asked.

He watched the doubts flicker within her eyes.

“I don’t know. I sorta thought you could float on your back and I would hold you. Maybe after a time your legs would remember what to do. They need to regain their strength before you can walk.” She cradled his cheek. “It might not work at all. We have to expect that it won’t, I reckon, so we’re not terribly disappointed if it doesn’t.”