“Asa and Jackson are going to be watching the house. Nothing can get past those two, so don’t be worrying about anything.” She nodded. His middle finger glided along the underside of her jaw. When it reached the point of her chin, he pressed up. Evie had no choice but to meet Cougar’s gaze, to see the understanding and purpose there.
“I promise you, the man who did this will not walk away from the repercussions.”
She knew she should tell Cougar that it wasn’t necessary. She knew she should keep him home, away from danger, so he could live to see his child born, but she wasn’t that good. All that filled her mind was the knowledge that whoever had done this to Brad was still out there. And that was intolerable. “Thank you.”
She glanced over at Clint, thinking of Jenna, Gray, and Bri. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“It’s my middle name.”
Cougar dropped his hand to the hilt of his knife. She stared at his lean fingers wrapped around the wooden handle and remembered how that same hand had cradled the prospect of his child so tenderly. Dear God, what would Mara do without her Cougar? “You, too.”
There was too much anticipation in Cougar’s smile to ease her nerves. “Never intended to be anything but.” He called over to Clint “You got that package, Clint?”
“Right here.”
He tossed it. Cougar caught it before passing it to her.
It was surprisingly heavy. “What’s this?”
“A wedding present.”
Putting it on the foyer table, she watched him stroll through the door as if he wasn’t going on a manhunt, facing killing, facing death. She shuddered. When she’d wished for excitement in her life, this wasn’t the kind she’d been hoping for. Before the door closed, she caught a glimpse of Asa leaning against the house, rifle draped across his arm. He tipped his hat. She managed a shaky smile. The door clicked shut.
She became aware of a dampness against her chest. Pulling the sheets way, she saw the bright smear of blood across the pale yellow of her bodice. The one she’d worn in case Brad woke up because she thought the color would cheer him. Without thinking, she touched the spot. Her hand came away stained with the same red. A streak discolored the gold of her wedding band. She closed her hand over the stain. She was going to have to do laundry. Almost everything they had was blood-soaked.
EVIE SAT BY the bed, the hard edges of the ladder-back chair she’d dragged up from the kitchen cutting into her thigh. There were more comfortable chairs already in the room, big overstuffed things that encouraged a body to curl up and relax—the one thing she couldn’t do. Doc had said Brad should wake tonight. She needed to be there when he did, needed to see awareness in his eyes.
Moonlight cast the room in a pale glow. Brad lay in the middle of the bed, his skin leached of its natural vitality by blood loss.
He was so white, his breathing so shallow. Evie had the overwhelming feeling that the only thing keeping him breathing was the amount of effort she put into willing it. It didn’t matter what Doc said, that the laudanum he’d given him for pain caused the shallow breaths. Didn’t matter that Cougar had meant to be there for Brad. She wasn’t interested in efforts. She wanted results.
Brad frowned and shifted on the bed. His eyelids fluttered, his hand slid up over the covers toward his hip. Leaning forward she caught his hand. His flesh was hot and dry. “Shh, don’t move.”
His frown deepened. “Brenda?”
Who was Brenda?
“No. It’s Evie.” She squeezed once, probably holding on too tightly. She just wanted him to open his eyes. “You were shot.”
“Father found us?”
Good heavens, he thought his father would shoot him? “No. Someone else.”
His hand turned in hers, squeezing hard. “He’s coming.”
His voice sounded so young. Was he reliving his past?
“Where?” she asked, taking advantage of the moment.
“Where he can’t find you.”
As an experiment, she asked, “Where’s that?”
“To the woods by the river, there’s a cave. He won’t find you there.”
“He’s a reverend. A man of God.”
He shook his head, grimacing. “Hurry!”
Brad was breathing hard, his heart beating fast. Dear heavens, what had gone on in his home? Stroking her fingers across his brow, she pushed his hair off his face, giving him what he obviously needed to hear. “I’m hurrying.”
His eyes opened as his grip on her hand changed, pushing rather than pulling. “Get in.”
Delirium ruled his mind. She placed her palm on his shoulder. He was burning up. Swallowing back her terror at all the fever implied, she whispered, “I’m in.”
The frown cleared from his face. “Good. Safe.”
His breathing changed, his muscles tightened. She clutched his hand before he could let go. She didn’t want him to hurt, but she had to know. Just had to know that it all turned out right.
That he’d been safe, too. Kissing the back of his hand, she asked, “What about you? Are you safe now?”
There was a pause. He frowned. For an instant she thought he was awake. She wanted him to be awake but then his body jerked three times in a row. Breath hissed through his teeth and he snarled, “Touch her, and I’ll kill you.”
Touch who? Brenda? Kill who? His father?
He jerked again, his hands slamming into the mattress above his head while his body bucked under blows she couldn’t block. Pressing his shoulders into the mattress, she tried to keep him still. It was impossible. He was trapped in a nightmare she couldn’t stop. If he continued, he’d rip out his stitches. “Brad, please, you have to stop fighting.”
He fought even harder, forcing her to throw her weight over him. His groan tore her heart out, but he didn’t stop fighting. If anything, his struggles intensified with a desperation that drove through her heart like a spike. No one should have memories so painful, so vivid.
“Never. Whip me all you want. Have your congregation pray when you do it. I won’t be praying ever again. She’s dead, you bastard.”
Those scars she’d imagined were from an act of heroism had actually been put there by his father? Stretching her middle finger, she touched the faint mark that curled over his shoulder and imagined the pain he’d endured as a child. The humiliation. “No one’s going to whip you.”
His eyes found hers, seemed to focus. In a surprisingly lucid voice, he said, “She’s dead, you know.”
“Who?”
“Mom. I killed her.”
The only one who was dying here was her. This glimpse into his past was devastating. “How?”
“He told me if I prayed hard enough she’d live. But she didn’t.”
What kind of monster told a child that? Kissing his cheek, her heart bleeding, she whispered, “He lied, Brad.”
He blinked, suddenly looking totally adult, completely male as his mouth twisted with wry amusement. “God does that a lot.”
At least he wasn’t tossing about. “What?”
“Lie.”
He couldn’t believe that. “No, he doesn’t.”
She was talking to herself. Brad slumped back into the pillows, all the vitality she associated with him snuffed out. And that scared her more than anything else.
Grabbing his shoulders, she leaned over so she could whisper in his ear, “Don’t you dare die on me, Brad Swanson. Unless you want me chaining your spirit to this Earth with the most off-kilter wailing and burnt dinner offerings you or any other ghost has ever seen, you’d better not die.”
It might have been her imagination, but she thought he smiled.
THREE HOURS LATER there was another change. Brad went very still. Even his breathing stopped. She rushed to the bed. His eyes opened. For a minute, his gaze was vague, but then it focused. “Evie?”
The tears she’d been battling for the last day welled. He recognized her. “Who else did you expect to find beside your bed?”
He blinked. His “hurt?” was a dry rasp.
“You were shot,” she explained.
He closed his eyes and licked his lips, clearly trying to remember. “Casey.”
Well, at least she had a name. “Casey shot you?”
He nodded. “Cougar?”
“He’s fine.”
He grunted. “Couldn’t find him.”
“You searched for him?”
He cleared his throat. “Thought Casey might have picked him off.”
So that explained why he’d been up on the ridge bleeding all over the place. She wanted to slap him for being so damn loyal.
“He’s fine, so you don’t have to worry anymore.”
Brad relaxed. “Good.”
She filled the glass with water from the pitcher on the bed stand. “You must be thirsty.”
Immediately, he started to get up.
“No, don’t move.” He was so weak, just her hand in the center of his chest kept him put. His skin was warm, but not too warm. That, at least, was a positive. “You can’t afford to lose any more blood.”
Beneath her palm, a subtle tension entered his muscles. His right hand curled into a fist. “How bad?”
She wanted to cry at the careful question. Clearly, he remembered the wound’s location. She brushed his hair off his forehead, hoping he didn’t notice the tremble in her fingers. “The bullet missed everything important.” Slipping her arm behind his head, she angled him up toward the glass. “Doc said it was a miracle,” she whispered, savoring the texture of his skin against hers, the flex of his muscles as he drank, mentally encouraging him to take more, her hand shaking so badly she spilled some. “Sorry.”
The tears pressed harder, needing an escape. She fought them back.
“Never thought the good Lord would waste one of those on me.”
Emotions churned inside, built, exploded outward. “Shut up.”
She was too close to snapping to hear such nonsense. The order came out harsher than she’d intended, betrayed more than she wanted.
Brad pushed the glass away. “Hell.”
If her voice sounded bad, his sounded worse. Scratchy and hoarse.
He patted the bed. “Come here.”
“No.” She tipped the glass back to his lips. Water spilled as he turned his head away. “Now look what you made me do.”
He didn’t make a sound as she eased him down on the bed, and the reason became apparent as soon as she tried to straighten. He’d been lying in wait. His fingers curved around the back of her neck, holding her in place. She didn’t dare put any strain on his muscles.
“You’re scared.”
“I was terrified.”
His eyes narrowed. “You still are.”
“You see too much.”
“You’re just not very good at hiding.”
“From you.” And that was true.
“I like it that way . . . now come here.”
There was nowhere to go. Any dipping of the mattress would cause him pain and she couldn’t do that, but the hand behind her head was surprisingly strong.
“The laudanum is making you feel better than you are.”
“The laudanum is wearing off.” His eyes narrowed. “You’ve been crying.”
“No, I haven’t.” Not yet. She hadn’t broken down yet.
“Then you’re about to.”
“Not if you let me go.” If he let her go, she had a prayer of holding on to her composure.
“I don’t want to let you go. After spending what seemed like an eternity in hell imagining I was holding on to you, I find I’m a little hungry for the real thing.”
“I’ll bawl like a baby.”
The hand behind her neck didn’t budge. His jaw set. Clearly he was prepared for the worst. “You need to be held.”
She needed the last eighteen hours rewritten. “I’m not going to fall apart.”
“Maybe I am.”
She blinked. She couldn’t imagine that. “Why?”
“I wanted to see you again.”
She took his hand from behind her neck. She meant to put it back on the bed, but somehow found herself holding it, unable to put it down, memorizing the creases in the back of the knuckles, the tiny nicks of scars, the shape of his nails, memorizing everything. “Why?”
The grin he shot her was a pale imitation of his normally devastating one. She shouldn’t have found it sexy, but she did. “I’ve never had a woman to come home to before.”
The tears broke free, spilling over her cheeks, dripping onto her chest and his arm. “You almost didn’t.”
“Ah, sweetheart.” His fingers threaded through her hair. “Don’t.”
The stupid tears wouldn’t stop. “I can’t help it.”
“Then you’re going to have to let me hold you.”
“I can’t, without hurting you.”
“Anyone ever tell you you’re stubborn?”
“No.”
“Now that’s a lie.”
“If you knew the answer, why’d you ask?”
He struggled up on his elbows.
“What are you doing?”
“If you won’t come here, I’ll come there.”
Oh God, he couldn’t do that. She slid to her knees. “How about if I sit here beside the bed?”
His arm came around her shoulder, a heavy masculine weight she cherished. It made her so angry he’d put himself in danger. She swatted his arm. “If you ever take a risk like you did yesterday, you won’t have to worry about someone killing you. I’ll do it myself.”
“I was bushwhacked, Evie. It’s a hard thing to predict.”
“You should have waited for Cougar.”
“I don’t need a keeper.”
She ignored his scowl, glaring at him through the flood of tears that just wouldn’t stop. “That argument would hold more water if you weren’t on the verge of death.”
“Stop arguing with me, sweetheart, I’m wounded.”
“It’s your own fault.”
“You still have to deal with it, and unless you come here, it’s just going to get tougher.”
“How could it be tougher?”
“I’ll start fussing.”
“As if you aren’t now?”
“This is nothing compared to how bad I can get.”
Even through her tears, she could see his determination. For some reason it was important to him to hold her and he wasn’t going to settle until he got it. He looked so tired, so pale, that she was afraid to indulge him. Afraid not to. What if he tried to get up again?