The Men of Pride County: The Pretender (2 page)

What he hadn’t planned for was the intensity of the pain.

The image of the valley below faded as blood begin to seep between the press of his fingers. He’d nicked nothing vital, but that knowledge didn’t stop his swells of nausea. He tried to holster his still smoking gun, missing the first time, managing the second in an uncoordinated effort. That was when the first shock of fear hit him. His meticulous plan would fall to ruin if he fell off his horse and bled to death, unnoticed, right here in full sight of his goal.

Fighting back the swamping dizziness, Deacon gathered his reins in a bloodied hand and nudged the animal forward. Movement sent fresh waves of hurt pounding up from his side to beat in blackening pulses behind his eyes. What seemed so simple and logical in the planning stage was now close to insurmountable as he swayed in the saddle. Breathing in short,
quick snatches to keep the darkness at bay, he lay along the horse’s neck, his eyes closing against the blur of passing shapes. Not much farther. Not much farther.

Hang on. Hang on. How are you going to accomplish the rest if you can’t manage this simple thing?

Awareness ebbing, he lost all direction, all focus. And then he was falling. For such a long time—or at least that was how it seemed. Pine needles and powdery snow cushioned his impact with the ground, but the blow was jarring. If he fainted, he would fail. He clung to that like a lifeline, struggling to hold to it even as he felt himself slipping away.

And just as consciousness left him, he had one last impression, that of an angel bending near. Only angels weren’t supposed to be shaped to tempt sinful thought, were they?

Perhaps this was hell, and damned inviting it was.

He blinked once, twice, trying to retain the alluring vision as it came closer. He desperately wanted to hear the words those ripe cherry-sweet lips were forming, but concentration faltered and he sank into oblivion.

Garnet Davis believed in answer to prayer, but never had she expected such a quick response … and one so singularly attractive.

Only moments before, as she knelt beside their cantankerous cow trying to coax a steady stream of milk, she’d been brooding over a frequent
wish, a wish that she wasn’t so alone she felt like screaming. A wish that when she spoke, a human voice would reply.

She meant no offense to Boone. The affectionate hound was a most attentive listener, but not so good when it came to giving advice. He’d cock his huge head as she poured out her woes, giving quick comfort with a long swipe of his tongue, but as far as an opinion, his was always a tail thumping, “Whatever you like is fine with me.” On some topics, that just wasn’t good enough. She wanted another’s point of view or even an argument—something to challenge the sameness of her days and the loneliness of her nights.

Of course, she’d been hoping for her father’s early return, or perhaps a simple visit from one of their neighbors, but she knew the distance and the danger prevented both things. She wasn’t afraid to be by herself, even though it gave her father no end of worries. She’d been hunting turkeys and small game since she’d been big enough to hoist her papa’s scattergun. It would take more than the threat of enemy armies to scare her from her daily duties. An empty homestead was an invitation to the riffraff combing the countryside. The sight of her steady double barrels was usually all it took to discourage the shiftless wanderers. Knowing the solitary drifters weren’t the main cause for her father’s concern, she’d promised him she’d escape to the woods should true danger arise.
She knew every hollow, every cave, and could live off the charity of the land until the freebooters moved on, or could make her way to the closest Union camp if necessary.

But that would be a last resort. It would take John Hunt Morgan and a battalion of gray coats breathing fire to chase her off her property. But she’d promised, to give her father’s mind ease. No man liked the notion of a daughter all alone in times this troubled, especially when he had no guarantee of when he could return.

Garnet didn’t ask for guarantees. She was a patriot, proud to know her father was doing his best to hold their country together. She wrote of that pride, of her willingness to sacrifice his company for the sake of the nation, in nightly entries in a big tattered book filled nearly front to back with her innermost thoughts and dreams. But writing about them in private narrative and speaking them to another were two very different things as the lonesome winds wailed through their valley, echoing the melancholy in her soul.

But it was an echo of a very different nature that drew her out of the barn, one hand twisted in Boone’s rope collar and the other toting the heavy rifle. As Boone strained and barked, Garnet stood fast, listening. A single shot. Maybe a hunter. Maybe a signal. Then it was more than the morning chill chasing shivers through her.

She saw the lone horseman heading down out of the treeline. She waited to greet him with the
purposeful end of the long barrels. Recognizing the Federal blue of his uniform, she relaxed somewhat, but not completely. She’d learned from her father’s warnings that danger didn’t ride with one side over another. Bad men came in both blue and gray.

So she waited, at the ready, as the single rider approached, not opposed to giving him a hot breakfast and some feed for his horse, but determined to share no more than that. The weary pair entered her yard.

“That’s close enough, mister.” She pitched her voice purposefully low and gruff, keeping her hat tipped low to conceal her features as well as her gender. “State your business. Be quiet, Boone.” She gave his collar a jerk, but the dog continued its frenzied barking. “I said that’s close enough!” She raised the barrels to punctuate that claim.

Instead of reining in, the rider decided to dismount in a sloppy spill, hitting the ground in a soundless heap. Garnet hesitated, wary as well as concerned.

“Mister, you all right?”

That’s when she noticed the bright blotching on the snow.

“Oh, Lord have mercy!”

Forgetting the danger, she raced toward the fallen figure, shoving a growling Boone aside so she could kneel down by the nearly insensible man. Now she knew the destination of that single shot. The entire side of his uniform jacket
was soaked with blood. The middle of her front yard, in full view of whomever had done the firing, was no place to check the extent of the damage.

Boone sniffed around the soldier’s feet, rumbling fiercely. If another source of threat was near, he’d be distracted. Still, it wasn’t safe to linger outside any longer than she had to.

“Mister, I’ve got to get you inside. You hear?”

His eyes blinked open and fixed with a brief understanding upon her. His gaze was the color of the slated sky, stormy and intense, mesmerizing her into a long moment of inaction. But then his focus faded, releasing her from that compelling stare to do what needed to be done.

Wedging the rifle beneath one arm, she gripped him by the shoulders of his jacket and began to drag him toward the house. He offered no resistence or complaint, but no help either. By the time she’d pulled him as far as the front porch, she was winded and perspiring despite the cold. For all the long-limbed leanness of his build, he was no lightweight. She paused for a bit to catch her breath, forcing it by habit to come as slow and easy as possible, then she tugged him up the stairs. Not the most gentle of rides but the best she could manage under the circumstances.

The heat from the fire hit like a physical push as she dragged the wounded man inside. Boone bounded in after them, still growling with enough menace to bristle his thick neck. When
his awkward legs tangled with Garnet’s, she gave him a swat. With a startled yelp, the pup scuttled away to regard her and their guest glumly from underneath the table.

The floorboards probably weren’t the best place to examine a gunshot wound, but Garnet needed to see what she was dealing with. First, she unbuckled his gun belt and drew it out from under him. Until she knew who’d shot him and why, she couldn’t afford to treat him with anything but caution. She tossed the armaments out of reach. The soldier offered no protest when she unbuttoned his jacket and carefully peeled it away from the site of injury. Powder burns and blood discolored woolen long underwear. Whoever had pulled the trigger had done so at close range. Swallowing grimly, she ripped the saturated fabric to lay bare the wound.

She’d picked shot out of countless fowl and four-legged game without blinking an eye, but this was her first dealing with a human sporting a bullet. She tried to pretend there was no difference—tried, but was not as successful as she’d hoped to be. There was no mistaking the hard contour of abdomen and the warmth of skin as anything but man. Her fingertips were resting on the crisp hair beneath his navel. She yanked them back, blushing in horror even though there was no one to observe her unplanned familiarity with the stranger’s body.

It was an awkward second before she could focus anywhere other than that naked stretch of
masculine furring. She’d never seen so much as an inch of an unclothed man before—not even her father. Her insides were all jumpy with the forbidden shock and sudden wonder of it. But this man was going to bleed to death if she couldn’t pull herself together. She drew a deep breath and forced herself to concentrate upon his injury.

The piece of lead had torn a nasty furrow along his ribs before chewing a chunk out of his side and exiting cleanly. It wasn’t terribly deep, which she hoped meant it wasn’t fatal, but it bled something fierce. That she would have to take care of, and quickly.

Gripping the edge of the linen tablecloth, she jerked it toward her, sending her breakfast plate and cup tumbling to shatter on the floor. Boone scrambled out of sight behind the quilt curtaining off her bedroom.

“Coward,” she muttered, hastily ripping the cloth. She wouldn’t think of the mess or the loss of her last piece of good linen. She concentrated instead upon the man’s life’s blood leaking out onto her pegged flooring. She daren’t move him again until she was certain he wouldn’t lose any more of it.

After pressing a wadding against the wound, she rolled him as gently as possible from side to side, working the linen beneath him so she could bind it tightly about his middle.

“There. Let’s hope that holds you.”

She rocked back on her heels to consider her
handiwork. Not an expert dressing, but one that would suffice. Still, the soldier was deathly pale and scarcely breathing. Her worries were far from over.

She couldn’t lift him, so Garnet dragged him over to the fire. There she bundled him in a shaggy bearskin to combat the effects of shock and cold. He never made a sound.

Though she hated to desert him now, she couldn’t leave his horse unattended—or in the open, should someone less friendly be following. She went back out into the swirl of snow.

The animal still stood where it had been abandoned. It went gratefully with Garnet into the shelter of the barn and was soon muzzle deep in grain. She removed its standard military issue tack and rubbed it down. Then, lashing the door shut behind her against the tug of the wind, she took a moment to study her yard. Would someone be able to tell he’d come here? That she’d taken him in? Convinced that fresh blowing snow had already covered all signs of his passing, she hurried back to the house.

Was she crazy to take in this wounded stranger? He could be a deserter. He could be anything, and she’d brought him inside her house, inside her circle of safety. Unwise, perhaps even crazy, but she couldn’t have left him out there to bleed to death. She took a firmer grip on the gun. Besides, she could always add another hole to his hide if he proved to be less than gentlemanly.

She slipped out of her bulky outerwear, then quickly, nervously, cleaned up the broken crockery, which was all that remained of her breakfast. Garnet settled cross-legged near the fireplace and waited for her company to regain consciousness. Either he would die or he would recover. She prayed for the latter as she watched his faint breaths stir the coarse nap of the robe. At the very least she wanted to know his name so she could notify his family and his unit.

And she wanted to hear his voice.

She gave a slight start as Boone burrowed his cold nose under her hand. He whined until she lifted her arm, letting him crawl halfway across her lap. He was content to lie there, keeping a distrustful watch on the figure beneath the robe.

Who was he, this injured stranger? Was he a scout, a messenger? Surely there was no other reason for him to be alone. Which of the Union companies combing the hills did he belong to? She wished she knew so she could contact them to come and get him. Then she could go back to the sameness of her days without the intrigue and interruption.

But where was the thrill in that?

This was the first exciting thing to happen in her valley since duty had called her father from home. And she admitted to herself, ashamed of her own selfishness, that she was in no rush to send the soldier on his way.

Little news wound its way into the lonesome valley Perhaps he would know the direction the
war was taking, offering some idea as to when her life could return to normal. She’d never been outside the valley to visit the world beyond except through books. He could provide that link to what she didn’t know but still could long for. Where was he from? She leaned forward, studying the asymmetrical lines of his face as if they could reveal some truth. A city, perhaps. Did he have a family, a wife, or a fiancée waiting? Suddenly, Garnet hungered to know everything about him for the simple joy of connecting with another.

An answer to prayer.

She smiled.

Her father had always told her to be careful what she wished for. But while she was usually cautious, she was rarely careful. Careful allowed one to grow old safely, but it didn’t permit the freedom of realized dreams. Garnet had a lot of dreams, most attached to what lay beyond her valley. While she would never think to abandon the farm while her father was at war, her dreams remained unfulfilled, though never forgotten. Perhaps she could taste some of them through this man Providence had provided. If only he’d survive.