alone. It had been his life so long he couldn’t imagine any other way to live. To Nell and the sheriff he was just
someone who passed through now and then. But they were al the family he had. They’d probably be shocked to
know how much they meant to him and how often he talked about them when rangers sat around campfires
telling of their families.
Leaning against the porch railing, he stared into the night sky. Chasing a gang of bank robbers through Big Bend
Country was easier than having dinner in a dining room. He hated trying to follow conversation when he really
didn’t care where it was going most of the time. Or worse, managing to fol ow it and finding out the discussion
went nowhere. The sheriff loved to tell one story after another, and Nell had the nerve to encourage him. At
least Harrison wasn’t much of a talker. The man’s good traits were piling up. Jacob had trouble not liking him.
The door behind Jacob opened. He straightened as the sheriff and Harrison walked out.
“We’re heading back to town,” the sheriff said when he saw the ranger in the shadows. “You coming?”
“No.” Jacob tossed his cigar. “I think I’ll sleep in Nell’s barn if she has no objections. Don’t want to get too
comfortable. I only have a few weeks off.”
“It’l be cold out there.” Parker pointed to the large barn where Fat Alice used to let the cowhands stable their
horses. The barn not only protected the animals against the cold but kept Fat Alice’s customer list private.
Jacob shrugged. “I’m used to the cold. It won’t bother me near as much as the noise at the hotel.”
Parker walked down the steps, his legs stiff with the movements. “I talked Mr. Harrison here into boarding at
Victoria’s. The beds are always clean, and the meals are filling. Nell offered him the job of straightening out her
books while she makes up her mind about marrying him. She even insisted on paying him in advance.”
Jacob extended his hand to Harrison. “I wish you luck,” he said surprised at how much he meant the words. If
Nell wouldn’t consider his offer, she could do a lot worse than Harrison for a bookkeeper, or a husband.
“Thanks,” Rand answered. “Does that mean I’l live past my wedding day if she picks me and not you?”
Jacob grinned. “It means, if she picks you, that you’l live until you break her heart.”
Rand stiffened. “I told you once, Ranger, I’ve no heart to offer and ask none as part of the bargain. But, after
meeting Miss Nell, I think we can be friends as well as partners. That’s all either of us want from the
arrangement, I believe.”
Jacob shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. Try working with her for a few days on the books and see if you still feel
the same.” Jacob grinned from Harrison to the sheriff. “And don’t forget to ask how she got along with the last
bookkeeper.”
Parker waved his hand over his head. “Now that ain’t fair, Dalton, and you know it. He healed up just fine.”
Harrison frowned. “Who healed up?”
Jacob shook his head. “Just ask, but wait until after you’ve finished your breakfast.”
Harrison followed the sheriff while asking questions about Nell’s last bookkeeper, but the old man only laughed
and said accidents happen.
Jacob watched the two men climb into an old buggy the sheriff used when his arthritis was real y bad. After he
tied his horse onto the back, Harrison sat straight and tall as he took the reins. Parker looked like his bones were
slowly curling him into a bal . Within a minute they’d disappeared into the blackness between Nel ’s place and
town.
Jacob went back in the house to say good night.
Gypsy was halfway down the stairs with a load of bedding, and Nell waited in her wheelchair. Jacob noticed the
small couch had been turned toward the dying fire in the drafty old room.
When he entered, Jacob also didn’t miss the exhaustion in Nell’s eyes as she looked up from her desk. He
slowed, memorizing the way she looked at him. The way she always looked at him. Her eyes seemed to welcome
him home. Even when she was angry at him about something, she took him in from head to toe as if making
sure he’d come back whole.
“Mind if I bunk in your barn?” he said as he neared.
She smiled. “It’s yours. Or I’ll have Gypsy make up one of the rooms upstairs for you. The one you used when
you brought me back here only needs dusting, and it’l be ready.”
Gypsy mumbled about being overworked as she reached the ground level with her load.
Jacob shook his head. “Too many ghosts walking around up there.” He moved closer, knowing where she
planned to sleep tonight. Gypsy or Marla couldn’t carry her up the stairs. The big open room was already
growing cold with the night air and by morning would be chil ed, even if Gypsy woke up every hour to feed the
fire. The couch wouldn’t be a good place for Nel .
He leaned over, placed one arm around her shoulders and slipped the other between her knees and the
wheelchair. “Let me walk you to your door, miss.”
Nell started to argue, then lifted her arms to circle his neck. He swung her up and walked toward the stairs. He’d
carried her like this before in the first weeks after the accident. He knew how to lift her so that she didn’t suffer
too much pain.
“If you take me up, you’ll have to carry me back down tomorrow morning.”
Jacob smiled. “I’ll do that if you’ll feed me breakfast. When I’m gone, I miss Marla’s cooking.”
“So, you’d leave me upstairs to starve if it weren’t for my cook?”
“Pretty much. Or, marry you off to Walter Farrow.”
Nell tapped her fist against his chest. “He was a terrible man.”
Jacob laughed. “True, but he loved you sight unseen.” He slowed, in no hurry to reach the top of the stairs. “At
least as long as you came with land.” They passed Stockard’s painting halfway up the stairs. “Maybe you should
have tossed in that painting his uncle did. Then he would have fought a little harder for your hand.”
They paused, looking at the ugly drawing.
“I always thought it looked like dying flowers fuzzy with decay.”
Jacob turned his head to the side. “I thought it was an ocean washing on a dirty beach.”
“It’s midnight in the mud,” Gypsy yel ed, “and worthless.”
Jacob laughed. “Then Walter must have loved you.”
“He loved my land sight unseen,” she added. “Why do you think he was so interested in the Stockard place? It’s
probably the worst ranch I’ve got. It’s small, rocky, and full of rattlers. I’ve heard the stream dries up by
midsummer, and the water in the well isn’t always fit to drink.”
Jacob shoved Nel ’s bedroom door open with his shoulder. “I don’t know. Some say Zeb Whitaker hid out there
for a while. Maybe Walter’s looking for the old buffalo hunter’s gold.”
Nell turned her head away from him.
“I’m sorry,” Jacob said, realizing his mistake. Nell had been shot because of the lost saddlebags of gold. Zeb
Whitaker had always claimed three women robbed him after they knocked him out and left him for dead in the
middle of nowhere. Only all three women swore they never took a single coin. They’d all three married good
men and were Nell’s adopted family. She took it personal when Zeb and his gang came after them. The old
buffalo hunter died searching for his lost gold.
“There’s no need to say you’re sorry,” Nel whispered. “It’s not something I forget about. Every day I think about
what my life would be like if I hadn’t borrowed the buggy Lacy always drove to visit Bailee and Carter’s ranch.
Zeb and his men thought they were shooting at Lacy, not me, but I can’t help but think, what if I’d driven slower,
would the buggy have overturned? Or, if I’d been going faster could I have somehow outrun the bul ets?
Sometimes I even panic and think, what if Lacy had been there? She could barely handle a horse. She might have
died.”
Jacob carried her to the side of the bed but didn’t lower her. His arms held her to him a little longer. “If you’d
been going slower, they might have had time to aim and pump more shots into you. If you’d been moving faster,
the fal when the buggy rol ed might have kil ed you.”
Nel ’s laugh had no humor. “So, you’re tel ing me I’m lucky.”
“No,” he whispered against her ear. “I am. You’re still alive.”
Nell leaned back and stared at him.
He saw confusion in her brown eyes, maybe a little anger, and hope, as well. Maybe if he could ask her to marry
him, he could tel her how much she meant to him. Surely she knew she was a part of him, his past, his future.
He couldn’t imagine them not being friends.
Gypsy clambered into the room with her load of blankets, and they both looked at the old woman as if neither
wanted to face what they saw in the other’s eyes.
“I’l turn down your bed,” Gypsy said as she hurried around Jacob to complete her task, then rushed to the
wardrobe for Nel ’s gown. “I watched the nurse enough times. I should know what needs doing at bedtime
around here.”
“Lower my legs,” Nel ordered Jacob. “Let me show you how I can stand.”
Slowly, Jacob did as she asked.
“Now, step back and give me room.”
He stepped just far enough so that he wasn’t touching her, but stood ready to grab her if she began to fall.
Her fingers rested on his arm from time to time to steady herself, as Nell began unbuttoning her top. “I’m not
helpless anymore, Ranger Dalton. I can dress and undress myself. It may seem a small thing, but not to me.”
She set the last button free and opened her blouse, then slowly tugged off one sleeve at a time. Her movements
were like a circus performer balancing on a wire as she moved.
Jacob raised his eyebrow at the sight of an ivory colored camisole lined in lace. The silk was so thin he could
make out the shape of her breasts beneath the single layer of fabric. He wasn’t all that familiar with ladies’
underthings, but guessed this one was expensive and made just for Nel .
She laughed as she unbuttoned her skirt and let it fall. “Don’t look that way, Jacob. You know full well that I’m
far more dressed even in my undergarments than any of the girls who haunt these hallways.”
He’d never known Nell to be modest. In fact, a few summers when she’d been a kid, he’d had to pul her naked
from the river because she wanted to swim in the moonlight, and Fat Alice had been afraid she’d drown. She’d
been beanpole thin and slippery as an eel.
How could she be modest growing up in a whorehouse? But he’d hoped that finishing school back East had
taught her a few things about what not to do in front of a man. When she’d been so near death those first few
weeks after the accident, Jacob had stayed by her side. He’d helped with her care, including changing bandages
over most of her body.
But caring for a wounded girl was a far cry from staring at a fully grown woman in lace within arm’s length of
him. When he managed to find his voice, he said, “But the ghosts don’t have much flesh and blood beneath their
skimpy attire.”
She laughed, and he finally managed to raise his eyes to meet hers, then felt his face warm at the realization
that she’d noticed where he’d been staring.
“Tell me, Jacob, is it my flesh or my blood that makes you gawk?”
He grabbed the nightgown from Gypsy and lifted it over Nell’s head. “I wasn’t gawking. I was just noticing how
pale you’ve gotten,” he said, angry at himself. He thought of adding and rounded but figured it would be safer
not to mention any curves he noticed. “You get any whiter and folks wil think you’re one of the ghosts around
this place.”
Nel poked her head through the gown opening and moved her arms into the proper holes with his help. As she
buttoned the cotton gown to her throat, she swayed slightly, and he steadied her with a touch at her waist.
Her body let him take her weight, and he carried her the last few feet to her bed. “How long can you stand?”
“You’ve seen my only act, I’m afraid. Within a few minutes my legs give way beneath me.”
He covered her as he knelt by the bed. “You’l get stronger.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” She looked tired. Her long brown hair spread across the pil ow as she turned her face to
the side and closed her eyes. “You don’t have to offer to marry me, Jacob; just be my friend.”
He kissed her forehead. “I am, Two Bits. I always will be. We’ll talk about getting married in the morning.”
She was already asleep by the time he stood and walked from the room.
He strol ed to the barn deep in thought, then took care of his horse before bedding down in the loft where he
had a good view of the front of the house. A light burned low in her room, and he wondered if she’d cal out for
Gypsy in her sleep. He knew the pains sometimes came late in the night.
He frowned. If he planned to talk her into marrying him, he’d have his work cut out for him. She was dead set
against it, and he didn’t have a clue how to court a woman. He thought about the day and decided he probably
didn’t get off to a very good start. She’d done everything to discourage him except shoot at him.
But on the bright side, she was stil speaking to him, and she did let him sleep in her barn.
He covered his face with his hat. “Hel ,” he swore to himself. “I should have kissed her on the lips, not the
forehead.” If he wanted her to think of him as husband material, he had to stop treating her like she was still a
kid.
One thing he knew for certain, he decided as he remembered the lace covering her breasts. She was no longer a
kid.
AS ALWAYS, NELL SLEPT SOUNDLY FOR A FEW HOURS, then awoke when she attempted to rol over. Next she