Johanna Lindsey - Brave the Wild Wind

For all the belligerence of his words, his manner was quiet and conciliatory. He was eyeing her weapon. Jessie lowered it when she felt Doc Meddly’s hands on her shoulders.

“Come on, girl,” he said gently. “Let’s get your friend out of here and into a clean bed at the hotel. I’m sure it happened just the way Silver Annie said it did. Let’s go.”

Jessie looked back at Annie, who was still wide-eyed, and in shock. “All right,” she conceded, and put the gun away. “But no one messes with what’s mine and gets away with it. You hear me, Annie? If I find out you lied about this, I’m going to put a ball through your heart.”

She let Meddly lead their way out of the saloon, with three men following, carefully carrying Chase wrapped up in an old wool blanket. They handled him like a newborn babe, for they’d been standing outside the door and had heard what the little spitfire said. They weren’t going to give her any reason to think they had mishandled what was hers. No, sir!

JESSIE rented a wagon to get Chase to the ranch. They left the next morning, with Billy driving and Goldenrod fetched from the stable and tied to the back. Doc Meddly said Chase was fit to travel.

Jessie sat in back with Chase stretched out on his belly, his head resting on her lap. He still hadn’t come to, but Meddly said it would be a while, not just because of the wound, but because of all the liquor.

Damn, but she’d made a first-class fool of herself in that saloon. And for what? A man who consorted with whores. A no-account gambler. An arrogant, puffed-up meddler. She should never have gone looking for him, she realized that. Did she want her child raised by a man like that? No. Never. She had let the wrong things influence her. She could just imagine the talk today, poor Jessie Blair, so in love with her man that she could forgive him anything, even getting stabbed in a whore’s bed. She was glad to be out of Cheyenne. She would never be able to live it down.

She shouldn’t care. She would have to stop caring what people thought, because women didn’t live down having babies out of wedlock very easily. And she was not having that man for a husband.

Jessie had been nauseous from the moment she woke that morning, but as long as she stayed well away from food, it remained just a subtle queasiness. Now as she sat there watching the buckboard and the ground rattle and shake, the bile rose steadily. She heard Chase moan, but by then her complexion was turning green, and her own moan drowned his out. She couldn’t move fast enough to get to the side of the wagon, and she let Chase’s face fall with a crack to the wagon floorboard.

Chase’s eyes flew open, but he squeezed them shut in unbearable agony. If he were on his back, he would only be worrying about the phantoms stomping on his head, but for some fool reason, he was lying on his stomach and something was shaking him to hell and back. He managed to open his eyes again. He squinted disbelievingly, thinking he was enclosed in some kind of wooden box. But the box was open on one side, revealing the brightest blue he had ever seen. It was blinding, and Chase closed his eyes again. But there was to be no respite. The box he was trapped in rattled and shook, and he emptied his stomach over the side, holding on for dear life. It was over quickly, and he actually felt a little better.

With his head cleared some, Chase tried to figure out where the hell he was without having to open his eyes to the blinding light. The shaking, a rock-hard bed, walls two feet high, none of it made sense. And there was the sound of retching even when he was finished.

He had to open his eyes if he was going to make any sense of it. Hesitantly, he looked to one side, following the low wall until it turned, and went on, and turned again. He was in a box, an open box! And when he looked the other way he saw silky black hair, a white shirt, and the shapeliest little bottom in skintight pants.

“Jessie?” he moaned.

Jessie wouldn’t answer, let alone look his way. She felt like she was dying. The damn retching wouldn’t stop, yet she had nothing left to give. She was empty but still gagging, and it hurt, and she wanted to cry.

At last Jessie moved slowly away from the side of the wagon. Chase had closed his eyes again.

“If you’re not going to spill any more of your guts over the side, you’d best get back over here and lie down.”

Chase’s eyes flew open. He couldn’t answer.

“Can’t you hear?” Jessie demanded.

“I fear... I... I would not be the best of company,” Chase managed to get out despite the thickness of his tongue.

“Company, hell,” Jessie grumbled. “I don’t want your company any more than you want mine, but it looks like I’m stuck with you, thanks to your drunken blunders.”

“I don’t... understand.”

“Oh, God, will you just lie down!” Jessie moaned. “You need to rest, and I’m not up to talking just yet.”

Chase thought it was more likely he needed a doctor, or another bottle of whiskey. But sleep might help get rid of this wretched hangover.

The space was small, and Jessie was already lying on half the blankets. “Where am I supposed to lie down?”

Jessie moved back slowly until she lay along the edge of the spread blankets, but there still wouldn’t be enough room for him to stretch out unless he continued to use her lap for his head. Yet she couldn’t offer it without sitting up and she couldn’t sit up right now without being sick again.

Curled on her side, she grudgingly straightened her top leg so only the lower one remained bent. She patted the bent leg. “Your pillow.”

Chase grinned despite his pains. “Really?”

Jessie saw that gleam in his eye, but for once she didn’t get angry. She felt like laughing. There they both were, sick as dogs, and he probably had a fever as well, besides a nasty wound. Yet he could think of passion. The man was a marvel.

“I’m only offering you the use of my knee, so get all those lecherous thoughts out of your head right now, Chase Summers.” She tried to make her voice stern, but there was a laughing note in it. “If I didn’t feel the need to rest, be assured I’d be sitting up front with Billy.”

“Billy?”

“Yes, Billy. He’s got the reins.”

Chase looked up front, but the glare was too bright, and he found it easier to stay still, anyhow.

“On your stomach, Chase.” Her voice was firm. “Doctor’s orders.”

He scowled. “What doctor?” he demanded irritably, thinking she meant herself. “I never sleep on my stomach. And I wouldn’t have been so sick just now if I hadn’t been on my stomach.”

“I’m in no mood for you to be difficult, damn it!” Jessie said hotly. “Now lie on your stomach or your side, but stay the hell off your back!”

“Why?”

“If you don’t know, then you’re not sober enough yet for me to waste my time explaining.”

Chase turned on his side angrily, but slowly. Jessie went silent. Later, when she felt better, she would give him a large piece of her mind. The thought gave her something to look forward to.

JESSIE finally woke, disoriented, hearing Billy call her name again and again. She lay there until she understood that he was telling her they were almost home. She sat up, giving thanks that she could move again without having her stomach rise with her. But, of course, it was late in the day, and the sickness never bothered her then.

She hadn’t intended to sleep the day away. Had Billy been all right? She guessed he had. Chase was still sleeping. She felt his brow for fever, but it was only slightly warm. The moment she touched his face, his arm snaked up and wrapped around her extended leg, holding her there. Jessie almost said something sharp, then saw it had only been a reflex action. He was still asleep, snuggling back against her groin.

Jessie’s eyes became stormy. His movements were causing unwanted stirrings in the lower part of her body, but he shouldn’t have had any effect on her at all, she thought. It wasn’t natural, to loathe a man and want him anyhow. Was it?

Thinking about that wasted enough of her time that they were pulling up in front of the house before she knew it. Rachel came out, took one look at Chase in the back of the wagon with Jessie, and went right back inside the house. Jessie shrugged. Rachel didn’t know yet that Chase was wounded. She would change her tune when she did. She’d better. Jessie certainly wasn’t going to care for him all by herself.

“Run and find Jeb, Billy, and see if any of the other men are around to help get Chase into the house,” Jessie ordered, then added, “And thank you, Billy. You did a fine job getting us home.”

Billy lit up with pleasure, then went to find Jeb. He appeared again in a moment, running ahead of the older man.

“And what have we here, little gal?” Jeb asked curiously. “I thought never to set eyes on this one again.”

“You’re not the only one,” Jessie replied with a good measure of disgust as she crawled to the end of the wagon. “But he got hurt while I was in town, and Doc Meddly happened to know I was acquainted with him, so he dumped the caring of him in my lap.”

“Do tell.” Jeb chuckled.

“It’s nowhere near funny,” Jessie retorted.

“But what was he doin‘ still in town?”

“Gambling and drinking and whoring.”

“Do tell.”

“Oh, hush up and help me get him inside.”

“There’s no one in the bunkhouse, Jessie,” Billy announced. “Jeb said so.”

Jeb grunted. “We can do this, the three of us.” He turned to Jessie. “Can’t he walk none at all?”