Blackstone's Bride. Bronwyn Williams

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      She was tall for a woman—too thin. The kind of hair that looked as if it had never seen a brush. Not exactly pretty, but not what you’d call plain, either.

      “Lady, I need to get up and you need to get the hell out,” he said clearly, his voice urgent. Even talking hurt. He must’ve bit his tongue when they’d caught him on the side of the head with that spade.

      “Oh,” the yellow-haired woman said, her eyes widening. “I’ll bring the chamber pot. Can you manage by yourself?”

      “What if I can’t?” He couldn’t move his lips, but he could make himself understood.

      She blinked, and then damned if she didn’t laugh.

      Had he said something funny? If so, it had been purely unintentional, because funny was the last thing he felt.

      “I don’t think you can make it out to the privy in your condition.”

      Come to think of it, neither did he, but his bladder was fit to bust. He needed a pot and some privacy.

      She gave him both.

      “Here. If you need any help, I’ll be right outside.” Blushing, she drew a white porcelain chamber pot from under the bed and set it on the table beside him. At the door she paused. “If privacy is what you need I have more than enough to spare,” she said with a funny quirk in her voice. “Besides, I need—I need to feed the animals.”

      Letting him know she wouldn’t be lurking outside the door, in other words.

      She lingered a moment, adding, “Not that I have any animals, just my two laying hens. Hector—he’s one of the Millers—he gave me a puppy for company once, but it followed him right back down the hill.”

      He squinted at her through his partially open eye, wondering if she was totally witless. Wild color flushed her cheeks and she turned and fled. A moment later he heard the outside door slam.

      He managed to relieve himself, feeling as if his head was floating a few feet above his shoulders. His belly felt funny, too, not sick like he’d been drinking bad water, but sore, like he’d been worked over by a gorilla.

      Five gorillas was more like it. “Jesus,” he gasped, and then flopped back onto the bed and closed his eyes. The slightest movement brought on another pitchfork attack. He was dead certain sure by now that he’d cracked a few ribs. The question was, how many and how cracked? Cracked to the point where the slightest wrong movement could kill him?

      Or cracked just enough to make lying perfectly still for the foreseeable future his only option?

      At least his head was clearer now. For a while there it had been touch-and-go. He’d actually been afraid they had punched his brains out, but he remembered everything now. Remembered signing the deed and arranging to send most of the money home. Remembered giving McGee a piece of cheese and a soda cracker when they’d stopped by that creek…

      What the devil had happened to McGee? He and that miserable old croppy had been together too long to part company now. They had a history together, ever since Jed had saved him from the glue factory. Jed had agreed to feed the biting, kicking, crop-eared old sunfisher and in return, McGee agreed not to bite him, kick him or throw him hard enough to break his neck. So far, for the most part, both had kept their word.

      He hoped to hell one of those bastards tried to catch McGee. The last time he’d seen them, they’d been lurching off down the road, one wearing his hat, another one carrying his boots, laughing and cussing a blue streak as they tried to keep from falling on their ugly faces.

      If they met again he’d be ready for them, if he had to bind himself up like one of those dead Egyptian kings he’d read about. Given better odds—say three to one instead of five to one—he liked his chances just fine. He wouldn’t go looking for a fight, though. Not this time. He had places to go and things to do, and he’d already wasted two days. Or was it three now?

      A tap on the door was followed by a soft voice inquiring if he needed assistance. “I’m all right,” he said, lying through his teeth. If he still had any teeth. He could feel with his tongue, but that hurt, too. Besides, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “Sleepy,” he added, hoping she would go away. From the way his head felt, he must’ve made intimate contact with every rock this side of the Eastern Divide.

      Sleep. He’d give himself a day. Two, at most, and then he would find his horse and get the hell out of here, with or without his clothes. The lady could go on talking to her chickens from now till they started talking back, it was no skin off his teeth.

      If he still had any teeth.

      Chapter Five

      An hour later Eleanor tapped on the door again. She’d held off as long as she dared, knowing he needed his rest. But what if he weren’t resting? What if he had passed out? Or worse…

      When no answer was forthcoming, she opened the door and peered inside. He was sound asleep, breathing slowly through his swollen lips, but breathing. Evidently exhausted, he had slept through the night, the following morning and most of the afternoon while she’d waited anxiously to see if he was going to live or die. If only there was some way to tell if a body was bleeding internally.

      There probably was, only she was no physician—just a third-grade teacher in a small school on the outskirts of a big city.

      He was cleaner. At least his hands and face were cleaner. Now she intended to tackle the rest of him. His scalp, for instance. His hair was caked with dried blood, but when she’d tried to examine an obvious lump to see the extent of the damage, he’d started cursing. And then tried to apologize, which had made her feel even worse.

      “I know you hurt,” she’d told him earlier when she’d come to collect his ruined underwear to wash it and see if any of it could be used again. “I’ll try to be as easy as possible, but I need to look at this place on your head.”

      Scalp wounds bled copiously, she had read that somewhere, but to determine if his wound was more than scalp deep she was going to have to cut away his hair. That would mean another battle. She hadn’t forgotten the last time she’d come at him with a pair of scissors.

      “If the rest of you is as filthy as the parts I’ve already bathed,” she told the sleeping man, “your cuts and scratches are probably already infected. With or without your cooperation, sir, I’m going to have to clean you up and put something on your injuries before it’s too late.”

      There, let him think about that.

      She’d brought in a basin of warm water, two towels and a chunk of soap. Carefully, she set the basin on the bedside table. She would have to work quickly so as not to tire him further. “You need to get well and get out of here,” she muttered under her breath. “Because if it was the Millers who did this to you, and if they follow you here, I’m not sure I can protect you. I’ll try, of course, but they won’t listen to me, they never do. Hold still now, I’ll be as gentle as I can.”

      Lowering the afghan so that it covered him from his waist to below his knees, she washed his chest and just beneath. He wasn’t particularly hairy, but a thin streak of silky black hair circled his flat nipples and dissected his torso, disappearing under the flowered purple cover.

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