Blackstone's Bride. Bronwyn Williams

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      There was simply no way. As gentle as she’d tried to be, he had groaned when she’d peeled his muddy blue jeans down over his bare foot. Hopefully it wasn’t broken, but even a sprain could be painful.

      She positioned herself on his good side and slid one arm under his, taking most of his weight on her shoulder. He groaned. She grunted. “Don’t worry,” she managed. “I’m a lot stronger than I look.”

      Working together they managed to get him onto his feet. Or rather, onto his foot. With her on one side and the broom on the other serving as a crutch, he hobbled toward the back of the cabin.

      His body felt unnaturally hot, and she wondered how long he’d been lying out in the woods before he’d found his way to her cabin. If he was already feverish, it could be either lung fever or an infection of one of his wounds. Surely it was too soon for that. But then, she still didn’t know the full extent of his injuries. Wouldn’t until she got him out of his underwear.

      Feeling her face flush, she told herself she would worry about that later. For now, she needed to get him onto the bed before he collapsed. Then she could start by cutting off the tight cuff of his long johns. It had to be constricting circulation, with that swollen ankle.

      If he had internal injuries, she could only pray that they were minor. She should have paid more attention to biology as a student, but at the time she couldn’t picture a situation where knowing how a frog was constructed would be of any value.

      He practically fell across the bed, giving her mere seconds to sweep the covers aside first. Then she had to reposition his heavy limbs until he was lying more or less straight on the feather tick. Her sheets would be wet clean through, but that was the least of her worries.

      What on earth was she going to do with him? He was too big to hide under the bed, even if he could crawl under there. There was simply no place else to hide, but if the Millers were to show up—if they were to come inside and discover that she was harboring a strange man…

      They couldn’t. Chances were they’d been the ones to do this to him, but even if they hadn’t, they hated strangers. They would drag him away, and in his present condition, he might not survive their rough handling.

      “Think, Eleanor, think!”

      He focused a bleary eye on her face, and she said, “Sorry—I told you I tend to talk to myself.”

      All right, she was thinking. What if he were a fugitive? A bank robber? A train robber? What if the sheriff was after him and had followed him here? In that case, she could be arrested as an accomplice.

      On the other hand, if she explained how she’d found him and they took him away, she could insist on going with them. Not even the Millers would risk trying to hold her against her will with a sheriff as witness.

      “No. Don’t even think about that now,” she muttered. Whoever or whatever this man was, he was no threat to anyone in his present condition. He certainly didn’t need any lawmen dragging him down the mountain. What he needed was to sleep until he could tell her where he hurt, what to do about it, who did this to him and whether or not they were likely to follow him here.

      At the moment, though, she needed to get him up long enough to peel the rest of those wet clothes off his poor battered body. If the parts that were hidden were in as bad shape as the parts that were visible, he might not even survive the night.

      And if he died…

      “Don’t even think about it,” she muttered as she turned to her sewing basket to find her scissors.

      “Mm?”

      “I wasn’t talking to you,” she said hurriedly, fingering the thick knit of his long johns. “That is, I was, but I don’t expect a reply. I think I might have mentioned that I tend to talk to myself occasionally.”

      This time when he said, “Mm,” it was without the questioning inflection. In other words, she translated, “I hear you, woman.”

      One piece. She would have to cut around the waist and pull them off in both directions. A blindfold might help her modesty, but it wouldn’t help get the job done.

      “Be still now, don’t move,” she cautioned, and positioning the scissors, she slit the left leg of his underwear up to his knee, wincing at the way the cuff had cut into his swollen ankle. Between bruises and abrasions, his skin was a lovely golden color, like well-polished maple.

      “I’ll be as gentle as possible, but we have to get you out of these wet clothes before you catch pneumonia.” She cut all the way around just under the knee, then lifted the remnant away. Now all she had to do was get the top part off, then she would worry about what came next.

      “Here, let me cover you with this,” she said, unfolding the crocheted afghan she had found in Cousin Annie’s hope chest after her cousin had died. She had wept gallons at the time, but being the practical woman she was, she’d packed it in her own hope chest, which by then she had thought of as her hopeless chest.

      She covered his midsection and began unfastening the bone buttons that led from the hollow of his throat all the way down to…

      Wherever. “You look like you were dragged all over the mountain,” she said, seeing that one eye was slightly open.

      No reply. He appeared to be fascinated by the unadorned whitewashed walls. The poor man had to be every bit as embarrassed as she was, letting himself be cut out of his underwear by a strange woman.

      She continued to chatter to take both their minds off what she was doing. “I thought at first you might have tangled with a bear, but I’m pretty sure there aren’t any bear caves around here, at least not any longer. I think the mining must have driven them away.”

      Accustomed to conversing with herself, she didn’t wait for a response. “There, roll over a little bit so I can cut around your waist. I’m just going to cut the top part loose and pull it off first.” Leaning over him, she tried to roll him onto his side. She got no farther than halfway when he let out a sharp cry.

      “I’m sorry!” He must have internal injuries, and here she’d been lugging him around like a favorite doll.

      She waited for him to catch his breath, then eased him onto his back again and reached for her scissors. “I think this will be easier, don’t you?” She began to cut. First the right sleeve, then the left, severing it from the body of the garment near the shoulder. There were bruises, but so far as she could tell, nothing was broken. At least nothing visible.

      Stepping back, she surveyed the rest of the garment, aware of the beautiful shape of his muscular arms. He wasn’t knotty, the way some of the Miller men were—the way even Devin had been. Instead, he was smooth and golden, his forearms reminding her of Michelangelo’s statue of David.

      Mercy!

      “All right, here’s what we’ll do then,” she announced. General Eleanor, advising the troops of her battle plan. “I’m going to cut away your union suit.” She was holding the scissors up in her right hand.

      His eyes widened so that she actually caught a glimmer of the darkness behind his poor swollen lids. Obsidian was the term that came to mind. “Mm-mm,” he warned.

      “Mm-hm,” СКАЧАТЬ