The Scout's Bride. Kate Kingsley

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СКАЧАТЬ You show her your arm?”

      “What happened to your arm?” She glanced at the other man.

      “Got in the way of an arrow.” Covered with a blanket, he made no move to reveal his injury.

      “He was shot as he came for me,” Teddy elaborated.

      “I wouldn’t have, if I had known you weren’t going to take your medicine.”

      Holding his nose, the private drained the cup. “Now give me some good bourbon,” he panted, “and let her look at your arm.”

      When Injun Jack threw off his blanket and sat up, Rebecca saw that his right arm hung limply at his side. Fishing a tarnished silver flask from inside his shirt with his left hand, he passed it to Teddy. “Take it easy. You’ve probably had too much already.”

      After the young man drank and lay back on his pillow, Injun Jack plucked the flask from his hands and saluted the woman with it. “Your health, Miss Rebecca. That is your name, isn’t it?”

      She nodded. His face was pale under his tan and a fine sheen of perspiration coated his forehead. The glaze in his eyes had more to do with fatigue and pain than with the whiskey he swigged. “I could look at your arm, if you’d like,” she suggested kindly.

      “No, thanks.” Slumped against the bedstead, his big body hid the injured limb from view and made it virtually unreachable. “O’Hara treated it in the field.”

      “This Mr. O’Hara is a doctor?” she inquired crisply.

      “This Sergeant O’Hara is a ham-fisted Irishman who did what needed to be done.” He gripped the edge of the mattress to steady himself. “You’ll understand my reluctance, however, to have anyone else poke around in me after he finished.”

      Rebecca regarded the scout appraisingly. He had threatened, bellowed and bullied, but he had not hurt anyone yet. Surely he would not harm a woman. “I must insist on examining your arm,” she said quietly.

      Amusement glinted in his blue eyes. “You have a lot of stubborn for such a little gal.”

      “And you have little sense for such a big man,” she retorted. “Are you going to let that arm become infected?”

      “No, ma’am.” Docilely, he extended his right arm. The sleeve of his buckskin shirt had been split up to his shoulder and a dust-caked yellow scarf encircled his bare bicep.

      Reaching across him, Rebecca tried to loosen the bandage. “You’re going to have to move. I can’t get to it.”

      As he turned, his knees brushed against her, but she did not notice. Intent on her task, she stepped around his long legs to remove the wrapping, her apron catching on the sixgun at his side.

      “So this is what reeks of alcohol,” she choked out when the fumes hit her.

      “And a waste of fine bourbon it was, ma’am.” The scout drew deeply from his flask. “But O’Hara insisted.”

      “The arrow seems to have missed the bone,” she said with relief. “Thank goodness, it passed through muscle and came out the other side.”

      “Thank Sergeant O’Hara.” Teddy roused himself unexpectedly. “When he couldn’t pull it out, he pushed it through.”

      She flinched at the thought.

      “It’s not that bad.” Injun Jack sounded almost reproachful.

      “No.” She tried to keep her concern out of her voice as she inspected the punctures. Both were seeping a nasty brown fluid. “There’s just a good deal of debris… and something else.”

      “Tobacco juice,” Teddy supplied the answer groggily.

      “Tobacco juice?” she echoed, her stomach pitching and rolling.

      “O’Hara worked it through the wound,” the scout explained. “It’s not uncommon in the field. Are you all right, ma’am?”

      “Fine.” She swallowed deeply. “It must be the heat.”

      “Now look what you’ve done, Teddy.” Setting his flask on the floor, Injun Jack stood and steadied her with his good hand. “The Yankee angel looks like she’s going to faint.”

      “Sorry.” Teddy was asleep before the word left his mouth.

      “I’m not going to faint.” Irritated by her own weakness, she sidled away and found herself backed into the wall.

      “Are you sure?” The big man’s voice was husky. He swayed toward her, his bourbon-scented breath stirring the tendrils at her temple.

      “Of course.” Intending to convey calm confidence, she smiled up at her patient, but her smile wavered at the startling heat in his blue eyes. Washing over her, it sparked an answering flicker deep within her, melting her resistance. His lips were close, so very close. Her own parted and she held her breath… waiting….

      Waiting for what? Coming to her senses in a rush, she drew herself up, increasing the distance between them without moving. What was she doing, behaving like a schoolgirl over an unkempt, uncouth scout who was drunk and getting drunker by the moment?

      Deliberately she removed Injun Jack’s hand from her waist. Standing on tiptoe, she placed her hands on his brawny shoulders and pressed down until he sat on the bed. “If I am to treat you, you must comport yourself as a gentleman, sir,” she advised.

      “If I can remember how,” he replied coolly. Hanging his gun belt on the bedstead, he sat down and retrieved his flask. He sipped from it and extended his injured arm, scowling when she came no closer. “Go on,” he growled. “I’m not going to shoot you.”

      She looked as if she doubted his word. “I’m afraid you must take off your shirt before I can clean your wound.”

      “I’m afraid you must cut it off,” he countered. “Since I can’t pull it over my head, perhaps you’ll accept the gentlemanly loan of my knife?”

      Terrified she would cut him, Rebecca gingerly sliced through the damaged shirt from armhole to neck. The scout stared straight ahead, lifting his arm a little so she could split the side seam of his shirt, but he did not look at her. When she finished, he shrugged out of the ruined garment, his muscles rippling under bare, bronzed skin. A necklace of odd, ivory beads encircled his sturdy neck, nestling in the black hair that furred his chest.

      Catching herself staring again, she lifted her abashed gaze. Just as she had feared, Injun Jack was watching.

      “For a woman who doesn’t embarrass easily, you sure blush a lot,” he baited, taking his knife from her.

      She said nothing, but refused to look at him as she washed his arm from the shoulder to the tips of his fingers. Carefully, she cleansed his wound, probing gently for debris, and treated it.

      He bore her painful ministrations in silence. By the time she tied a new dressing into place, his flask was empty and his eyes were glazed.

      “Won’t you lie down?” She tried to ease him back on the bunk. СКАЧАТЬ