The Outlaw Bride by Sandra Chastain

running. There was someone he had to find.
    Over and over he stumbled, until he finally reached the low flat plains of the prairie. In his confusion he imagined he heard something—a thudding sound and a woman’s voice.
    “Damn you! Damn you for dying on me!”
    More sounds, then, “Well, this won’t stop me. I’ll get there by myself.”
    He moved toward the voice. One painful breath after another. One step after the other. Then his foot came down on uneven ground, a rut. He stumbled and fell.
    The next time he opened his eyes a woman was leaning over him. “Jacob?” she said softly. “Welcome back.”
    In the clinic, Josie ground up seeds from the packet marked
wounds
and added it to the vinegar Lubina had supplied, turning the mixture into a dirty brown paste that smelled rotten. She didn’t know what it was. She didn’t even know for certain that it would help, but it was all she could find in her mother’s notebook that might work on Callahan’s injuries.
    After she’d changed Callahan’s bandages, she’d find him something to wear. She seemed to remember that Dan’s mother sent him a fancy nightshirt last Christmas. It might be simpler to treat him nude, but she couldn’t do that anymore. There was no point in pretending that he was just another patient.
    Josie gathered her other supplies—bandages, sulfurpowder, and her wound medication—and headed for her bedroom. She met Lubina on the way out.
    “Did he eat?” Josie asked.
    “Not much,” Lubina admitted. “He’s asleep now. He’s still not a well man. If it had been up to him, he would have eaten nothing. I told him that if he didn’t open his mouth, I’d stuff them beans somewhere he wouldn’t like.”
    “Lubina!”
    The housekeeper grinned. “I wouldn’t have, but he didn’t know that. I think
you’d
better not trust him. He’s a charmer, that devil.”
    Josie shook her head and moved past the older woman. Lubina might call Callahan a devil, but it was clear that he was getting to her. Josie had best get done with her doctoring before he won her over completely.
    The problem would be keeping him from leaving. He was determined to find his brother. She couldn’t fault him for that, but he wasn’t ready to travel.
    Callahan’s eyes were closed when she entered the room. She hoped that he wouldn’t wake up while she was changing the bandage on his groin. Letting go of a deep breath, Josie peeled back the sheet, folding it over to cover that part of him insistent on making itself known. She was glad that he couldn’t see her inflamed face.
    With trembling fingers, she lifted the bandage. The skin around the edges of the wound was dry.
    “Be gentle, darlin’,” he drawled.
    Josie jumped, almost upsetting the basin Lubina had left on the table. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she said, pouring hot water from the kettle into the pan.
    “Do what?”
    “Pretend to be asleep.”
    “Why? If you want to fondle me unobserved, I’ll close my eyes.” In the wee hours of the morning he’d come to the conclusion that he wasn’t physically ready to ride. If he was going after Ben, he’d have to make peace with his guardian angel. Besides, he liked talking to her and he liked teasing her. Callahan let out an exaggerated sigh. “I’m all yours.”
    Josie took her cloth and, without letting it cool, dropped it on his abdomen.
    “Hell,” he swore. “What are you trying to do, cook me?”
    “Just reminding you that I’m the doctor and I can still hurt you if you don’t stop playing games. Now, be still.”
    This time Callahan didn’t argue and he didn’t let her see his smile.
    Using sweet-smelling soap from her own washstand and a plain bathing cloth, she washed the wound.
    He made no comments during the process. Surprisingly, this disappointed Josie. She missed his flirting. She remembered just this kind of talk between her Aunt Ginny and Uncle Red—before they married. Uncle Red was a lot like Callahan, teasing Ginny