Sandra Steffen - The Bounty Hunter's Bride

His mind was fogging up, making it difficult to concentrate. Just in case he didn’t wake up again, he said, “I don’t know if you saved my life or made dying easier. I owe you either way.”

Moments before the darkness claimed him, her voice came one more time, far, far away. “I’m not going to let you die, Kane, and don’t worry. I have every intention of allowing you to repay me. We might have to do a little bartering. We’ll talk more when you’re stronger.”

Bartering? he thought, slipping into that warm, dark place where there was no pain. Images, erotic, hazy and fanciful, shimmered through his mind. Maybe he was dreaming. No, Kane Slater never dreamed.

Something told him he wasn’t dying, either. And he had Josie McCoy to thank for it. There was obviously more to her than met the eye.

“You’re really a modern-day bounty hunter?”

Kane did his best to keep the growl deep in his throat from escaping. He didn’t nod his head for fear that the razor in Josie’s hands would do serious damage to his face. Not that he would have minded a scar. It was more pain he was trying to avoid.

“Yes,” he grumbled when she lifted the razor from his flesh. “That’s what I said.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?” Teeth clenched, he held perfectly still as the razor made a clean pass along the edge of his jaw.

Swishing the razor in a pan of warm water, Josie said, “Why would a man who claims to have an undying devotion to the great plains and majestic mountains of Montana traipse off in the middle of the night to places unknown? Pistol drawn, you kick doors down and get lost in mountains you say aren’t really mountains during blizzards and God only knows what else. My daddy always says everybody’s got a reason for doing what they do. Believe me, he knows what he’s talkin’ about. Why?”

The razor had made four more passes down Kane’s face before he’d figured out what her “why?” pertained to. This time there was no stopping the growl from erupting from his throat.

Two nights ago he’d fleetingly wondered if there might be more to Josie McCoy than met the eye. There was more to her, all right, and every last bit of it was driving him crazy. When she wasn’t singing, she was talking, and when she was talking, she was usually asking questions. She asked them while she was putting wood on the fire, while she stirred something in a big pot on the stove, while she fed him warm broth and sweetened tea. Kane hated sweet tea. He hated talking and singing. He hated answering questions most of all.

He knew better than to bite the hand that fed him. His shoulder still hurt like a son of a gun, but the wound was starting to heal. It was too soon to tell if there’d been any nerve damage, but at least the bullet hadn’t hit a major artery. Still, he’d lost a lot of blood, and it was going to take a while to regain his strength. God help him, he needed his strength to keep from telling Josie what she could do with her tea and her songs and her never-ending string of questions.

“Do you have people frantic with worry over you?” she asked.

“People?”

“You know. A wife, kids, parents.”

The razor landed in the metal pan of water with a loud plop. Leaning back, Kane closed his eyes, listening to the scrape of the pan as she slid it away from her across the wood floor.

“No,” he said. “No wife, no kids, no parents. Karl Kennedy, the head of the bail enforcement agency in Butte is probably wondering whether I’m dead or alive, but he’s wondered that before and won’t get real concerned for another week or two.”

“Is he going to be upset that your bail jumper got away?” Josie asked.

“Not half as upset as I am. This guy wasn’t just a bail jumper. He tried to kill me. Not that I’d ever be able to prove it.”

“Then you didn’t actually see him shoot you?”

“I got my first inkling about the same time the bullet was kissing my shoulder goodbye.”

“That’s not funny,” she murmured, closer to his ear than he’d realized. “Here. Put this over your face for a few minutes.”

She placed a hot, wet towel in his left hand and slowly lifted it to his face. Moist heat seeped into his skin, his groan turning into a deep, contented moan. “Ah, Josie, if you need something to do when you’re a little older, maybe you could bring back the old-fashioned shave.”

“What do you mean when I’m a little older? I’m already a grown woman. Why, back in Hawk Hollow I’m considered an old maid.”

She lifted the towel from his face. He opened his eyes, fighting an uncustomary urge to grin. Josie was leaning over him, her gray eyes flashing, her lips parted in indignation. She had a personality big enough for ten women, but there wasn’t much to the rest of her. Her light blond hair was tied back in a lopsided ponytail. Her skin was unlined and smooth. Without a stitch of makeup, she looked about thirteen.

Shaking his head, he said, “You’re not old enough to be an old maid.”

“I’m twenty-three.”

“You are?”

“I look younger, I, know. I think it’s because I’m on the thin side. Dripping wet I barely weigh a hundred and ten.”

The lift of his eyebrow must have made her feel guilty, because she said, “Okay, a hundred and five.”

Kane didn’t want to think about what she would look like dripping wet. He didn’t want to think about the fact that she was older than she looked and therefore of legal age. He didn’t want to think about how close she was and how alone they were, and, aw, hell. “Josie,” he said, exasperated, “women lie about weighing too much, not too little.”

“I can lie about anything I want to lie about. But I really am twenty-three. How old are you?”

Questions. Always more questions. “Thirty-four.” His answer was thin and hollow and as worn as his patience.

“So, you’re a thirty-four-year-old bounty hunter from Montana. No wife. No kids. No parents. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes. Maybe if he went to sleep she would stop talking.

“Well, do you?”

Then again, maybe she wouldn’t. “Two brothers. Trace and Spence.”

“Only two? I have four. Billy, James, Roy and J.D. They’re the main reasons I came up here. That, and I wanted a little time to myself to think. Do you ever need time to yourself to think, Kane? What am I saying? You must have all kinds of time to think when you’re not breaking down doors and collecting bounty money. What else do you like to do? Back in Montana, I mean. Just a minute. I’ll be right back.”

She bustled away to the stove where a kettle of water was beginning to boil. Kane welcomed the reprieve. All these questions were making him feel naked. Of course, he was naked.

He was a grown man, yet he’d slept like a baby most of the past two days. He hated being helpless and he hated being weak, but until his shoulder healed and he regained the use of his right arm and he was strong enough to make it down the mountain, he was at Josie’s mercy. The shave, shampoo and bath had been her idea. He was the first to admit they’d felt good, and the first to admit that he was an ornery cuss most of the time. It was an effective tool in holding people at a distance. Josie didn’t seem to mind. Hell, she didn’t even seem to notice.

He could tell by the soft thud of her shoes that she was nearing. Turning his head, he watched as she stopped at the edge of the ancient bathtub and promptly added the water she’d heated on the stove. Before he’d gotten in, she’d stirred some sort of healing agent into the water, making it milky white and impossible to see through. Breathing in the steam rising from the surface of the water, Kane felt himself relaxing. “Okay, Josie,” he said, drowsy from the blessedly warm water. “I can take it from here.”