Laurie Grant - The Ranger's Bride

He nodded obediently.

“But you needn’t think that means I’ll stand for any monkeyshines from you while you’re here, Rede Smith.”

Again, he nodded, trying to look lamblike.

“Which will be for as brief a time as possible, is that clear? I’m a respectable widow with a business to run, which will be difficult enough while you’re here. Just as soon as you’re well enough to ride out of here, you’ll be leaving, is that understood?”

This wasn’t the time to tell her he’d decided this was the ideal place to stay, not only while he recovered, but while he looked for the Fogartys’ hideout.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, with all the meekness he could muster. Judas priest, but she was even prettier when she was riled, if that was possible.

“And now I had better get that bullet out of your arm, before you get blood poisoning,” she said. “I’ll just go and get a knife—”

The thought of her digging that bullet out made him queasy all over again. Ignoring the pain that lanced through him at the sudden move, he took hold of her arm before she could step away from the bed.

“Not just yet,” he said. “I mean, it’s gettin’ pretty late, isn’t it? You’d better go report the attack so someone can go out and pick up those bodies before the varmints get to ’em.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she said, looking down at his hand.

Reluctantly, he let her go. “Remember now, when they ask you about the dead folks, tell ’em Rede Smith is the one lyin’ out there with the star on his shirt.”

She shuddered. “But how would I know he was Rede Smith? We didn’t all introduce ourselves while we were traveling. I couldn’t tell them the names of the others. If I just knew your name, it would make it look as if we were…well, carrying on a flirtation or something. And I’m a respectable widow—I have a reputation to maintain here,” she told him tartly.

She had starch all right, Addy Kelly did.

“All right, just be sure and mention you noticed the man was wearin’ a Texas Ranger badge.”

She nodded her assent, started to walk out of the room, then suddenly asked, “Who wants you dead, Rede? Why don’t you want anyone to know you’re alive?”

“The Fogartys. The same bast—Excuse me, ma’am, the same outlaws that attacked the stage today.” He’d been trying to come into the area secretly, to find their hideout before they knew he was here, but somehow the word had gotten out.

Which meant someone in his Ranger company had talked. He’d have to find out who that was, preferably before the company joined him to capture the Fogarty Gang. It could be that one of them had just babbled too much while drunk. He didn’t want to think that a Texas Ranger could be bribed.

She seemed to want to discuss it further, but he wasn’t ready to trust her that much yet. “Are you up to drivin’ that stage into town?” he asked, to divert her.

Addy nodded. “I think so. I—I don’t like to think of that man lying dead in there, right in front of my house.”

He was glad she felt that way, because that meant the sheriff wouldn’t be nosing around here right when Addy was about to dig that bullet out.

His stomach clenched all over again at the thought. “Say, Miss Addy, maybe you’d better buy some whiskey while you’re there. Sure would be easier to stand you operatin’ on my arm if I could get good and drunk before you start.”

“Now how am I going to explain a sudden fondness for whiskey?” she demanded.

He hadn’t thought of that. Good Lord, was he going to have to go through this ordeal sober?

He must have looked as uneasy as he felt, for she smiled. “Don’t worry. Fortunately for you, there’s still some of my uncle’s supply here. My aunt didn’t dispose of it when he died—I think she used to sip it herself. There’s one bottle left. You want it now?”

Rede shook his head. He didn’t know how long it’d be before she could start her digging, and he’d have a better chance of passing out and avoiding the pain if he drank a whole lot of it right before she started.

He’d drink the whiskey while she was boiling the knife before she went to work on him. He didn’t know why it was, but from what he’d seen, a wounded fellow just seemed to do better when the bullet-digging instrument was boiled first.

“Oh, Miss Addy—before you leave, will you bring in my saddlebags?” he called after her retreating form. “They’re still inside the coach. My pistols and gun belt are in ’em.” Since he was still alive, he figured, he might need them again.

If it hadn’t been for the tragedy that had necessitated her driving the stagecoach into Connor’s Crossing, Addy would have been amused by the reaction that greeted her as the coach rolled onto Main Street after crossing the bridge over the Llano River.

Dogs barked and scurried out in pursuit of the stage. A pair of ladies strolling onto Main Street—ladies she recognized as two of her best customers—stared in slack-jawed amazement, one of them dropping her parasol. The town ne’er-do-well, lounging outside the barbershop, turned to run inside—no doubt to tell the barber what he’d seen—and ran right into the support pole holding up the roof that jutted out over the shop. As the horses trotted farther along Main Street, cowboys loitering outside the saloon shouted questions at her and the news of a woman driving the stage to patrons inside.

Addy ignored them all, determined not to be delayed. She wanted to tell the story only once. Approaching Miss Beatrice Morgan’s trim cottage, she spied a towheaded, freckle-faced boy of five staring between the slats of the white picket fence. It was Billy, the sheriff’s son, whom Miss Beatrice looked after during the day while his widowed father served as Connor’s Crossing’s sheriff.

“Billy!” she called, “run ahead and find your father for me, will you? Tell him to come to the jail, that I need to speak to him right now!”

If he had no prisoners to guard, Sheriff Asa Wilson spent little time in his office at the jail. Usually, at this time of day, he was ensconced in the general store playing checkers, but there was no guarantee of that, and Addy didn’t want to spend valuable time looking for him. She was eager to turn the coach and its dead passenger over to him as soon as possible so that she could get back to the wounded Ranger in her house.

Still paying no attention to the questions called out by every soul she passed, Addy had just reined in the team in front of the jail and was setting the brake when Asa Wilson catapulted out of the general store with Billy on his heels.

“Miss Addy! I thought Billy had lost his mind when he told me you were driving a st—Dear God, what’s happened to you? You’re all bloody! Are you—are you shot?”

Belatedly, she gazed down at her dress and saw the blood that had dried into dark-brown splotches and streaks across the front of her bodice and skirts. Dear God, indeed! But her appearance was of no concern to her right now.

“No, Asa,” she said, as she took hold of his hand and allowed him to help her down. “I’m unharmed. But…I’m afraid we were robbed back there.” She gestured back up the road that led past her house into town.

“Wilson, there’s a dead man in here,” called the barber, who had apparently been peering inside the coach while she spoke. “He’s all shot up.”

Asa’s eyes flew to her face, and he seized her other hand.

Addy nodded in confirmation, feeling her knees starting to turn to jelly now that she had accomplished her mission of bringing the coach—and the news—to town.

“Th-that’s how I got so bloody,” she told him, aware that more than half the town was clustered around the coach and hearing every word. “I was crouched down in the floor of the stage…and he fell over on me.”