Jake's Angel. Nicole Foster

cleaning the wound, applying a poultice of lizard tail to staunch the bleeding and prevent infection. When she’d finished, she straightened with one hand to her lower back, wiping damp tendrils away from her brow with the back of the other.

      “You can look now,” she said to Chessie. The young woman stood on the far side of the room, pressed close to the door, her nose practically squashed against it.

      “You didn’t cut off his leg, did you?”

      “Of course not. Although I’ll admit to being tempted. You’re right—he’s trouble.”

      Chessie turned around, casting a lingering glance at the man on the bed. “I suppose he is, but under all that blood and dirt, he’s sure enough all man.”

      “I don’t know about that but if you’d come to me any later, he would have been a dead man, whether he’ll admit that or not.”

      “Well…I’m sorry about coming for you so sudden like, but I knew no doctor could do for him what you could.” She looked up at Isabel, chewing her lower lip. “I hope you ain’t mad.”

      “No, I’m glad you did. You know I can’t refuse when someone’s hurting. Although this once I might have been tempted because I’ve probably wasted my time here. Look at him and tell me he’s not the kind to go right back out and get himself shot up again.”

      “I hope you’re wrong about that.” Chessie moved over to the bed and brushed her fingertips over the man’s rough stubble. “He’s one fine man, I can tell. Losin’ him’d be a waste. And besides, I ain’t sure he’s that kind, though he does look it.”

      “Oh, he’s that kind all right. I’d put money on it. But—” Isabel shrugged and began to gather up bloody cloths and her pouches of herbs “—with the grace of God and any luck, he’ll be back on his feet and out of town before we find out.”

      Chessie watched her, anxious again. “Will you be all right, Isabel? I mean leavin’ here alone. You bein’ a decent woman, I know some people, well…”

      “Don’t worry about me.” A mischievous grin twisted the corner of her mouth. “The women in my family stopped caring what people said about us a long time ago.”

      She looked once more to the bed. The man lay still in the grip of deep sleep, yet even in this rest he didn’t look peaceful. She thought she had been right in guessing his character, but she also could understand Chessie’s admiration. Without the grime and the blood and the ragged beard, he would be compelling, if not handsome. And that combined with his aura of danger and mystery had no doubt been the downfall of more than one woman.

      But not her. Never her. Never again.

      “He should sleep until morning,” she told Chessie. “I’ll come back then and bring something for the pain and to prevent infection. He should be fine in a few weeks, perhaps sooner.”

      “I sure hope it’s sooner. I don’t think he’s the kind to be happy sittin’ around waitin’ to get well.”

      He probably isn’t, Isabel thought, and it’s just as well. The sooner he leaves Whispering Creek, the better.”

      Isabel pushed open the kitchen door and swung her basket onto the counter, the savory scent of a hearty beef stew reminding her she’d scarcely eaten since dawn. The door, hanging slightly askew on its rusted hinges, slapped against its wooden frame several times in her wake.

      “Ah, pepita,” Esme said, turning from the stove, “I was beginning to worry.”

      “It took longer than I expected. Chessie’s man turned out to be a gunslinger with a bullet in his leg.”

      Esme went back to stirring the pot on the black cast-iron cookstove, clicking her tongue in distaste.

      Isabel moved to put an arm around her grandmother’s shoulders, giving her a quick hug. “Now don’t start, Nana. You’d have done the same thing. You have done the same thing.”

      The old woman’s expression softened. “Sí, but I did not set foot in a place like Elish Dodd’s saloon. Every devil who comes to Whispering Creek beds there.”

      “Yes, well, I don’t think you would have wanted Elish to bring this particular devil here.” An image of wild black hair, the scent of leather and denim, the feel of hard muscle, flashed through Isabel’s mind. The vision provoked a shivery feeling in her, something akin to uneasiness, except darker, more complex.

      Shaking her head to rid herself of the image, she pulled out a chair and sank into it, resting her elbows on the smooth pine table in front of her.

      “You must be starving, child.” Esme grabbed a bowl and ladled out a liberal portion of the succulent stew, holding up a hand to stop Isabel’s protest at the large helping. “You did not eat breakfast.”

      “Oh…Nate split a seam on his shirt and then Matt needed help with his sums, and Mr. Davis—”

      “Sí, sí, I know.” Esme poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down across from Isabel. She stared at her granddaughter a moment in silence then shook her head. “You take too much on yourself.”

      Isabel swallowed a spoonful of stew. She knew she was practically inhaling it, but the morning’s excitement had left her famished. “No more than any woman with a family to care for.”

      “You are young, beautiful, but so often the jewel you are is buried deep behind your tired eyes.”

      Isabel laughed. “This jewel has no desire to come out and be polished for some man’s pleasure, if that’s what you’re hinting at, Nana. I was a wife once, I can’t imagine ever meeting another man with the power to convince me to become one again.”

      “You can hardly call yourself a wife, you were married for so short a time. You are not an old woman, nor are you blind and deaf. You cannot truly be so uninterested in what a true man can give you.”

      “And what is that? A home? I have that, and my children and you and now Katlyn as well. What else is there?”

      “You know there is more. Much more. In your heart, you yearn for it. Yet you deny yourself because that man you called a husband broke your heart.”

      “He didn’t…it was never like that.” Isabel glanced down at her bowl, not quite able to face the disbelief on Esme’s face. “He taught me that my dreams of building a home with a husband were something I could live without if I had to.”

      “Perhaps, but it was not always that way, no matter what you tell me. Your heart is too tender. You will never prize freedom above loving.”

      Isabel smiled a little. “Well, I will certainly never find a man who will give me the freedom I have now. What man would want to be husband to a woman who leaves his bed because she must go to a saloon to cut a bullet out of another’s man’s leg?”

      “The man who loves you above all else. But if you refuse to see him, you will never find him.”

      “I hardly think I’ll find him in this town whether I’m looking or not,” Isabel said, laughing. “You wouldn’t want me looking too closely at the kind of man I usually see.”

      “And what kind is that? The man you went to help today?”

      For some reason, Isabel felt her face flush. “Don’t start spinning any romantic dreams of him as a potential husband. He’s more the kind to bed all of Elish’s girls in a night, drink down most of his whiskey, shoot up the bar, then throw on his boots and ride out of town, bad leg or not.”

      Esme swallowed the last of her coffee and shoved back from the table. “A dangerous man. Sí, you are right to stay away from that one then.” She said nothing more, but gave Isabel an appraising look.

      Isabel got up quickly and took her bowl to the sink to rinse. “I must go to the shop for a few hours. Will you need help with dinner?”

      “Of course