The Ranger's Bride. Laurie Grant

sagged in the bed, letting out a long gusty breath.

      “Quick, pour the rest o’ that whiskey over my arm,” he growled, closing his eyes and setting his jaw. He flinched as she obeyed, but made no sound.

      She had done it. The room spun, and she leaned on the bed for support. Then she felt his hand on her wrist.

      “You did real fine, Miz Kelly,” he said. “Thanks. Now maybe you better sit down. Oh, an’ you might oughta open up s’ more whishkey. You’re lookin’ a mite pale.”

      Rede lay in Adelaide Kelly’s bed, hearing her rooster crow and watching dawn gradually light the square of glass opposite his bed. The ache in his arm—and the matching throb in his head due to the whiskey he’d drunk the evening before—had awakened him an hour ago.

      He’d been a fool to think that he could steal back into the area by taking the stage. He should have just taken his chances riding in—traveling under cover of darkness, perhaps, and making cold camps in gullies. Now, because someone had had loose lips, five innocent people were dead. And the sixth had had to dig a bullet out of him and was going to have to play hostess while he laid low here and recovered.

      The whiskey had made his memories of last night fuzzy around the edges, but he remembered enough that he could still picture her bending over him, her pale, sweat-pearled brow furrowed in concentration as she clutched the paring knife that had eventually rooted the bullet out of his flesh.

      She’d done a hell of a job, he thought, for a refined lady who’d obviously never planned on performing surgery. Captain McDonald couldn’t have done any better, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have bothered apologizing up and down for each and every twist and turn of the knife, as Addy Kelly had done. Yessir, she had grit, Addy Kelly did.

      But she did do one thing better than his captain: snore. He’d camped out plenty with the Rangers’ commander when they’d been in pursuit of outlaws or marauding Indians, so he should know, and Addy Kelly could outsnore all of his company any night of the week.

      Possibly it was the uncomfortable position she had slept in, Rede thought, eyeing her sympathetically. She hadn’t left the room but had passed the night in the chair next to the bed. She was there still, her head resting against the wall, her hands clasped together in a ladylike primness that was entirely at odds with the buzzing noise coming at frequent intervals from her mouth.

      Sometime during the night she’d left him long enough to wash up and change out of her bloodstained dress and into a violet-sprigged wrapper. She’d let her hair down and braided it, and now the thick chestnut plait hung over the curve of her breast.

      All at once she gave a particularly rattling snore. It must have awakened her because she blinked a couple of times, then shut her eyes again and still sitting, breathed deeply, stretching long and luxuriously.

      The action stretched the flowered cotton across her breasts, and he luxuriated in the sight. Lord, but he loved the shape of a woman not wearing a corset.

      Something—perhaps the groan of pleasure he had not succeeded in altogether smothering—must have alerted her she was not alone, for Addy’s eyes flew open and she caught sight of him watching her.

      She uttered a shriek and jumped to her feet.

      “Whoa, easy, Miss Addy,” he murmured, and put out a hand in an attempt to soothe her. He tried to relieve her embarrassment by making a joke. “I don’t look that frightenin’, do I?”

      He watched her face change as she reoriented herself.

      “No! That is…well, you do look a bit haggard…but I expect that’s natural after what you’ve been through! I’m sorry—I couldn’t think where I was!”

      “That’s natural, too,” he assured her. “A day like yesterday would buffalo anyone.” He knew she couldn’t feel very rested after sleeping in a chair, but no lady wanted to be told how tired she looked.

      Addy blinked as if surprised by his understanding.

      “Did you…that is, are you having much pain?” she asked.

      He remembered to shrug with just his uninjured shoulder. “Well, I wouldn’t say I feel like running any races,” he admitted. “But it’ll get better.”

      “I should examine your wounds.”

      He lay still while she pulled back the makeshift bandage, trying not to look at her while she bent close to him so she wouldn’t be self-conscious. He couldn’t help but breathe in her womanly scent, though. She must wash with rosewater.

      “How’s it look?” he asked when she straightened again.

      “Well, I’m no doctor, but it looks all right to me…as well as can be expected the very next day, anyhow,” she said, then laid a soft, cool hand on his forehead. “Good. You don’t seem to have any fever, either.” Then she added brightly, “How about some breakfast? Bacon, eggs, biscuits?”

      The thought of anything fried hitting his still-queasy stomach made that organ threaten to revolt. “No thanks, Miss Addy. Just coffee, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

      “Oh, come now, you need good, nourishing food to recover your strength,” she coaxed. “It’s really no trouble, and I am accounted a good cook, if I do say so myself.”

      He could tell nothing less than the truth would discourage her. “Miss Addy, I don’t reckon you’ve ever drunk an excess of whiskey before—”

      “No, of course not,” she interrupted, startled. “I don’t even know what it tastes like.”

      He pretended he didn’t hear her. “The thing is, the headache a fellow gets afterward kind of deadens the appetite. Really, coffee’s the best thing you could give me, ma’am.”

      “All right then, coffee it is,” she agreed, looking sympathetic. “Just give me a few minutes—”

      Just then a knock sounded at the front door.

      Chapter Six

      The knock came again, harder this time.

      “Yoo-hoo, Addy! Are you there, Addy?”

      “Pretend you’re not here!” Rede whispered.

      Addy wished she could do just that. The very last thing she needed this morning was one of Beatrice Morgan’s long, chatty visits.

      “I can’t!” she whispered back. “If I don’t answer, she’ll think I’m still sleeping and come around and knock at the back. She might even look in a window!” she said, pointing frantically at the two low windows, one to the left of the foot of his bed, the other facing the foot of his bed. The lantana bushes on the side of the house would probably keep Beatrice from getting close to the first window, but she could easily look in the back one. And if she did, the old woman would be able to see Rede Smith sitting up in Addy’s bed, even through the sheer muslin curtains.

      “All right, but get rid of her!” Rede growled, gesturing toward the sound.

      She glared at him before turning to dash down the hallway. She called, “I’m coming!” in hopes of keeping Beatrice from starting to go around to the back.

      How dare Rede Smith try to order her around in her own house? She didn’t intend to encourage Beatrice to stay long, but being polite was the very least she could do after sneaking out on the older woman the way she had yesterday.

      She was barely in time. Beatrice was just stepping off the porch when Addy threw open the front door.

      “Why, there you are! I was just fixin’ to go ’round to the back,” the old woman said. “Sleep late, did you?” she said, eyeing Addy’s creased wrapper and braided hair. “I shouldn’t wonder, after all that commotion yesterday!”

      “Yes, I’m afraid I did,” Addy admitted. “Sorry to take