Marry Me. Jo Goodman

bread and broth, and to prove that he wasn’t trying to starve her, a soft-cooked egg.

      Lying in bed, she could hear him chopping wood. Try as she might, there was no angle from the bed that allowed her to see more than limber pine and blue sky through the window. Rhyne took her sense of his activity by listening to it. He didn’t know how to swing an ax or efficiently set and stack the wood. She found herself holding her breath at times, quite literally waiting for the ax to fall. Sometimes the wood would split; sometimes Dr. Monroe would swear. He couldn’t find his rhythm, so he did a great deal of swearing.

      Rhyne didn’t mind the swearing. It made him ordinary in a comfortable sort of way, reminded her that he was flesh and blood and bone. He hadn’t seemed so regular the first time she’d had him in her rifle sight. On that occasion, coming through the trees on horseback, he’d put her in mind of a warrior king. She’d only seen drawings of men like Alexander, Charlemagne, and Marc Antony in her father’s books, but Cole Monroe was one of their ilk: proud, straight, and tall, with features struck from marble with tools only the gods could have used.

      She’d pulled her shot on purpose, sending it just wide of his perfectly cast ear. Rhyne recalled that he hadn’t been able to stay in the seat of his startled mount, but perhaps not even warrior kings could manage a beast like Becken. The stallion was known to be the most powerful–and the most skittish–animal in Joe Redmond’s livery, and Rhyne believed Joe had sense enough not to send Becken out with a greenhorn. If nothing else, respect for the horse should have stopped him.

      Rhyne knew now that by giving Joe the benefit of the doubt, she’d allowed herself to set Cole Monroe firmly in the pages of Judah’s history books. There was comfort in that, too, or at least there was safety. If he wasn’t real, then neither was the danger.

      It had been foolish, she supposed, to believe the doctor wouldn’t come calling again. If she’d known that Sheriff Cooper was behind it, she would have been prepared. Most likely, she would have made herself scarce so that even that no-account Beatty boy couldn’t have found her. Instead, she’d walked directly into the trap the sheriff set for her and put herself at the mercy of the warrior.

      Rhyne remembered lying in the scrub grass, helpless to defend herself when Cole Monroe knelt at her side. Sunlight at his back cast his face in shadow but didn’t obscure the strong definition of his features. They were still visible, even through the haze of her pain. His jaw, square and vaguely aggressive, was set so tightly that a muscle worked in his lean cheek, and each time he drew a breath there was a slight flaring of his nostrils, just enough to make her think of dragons and dragon slayers and wonder which he was. She recalled that moment when his hat fell back and sunshine glinted off his dark copper hair. She’d had the fanciful impression of a halo of fire, an impression that wasn’t dispelled by the flash and fury she saw in his eyes.

      She listened to the ax fall again and smiled faintly at the muttered curse that followed. Since it seemed unlikely that he’d exhaust his repertoire of cuss words, Rhyne figured Cole Monroe would have to learn to hit his target squarely before he cut himself off at the knees.

      Cole set down the ax and paused to shake out the kink in his right shoulder. He massaged his upper arm, rolling the shoulder one way then reversing the motion. He felt the strain on muscles he’d forgotten how to use. It wasn’t unpleasant, but then he knew the deep ache wouldn’t begin for hours. He had no objection to physical labor and no bias toward those that engaged in it for their livelihood. Most people didn’t appreciate the hard work that hospital doctoring entailed: lifting and transporting patients; standing for hours in surgery; walking the wards in an endless loop; climbing stairs two at time and upward of thirty times a day. There were orderlies to assist, but it was Cole’s experience that they had a gift for being elsewhere when they were needed most. Some doctors would rather spend their time following an orderly’s trail rather than move patients or attend to their most basic needs, but Cole was rarely one of them.

      Still, chopping wood was strenuous in an altogether different manner than he was accustomed to. It didn’t help that he wasn’t very good at it. Raising the brim of his hat, he swiped at his brow with his forearm and looked off in the direction he expected help to appear. He scanned the crest of the ridge and saw nothing that made him think he could pass off this chore onto someone else.

      He was on the point of picking up the ax when he heard Rhyne cry out, and he was already turning when the hard thump and clatter reached his ears. Cole took off on a run, covering the ground to the cabin in short order.

      He had a picture in his mind of what he could expect when he reached Rhyne’s room, but there was no satisfaction in being right. She was lying on her side on the floor, her feet tangled in the sheet that she’d dragged from the bed. The washstand was overturned beside her, and he judged by its position that it had missed her by the narrowest of margins. That explained the thump. He attributed the clatter to the basin and pitcher that were lying just out of her reach. Water had spilled from both, forming a pool that was slowly moving toward Rhyne’s head. One sleeve of her shirt was already damp.

      “I told you not to get out of bed.” He didn’t try to mask his annoyance. “Don’t be surprised if I shoot you first. I can get to your rifle a lot quicker than you can.”

      Rhyne pulled her arms under her and tried to push herself up.

      “Don’t move. For God’s sake, just lie there and catch your breath.” He bent and picked up the washstand. Towels had spilled from the cupboard under it. He shoved those back inside and closed the door, then he replaced the basin and pitcher. Dropping to his haunches beside Rhyne, Cole helped her turn on her back and lifted her to a sitting position by supporting her shoulders.

      “What was so important that you had to get up?”

      She stared at him mutinously. “Are you mule-stupid?”

      “I must be.”

      Rhyne shook her head, disgust, not embarrassment, defining the line of her mouth. “I’m about to burst,” she said tightly.

      That took some steam from Cole’s boiler. He knew he should have thought of that and left the pot within her easy reach, or better yet, made certain she emptied her bladder before he left the house. “Where’s the pot?”

      “Under the bed.”

      “All right. Let me untangle you and get you up to your knees.” Cole pulled the sheet out from under her legs and tossed it on the bed. He allowed Rhyne to struggle a bit changing position before he offered help. She needed to have a better sense of her own limitations if she was going to heal properly. While she caught her breath, he lowered his head to the floor to look under the bed.

      He guessed that she’d probably pushed the pot deeper when she first tried to grasp it. Making a sweep with his arm, Cole pulled it forward. He also captured two lengths of rope. He knew immediately he was holding what had been used to bind Rhyne’s wrists or ankles to the bed frame. A second sweep would likely produce another pair. Instead of reaching for them, he passed the pot to Rhyne and pocketed the rope out of her sight.

      “I’ll leave you,” he said. “Call me when you’re finished.”

      Standing on the front porch, Cole examined the rope in the sunlight. Dried blood flecked both lengths but not enough for Cole to conclude that they had been used regularly as restraints. He raised his arm in preparation of pitching both ropes as far as he could, but in the end stayed his own hand. Returning them to his pocket, he leaned back against the rough-hewn cabin wall and waited for Rhyne to summon him.

      “It burned,” she told him when he arrived in the room. “Making water’s never burned before.”

      Cole nodded, helping her to her feet. “Your urethra’s inflamed, and there are scratches and fine tears on your labia.”

      “Oh.”

      “Do you have any idea what I just said?”

      “No, but plain speaking isn’t your strong suit. I’m learning that about you.”

      He let Rhyne’s nails sink into his arm as she lowered