The Ranger's Bride. Laurie Grant

tiptoed to the back door and stealthily lifted up the latch and let herself out. So that no one would see her, she would go down the back street, which connected up with the main road at the edge of town. Once she crossed the bridge over the rocky-bedded Llano, it was just a short walk to her house.

      Chapter Five

      The house was quiet—much too quiet—when Addy entered it. Dear Lord, had his wound somehow started bleeding again? Had Rede Smith bled to death?

      The thought pierced her with guilt for having left him, even at his direction and for so brief a time. Addy hurried down the hall and through the kitchen to the back bedroom.

      “Judas priest, woman, where have you been?”

      Rede Smith was sitting up in bed, propped up by her two feather pillows, his color pale but no paler than when she had left him.

      She let out the breath she’d unconsciously been holding.

      “It took considerable cunning to escape a woman like Miss Beatrice Morgan, I’ll have you know,” she informed Rede tartly, and then explained how the sheriff and the old woman, determined to coddle her after her ordeal, had conspired to keep her in town.

      He frowned as she described Asa Wilson’s concern for her.

      “Don’t worry,” she said, assuming he was just worrying about the bandits’ trail getting cold, “he didn’t remain any longer than he had to, once he’d gotten the facts and seen to my welfare. He’s already out there with a posse, looking for the Fogartys. It was the Fogarty Gang, you think?”

      He gave her a baleful look. “I don’t think, I’m sure of it,” he said. “You didn’t tell him about me, did you?”

      She was already exhausted from the day’s events, and his scornful tone sparked her ire. “No, I most certainly did not, though it felt despicable to be lying to that good man, not to mention the whole town—telling him the Ranger was dead, when you’re lying right here in my bed!”

      She felt herself blushing at what she had said, and hoped he hadn’t noticed, but of course the Ranger missed nothing.

      He scowled. “What’s the matter, is the virtuous Widow Kelly the sheriff’s secret sweetheart? Are you afraid he’ll find me here and think he has a rival?”

      Her temper reached the flashpoint and ignited.

      Hand raised to slap his face, Addy took one step toward the bed before she realized what she was about to do and stopped dead in her tracks.

      Addy saw in his eyes that he fully realized her intention, and wanted to die of shame. She took a deep shaky breath. “I won’t do it. I won’t slap a wounded man, though you richly deserve it after what you just said.”

      He looked away first, scowling again. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business who visits your bed, Mrs. Kelly,” he said stiffly.

      “No one—” she started to say, and then stopped herself. He was right. It was none of his business. Let Rede Smith think Asa Wilson was her lover, if it would keep him from behaving improperly toward her. He didn’t have to know Asa was the last man who’d make an ungentlemanly move toward a woman he thought was a six-month widow and whom he considered a lady. But if she expected meekness out of Rede Smith now, she was doomed to disappointment.

      “Are you a good liar?” he demanded. “Did they believe you?”

      “I think so,” she said, striving for a level tone. Oh, you don’t know how good a liar I am, Rede Smith. I’ve been living a lie ever since I came to Connor’s Crossing.

      “All right, good. I need you to get this bullet out, now that you’re back. And I’ll take that whiskey now, if you don’t mind,” he added.

      Addy bristled anew at his brisk tone, and again when she had brought in the bottle and a freshly washed glass, only to hear him say, “I need you to boil whatever knife you’re going to use for several minutes.”

      She started to bark back a sarcastic reply, then saw the apprehension that lurked within his dark gaze. Rede Smith was worried about how he’d react to the pain of having that bullet removed. The realization rendered him more human and made her stifle her stinging retort.

      “Certainly.” She turned on her heel and left the room.

      It took her half an hour to get ready. She had to light a fire in the stove, pump a kettle full of water, set it to boiling, and after selecting a knife she normally used for paring fruit, boil it for several minutes. While she waited she washed her hands thoroughly, using the lye soap she used on laundry days.

      By the time she returned to her bedroom, carrying the kettle with the aid of two clean cloths, the whiskey had apparently mellowed his mood.

      “Will this do, do you think?” she said, holding the kettle so he could see the paring knife in the still-bubbling water.

      He darted a glance at it in the steaming water, then quickly back at her. “I guesh sho—so,” he said, his exhaled breath sending a cloud of whiskey fumes in her direction.

      He was apparently aware that some of his words were slurred. “Shorry—I mean, sorry I was so gr-grouchy, Miz Addy. I r-reckon I’m not lookin’ forward to this little bullet-huntin’ exspedition we’re ’bout to go on.”

      His face was flushed, his dark eyes dulled. She glanced at the liquor bottle, and saw that he’d drunk over half the contents of the bottle, which had been nearly full. Heavens! It was amazing he was still conscious, let alone talking.

      “I can understand that,” she said.

      He sighed, and said in a resigned tone, “Well, le’sh get thish over with, then,” he said, and sank back in the bed. “D’you have anyshing—thing I can bite into?”

      She stepped over to her chest of drawers, pulled out one of her handkerchiefs and rolled it up, but when she stepped back to the bedside, his eyes were closed and he was breathing deeply and evenly. She hoped he was unconscious from the prodigious amount of whiskey he’d drunk so fast, and that he wouldn’t come to until she was done.

      She reached inside the pocket of the apron she wore and brought out the lump of lye soap. Dipping one of the clean cloths with which she had carried the hot kettle into the hot water, she rubbed it over the lump of soap until the cloth was soapy. Then she used it to cleanse the remaining dried blood from around the wound’s edges. He winced slightly when she rubbed hard at a stubborn clot, but otherwise did not stir.

      Once she had cleansed a wide circle of skin around the raw red edges of the arm wound—making it ooze a trickle of blood, she noted—she touched the flesh gingerly, feeling for the spent bullet within.

      For a moment she could feel nothing, but then she closed her eyes and palpated his upper arm again, using just the ball of her index finger, exploring a widening circle around the arm. Finally she found it—a hard lump about half an inch beneath the surface of the back of his arm. She sighed in relief that she would not have to probe blindly with her makeshift scalpel. But the wound was awkwardly situated. How was she to get to it without standing on her head?

      After a moment, she tucked Rede’s hand, palm up, under his head, which exposed the posterior of his upper arm perfectly. Movement of the wounded arm made him flinch and mutter something unintelligible, but once she let go of the arm, he seemed to sink back into insensibility.

      She turned to retrieve the knife.

      But the water was still too hot to dip her hand into. Crossing the room, she raised the windowsill and dumped most of the water onto her kitchen garden below. A couple of radish plants might never be the same, she thought, but it couldn’t be helped.

      Now she could reach the knife. Using the other clean cloth to pick up the still-hot handle, she moved back to the bedside, her insides churning within her.

      Gently bred ladies did not do such things. Extracting