Roma Arroyo - The Will Austin Adventure Series. Jackie Boone's Phillips

to the holster still held several long knives for throwing and cutting. She moved this belt carefully away from the man, thinking that they would all be safer if the weapons were out of reach when he woke up. She pulled his shirt away from his body again, and slowly eased it out from under his weight, putting it to the side. She stripped the vest away from the shirt and looked at her hands in disgust. The man’s clothes were filthy, and smelt vaguely of raw alcohol. She glanced quickly down at the clothing, then paused and looked more closely. Deep brown buckskin pants and a matching vest. The shirt was fine white linen, underneath the layers of blood and grime, and the boots were well made. The clothing had fine, straight stitching. These were not handmade clothes. They did not come from the man’s wife or even a ranch seamstress, and they certainly hadn’t been made in the quick, rough pattern of a Texan seamstress.

      Elizabeth folded the clothes carefully and put them on the bed, then stepped back. This man was wealthy, and that meant that he was also important, and therefore potentially dangerous, she thought. She sighed again, and looked back at the man lying on the bed.

      “Who are you, and what are you doing on my property?” she asked quietly.

      She moved back to the bed to remove his fine gloves, and noticed a gold wedding band on his left hand. She glanced at the man’s face again. Very few men wore wedding rings in this area, and those who did were either very rich or very sentimental. The thought made her pause, and she looked out the window, remembering a time and place that no longer existed. Her own husband had worn a wedding ring, once, though she hadn’t seen it since he had been killed by the thieves in the field. A smile touched her lips as she remembered. He had bought the ring himself, but that had never tempered his pleasure in the gift. He’d taken pride in the band, and had shown it to everyone he met when they first married. He’d told everyone that it was his own symbol of love, and that wearing the ring meant that he carried his wife with him.

      The man on the bed coughed, bringing Elizabeth back to the present, and she firmed her mouth. It wasn’t good for her to stand around wishing to rewrite the past, and it certainly didn’t help those around her. She placed the belt with the knives out of her American friend’s reach, then moved to the chair by the window to work on her sewing until he awoke.

      ***

      Elizabeth stayed with the man through the night and into the next day. She did not want him to wake up alone or in pain, and she wanted to keep him from moving as much as possible. She sewed and knitted as she waited, taking care of the last month’s mending and diving into the need for warmer winter clothing. This was a warm, mild area of the country, and didn’t present harsh winter weather. The colder season always required heavier blankets for the children, though, along with thicker socks and sweaters. She hummed to herself while she sewed, remembering the songs that her mother sang to her when she was young. Her mother had sung special songs when her children were sick, and always swore that they helped the sickness leave the body. Elizabeth had never believed that herself, but had found comfort in her mother’s voice. She’d also realized the value of that comfort, in itself, and had started singing to her own children when they were born. Now she hoped that the sound of her voice would bring the American back to the land of the living, and possibly give him some comfort while he slept.

      Within a few hours of sunrise, the man began to develop a fever. His skin became flushed and hot to the touch, and his sleep dissolved into fitful episodes of tossing and turning. Elizabeth shouted for help and water, and began to strip the man of his remaining clothing. When help arrived, she soaked rags in the cold water and piled them around the man, seeking to bring the fever down. After a couple of hours of replacing the rags and praying, Elizabeth felt the man’s face to find that his temperature had returned to normal. She sighed in relief and moved back to her empty chair. Overcome with the fatigue and stress of the work, she fell asleep as soon as she sat down.

      Chapter Two

      Will awoke cold and confused. He had no idea where he was or how he came to be there, though he felt both exhausted and weak, as though he had traveled a long distance. He turned his head to the side, seeking some clue about his location, and saw light streaming in through a window on the other side of the room. Indoors. He was in a room somewhere. The room was clean but sparsely furnished, with a table and set of chairs near the window. He was in a bed. There was an unknown woman sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, and he could not sit up.

      He tried again to move, but stopped when he felt a sharp pain shooting from his left leg up through his right shoulder. He grunted in pain and fell back against the bed. Something was very wrong with his body. Moaning, he tried again. He was in unfamiliar surroundings, without a clue about how he arrived there, and it wasn’t safe for him to stay in this bed. It wasn’t safe for him to be at such a disadvantage. What if these people weren’t his friends? What if danger came through the door? He needed to be up and moving, ready for whatever came his way. He didn’t know how he’d come here, but he could remember that there had been danger, and recently. Something had been wrong, and he had been scared the last time he was awake.

      Suddenly, though, the woman was at his side, no doubt roused by his struggles to rise.

      “Hush, now,” she said, pushing him back down on the bed. “It isn’t safe for you to move. You’ve been hurt, and you’ll tear the stitches I put in.”

      Will sank back onto the bed, registering the increased pain in his thigh and shoulder and trying to process what she had said. “Where am I?” he mumbled.

      The woman smiled kindly. “You are on my family’s ranch.”

      “Who are you?”

      “My name is Elizabeth Arroyo,” she answered quietly.

      Will frowned, thinking. That name was familiar. Did he know her? Had she been his friend once, or had her husband helped him at some time? He tried to track the thought but had trouble focusing through the pain in his shoulder, and put the idea away for another time.

      “What is your name?” the woman was asking.

      He thought briefly, forcing his mind to function. His head was terribly sore, as though he’d been drinking for weeks, and didn’t want to work the way it should. "Will,” he remembered suddenly. “My name is Will Austin."

      The woman nodded, and Will noticed that she had kind, dark, beautiful eyes. The kind of eyes that he would have trusted, once. The delicate skin of her face was worn with care and hard living, but still retained a fine-boned beauty.

      “Will Austin. Welcome. You are on my family’s ranch outside the town of Santa Maria, about 50 miles south of the border. You have been here for two days.”

      Will breathed in sharply. South of the border? What was he doing here? Why had he come so far south? “How did I get here?” he asked quietly.

      Elizabeth shrugged. “You were brought here by two of my children. They found you in a clearing in the forest. You had been involved in a gun fight.” She looked expectantly at him, as though she hoped he would finish the story, or at least start it.

      A gunfight. An alarm went off in Will’s head, trying to get his attention again, and the memories came flooding back. Guns. In the woods. He had been there with … Suddenly Will exploded out of the bed, jumping to his feet and throwing the blankets on the floor. His leg gave out under him, though, and he fell back to the bed, cursing in pain.

      The woman pushed him down again, her face creased with worry and some anger. “Don’t do that! You have very severe injuries to your shoulder and leg. You should not be moving, or you will open the wounds again. Please, sir, you must be still.”

      Will gazed up at her, trying to reconcile his memories with the scene he now faced. He thought he remembered a journey south, but could not find the reason in his memory. This woman told him that he was south of the Mexican border, yet she was obviously a white woman, and spoke perfect English. With a Southern accent, unless he was mistaken. “You fixed me up?” he asked, dazed.

      “Yes, I did,” she answered, raising her eyebrows. “Now tell me, what are you