Wolf Creek Wife. Penny Richards

petticoat?

      His gaze moved upward. An unfamiliar woman was sleeping in the rocking chair. Why was he on the floor and why was an unknown woman in his chair...in his house? What was going on? He thought about waking her to ask, but with his head pounding and his breathing rattling around in his chest, the last thing he wanted was any kind of confrontation or conversation. All he wanted to do was sleep. He didn’t recall ever being so sick, and he didn’t like the helpless feeling that made it hard to even move. He lay back down and continued staring at her. Even that was a strain.

      On closer examination, she looked familiar, but he couldn’t put a name to the face. She looked young and innocent sitting there with her head lolled over to the side. Even as sick as he was, it was obvious that she was really pretty with her slightly curly brown hair tumbling over her shoulders and her eyelashes casting shadows onto her face. Despite the fact that she wasn’t wearing a skirt and her feet were bare except for her white stockings, she sure didn’t look like the kind of woman who would stay over with a man any more than he was the kind of man who would let a woman stay over. A sudden, vague memory of her giving him medicine for his cough surfaced through the murky fever fog of his mind. Maybe she was a nurse, he thought, yawning and closing his eyes. They flew open immediately. There were no nurses in Wolf Creek. He shivered and pulled the covers closer around his neck, feeling the weariness pulling at him once more. He’d ask her who she was tomorrow. It was nothing that couldn’t wait until morning.

      * * *

      The barking of the dog woke Blythe from a deep sleep. Someone was outside. She could hear the sounds of men’s voices and the scrape and stomp of boots on the porch. Sleepy and confused, she bolted upright, her gaze automatically seeking her patient. His eyes were open, and though he looked a bit puzzled, he seemed much more alert than he had the previous evening.

      When someone began to pound on the door, she realized with a bit of dread that a search party had arrived. While she was deciding what to do, Will pushed himself to his elbows. Simultaneously, the door burst open, revealing a group of men, among them Sheriff Garrett, his deputy, Big Dan Mercer, the preacher and her brother. All wore looks of shock on their faces.

      “Blythe Granville!” Win cried. “What on earth is going on? Are you determined to ruin yourself?”

      “It’s pretty obvious what’s going on, if you ask me,” the preacher said.

      Blythe closed her eyes against a sudden feeling of light-headedness and nausea as a feeling of déjà vu swept through her. She started to get to her feet to explain and realized she was wearing only her blouse and petticoats. While she sat wondering how to approach the mess she found herself in, Preacher McAdams turned to Will, who was wearing his familiar frown.

      McAdams pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You will do the right thing by this young woman, William Slade. I expect you to marry her as soon as possible.”

      Blythe gasped and glanced at her brother. “I can’t marry him,” she cried at the same instant Will shouted, “Are you out of your mind? I’m not marrying anyone. Especially not her.”

      Blythe had seldom seen her easygoing brother so furious. “Oh, but you can,” he said to her in the tone she knew brooked no arguing. He shifted his furious gaze to Will. “And you are. Marrying her.”

      Though it hardly seemed possible, Will’s anger topped Win’s. “Over my dead body,” he growled.

      “That can be arranged,” Win snapped. Then he turned to her.

      She didn’t know what hurt the most: the heartbreak or the disappointment in his eyes.

      “Get dressed.”

      She reached out toward him. “Win, you’re jumping to conclusions. I can explain.”

      Instead of answering, he turned and left the room. The others followed.

       Chapter Two

      For several seconds after the door closed behind her brother, Blythe sat wide-eyed and still. She was afraid to move, afraid to even breathe, lest Will, who lay with his eyes shut, his fists clenched at his sides and his jaw rigid with anger, light into her the way he had Win. Knowing she had no choice, she stood, reached for her skirt and pulled it on, not bothering to brush the dirt from the hem or go to another room to dress. It was a little late for misplaced modesty. Besides, his eyes were still closed.

      “I can’t believe the mess you’ve made of things.”

      Her? She was being blamed once again? Blythe looked up from settling the waistband of her skirt and saw that Will’s eyes were open and he was glowering at her.

      She was usually hard to rile, but after everyone in the rescue party jumping to conclusions and Will’s lack of gratitude, her usual self-control was nowhere to be found. She finished buttoning her skirt, then glared back at him.

      “Why, thank you, Miss Granville, for finding me and doing your best to take care of me while I had a raging fever and a hacking cough.” Her voice reeked with disdain.

      His gaze shifted from hers. She hoped he felt guilty for his attitude.

      “I am grateful for that,” he said, though he sounded anything but.

      “Please, Mr. Slade,” she said, looking down her straight nose at him. “Don’t insult my intelligence by spouting platitudes you don’t really mean.”

      “Fine,” he snapped. “Why didn’t you take me to town instead of staying here with me overnight? Then none of this would have happened.”

      Blythe stared down at him, her eyes wide with disbelief. Was he serious? “How much do you weigh, Mr. Slade?”

      Dull color crept into his whisker-stubbled cheeks. He knew where this was going. “Somewhere between one eighty and two hundred pounds would be my guess.”

      He started to say something more, but she stopped him with an upraised hand. “I suppose I should have just left you in the woods while I hitched the wagon, then picked you up, tossed you over my shoulder, dumped you into the wagon bed and let you get even wetter while I drove you into town in the middle of a storm.” She didn’t tell him that she had no idea how to hitch the horse to the wagon, much less drive it.

      He threw a forearm over his face and drew in a deep sigh that set off a fit of coughing. When he finished, he looked at her with another daunting frown; Blythe took her coat from the back of the chair where she’d left it to dry and shrugged into it.

      “I would fetch you some of your cough remedy, but I’m having second thoughts about coming to your aid, since it’s clear you don’t appreciate anything I’ve done,” she quipped. “My mother has a saying that I didn’t really understand until a few minutes ago.”

      “Oh?” he challenged with an uplifted eyebrow.

      “‘No good deed goes unpunished.’” Then, because she was so miserable that he felt no gratitude for the sacrifice she’d made for him, and because she still had to deal with Win, she added, “It’s plain to see why your wife ran off with another man.”

      The shock and anger in Will’s eyes were impossible to ignore. Blythe longed to call back the spiteful words, but that was the thing about things spoken rashly and in anger. There was no taking them back. Even if one apologized, the words were out there, ready to be called up at a moment’s notice. Instead of even trying, she lifted her chin and turned to let herself out the door. Let him stew in his own juices and fetch his own medicine! She was finished with the dreadful man.

      * * *

      Will lay in the back of the bouncing wagon, his head aching, his chest tight and fury simmering through his veins. It wasn’t enough that he was so sick he’d have to get better to die; he also had to deal with the blasted Granvilles. Again. More specifically, Win Granville, who’d been trying to buy the mill from him for more than a year. Even though things at the mill had