A Fire in the Blood (9 page)

      
He shrugged, then winced as she resumed her ministrations. "North Africa. I was in the French Legion."

      
"The French Foreign Legion?" Her eyes were round as Mexican gold pieces.

      
"It's not as romantic as they'd like you to believe," he said drily, then changed the subject. "You ever sew up flesh before?"

      
She blanched but met his eyes. "I've embroidered hundreds of samplers." She swallowed. "It can't be all that different. The gash is clean now." She stood up and began to search through the medical supplies for a needle and thread.

      
Jess watched her work, noticing the faint trembling in her hands. For all that, she had been amazingly calm and levelheaded at the sight of so much blood. "Most women I know would have a fit of vapors and leave me to tend myself. I've sewn up more than a few of my own wounds."

      
"I think you'd better let me handle this one," she said as she pressed a fresh cold towel to his side. "This will slow the bleeding," she added. Covertly Lissa studied his bronzed, muscular arms and chest. His skin was marred in several places by small white scars. What a pity such a beautiful body has to be disfigured. Heat flamed her cheeks again as she tore her eyes from the sleek muscles and patterns of crisp black hair. On second thought, the scars were not very discernible and only added to his exotic virility. She fought the urge to run her hands over his skin. "I see you've led every bit as dangerous a life as your reputation would lead me to imagine."

      
"A debauched and disreputable life, too." He smiled cynically, as if reading her mind, and watched her blush again.

      
She eyed the needle and thread. "You're the one who'll pay for making me nervous. Her tone was acerbic.

      
"I make you nervous because I'm forbidden, Lissa. You're just intrigued because you're defying convention." He turned his gaze to Germaine.

      
The housekeeper's lips thinned, but she said, "He is telling the truth, Lissa. You should leave him alone."

      
"Is that what you really want, Jess? For me to leave you alone?" she teased as she reached for the needle she had laid out on the table beside them.

      
Ignoring her taunt, he removed the cold towel and said, "What a man wants usually has little to do with what he gets. Just sew me up and be done with it."

      
"First I have to put this carbolic solution on the wound." He held still as she poured the fiery liquid into the gaping slash.
      
"You're amazingly stoic. Is it because of your Indian blood?"

      
"No. My Spanish blood. My mother was half Mexican, remember? They're a cussed tough lot."

      
Taking a deep breath, she punctured the skin and pulled the needle through, then connected the lower side to the upper. Puncture. Pull. Tighten. She repeated the methodical stitching, drawing the ragged edges of flesh closed. He held perfectly still, the only indication of his pain a fine sheen of sweat dotting his forehead.

      
"You're not going to pass out and ruin my stitches, are you?"

      
"No. The brandy had remarkable restorative powers," he replied through clenched teeth as she tied off the last stitch.

      
"That wasn't too hard, considering it's the first time I've done it," Lissa said speculatively.

      
"Easy for you to say," he countered, raising his arm and flexing his side experimentally. "What did you use—a braided reata and a Tuareg scimitar to draw it through?"

      
"Number seven embroidery thread," she replied waspishly.

As she tore off clean linen strips to bandage his wound, she looked at his ruined shirt and then turned to the housekeeper. "Germaine, go to the washroom and get one of Papa's old shirts. Mr. Robbins's is beyond repair."

      
Madame Channault threw up her hands in disgust. With a few choice remarks in French, she swished out the kitchen door to do as she was ordered.

      
Lissa knelt beside him, bandages in hand. "Raise your arms." He complied. Beneath his dark skin, sinuous muscles flexed in marvelous symmetry. Her mouth went dry. She licked her lips and reached around him with the bandages.

      
Jess could see the tip of her pink tongue flick across her lips as she concentrated. Then, as she reached around him, her breasts pressed against his chest. Against his will he felt the blood rushing to his groin and cursed silently.
I shouldn't have that much blood left!

      
Lissa could smell the faint scent of horse and male sweat combined with that undefined essence that she now thought of as his own. A deep, pervasive heat stole into her limbs and pooled low in her belly, causing her pulse to race. She knew she was trembling as she wound the bandage repeatedly around his slim waist. Her blood thrummed through her veins. Every fiber of her being felt sensitized yet oddly lethargic at the same time.
No man has ever made me feel this way!

      
She tied off the bandage, but did not pull away from him. Instead she raised her face to his and their eyes met. Her hands fell to rest against his chest, her fingertips burying themselves in the springy black hair. He lowered his arms but sat very still, making no move to touch her.

      
"Lissa, this is dangerous."

      
"I know," she said in a small choked voice.

      
Finally, hearing Germaine at the back porch, he brushed her hands away, then stood up on very shaky legs. His unsteadiness was caused by a great deal more than the injury he had sustained, and they both knew it.

      
"Much obliged for the doctoring," he said hoarsely and turned away, reaching for the shirt the housekeeper thrust at him. With a grimace of pain he slipped it on and began to button it. It was a soft pale gray that emphasized his eyes and contrasted with his swarthy skin. Germaine had selected it because it was old and faded, but the effect was the opposite of what she intended.

      
"You really should get some rest," Lissa said. Her voice cracked.

      
He cut off her train of thought by saying, "I will—at the bunkhouse." Picking up his hat, he walked very carefully toward the back door. With one hand on the sash, he asked, "That great brute of a dog still around? I don't think I'm up to a tussle just now."

      
"I'll keep Cormac from licking you to death," she replied, struggling to regain her composure. "Consider yourself lucky. He normally eats strangers. For some peculiar reason, he's taken a considerable liking to you." Lissa called the dog, who bounded up, tail wagging and tongue lolling as if he were a sheepdog instead of a yard-high behemoth.

      
She held her arms around the great brute's neck while Jess whistled for Blaze. When the stallion trotted around the corner of the house and stopped next to him, he very carefully mounted and rode toward the corrals. She watched his retreating back, mesmerized.

      
Germaine Channault studied the troublesome younger woman through slitted eyes. Marcus would not be pleased with Lissa's fascination for that savage. She considered how she could use the situation to her own advantage as she turned back to the kitchen.

* * * *

      
Late the following morning, Germaine watched from the kitchen window as Lissa slipped quietly from the side door carrying her medicine basket. The smitten girl was going down to the bunkhouse to tend Robbins's injury. If only Marcus would ride home in time to see his precious daughter acting like a common trollop, treating that half-naked mongrel alone in his quarters!

      
Jess lay stretched out on his bunk, enjoying the blissful quiet now that the last of the hands had finished their chores around the corral and headed out for their day's assignments on the range. Normal rising time was four a.m., when the bunk-house cook yelled, "Grab it now or I'll spit in the skillet!"

      
Cowpunchers had stumbled from their beds cussing and rubbing their eyes as they threw on their clothes and made halfhearted attempts at washing their faces in ice-cold water before lining up at the mess hall for their morning meal of bacon, beans, and sourdough biscuits.

      
The food had smelled passable, but Jess decided to rest his injured side. When he rolled over and pulled a blanket up, covering his head, no one disturbed him.

      
Tate had brought him a plate of food last night and they talked about what happened. Once he located the rustlers' home base, he knew he would need backup to deal with them. Tate knew it, too. But the older man had lost the will to use his gun. In fact, he'd lost his will to do much of anything but drift, it seemed to Jess. All over losing a woman.

      
Jess tried to imagine ever loving a woman so much that her loss would destroy him. He could not do so. The only female he had ever loved was his mother, and she had died when he was in North Africa. There had been a procession of women moving in and out of his bed since he was fifteen, but none of them ever troubled his heart. Once he had saved enough money to complete his plans for the ranch, he thought he would marry some chaste young Mexican girl who would not object to his Indian blood, someone who would be content with the simple life of a small rancher's wife. But he never expected to have any great tendresse for her, just the comfortable affection of shared work and children.

      
That had always been his plan, but this time when he closed his eyes and thought of the future, no raven-haired, sloe-eyed Mexicana appeared. Rather, an amber-eyed, fair-skinned woman with hair like the cherry glow of live coals filled his dreams. Lissa. He could feel the soft pressure of her breasts and thighs as she rubbed her body provocatively against his, and smell the sweet spicy scent of orange blossoms that clung to her.

      
She's a spoiled little tease. Forget her.
He rolled over and cursed as the tight stitches in his side pulled. That she was such a levelheaded nurse had surprised him. A society belle like Lissa Jacobson should have fainted at the sight of blood. But Marcus Jacobson's daughter should have had the vapors at the sight of a half-breed gunman, too, and she did just the opposite.

      
The more he thought about the fire-haired witch, the more restless he became. Finally, he threw off his blankets and sat up. Just as he slid on his denims and began to button them, the bunkhouse door opened with a loud creak. He had his Colt cocked and leveled before she stepped inside.

      
"I surrender. Don't shoot," Lissa said, walking toward him with her basket.

      
He uncocked his weapon and slid it into the oiled holster lying on his bed. "That's a damn-fool dangerous thing to do. Never creep up on a man, Princess. You could get shot." He scowled as she neared him. She wore an apple-green cotton dress with a rounded neckline that was filled with frilly white lace ruffles. Her hair tumbled down her back in a riot of soft curls, held back from her face by a matching green ribbon. The picture was one of girlish innocence combined with sensuous beauty. She was enchanting—and she knew it!

      
Lissa drank in the sight of him, his dark, splendid chest bare except for the snowy bandage. Her eyes followed the patterns of black hair that vanished into his denims, which were only half-buttoned. Her pulse hammered and her breath caught. She licked her lips and tried to speak. "I figured you wouldn't come to the house for me to change your dressing, so . . ."

      
"Lady, you're plain crazy, you know that? You have no business alone here with any man, much less me. Your father would skin you if he knew."

      
"But he isn't here," she said breathlessly. "And you do need to have that wound tended." Steeling her courage, she approached. When there was only a foot separating them, she could smell his scent. He stood stock-still, not retreating, but not accommodating her either, as if waiting to see what she would do.

      
"Raise your arms so I can untie the wrap." The command came out like a squeak.

      
Slowly he did as she asked. All those familiar muscles flexed as she reached around him to unwrap the linen. His chest hairs brushed the tip of her nose and she flinched, wanting to bury her head against the crisp mat but knowing that to do so would be a tactical error just now. Her hands fumbled with the knot for a moment, then it gave and she unrolled the stripping and inspected the angry red gash.

      
"It'll leave a rather large scar, I'm afraid."

      
He lowered his arms as she fussed with the carbolic. "It'll have lots of company, so it won't matter.”

      
She looked up, the question stamped plainly on her face. He grinned raffishly. "The other ones are below my waist."

      
"Oh," was all she could think to say, hating the breathy squeak in her voice.
I sound like a ten- year-old!
His low chuckle almost caused her to drop the medicine bottle. He was laughing at her. Angrily, she ran the carbolic-soaked rag along the stitches and was rewarded by a guttural oath as he stiffened and drew back.

      
"Easy with that stuff," he said between clenched teeth.

      
A small grin touched her lips and danced impishly in her eyes, turning them to deep gold. "What about your stoic Spanish blood?"

      
"I'd as soon not lose any more of it if you don't mind."

      
Smugly, she finished cleaning the sutures and replaced the cork on the carbolic bottle. "I should remove the stitches in a couple of days. Think you're up to it?" she dared, holding out clean wrappings.