Coming Up Roses (34 page)

She hadn’t counted on how painful it would be
when he set the sack down, hard, on the ground. “Oomph!” Ow. She
anticipated brutal bruises from this night’s escapade, whatever
else happened to her. And here she’d been primed for something
wonderful with H.L.

The sack fell open suddenly, as if whoever
had been carrying and dumped it down had untied the rope or
whatever he’d used to close it up. It took Rose only seconds to
gain her feet, and she thanked God and the colonel for her years of
practicing agility and nimble moves. “You!” she screeched when she
saw the person who’d been carrying her.

“
Damn your eyes, be quiet!” Pegleg
snarled.

He looked quite the worse for wear, and Rose
was glad to see all of his swellings and bruisings. She didn’t have
time to contemplate the mess H.L. had made of him, because he
lifted what looked like a small beanbag, as if he aimed to hit her
with it.

“
Don’t hurt her,” another voice snarled
behind her. “Al ain’t going to pay for damaged goods.”

Oh, this was simply splendid, Rose thought
resentfully. There were two of them. That probably accounted for
the sudden cessation of H.L.’s protests back there in her tent.
This beast’s friend had attacked him from behind. A fresh surge of
ire swept over her at the thought of one of these brutes bashing
H.L. with one of those beanbags.

Rose hadn’t spent years on the Kansas plains
and associating with the reservation Sioux for nothing. Before
Pegleg or his companion could do a thing to her, she’d caught
Pegleg a kick in the groin that doubled him over with a very
satisfying roar of pain. Whirling around and using a high kicking
maneuver Little Elk had taught her, she bashed the man behind her
on the chin with her foot. Since she wore only moccasins, it hurt
like crazy. If she’d been wearing her heavy boots, she might have
done something worthwhile, like breaking the creature’s jaw.

“
Damn you!” Pegleg’s partner bellowed.
Pegleg was rolling on the ground, clutching his privates and
groaning. Rose darted over to him, grabbed the beanbag thing out of
his loosened clasp, and bashed him over the head with it before he
knew what was going on. His groans ceased.

Perceiving a knife in a scabbard at his
waist, Rose snatched it out and held it the way Little Elk had
taught her, turning to face Pegleg’s pal as she did so.

He was under the weather, too. “You bitch!
You broke my jaw!”

“
Good.” Rose was panting hard, but the
blood was pumping hard in her veins and she was ready for anything
now. “I’m going to kill you next, if you don’t get out of my way.”
She waved the knife in front of the man’s face, and he shrank back,
cursing her and holding his jaw with both hands. Rose saw blood
dripping from his mouth and experienced a thrill of victory in
battle that she imagined few women ever felt.

“
Stay away from me, damn you!” she
bellowed, although he hadn’t done anything but cower at the sight
of the gigantic knife in her hand. “I know how to use this, so
don’t you dare try anything else!”

It looked to her as if he believed her. After
casting a frightened glance at Pegleg, who was still out cold on
the ground, and giving Rose one last dirty look, he stumbled off in
the opposite direction. Rose didn’t dare take her gaze away from
him until he was out of her sight. Even then, she didn’t trust him
not to come back and do something awful, but she needed to take her
bearings and find out where she was.

She was at the perimeter of the Wild West
encampment, at the very farthest point from the Indian encampment.
Rose’s breast swelled with contempt. “So, you and your friend
didn’t dare carry me through Indian territory, eh?”

Because she was so furious, she stalked over
to Pegleg and glared down at him for a second. He hadn’t awakened
yet, and because she was operating under stress, adrenalin, and
residual fear, she hauled her foot back and kicked him in his huge
stomach, again hurting her foot.

“
Blast.” Scanning the darkness around
her with a feverish intensity for fear the other man would return,
she limped off. Now that she had time to think, she started
worrying about H.L. She realized that what she’d believed to be a
beanbag was actually a heavy leather sack filled with sand. She’d
read that city criminals often hurt their victims with such things,
and that they were called sandbags. She’d also read that such
injuries could be serious.

Although her foot was still smarting from
having been used as a weapon, she hurried, trotting when she could,
and walking fast when her foot protested. After what seemed like
forever, although she knew it couldn’t have been more than a few
minutes, she reached her tent.

She lifted the flap and darted inside. “H.L.!
H.L., are you all right?”

He didn’t answer her cry, and Rose’s heart
stumbled. With shaking hands, she found a match, lit the lantern on
her night table, and turned to see how badly he had been hurt. She
looked again. Then she pressed a hand to her head in disbelief.

He wasn’t there.

Chapter Seventeen

H.L. staggered through the encampment in a
blind panic. His head felt as if somebody had been dancing on it in
copper-toed boots, and he thought his vision was blurred, although
he wasn’t sure since it was dark and he couldn’t see anything
anyway.

Rose. He had to find Rose. Somebody had taken
Rose. He needed Rose.

Dammit, they’d been just about to make
beautiful love together. It was bad enough she’d been taken, but to
have been taken at that precise moment smacked of some kind of
devious, devilish plot. Unless his brains were scrambled from that
godawful blow he’d taken and it was no plot at all, but only bad
luck.

He discovered he’d made his way to the
Butlers’ tent, but nobody was there. Not even their dog. Well, of
course, the dog wouldn’t be there, since Annie used him in her act.
He muttered soft “damns” and “hells” as he stumbled on past the
Butlers’ tent. His feet weren’t working right, and he bumped into
things as he went.

“
Rose!” His shout made his head throb,
and he groaned. He shouted again, because Rose was more important
than pain. “Rose!”

“
H.L.!”

He tried to stop in his tracks, but his feet
didn’t cooperate, and he staggered sideways before fetching up
against another tent. Steadying himself on a tent post, he hoped
the damned thing wouldn’t collapse.

“
Rose!” He wasn’t sure he’d actually
heard her voice, since his ears were ringing, but he allowed
himself to hope.

“
H.L.!”

God in heaven, if that wasn’t her voice, he
was going to die. “Rose?”

“
H.L.?”

“
Rose?”

“
H.L.! It’s
you
!”

Rose appeared from between two tents like an
apparition. H.L. didn’t dare let go of the tent pole so he could
grab her. Fortunately, it didn’t matter, because she grabbed
him.

“
Oh, H.L.! I was so worried about you!
When I got to my tent and you weren’t there, I—oh, I thought all
sorts of things!”

“
Yeah?” Fundamentally, he knew he
needed to say something more, but he couldn’t figure out
what.

“
Oh, I was so worried! Did that horrid
man hit you with that sandbag thing of his?”

H.L. pried one arm from around Rose’s waist
so that he could feel the lump on his head. It hurt. A lot. “Is
that what it was?”

Rose had begun crying, which startled H.L. He
didn’t expect tears from this quarter. Rose was so tough.

“
Yes,” she sobbed. “It was one of those
stuffed leather things that beastly criminals use. See?” She
reached into her costume’s skirt pocket and withdrew the sandbag,
holding it up even as she kept her face buried in H.L.’s shirt
front.

“
By God, it is a sandbag, isn’t it? A
genuine, honest-to-God, nasty little sandbag.” Even though his
vision was blurry and he feared for his stability, H.L. took the
sandbag, lifted it to the level of his eyes, since his head hurt
when he lowered it, and pondered the evil implement of his present
injury. “By God. You don’t see very many of these.”

Rose sniffled. “That’s because the only
people who use them are wicked scoundrels. It was that horrid
one-legged man who took me.”

H.L. would have goggled if he’d been in any
condition to do any goggling. “Pegleg? I’ll be damned.”

To his dismay, Rose pulled away from him, an
action that set him swaying. He tried to hold on to her, but she
evidently had another agenda in mind.

“
We have to get your wound tended,
H.L.,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “And we
need to report this attack to the police. Maybe they’ll pay
attention to us this time, since it’s not a little Indian boy they
took this time, but me, and I’m a member of Buffalo Bill’s Wild
West.” The sniff she gave this time was one of pure outrage. “That
ought to make them worry. Think of the bad publicity they’ll
get.”

H.L. sighed deeply. He’d had such lovely
plans for this evening. Now those plans were up the flue, along
with his balance, which he hoped he’d regain one of these days. He
wasn’t sure his head would ever recover. “Right.” He knew she was
right, even though he had no desire to speak to the Chicago police
any time soon.

“
Can you walk?” Rose asked.

He appreciated her concern. He also
appreciated the question, since he wasn’t sure of the answer. He’d
managed to stagger this far, but that was when he’d been propelled
by fear for Rose’s safety. Now that he knew she was still alive and
kicking, he wasn’t altogether sure whether he could walk or
not.

His state of health did produce one happy
prospect, however. “Put your arms around me, Rose. I think I’ll be
able to walk with support.”

She followed his suggestion instantly, and
H.L. decided he’d survive.

It might take his headache a while to go
away, but feeling Rose pressed against him was a sure-fire way to
make the rest of him feel better.

They got to her tent after a few minutes of
painful progress. She’d left the lantern burning, so when they
ducked under the tent flap—causing H.L.’s aching head terrific
torment as they did so since the blood in his veins pounded like a
dozen sandbags were beating on it—they could at least see where
they were going. Rose guided H.L. to her bed, where he flopped down
ungracefully and buried his head in his hands. “God, my head
hurts.”

Rose realized her front was still unbuttoned,
blushed slightly, and quickly redid the buttons. When he glanced up
after coddling his head for a few seconds, H.L. was sorry to see
her bosom disappear under the calico, although he was too
debilitated to say so.

“
I’m sure it does. “I’m so sorry that
dreadful man hit you.”

Now that Rose was safe and he was in the
relative comfort of her tent, H.L.’s brain slogged back to work
again, slowly and haltingly. Slitting his eyes against the blinding
light of the kerosene lantern, he focused on Rose. “How’d you get
away? I thought for sure they’d kidnapped you for some reason or
other, and that I’d have to scour Chicago for you.”

Rose gave an unladylike snort that almost
made H.L. grin, but he wasn’t quite up to it. “They did kidnap me,
the fiends.”

“
How’d you get away?” he repeated when
she didn’t continue. She’d turned her back on him and was puttering
around the place like a trained nurse. Her efficiency and industry
gladdened him. He adored competent people. He adored
Rose.

Oops. He must have been hurt more seriously
than he’d thought. He’d never admitted adoring a woman in his
life.

Before he could dwell on it, Rose spoke. “I
kept yelling for help, and he put me down to try to shut me
up.”

“
He put you down? You mean he’d been
carrying you?” Rage engulfed H.L., making his blood race and his
head throb. “He was
carrying
you
?”

Visions of Rose, unbuttoned, her breasts
pressed against that gigantic scoundrel’s chest, filled his already
overtaxed head. He made a lunge to get up off the cot. “Where is
he? I’m going to kill him for sure this time.”

The old saw about the spirit being willing
and the flesh being weak occurred to him a moment later when a rush
of sparkling light and pain filled his head. He lost his balance,
careened across the floor of Rose’s tent, and came a cropper
against one of her trunks. He fell heavily, sending shoots of
exquisite torture through his head and the shin he’d barked.

“
H.L.!” Rose cried. “What do you think
you’re doing? Get back to that bed this instant!”

He felt ridiculous when pitiful whimpers and
groans fell from his lips. He’d meant to explain, not whimper. “I—I
can’t.”

Rose rushed over to kneel beside him, and
again put her arms around him, so he guessed he’d live. She helped
him to his feet, and led him back to the bed.

“
I’m as weak as a kitten,” he muttered,
feeling unmanly and inadequate.

“
Of course, you are, silly. Your brains
have been knocked all around.”

She didn’t sound as if she considered him
less of a man for having been wounded in the line of duty, and he
felt slightly better.

“
Now don’t move again, H.L. I’m trying
to make a poultice for your poor head.”

“
A poultice?” H.L. grimaced. He’d been
through a lot in his life, but he’d never been forced to use a
poultice. A poultice sounded so . . . so . . . not
masculine.