Marry Me (5 page)

He thrust the plate at her. “Thanks for the food. I’m done.”

There might as well have been “No Trespassing” signs posted all around him. It was not the sort of thing that Emily generally let stop her if she considered it beneficial to forge ahead. One of the first things William Goodale taught her was the usefulness of lancing wounds. But Mr. Sullivan was not a patient who’d put himself voluntarily in her care. And she had to remember she certainly did not know him well enough to make such judgments about him.

She glimpsed a flash of white in the unruly thicket of his beard, as if he’d bared his teeth in a snarl. Really, did he think she’d be scared off so easily?

She looked down at the half-eaten plate of food, his fingers, strong and dark, curled around the bent metal edge. His sleeve was rolled up and his wrists were thick and powerful-looking. But where the wind blew his limp blue shirt against his torso he was thinner than he appeared at first glance. Still strong, but as if he’d lost some of the sturdy weight he usually carried.

“You keep it,” she murmured. “I’d consider it a favor if I didn’t have to waste it.”

She turned and walked away, forcing herself not to look back and see whether he finished her food or dumped it on the ground.

Emily awoke late, fuzzy light leaking through her eyelids before she even opened them, her mind just as dull. She’d slept poorly and now found herself staring at the ghostly shapes of Mr. Sullivan’s wife’s dresses, hanging limply over the foot of the bed. She should’ve packed them away by now but it had seemed a violation to touch things that so clearly belonged to another. He’d abandoned them as surely as he’d abandoned the claim, and she’d used his pots and tools without a qualm. But clothes seemed so much more personal.

She slipped her feet into her boots, didn’t bother to fasten them up, and clumped to the door. She paused for a moment before yanking it open. One of the more disconcerting effects of having Mr. Sullivan camp a few yards from her front door was that she couldn’t discreetly slip out back. Thus far he’d shown no inclination to politely pretend not to see. She didn’t expect last night had changed that. If anything, he’d probably make it all the more embarrassingly obvious he knew where she headed.

Emily did not have the same reticence about private matters that most young women did. Dr. Goodale had been brutally clear right from the start, when she’d first expressed an interest in assisting him with his patients, that he would not be inconvenienced by trying to shield her virginal sensibilities. Kate had objected briefly, contending that, at twelve, Emily was far too young to be exposed to such things. And then, as always, she’d meekly bowed to Dr. Goodale as she never did to anyone else.

But Emily’s usual unconcern with matters others found mortifying did not extend to Mr. Sullivan’s possessing intimate knowledge of when she needed to relieve herself, and so she usually tried to rise before he’d stirred from his tent. Today it was far too late. She mentally steeled herself for his smirk—how she knew he was smirking behind that infernal beard, she wasn’t sure, but she had no doubt.

She opened the door and sunlight streamed through.

Sometime in the night he’d returned her plate. It nestled in an emerald tuft of long grass just to the right of the door. He must have even washed it; the tin glinted dully. And square in the middle rested a handful of crimson poppies.

Her gaze whipped to his bedraggled camp. He sat in his usual spot, one booted foot resting on a knee, a book wedged in the V. She waited for him to look at her, as he always did, but this time his attention remained firmly on the page.

Carefully she scooped up the bouquet. The stems were ragged, as if they’d been torn instead of cut; the colors, extravagant. She lifted them to her nose, and the scent was strong and sweet, a dozen times more concentrated than flowers grown in more sheltered conditions, and her head went light.

With the fragrance, she told herself. Only with the fragrance.

H
e should have known better.

Jake’s life had been jammed with incontrovertible evidence that giving into temptation—at least for him—was the first step toward absolute disaster.

And yet he’d done it anyway. It seemed a small thing, to give her the flowers. He’d nearly squashed a clump of them on his evening run and had grabbed a bunch out of sheer, mindless impulse. It seemed the least he could do, after she’d trotted over bearing supper, the best he’d eaten in a very long time.

But now she seemed to consider him a friend. She stepped outside, waved cheerfully in his direction, and kept flapping until he flicked a finger in acknowledgment just to get her to stop. It was the barest of salutes, but she beamed at him like a mother witnessing her toddler’s first step.

It wouldn’t do. They couldn’t be friends. He didn’t have friends, period. Didn’t even want them. And most of all, he couldn’t be friends with
her
. That way lay certain disaster; he was surer of it than he’d ever been of anything.

She was as slender as a willow slip, and when the wind gusted, blowing her dress against her, he half expected her to sway before it, curving gracefully low to the ground like the grass.

Summer had sunk deeply into Montana, searing the tips of the grass, and now the late afternoon sunlight caught those tips, gold over green. The same sunlight caught her hair, washed gold over the warm brown as well.

She moved out into the yard, and he noticed the hoe she held in her hand. The thing was almost as tall as she was, and he wondered what she had planned now. It was too late in the season to plant much of a garden; winter came too early here. Probably she didn’t know that, though.

He’d spent so much time in the chair facing her front door that the seat had practically molded to his butt. Figuring this new development might be worth his full attention, he tipped his open book against his belly and laced his fingers over it.

She was walking with her head down in concentration, as if looking for something, crisscrossing the space. Finally she glanced back and forth between her spot and the shack, as if checking her position, and lifted the hoe high over her head.

Metal glinted in the sunlight. She put all her slight weight into it and swung down in a wicked arc.

The hoe bit, sliced into the hard earth, and caught. She, however, kept right on moving, pitching right down with a yelp.

He came half out of his chair. But she popped right back up, glaring at the hoe as if to intimidate it into cooperation. She whacked dust off her skirts and grabbed the tool again.

He forced himself to plop back down. Obviously she wasn’t hurt. And really, what had he planned to do?
Help
her?

Her second stroke went slightly better; she only ended up on her knees that time. And instead of a yelp, she burst out with a word he’d have sworn didn’t reside in Emily Bright’s vocabulary.

He figured she’d last fifteen minutes at the task. Half an hour at the outside.

Six hours later, they were both still there. Oh, she’d managed to shear the prairie grass off a plot of ground the size of a bathtub. At that rate, she’d have a space big enough for a pumpkin patch by the first of September.

He wasn’t sure whether to admire her perseverance or pity her sheer stupidity.

His stomach rumbled, for she’d worked right through suppertime, and he couldn’t quite bring himself to sit there stuffing himself while she grubbed away.

Although she hadn’t, the sun had quit an hour ago. Now she was a pale wraith in the rising moonlight, an industrious ghost with her skirts fluttering around her ankles.

An exhausted ghost. You needn’t have spent the last two weeks watching her to recognize the signs. She no longer dragged the hoe above her waist. Her hair had come undone hours ago and drooped around shoulders that sagged just as visibly.

What the hell was she doing? It had ceased to amuse him about an hour in. Now it annoyed him. He wanted her gone; he didn’t want her dead.

She dragged the hoe up one more time. And then she wavered, unsteady as a drunk after a week-long binge, and collapsed.

He waited for her to spring back up as she’d done a dozen times already. But she lay still, her small figure almost lost in the high grass.

He jumped up so fast the chair toppled and he sprinted over to her. He dropped to his knees. Her face was turned away from him, her eyes closed. He lay his fingers against her neck, groped for a heartbeat while his breath snagged in his throat.

He found her pulse, surprisingly strong and steady. Blowing out a breath, he sat back on his heels.

Okay. Alive, then. Just fainted dead away. What now?

A week ago—a day ago—his first instinct would surely have been just to retreat to his own camp. She’d come to soon enough, and finding herself lying outside on the remnants of a truly pitiful excuse for an afternoon’s work might make her finally recognize what foolishness she’d embarked on.

For some reason he’d rather not examine right now, he couldn’t do that. But damned if he was going to take care of her.

None too gently he nudged her in the shoulder. “Wake up.” When she didn’t respond he gave her a brisk shake. “Wake up!”

Her eyes fluttered open. She blinked up at the night sky, and then her gaze slid to meet his.

“You fainted.”

“I most certainly did not faint.” She gave herself a shake, like a hen smoothing ruffled feathers, and sat up.

“No? What would you call it then?”

“I but took a moment to rest.” She lifted her chin, and moonlight bathed her, a milky radiance that, surprisingly, suited her every bit as well as sunshine. She’d never seemed a creature of the night. “And to admire the stars. It’s a lovely evening.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I
never
faint.”

“You probably faint if a man mentions ‘legs’ in your presence.” He didn’t know why he hadn’t returned to his chair already. She was obviously fine, if utterly exhausted. And he shouldn’t be prodding her, not when she’d retort so predictably. Though entertainingly.

“Ha!” She dusted her hands together. “I’ve assisted in three amputations in the last four years, and it was my job to cart away the stump. I bet you’d turn green at the first slice.”

No he wouldn’t, because nothing short of chains and a stockade could keep him in the same room with a doctor set on sawing. The very idea sent acid sloshing in his stomach. “Yeah, you look like a field surgeon. Don’t know why I didn’t note it right off.”

She pulled up her knees and tucked her arms around them, looking every bit as comfortable sitting on her rump in the middle of the prairie as she must entering a ballroom on the arm of some over-bred gentleman with oiled hair and a good chunk of Daddy’s money. “I’ve done very little fieldwork, that’s true. But my brother-in-law was a doctor. Quite a famous one, when it comes right down to it, so much so that people would suffer his, well, less-than-compassionate demeanor to gain access to his skills.” She smiled with more than a trace of nostalgia. “I always thought he considered it extremely inconvenient that fascinating diseases came attached to actual people. He was no fonder of me, truth be told, but once he discovered I was useful he tolerated me well enough. The patients were more tractable when I was there, and so it wasn’t long before he kept me at his side even more than I would have chosen of my own accord. And that would have been a lot.” There seemed no halting her chatter once she got going. And he wondered why he hadn’t tried to shut her up yet. “It was fascinating, every moment of it. But I wouldn’t have lasted a day were I the fainting type.”

They shouldn’t be having a conversation. Not that her rambling was actually a conversation. But he had little doubt she’d be working on getting him to do his fair share of the talking pretty darn soon.

He didn’t want to know any more about her. Didn’t want to admire her in any way. It made waiting, hoping for her to fail distasteful.

She tilted her head, studied him in a way that made him want to duck and shift away from her scrutiny. As if she might see things he needed to keep hidden.

“Are you smiling? That beard makes it hard to tell.”

He nearly reached up to touch his face, checking if he was. “I don’t smile,” he said with a snarl, hoping against hope it would slam the topic shut, dreading his firm suspicion that it would do the exact opposite.

“Never?” He’d expected pity in her expression, steeled himself against it. Figured it would piss him off enough to catapult them back to their respective corners where they should have stayed in the first place. No matter how hard he searched, though, all he could find was bubbling curiosity. And puzzled surprise, as if she’d never conceived of such a creature. “But—”

“Come on.” He got up, kept himself from extending his hand to assist her by dint of more effort than he would have liked. “You’ve had a long day. Last thing you need is to sit around out here talkin’. You should get some food, some rest, before you keel over again.”

“I did not faint!”

Why in a merciful God’s name hadn’t a man been the one to take over his claim? They could have a nice, civilized brawl over the rights; he could send the fella on his way and be done with it.

“Fine. You didn’t faint.” Anything to get her off the ground and into the shack. “Quitting time anyway.”

“Not exactly.” She climbed to her feet, swayed a bit—which he knew damn well she would have denied—and reached down to gather her tools. “I’m not done.”

“Oh, you’re done all right.” The moonlight accentuated the shadows on her face, as if the night itself had painted the deep purple hollows beneath her eyes, her cheekbones. “You’re done in.”

“I’m fine.” She weighed the tools in her hands, decided on the shovel. She rammed it into the earth and managed to wedge it in maybe an inch. “I’ve a schedule, you see. I’ve repaired the house, and now it’s time to clear the land. I figured it all out, how much I’d need to turn each day in order to be finished by my proving-up date, factoring in a reasonable amount of weather delays, and paced it all off. I have to finish the day’s allotment to stay on schedule.”

He stared at her, openmouthed. She truly didn’t
look
insane. He’d spent weeks unloading murderously heavy cargo and he knew good and well he couldn’t clear the land himself by spring. “Most people just pay someone with a team and plow to clear it for them.”

“Can’t afford it.” She put her foot on the upper edge of the shovel, hopped up and down as if her slight weight would force it in.

“Doesn’t seem to me that you’ll be able to afford paying the prove-up fee then, either.”

“Something’ll come up by next spring,” she told him.

“Then something’ll come up to let you pay for the clearing.”

She abandoned the shovel. It stayed where it was, blade half buried in the ground, handle sticking straight up like a signpost: “Foolish Easterner here.” “I intend to be prepared either way.” She bent, returning to the hoe. Slender as a reed, limned in moonlight. She’d lost weight since she’d arrived, not that she’d had much to spare. This place did that to a woman. A knowledge he lived…no,
survived
with, every day.

“That’s it.” He snatched the hoe, cocked his arm, and sent the tool hurtling into the dark night like a spear. “You’re done.”

“Now look what you’ve done.” She marched in the direction in which the hoe had disappeared.

“Damn it!” He caught her in two strides. She yelped as he scooped her up, her arms flailing weakly.

“Put me down.”

“Show me you’ve got enough energy to fight back and maybe I’ll think about it.”

She didn’t even try, just looked up at him with big, moon-shadowed eyes. The curve of her hip pressed against his belly. The side of her breast lay softly against his chest. Her head fell back, her hair brushing against his chin on the way, and her scent rose to him, feminine, new.

Need exploded. Not want, not desire, not simple longing.
Need
. Unwanted, unsuspected, so absent from his life as to be utterly foreign to him. Something he’d never expected, never
wanted
, to feel again. Something he’d no
right
to feel again.

And so he dropped her. Right on her rump.

She yelped, lifted one hip to massage her butt, and glowered up at him.

“All right then,” he said. “If you’re not bright enough to know when to quit, I’m not going to force you.”

“Good,” she snapped. “That’s what I wanted from the beginning.”

“Here’s what I don’t understand, though.” She pushed herself up, cute, bruised butt pointing sky-ward before she straightened, and he jammed his hands in his pockets. “You manage to charm men into doing just about everything else for you. Joe Blevins into lugging you water when he fetches his own. Longnecker into helping you choose your claim. Mr. Biskup into bringing you grouse whenever he goes hunting—didn’t think I noticed that, did you? So why the hell don’t you just keep playing the fragile female card and get some poor sap to do this for you, too? A few smiles, a few of those glances from beneath your lashes, and you’ve got a cleared field. Easy.”

She stared at him, her mouth opening and closing as if she’d so many words to spew out that they’d jammed up together and she couldn’t force out just one at a time.

“Or maybe that’s what you’re up to right now,” he went on ruthlessly. “Maybe you figured on me. That’s what the free dinner, the dramatic swoon were for. I’d be a challenge, right? See if you can get the guy who wants you gone to be the one to help you stay?”

Her eyes darkened, snapping with the first true anger he’d seen in her. “Is that what you think of me?”

“Maybe.” Or maybe not. But now that he gave the matter some consideration, she sure did have a way of finding people to run to her assistance. Maybe it wasn’t as calculated as he claimed, maybe not even conscious, but it was the end result that told the tale, wasn’t it? “Yeah, I do.”

Her hands fisted at her sides. Simmering anger rolled off her in waves. And hurt, which pricked in his chest though he tried his very best to ignore it.