The Circle Eight: Tobias (12 page)

“That’s none of your business.” She sounded so prissy, Rebecca wanted to take the words back and stuff them in her mouth.
 

“That don’t mean I ain’t gonna ask.” He waited while she wrestled with the need to keep her secrets and the need to prove to him she didn’t need a husband. No matter what happened between them years ago, she was a strong, independent woman.
 

Rebecca didn’t need a man.
 

“I never met a man I wanted to marry. Besides, I spend most of my time tending to sick and injured folks.” She tied off the last bandage. “Like you.”
 

“You should be a wife and mother with a passel of young’uns underfoot. Not doctoring crotchety bastards like me.” He seemed to be genuine, which made her want to smile.
 

She got to her feet and moved over to Will, who lay as still as he had been the day before. He breathed and lived, but he was unconscious. It was not a good sign. She checked his pulse and breathing.
 

“He has a little more color.” She picked up the lantern and checked his pupils again. This time both of them dilated. She hoped that meant the swelling in his skull had gone down.
 

“Why doesn’t he wake up?”
 

“His body is healing. It’s the best thing for him to rest and get better.” She placed her hand on Will’s forehead and found it cool to the touch. “I need to change his bandages and apply poultice too.”
 

“He gets the nasty shit too? Lucky man.”
 

“Shut up, Tobias.” She shook her head but smiled at him. He watched Will with an expression of worry and a bone-deep sadness.
 

“You know my parents were murdered and my brother Benjy kidnapped when he was five years old.” The memory of that day was seared into her heart. Somehow telling Tobias about it as she tended to his brother was the right thing to do. “I was nine and terrified. My brother Matt was twenty-three and seemed to be so much older. He took on responsibility for all eight of us.”
 

The silence in the room was only broken by the slide of her fingers as she spread the poultice on Will’s leg. The bruises around the break were deep but hadn’t gotten any larger since earlier in the day. Another good sign.
 

“Benjy was at the ranch when I was there.” Tobias had lost the rough edge to his voice.
 

“He is now, but he was lost for five years. Caleb found him and brought him home, but he’s not been the same. Matt blames himself for what happened to Benjy. Older brothers take on an awful lot of guilt, no matter if they aren’t responsible.” She waited while Tobias absorbed her words.
 

“That’s what we’re supposed to do.” He sighed. “No matter if we’re good at it or not.”
 

“There’s no right or wrong way to be an older brother. All of them find their way the best they can.” She set the splint and rewrapped Will’s leg with care not to jostle him.
 

“Unless they’re a right bastard who does everything wrong.”
 

She frowned at Tobias, her ire raised. “You need to stop the self-pity. You’re not a bad brother. You might have lost your way but that doesn’t mean you don’t love your brothers.”
 

“You don’t know shit about me or whether I lost my way.” Now he sounded angry too. Good. That was better than the morose foolishness he’d been speaking.
 

“You’re right I don’t. I haven’t seen you in five years and I couldn’t have been more shocked by what you looked like. Or smelled like.” She tied off the last bandage on Will’s leg before she got to her feet, hands on her hips. “I’m not judging you, Tobias, but I am telling you that you lost your way because nobody lives like that if they haven’t.”
 

His eyes blazed with fire. “Fuck you, Miss Graham.”
 

“I’d much rather see you cussing at me than wallowing in the bottom of a bottle. Your brothers need you, Mr. Gibson.” She took the empty bowl and left the room, her stomach quivering and her heart slamming against her ribs.
 

Tobias put his hand over his eyes and wondered if he could kick his own ass. He’d been rude to Rebecca again. She spoke the truth about him and how low he’d sunk in the last couple years. That honesty, however, left a bitter, bitter taste in his mouth. He should listen to her and pull his ass out of the whiskey bottle for good.
 

It was damn hard though. Even now, lying here trying to get his strength back, he shook with the need to find some liquor. His stomach roiled and damned if he wasn’t sweating like he’d run five miles. Damn good thing he hadn’t eaten or he would have vomited.
 

The next few hours passed with Rebecca tending to Will and his wounds, but no talk, no smiles, and no forgiveness or apologies. Tobias was as stubborn as she was and neither one of them would budge.
 

He slept but it was an uneasy one. He woke every hour or two and found Rebecca sleeping in the chair or checking on Will. Tobias was lonely in a room with three people. Nobody else could have managed it but him.
 

The morning arrived and with it, more silence. Tobias watched as Rebecca checked his wounds, cleaning the poultice off his skin as she worked. Her hair curled around her cheeks, bobbing with each puff of her breath. Her blue-green eyes shone in the sunshine spilling through the window.
 

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, surprising both of them.
 

Her mouth opened in an O and he damn but he wanted to kiss her until neither of them could see straight. It was the first time in two days he craved something aside from liquor.
 

“Sorry for what?”
 

He wanted to squirm on the damn bed, but he couldn’t lift his arm without pain much less wiggle. “For being a complete ass.”
 

“Oh, is that all?” She shook her head. “You are terrible at apologizing.”
 

He wanted to take it back, but he wouldn’t. She deserved that apology, and much more. “That’s not the worst thing I’m terrible at.”
 

The corner of her mouth quirked up. “I won’t argue with you.”
 

A flash of memory slammed into him. The darkened woods and the sweet, soft scent of a woman. He’d taken her in the grass without a thought to her innocence. He’d hated himself since that moment, more so than he ever had. The apology he’d just given couldn’t have come close to what he owed her. A lifetime wouldn’t be enough.
 

“I was trying to teach you a lesson.”
 

She paused, her hand in the air, a bandage hanging from her long fingers. “Pardon?”
 

“You flirted with me but you were so damn innocent. That kiss told me there was fire underneath. You almost got yourself killed and I got damn angry. I wanted to teach you a lesson.” He paused and swallowed. “Things got out of hand.”
 

She shot to her feet, her face drained of color. “A lesson. I might have to shoot you.”
 

“It was stupid. Shit, I’m stupid.” He couldn’t beat himself anymore. That night, his mistakes, crowded in his mind along with the memory of her. She was a person he admired. Someone he could only aspire to be. “You should shoot me.”
 

She sat back down with a thump. “No, I won’t shoot you because then you could escape your self-pity.”
 

He frowned at her. “It’s not an escape. It’s justice due.”
 

She snorted. “You are still swallowing in the pool of foolish self-pity. I won’t be a part of it, but I will remember what you said about what happened between us. There shall be reckoning, Mr. Gibson.”
 

With that pronouncement she went back to work dressing his wounds. This time the silence between them was thick. The air hung charged, making the hairs on his arms stand up. Each time she touched him, he had to stop himself from flinching.
 

Tobias had to get better, and quickly. He couldn’t be around Rebecca any longer than necessary.
 

“And you’re not allowed to call me Becca any longer.” She didn’t lift her eyes to look at him as she made her wishes known. “It bothers me.”
 

“Why?”
 

She huffed. “That’s not your concern. I expect you to listen to me.”
 

It was his turn to snort. “You expect the sun to rise in the west too?”
 

At that, she did look at him with narrowed eyes that flung sparks at him. “Sometimes I want to like you and ten other times you remind me what an insufferable jackass you are.”
 

Tobias tried to smile, but his loose teeth and sore jaw protested. She had a backbone beneath that beautiful exterior. Stubborn as hell too. A combination that drove him to distraction. The sooner he got better and left, the better.
 

“When is James coming back?” He needed to talk about something besides his stupidity and colossal mistakes.
 

“Tonight or tomorrow. It depends on how fast he rides, and whether the mud slowed him down.”
 

“Or your family shot him for stepping foot on the ranch.” Tobias couldn’t hide the bitterness in his voice. The Gibson brothers deserved the rancor of the Grahams, but that didn’t make it easy to swallow.
 

“They might but I doubt it. I didn’t recognize him when I saw him and no one else on the ranch has seen anyone but you. They don’t know him as James Gibson, only as a ranch hand.” She tied off the last bandage on his shoulder and got to her feet. “Unless he tells them who he is, they will continue to think he’s just a hand from Donovan’s.”
 

“Which he is, but he’s also a Gibson.” Tobias didn’t know how he felt about his younger brother pretending he was someone else, or not having pride in his name. It would be unacceptable to dismiss Pops’s legacy. As it was, Tobias knew he would have gotten an earful, a punch or two and a big kick in the ass by his grandfather if the old man had seen what Tobias had become.
 

“I don’t know what he will tell them, but I do know he needs to get back as soon as possible.” She sounded annoyed now.
 

“Why?” His mind slid to thoughts of James alone with Rebecca, who didn’t recognize him. Perhaps there was something between them and neither one wanted to admit it to Tobias.
 

“So he can help take care of you and I won’t have to.” She stomped from the room, leaving him to wonder exactly what had happened before James and Rebecca appeared at the cabin.
 

James rode toward the massive house in the distance at the Circle Eight and waited for someone to raise the alarm. These folks took the security of their property seriously and the first time he’d been there, Elizabeth Graham had tried to shoot him with a rifle. Of course they had also kidnapped her and her now husband, and damned if they hadn’t started a fire that burned down the previous house.
 

His gut churned. The Grahams could have discovered who he truly was and shoot him on sight. Ranchers could be an odd lot, shoot and then bury a body anywhere on their property and no one would be the wiser.
 

Working for Donovan gave him credibility at least. The horse was branded and James rode with his hat tilted back. He’d even left his pistol in a saddlebag. He tried to ride as though he meant no harm, but he didn’t know how to look innocent. Hell, James hadn’t been innocent most of his life. Even his birth was nothing more than a mistake by a loose woman with a faceless cowboy.
 

The sound of a horse coming in hard reached his ears. James looked to the right to see a rider coming at him at a dead run. The man was small enough to disappear as he rode like an extension of the horse. James stopped the horse and watched, appreciating pure horsemanship. The man could fucking
ride
.
 

Before he could blink, a rifle appeared in the rider’s hand, pointed at James. He could reach for his own weapon and he twitched toward the stock before he remembered where he was. This was the Circle Eight and he was a trespasser. He had Rebecca’s letter but it wouldn’t do him any good if he pointed a gun at a Graham or one of their ranch hands.
 

He had to wait until the man reached him. The horse came in with a burst of wind, its hooves kicking up a cloud of dirt and rocks that rained down on James and his gelding.
 

“Son of a bitch.” James spit out a mouthful of dirt.
 

“No, not a son of anything.” The voice of the rider was definitely not male. It was a goddamn
girl
. “I’m a daughter of a Texan though.” She held the rifle steady; its aim at this distance would be deadly. “Who are you, mister, and what do you want?”
 

“I come from Donovan’s ranch with a message from Rebecca Graham.” He didn’t want this female to know he was a Gibson.
 

Her back stiffened and apparently her knees did too, because the beautiful gelding beneath her shifted. She used her knees to control it, which was impressive, not that he’d tell her that.
 

“How do you know Rebecca?”
 

“She’s doctoring, uh, a ranch hand at Donovan’s. She asked me to send word her patient was bad off and she’d be longer.” He was going to reach into his saddlebag to get the letter but decided this filthy girl would shoot him if he moved. “You gonna use that thing?”
 

She tilted her head. “Only if I have to. You understand we’ve got to protect our own. I don’t know you and you might be lying.”
 

“You’re right, I could be, or I could be telling the truth. I have a letter in my bag from her. I met your brothers Matt and Caleb less than a week ago, along with Eva and Hannah when I fetched the Doc.” He studied his adversary and her unusual appearance. She sat in the saddle as though she was born in one, her strong, long legs gripping the leather with obvious athletic grace. The strangest thing was her trousers. The woman wore trousers, dirty blue ones at that. She also wore a man’s shapeless shirt and wore an equally dirty hat atop her tiny head. He wondered how old she was and who she was, but he’d be damned before he asked her.