Outlaw Hearts(15)

Jake blinked and shook his head, wondering if he was just having a bad dream. “I didn’t know. I just…rode till I found someplace…where I could hole up. I was going to ask…whoever lived here to—” He looked down at himself, realizing he was standing naked in front of this slip of a woman, except for the towel he managed to keep in front of himself. “Where in hell are my guns?”

“You won’t be needing them.” Miranda swallowed as she watched an angry fire rise into his dark eyes.

“Where are my guns, damn it! Turn them over, or I’ll come over there and take the one you’re holding!”

“Will you?” Miranda noticed how pale he was. “My bet is you can’t even walk across this room. If you want this gun, come and get it.”

He let out a sigh of frustration. “Look, lady…I didn’t come here…to kill you. I didn’t even know…this was…your place. It’s just a goddamn, cruel twist of fate, but then that’s my…kind of luck. Now give me my guns…and I’ll get dressed…and get out of here. That’s all I want.” He looked around the room again like a caged animal. “Does the law know…I’m here? Is there anybody else here? A pa? A husband?”

“Have you forgotten what that clerk told you yesterday in the store? My father was shot by marauding outlaws, men like you!” She lowered the rifle just a little. “The law doesn’t know you’re here. No one does—yet. By the time I found you last night, it was too dark for me to go for help.”

Jake looked down at himself again, still trying to wade through the confusion in his mind. “I don’t understand. You shot me…but you…it looks like you tried to fix me up.” He raised his eyes to study her again. “Why? You…could have just let me lie there and die and…collected your three thousand dollars.”

“Unlike you, Mr. Harkner, I don’t consider money more important than a human life, even the life of someone like you.”

Jake stared at the fragile woman who looked at that moment very capable of using the rifle. She stood there with frazzled hair, wrinkled dress, tired eyes—the rifle looking almost too big for her to handle. He wondered how long she would be able to stand there holding it in a shooting position before her slender arms got too tired to hold it up. If he were not so confused and in so much pain, the sight of her would be humorous. Ordinarily, he would laugh at something like this and find a way to lunge at the puny female and get the gun away from her, but she had him at a disadvantage, and she knew it. Damn woman. How in hell did this annoying female manage to keep moving into his path and messing up his plans?

“Nobody values my life, lady. I know…why you saved me. You want…the extra two thousand dollars…I’m worth alive. Well, it won’t…work, because…I’m getting dressed and getting…out of here.” Why in hell did he feel so weak? He had to be strong, had to be firm with this woman. She was here alone. She ought to be easy to scare. “You won’t…use that rifle on me. Not after going to…all this trouble of…fixing me up. Now you just…tell me where my guns are…my clothes. I won’t…hurt you unless you force me to. I just want…to get out of here…and be on my way.”

Miranda glanced at the gauze, and saw that the bloodstain was bigger. “I don’t think you’ll be going anywhere, Mr. Harkner. I suggest you get back in that bed before you pass out on the floor, in which case I would never be able to get you back in the bedroom. Then how would I hide you if someone came to visit?”

Jake frowned, watching her eyes. They were pretty eyes, kind of gray and kind of blue. If not for her frazzled appearance… Yet he remembered now how pretty he had thought she was when he’d seen her yesterday. Had a whole day really gone by already? “Hide me? Why would you…do that?”

She lowered the rifle. “I don’t know myself yet. I’m as confused as you are right now, but I do believe by the look on your face that you didn’t come here deliberately. If that’s the case, I have to think maybe the Lord sent you here for some special reason, seeing as how I’m the one who almost ended your life. Maybe he meant for me to make amends for that by helping you, and it does seem a shame to go to all the trouble of keeping you alive only to turn you over for a hanging. But that doesn’t mean I won’t still do it. Now get back in that bed.”

Jake wanted to argue the matter, but he knew she was right. He could feel himself growing more light-headed by the minute. If only she’d give him his damn guns. He didn’t intend to use them on her, he just wanted them. The law could come by and check on her any time, and he didn’t believe she’d hide him like she said she would. He started to turn, then realized she would see his bare behind when he did. Fact was, she had apparently seen everything there was to see. It made him feel doubly vulnerable. Taking a man’s clothes was as bad as putting chains on him. Where was he going to go if he couldn’t get dressed? It was funny and infuriating both at the same time. “I have to take a leak,” he told her, wanting to embarrass her. After all, he was embarrassed himself. He gladly watched her face redden.