Texan's Touch

EIGHTEEN

AFEW HOURS later, adam slipped from Nichole’s side and began his day. Two men, badly beaten, were brought in by the deputy. Russell claimed they got in a fight when left locked in the same cell, but Adam found it strange that the pair seemed to bear no hatred toward one another or fear when left side by side to wait.

As he treated each, he found bruises only a fist would make on both bodies, but neither man bore any marks on his hands. They were silent about the fight and no one could remember how it started.

By midafternoon the sky seemed to boil with clouds. Adam finally took a break. While the nun jotted down information on his next patient, he slipped through the back of the examining room and into the kitchen.

“Got any coffee?” he whispered to Rose as Charles polished a sterling silver tea set at the table. Bergette’s butler had the habit of ignoring everyone unless he needed something. His very stance told Adam how much he hated being in such primitive surroundings. Even the tea set he worked on was small and common compared with what he was accustomed to. His every stroke silently spoke of his distaste.

“I keep it on the back of the stove warming for you, Doc.” Rose smiled proudly. “Whenever you want it just yell. There ain’t no need of you having to leave work. I’ll bring it to you.”

“You don’t have to wait on me, Rose. I work here just like you.” He pointed with his head. “And Charles.”

“No, sir,” Rose objected. “Not like the rest of us. You’ve got the gift as my ma used to say. You got healing hands. And that’s somethin’ rare.” She glared at Charles. “We all ought to respect that.”

Adam poured his coffee. “They used to say my dad had a gift with horses. But my talent comes from books I read. I had a professor in medical school who used to say, ‘Be kind, help as much with the suffering as you can, and try not to bury too many who come to you.’ I do no magic, just the best I can to help.”

“Say whatever you like, but I know the truth.” Rose raised her head with pride. “I was in the general store this morning picking up a few things, and I heard one of the women say you are ten times the doctor Doc Tillie was. ’Course he still used his barber chair to do most of his surgery.

“I told them I was your new cook and they all treated me like I was somebody special. So don’t go telling me you ain’t got a gift. You would have saved Dancing too if Mole hadn’t come over and rekilled her.”

Adam laughed. “All right, I’ll keep it as our secret if you’ll set another cup of coffee in my bedroom in a few minutes. I usually drink two cups.”

Rose cut her gaze to Charles for she knew who the doctor planned to give the other coffee to. “I’ll do that. And I’ll remember you like one there with a few cookies on the saucer.”

He left the kitchen and by the time he reached his bedroom door, Rose was behind him with the other cup. “Thanks,” he whispered as he took the cup from her and moved inside his room.

Rose winked. “Anytime.”

Nichole still lay sleeping in his bed. She looked so soft and sweet curled up in a quilt with her hair half covering her eyes. He remembered how passionately he’d kissed her in the shadows before Wes arrived. Adam never thought he’d feel that for any woman. Passion just wasn’t a feeling he saw himself losing control over. Or any other feeling for that matter.

But she brought a side of him to the surface he didn’t know existed. She made him want to forget everything else in the world and just hold her. When he did, he felt powerful and lost all at the same time.

“Nick,” he whispered as he sat the cups down. “Nick, wake up.” He couldn’t resist touching her hair. Curls circled around his fingers in welcome. Midnight curls just as she was somehow his midnight woman.

Beautiful green eyes opened, then closed again. “Go away,” she mumbled, and turned to her side. “I just got to sleep.”

“No, you didn’t.” He pulled her back to face him. “You’ve been sleeping all day, which makes me wonder what you’re doing besides sleeping at night.”

“Nothing,” she answered as she lifted her head following the smell of coffee.

Adam handed her the cup with the cookies on the saucer. “We’ve got to talk, Nick, but I only have a minute now. I’ve two more patients to see, then I’ll saddle a couple of horses. Do you think you can be dressed and ready to ride out to Wes’s herd by dark?”

“Sure.” She took a sip and smiled as the coffee warmed her. “I’d love to go for a long ride.”

“On the way out, we’ll have a long discussion as to where you were last night before you climbed in my window. And just out of curiosity, I’d like to know where these black clothes came from. They seemed to have just appeared like you did last night.”

The memory of how they’d kissed in his office filled his thoughts once more, but he pushed it away. “Lock the door when I leave.”

He stepped away from her. “And stay out of sight until I bring the horses around to the side of the house.”

Nichole looked at him as if he’d just told her to remember to breathe.

As his hand touched the knob, he added, “And sleep in your own bed.” If someone had walked in early this morning, they’d never believe she’d just lie beside him to cuddle. He knew his words were harsh, but he had to protect her even against himself. He’d lost control so easily, he no longer trusted his own actions. If Wes hadn’t shown up, Adam wasn’t sure what might have happened.

All day his mind had drifted to the possibilities and none of them were what he should be doing with Wolf’s little sister who’d been put in his care. In his care. Adam almost laughed aloud at the words. She was no more in his care than she was in control. The problem was that her lack of control seemed to be spreading to him.

“Any other orders?” Her words were cold.

“No.” He opened the door and stepped into the hallway. A moment later, he heard the lock snap. Good, he thought, at least she’d followed one order.

“You pestering that child?” Sister Cel whispered from a few steps up the stairs. She was leaning over the railing looking down at him as though he were a boy. “Because if you are, sir, you’ll answer to me. She’s not like other women. She knows no fear and leads with her heart. A rare combination.”

“I wasn’t pestering her,” he defended. “She’s the one driving me crazy. And as for the ‘like other women,’ I’ve yet to find two alike enough to be able to mold a standard of comparison.”

The nun relaxed slightly. “Well, if she’s bothering you, that’s another matter. That, sir, is none of my concern. I came to tell you the patients are ready.”

Adam followed the nun down the hall, wondering why Nick bothering him was no crime, when him pestering her seemed to be a capital offense. Most of the time he felt like Sister Cel extended all her charity to others and never allowed him a drop. Maybe the Lord sent her here, all gift wrapped in her habit, as some punishment for a sin long forgotten. No, Adam thought. He already had Bergette. Surely there could be no added punishment?

An hour later, the sun was a golden red on the western horizon as Adam and Nichole rode out of town. Clouds fenced the northern sky, promising a cool evening. But at sunset, nature was cloaked in green.

Suddenly, this land he’d thought was so barren and gray only months ago was bright and alive. Wildflowers dotted the rolling land, and oak and cypress trees followed the river like children frozen in play as they ran alongside the water. This location had been a wise place to station a fort with plenty of water and high ground. Adam felt like he could see miles in all directions.

Nichole kicked her horse into a faster gait and laughed. “I’m glad to get away from the smell of people.”

“I wasn’t aware I smelled,” Adam said as he caught up with her.

“Not you, the entire town. Anywhere folks collect there’s the same smell that follows them. Cookstoves and lye wash and bodies and blood and breathing through tobacco-tinged air. Sometimes I think of civilization as one huge deformed, splintered creature that settles in a place just long enough to smell it up. At night, when I pass by each home, I can tell if the laundry was done that day, or if they killed a chicken for supper, or if there’s sickness, just by the smell.”

“You’re right,” Adam agreed though he’d never thought of it before. “I remember during the war, I could find the hospital tent or the mess tent just by the smell. Some mornings before dawn, I would swear that I didn’t open my eyes until I was putting on my white coat at work.”

For the first time since they’d met, they talked, just talked. Each told of where they had been and what they’d done. Adam was surprised how many times during the war their paths had almost crossed. He wondered if he might have gone into some town for supplies and not noticed her passing him. Or if she’d walked silently past his tent at night when crossing the line.

Adam wondered where the time had gone when they reached the herd almost an hour later. He’d meant to question her about where she’d been the night before, but somehow they’d started talking. And they talked of everything, not just subjects she might be interested in. Except for May, he could never remember talking with a woman so.

Wes waved them into the camp with a wide smile, but Adam didn’t miss the guards posted around the herd. Double the men that would be needed to watch sleeping cattle. He slowly looked around, searching the land beyond the herd for trouble as he neared Wes.

“I know,” Nick whispered. “I feel it, too.”

He glanced at her, realizing she’d read his thoughts, but the night hid her face. As their horses walked toward Wes, he heard the leather of Nick’s gun belt sliding into place about her waist.

“I was about to tell the cook to throw out the stew!” Wes shouted as he stepped forward and held their mounts. “You city folks may dine late, but on the trail we eat at sundown.”

Adam stepped around his horse to Nichole’s left side as she swung from the saddle. Her long, limber body needed no assistance, but he let his hand slide along her side as she stepped to the ground.

“Stew sounds great,” Adam said as he touched Nichole a moment longer than needed even in his pretense of steadying her. “Sorry we’re late. Seems every wife in Fort Worth is pregnant these days. Lucky all the menfolk didn’t make it back home on the same day or I’d have a landslide nine months to the day after the war.”

Adam kept his voice casual as his hands circled Nichole’s waist in a gesture that told her he wanted her closer to him.

Wes was busy tying the horses and didn’t hear Nichole whisper, “You’re in my world now, Doc. The night.”

Her words haunted him through the meal, for he knew she was right. He’d never liked the night, not even when he was a child. But she was a creature of the darkness, more comfortable there than in day. Another reason they didn’t fit together, he thought. Another reason to stay a proper distance away.

But what bothered him was that in the darkness, she seemed to set the rules, not him. He might tell her in the light to sleep in her own bed, but he knew if she came to him in the shadows, he wouldn’t push her away.

“I figure I’ll lose ten percent of the herd along the trail, maybe more.” Wes pulled Adam back to the present. “But for every cow that gets to rail, I’ll make five times what I paid per head.” Wes sounded excited. “Some of these cattle I didn’t pay a dime for, but found on the open range.

“I’ve hired the best cow men I can find and an extra dozen to ride along as protection. I’ve heard tell that some herds make it as far as Kansas just to be lost to bandits.”

Nichole looked at the herd. “Not much to lose. Longhorns, the ugliest cattle I’ve ever seen.”

“Kid, don’t talk about my fortune that way,” Wes complained. “These are the kings of cattle. They can survive any weather, and they’ve been roaming wild since Coronado dropped them off in Texas some three hundred years ago. I heard a man down South call them rainbow cattle because they come in so many different colors.”

Nichole studied the herd. In truth she saw black, white, blue, bays, reds, and some spotted with every combination of color. Many had horns spreading four to five feet.

Following her gaze, Wes added, “We found several mature longhorns with the horns twisted down. Some of them had about starved to death trying to graze on winter grass. It wasn’t an easy job, but we caught them and cut the horns down so they could reach the short grass, then turned them loose to graze and fatten for another year.”

Wes continued to tell his brother of his plans while Nichole stood and returned her plate to the wagon. She’d been one of a group for so long it never occurred to her to leave her plate for someone else to wash.

“Thanks.” A cowhand with a towel for an apron startled her. “That’s one plate I won’t have to wash tonight.” A light flavoring of an Irish accent blended in his words.

Nichole looked at the stack of dirty plates next to the tub of soapy water. “Want some help?” Without waiting for an answer, she lifted half the stack and lowered them into the wash.

“Sure. Most the men around here are nothing but coffee coolers.”

“ ‘Coffee coolers?’”

The cook chuckled. “Ye know, men who stand around all day waiting for their cup to cool enough to drink before they go back to work.”

The cook winked at Nichole and smiled with his few remaining teeth showing. “Me name is Lloyd, miss.”

She looked at the short, graying man carefully. “I guess I didn’t do a very good job of acting like a man tonight.” In truth it was hard to remember all the rules with Adam around treating her like a woman.

“From a distance, I thought there was two men riding in, ye being so tall and all. But when I saw the way the boss and his brother stared at ye and how they both waited until ye sat down, I knew ye were a woman. I got four daughters meself.” He pulled a tintype from his shirt pocket showing a chubby little woman with four chubby daughters around her. “A lady’s a lady no matter how she’s dressed. But ye’re smart to travel like ye’re dressed in this country. I told my Gina Kay not to come out here until I tame the place down a bit.”

Nichole handed him a plate to dry. “You expecting any trouble?” She fought to keep her voice calm, conversational.

“We’ve heard talk. Boss hired three more men yesterday. There’s lots of men wandering these days, and they don’t feel any guilt taking another man’s land or property. It’s like the whole country’s got fighting in their blood and can’t wiggle it out.”

The cook looked sideways at her to make sure he hadn’t lost his audience before continuing. “Mr. McLain’s partner, Vincent, said there’s a gang of outlaws operating near Fort Worth, so we’re taking our time and being real careful.”

“So Wes takes extra precautions?” She kept her eyes focused on the dishes so he wouldn’t think her interest too great.

“Ye bet yer spurs he does. Between the guards and the hands there’s a circle around this camp no man could get through. One thing about McLain’s partner, he may be young but he’s an honest man and everyone in the state knows it.”

Nichole looked around her. In truth the camp was very well protected. Each guard could see the post of the next so if one man on the outside circle was taken out at least two of the others would know it. Without an opening of at least three men, no one could enter.

She handed Lloyd the last plate and picked up the pan of dishwater. “I’ll toss this,” she said as she walked toward the horses and away from the stream.

As she poured the water onto rocky ground, she glanced at the row of horses tethered for the night. A paint caught her attention. A paint marked exactly like the one she’d seen at the stagecoach fire.