He lifted the cup to her lips, and she took a first greedy sip. Whiskey shot through her system. “That’s horrible. I don’t want it.”
“Put some color back in your cheeks.” But he set the cup aside.
“I just want to…” But the whiskey had shocked her brain enough to clear it. Jake had to hold her down to keep her from scrambling out of bed. Her shift tangled around her knees and drooped over one shoulder. “Hold on. You stand up now, you’re going to fall on that pretty face of yours.”
“Fire.” She coughed, gasping from fee pain in her throat. To balance herself, she grabbed him, then dropped her head weakly on his chest. “There’s a fire.”
“I know.” Relief and pleasure surged through him as he stroked her hair. Her cheek was nestled against his heart as if it belonged there. “It’s pretty well done now.”
“It might spread. I’ve got to stop it.”
“It’s not going to spread.” He eased her back with a gentleness that would have surprised her if she’d been aware of it. “Nothing to feed it, no wind to carry it. You lost the shed, that’s all.”
“I got the horses out,” she murmured. Her head was whirling and throbbing. But his voice-his voice and the stroke of his hands soothed her everywhere. Comforted, she let her eyes close. “I wasn’t sure I could.”
“You did fine.” Because he wanted to say more and didn’t know how, he passed the cloth over her face. “You’d better rest now.”
“Don’t go.” She reached for his hand again and brought it to her cheek. “Please don’t go.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He brushed the hair away from her face while he fought his own demons. “Go on to sleep.” He needed her to. If she opened her eyes and looked at him again, if she touched him again, he was going to lose.
“The puppy was barking. I thought he needed to go out, so I-” She came to herself abruptly. He could see it in the way her eyes flew open. “Mr. Redman! What are you doing here? Here,” she repeated, scandalized, as she glanced around the loft. “I’m not dressed.”
He dropped the cloth back in the bowl. “It’s been a trial not to notice.” She was coming back, all right, he thought as he watched her eyes fire up. It was a pleasure to watch it. With some regret, he picked up the blanket and tossed it over her. “Feel better?” “Mr. Redman.” Her voice was stiff with embarrassment.
“I don’t entertain gentlemen in my private quarters.”
He picked up the cup of whiskey and took a drink himself. Now that she seemed back to normal, it hit him how scared he’d been. Bone-scared. “Ain’t much entertaining about dressing a head wound.”
Sarah pushed herself up on her elbows, and the room reeled. With a moan, she lifted her fingers to the back of her neck, “I must have hit my head.”
“Must have.” He thought of the riders, but said nothing. “Since I picked you up off the ground and carted you all the way up here, don’t you figure I’m entitled to know what happened tonight?”
“I don’t really know.” With a long sigh, she leaned back against the pillow she’d purchased only that morning. He was entitled to the story, she supposed. In any case, she wanted to tell someone. “I’d already retired for the night when the puppy began to bark. He seemed determined to get out, so I climbed down.
I saw the fire. I don’t know how it could have started. It was still light when I fed the stock, so I never even had a lamp over there.”
Jake had his own ideas, but he bided his time. Sarah lifted a hand to her throbbing head and allowed herself the luxury of closing her eyes. “I ran over to get the horses out. The place was going up so fast. I’ve never seen anything like it. The roof was coming down, and the horses were terrified. They wouldn’t come out. I’d read somewhere that horses are so frightened by fire they just panic and burn alive, I couldn’t have stood that.”
“So you went in after them.”
“They were screaming.” Her brows drew together as she remembered. “It sounded like women screaming. It was horrible.”
“Yeah, I know.” He remembered another barn, another fire, when the horses hadn’t been so lucky.
“I remember falling when I got out the last time. I think I was choking on the smoke. I started to get up. I don’t know what I was going to do. Then something hit me, I guess. One of the horses, perhaps. Or perhaps I simply fell again.” She opened her eyes and studied him. He was sitting on her bed, his hair disheveled and his eyes dark and intense. Beautiful, she thought. Then she wondered if she was delirious. “Then you were here. Why are you here?”
“Riding by this way. Saw the fire.” He looked into the cup of whiskey. If he was going to sit here much longer, watching what the lamplight did to her skin, he was going to need more than a cupful. “I also saw two riders heading away.”
“Away?” Righteous indignation had her sitting up again, despite the headache. “You mean someone was here and didn’t try to help?”
Jake gave her a long, even look. She looked so fragile, like something you put behind glass in a parlor.
Fragile or not, she had to know what she was up against. “I figure they weren’t here to help.” He watched as the realization seeped in. There was a flicker of fear. That was what he’d expected. What he hadn’t counted on and was forced to admire was the passion in her eyes.
“They came on my land? Burned down my shed?
Why?”
She’d forgotten that she was wearing no more than a shift, forgotten that it was past midnight and that she was alone with a man. She sat up, and the blanket dropped to pool at her waist. Her small, round breasts rose and fell with her temper. Her hair was loose. He’d never seen it that way before. Until that moment he hadn’t taken the time or the trouble to really look. A man’s hands could get lost in hair like that. The thought ran through his mind and was immediately banished. It glowed warm in the lamplight, sliding over her right shoulder and streaming down her back. Anger had brought the color back to her face and the golden glow back to her eyes.
‘He finished off the whiskey, reminding himself that he’d do well to keep his mind on the business at hand. “Seems logical to figure they wanted to give you some trouble, maybe make you think twice about keeping this place.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” She leaned forward. Jake shifted uncomfortably when her thin lawn gown gapped at the throat. “Why should anyone care about an adobe house and a few sagging sheds?” Jake set the cup down again. “You forgot the mine.
Some people’ll do a lot more than set a fire for gold.”
With a sound of disgust, Sarah propped her elbows on her knees. “Gold? Do you think my father would have lived like this if there’d been any significant amount of gold?”
“If you believe that, why are you staying?”
The brooding look left her eyes as she glanced back at him. “I don’t expect you to understand. This is all I have. All I have left of my father is this place and a gold watch.” She took the watch from the tilting table beside the bed and closed her hand around it. “I intend to keep what’s mine. If someone’s played a nasty joke-” Jake interrupted her. “Might’ve been a joke. It’s more likely somebody thinks this place is worth more than you say. Trying to burn horses alive and hitting women isn’t considered much of a joke. Even out here.”
She lifted a hand to the wound on her head. He was saying someone had struck her. And he was right, she acknowledged with a quick shudder. He was undoubtedly right. “No one’s going to scare me off my land. Tomorrow I’ll report this incident to the sheriff, and I’ll find a way to protect my property.”
“Just what way is that?”
“I don’t know.” She tightened her grip on the watch. The look in her eyes said everything. “But I’ll find it.”
Maybe she would, he thought. And maybe, since he didn’t care much for people setting fires, he’d help her. “Someone might be offering to buy this place from you,” Jake murmured, thinking ahead.
“I’m not selling. And I’m not running. If and when
I return to Philadelphia, it will be because I’ve decided that’s what I want to do, not because I’ve been frightened away.”
That was an attitude he could respect. “Fair enough. Since it appears you’re going to have your hands full tomorrow, you’d best get some sleep.”
“Yes.” Sleep? How could she possibly close her eyes? What if they came back?
