Jodi Thomas - The Lone Texan

She turned back to her patient, making sure she was covered. In truth, the woman looked far better than when Drum brought her in. She was clean, her cuts bandaged. Bonnie had even taken the time to run a comb through her hair.

The two sons, looking exhausted, moved slowly into the room. They stood three feet away and stared in horror as if they didn't know the woman on the table. Sage closed her eyes, feeling their pain. She could deal with cuts and breaks and illness, but when the human heart broke, she had no idea how to mend it.

Bonnie looked up at the thin brothers and met their stares. She cleared her throat. "She's all bruised, boys, but she's a fighter. I didn't get a chance to introduce myself to her when she was awake. Could one of you tell me her name?"

"Margaret, but my father called her Meg” the older boy said as if remembering his manners. "My mother's named Meg Smith, and I'm Will and this is Andy Smith”

Bonnie smiled as she changed the cold rag pressed against their mother's face. "I'm Nurse Pierce, and the lady by the door is Dr. McMurray.”

Neither looked like they believed the nurse. "She's a doc?" the smaller boy whispered to his brother.

Will nodded. "I think she is. The Ranger called her one, and Dad says you can trust a Ranger with the truth."

They both looked toward Drum and waited for him to nod before they both seemed to believe.

Bonnie pulled out the woman's one hand that was bandaged but had no broken fingers. "You know, boys, you might hurt her if you touched her face, but I bet she'd love it if you took her hand for a minute. Your mother is very brave. As brave as any soldier I've ever seen, but even the brave need a little comfort now and then."

The older boy moved closer and took his mother's hand. He held it gently, then bent and kissed it lightly. When he straightened, he tossed his hair out of his face and didn't try to rub away his tears. The second boy did the same, holding her hand as gallantly as a knight of old.

Sage smiled at the way Bonnie had with people. She wasn't a woman anyone noticed, really, until they saw her heart.

"Now, boys” Bonnie continued, "your mother is going to need you two when she's back on her feet, so I think you'd better go get some food in the hotel café and then find a place to sleep. We'll call you as soon as she wakes”

Sage met Drum's gaze. "Take them up to our rooms. We'll both stay down here with their mother tonight”

Drum nodded and motioned for them to follow him. "Aren't you going to ask which room?"

"Nope," he answered just before he closed the door.

Sage frowned. She wasn't even going to ask how he knew. She had a feeling she wouldn't like the answer. Moving the lamp close, she said to Bonnie, "Let's get her settled and as comfortable as we can. Then we can take turns sitting up with her”

Two hours later, Sage felt the low back pain of exhaustion. Meg was sleeping. It was time to let her rest and heal.

"The boys should be asleep by now” she said to Bonnie. "I think I'll go upstairs and wash up, then I'll take the first shift, and you can sleep.”

Bonnie nodded. "Take your time”

Sage pulled off her apron and slipped from the room. Part of her wanted to curl at the bottom of the stairs and sleep a few minutes before she made the climb, but the need to wash away the smell of blood drove her to take one step after the other.

As she'd thought, the rooms of her suite were dark. The boys had taken the two small beds in Bonnie's room. Bonnie's cat was sleeping beside little Andy, and to her surprise, the mutt lay at the foot of Will's bed.

Drum rested with his long legs over the arm of the settee like some giant forced to sleep in a dwarf's bed. She couldn't help but smile. He'd ridden all night to save the family and then pushed hard to get Meg back for care. He deserved sleep.

She moved closer and studied his face in the moonlight. Bonnie had been right. He was handsome, but even in sleep there was something about him that drew her and warned her to stay away at the same time. He wore his gun low as though he had regular occasion to use it. His clothes were worn and dark as if he dressed to move unnoticed among people and through the night. There was danger about him she would have found fascinating when she'd been younger, but now she realized she'd put adventure aside.

Slipping past him, she crossed to the washroom. After pouring water into a basin, she stripped down to her satin underclothes. Before marriage, she'd always worn cotton next to her skin, but a few days before her wedding she'd decided to replace all her camisoles with silk and satin, wickedly choosing cream and black instead of all white.

Sage stared at her reflection. She'd wasted her money. Her purchases had gone not only unnoticed but unseen.

Slowly, taking care not to miss a spot, she washed. When she finished, she slipped into one of her old shirts and a worn pair of trousers that she'd pulled from a trunk. Whoever delivered the trunk to the hotel must have ordered all her things washed. She could smell a hint of soap and the sunshine air they must have dried in.

The clothes felt strange somehow, as if last worn when she was a hundred years younger. Some might say twenty-three was still young, but Sage had experienced too many days lately when she'd sworn she could see herself aging in the mirror: long days studying in medical school, endless hours of work learning to be a doctor, longer hours practicing beside her husband who never allowed her to slip or leave a single detail undone, and then the later months watching him die without being able to help him.

She was old, she realized, not in years but in life.

The door creaked open. She saw Drummond leaning against the frame. His hair was a mess, his eyes still half asleep. "You all right?" he asked.

"I'm ancient.” she whispered. "I don't even remember the girl I was when I last wore these clothes."

"You look about the same to me." He took the time to study her from toe to top. "I remember when I saw you in those trousers. It was dark in the barn, and your brother had been trying his best to pound some sense into me. I thought you were a boy until I got a look at the way you filled out that shirt."

"You shouldn't be looking at my shirt. It's not something any gentleman would do."

"I'm not a gentleman, Sage, but I doubt any man would fail to notice that beneath those clothes, which you probably inherited from one of your brothers, is a woman's body." The corner of his mouth lifted. “The kind of body made for passion, I suspect."

Sage stepped to move past him, thinking of Barret and how he never touched her. "You're wrong," she said simply.

He followed her into the shadows of the sitting room. "About what?"

The darkness made it easier to tell the truth. "About any man noticing me."

He moved behind her and placed a light grip on her upper arms. The warmth of him brushed against her back.

She could have pushed away, his fingers rested gently, but she didn't. She wasn't afraid of him, she never had been, and it was time he knew. Words of anger formed, but she held them in. Drum wasn't to blame for the way it had been between her and Barret. No one was, she told herself. She'd loved a man who hadn't loved her, at least not in the way she'd wanted him to… needed him to.

"I'll ask again?" he said so close she could feel his words. "Are you all right, Sage?"

Just once she wanted to lean into the warmth of a man. She'd had to be strong for so long. She'd had to be alone. It couldn't be a crime just to feel for one minute.

As if he read her mind, he pulled her to him, folding his arms around her, pulling her back against the wall of his chest.

Sage knew she should step away. This man wasn't the right one to turn to. But his arms felt so good that she thought she'd stay if only for a moment. The darkness made the intimacy seem more dream than real.

"I'm fine.” she lied as his hands moved along her arms, gently brushing away the hours of tension. "I'm just tired”

His fingers trailed slowly down her back then molded along her sides.

She leaned her head against his shoulder and felt the warmth of him blanket her. All the months of hell she'd just passed through drifted over her, and tears she'd never allowed flowed.

When she began to shake, he turned her within his arms.

He didn't say a word; he just held her and let her cry softly. Her brothers would have thought her ill if they'd seen her like this. Her husband would have thought her weak. But Drum, the man who probably understood her less than any man she knew, seemed to understand.

He held her as if there were nothing more important in his life than giving her comfort.

Finally, she raised her head and straightened. "I'm sorry. I'm fine really."

He wiped the last tear off her cheek. "You're more than fine. You're perfect”

When she backed away, he let her go, his hand lingering as long as he could on the small of her back. When they reached the door, she turned around and faced him once more. "I'm not perfect. I didn't cry when my husband died, and now I cry for no reason. Something is cold inside of me. Maybe dead. Stay as far away from me as you can, Drum. I'm not perfect; I'm like a plague. Every man I've ever cared about, from the first one I kissed to my husband, has died."

Drum opened his mouth to argue but remained silent as they both heard the tapping of feet hurrying up the stairs just beyond the door.

Bonnie pushed into the room, almost stumbling into them both.

"Doc," Bonnie whispered, "you got to come quick. Meg's awake."

She glanced past Sage to Drum. "And she's asking for you, Mr. Roak."

Sage's last thought before rushing down the stairs was that Bonnie had called Drum Mr. Roak. He'd earned respect in everyone's eyes tonight, even hers.

DRUM REACHED THE BEATEN WOMAN FIRST. HE KEPT the shock from his face as he looked down at her. The bruising looked far darker, turning half her face a smoky red. The other half looked muddy-water blue, but one of her eyes had opened only enough for him to tell she studied him. Raising her bandaged hand, she touched him as if making sure that he was flesh.

"You're Roak. The one who saved me?" she whispered. "I was there. I brought you in for care."

"You killed the men who were torturing me?"

Drum nodded. He saw no reason to lie. She was there. She knew what he did, but it bothered him to talk about it.

"My boys?" she whispered, an edge of panic in her voice. "They're both safe," Drum answered. "They're upstairs asleep."

"Good!" She seemed to relax. "Would you tell me if my Lloyd is dead?"

Drum knew she trusted him to tell her the truth, and he didn't lie. "Your son Will said he hid his father in the brush so the raiders wouldn't know." Drum wished Sage would move from the shadows and talk to the woman. He didn't have much to tell her that wasn't bad. "Your boy kept his senses about him. If they'd thought your man was dead, they might have killed you and the little one."

"He was right. That was the only reason I was kept alive. They were hoping my screams would make Lloyd come in. But he wouldn't have. We knew almost from the first that they were there to kill us”

Finally Sage moved to Drum's side. She didn't touch him, but she was close enough that he would have known she was there even if his eyes were closed.

"You need to rest, Meg." Sage straightened the blanket over her patient. "You'll have more time to talk to Roak tomorrow.”

"No." She gripped his hand. "I have to tell you something.” Her words were muffled by the swollen jaw and lips, but he could hear the desperation in her tone.

"I'm listening” he answered, holding the bandaged hand without closing his fingers.

"Meg?" Sage tried again just as gently.

"I'll rest” the woman promised. "But first I have to talk to Roak alone."

Sage hesitated, then said. "All right.” Without another word, she motioned Bonnie to follow her out of the room.

When the door closed, Roak leaned closer to Meg. "Tell me now.”

Her swollen eyes were only open a slit, but he knew she was taking in his worth. "The two men you killed were not the leaders."

He'd already figured that out and planned to tell the captain when he had time. "I know. I heard them talk of a boss. Someone else must be planning the raids”

She patted his hand. "It wasn't a raid. They came after us. They came to kill all the males. I just got in the way.”

He nodded slowly, trying to understand. He'd already wondered why one ranch was all that had been hit. He figured it must be the first, and others were between the Smith place and the border. Usually raiders came in and hit several fast and hard, sometimes only stealing cattle in the night, and by morning they'd be miles away. They didn't stay around long enough to sleep or to torture folks.