CHAPTER THREE Skin and Steel #2
The weakness humiliated him more than the wound. He could shoot accurately from a moving horse. He could break a man’s wrist before he drew a weapon. He could travel three days without sleep and sit through a field surgeon cutting metal from his body without begging for mercy.
He could not unfasten his own belt.
Jude’s hand closed over his.
Not restraining.
Stillness offered rather than imposed.
“Let me,” he said.
Gideon stared at their hands.
The cuff connected his left wrist to Jude’s right. Jude’s free hand rested over Gideon’s shaking one. There was no mockery in his face now. No smile. No satisfaction in seeing the marshal weakened.
Only attention.
Gideon removed his hand from the buckle.
Jude shifted between his legs.
The cave was too narrow for distance. Gideon sat with his back against the sandstone and his knees bent. Jude knelt between them, the ankle irons forcing his legs close together. Their connected wrists remained near Gideon’s left thigh.
Jude reached for the gun belt.
“Weapon first,” Gideon said.
“I see it.”
“Two fingers beneath the hammer. Lift straight up.”
“You believe I’ve never handled a revolver?”
“I believe this one belongs to me.”
Jude met his eyes. “May I remove it?”
Gideon’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
Jude closed his hand around the revolver grip and drew it slowly from the holster. He kept two fingers beneath the hammer exactly as instructed. The fire cast copper light along the barrel before he set it on the sand beyond Gideon’s right boot.
The knife followed.
Then Jude unfastened the belt.
His knuckles brushed Gideon’s stomach as he pulled the leather tongue through the buckle. Gideon felt the contact through his shirt with humiliating clarity.
Jude drew the belt from beneath him inch by inch. The holster dragged across Gideon’s thigh. Brass cartridges clicked softly in their loops.
“Coat,” Jude said.
Gideon tried to move his right shoulder.
Pain stopped him.
Jude leaned closer. “I’m going to pull it open.”
“Do it.”
“Permission, Gideon.”
The name again.
It sounded too natural on Jude’s tongue.
“You have it.”
Jude unbuttoned the coat. His hands moved from Gideon’s throat toward his waist, opening each button carefully. The coat had adhered to the wound. When Jude eased the right side away, dried blood pulled at the fabric.
Gideon’s body arched.
Jude’s hand immediately returned to his waist.
“Breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“Not usefully.”
“Since when are you an authority?”
“Since you became too stubborn to undress yourself.”
He pushed the coat from Gideon’s shoulders. Gideon freed his right arm, but the left sleeve caught at the cuff connecting them.
Jude lifted their joined wrists.
“Fabric won’t pass the chain.”
“Cut the seam.”
“That coat may be the only blanket we have.”
“Then cut the shirt instead.”
“You appear fond of that shirt.”
“I have another.”
Jude looked down at the garment he wore.
Gideon’s spare shirt covered his bruised body, its sleeves turned back at Jude’s wrists and its collar open at his throat.
“So you do,” Jude said.
The words carried the faintest return of his earlier tone.
Gideon did not have the strength to answer it.
Working together, they fed the coat sleeve over Gideon’s cuff. It gathered along the short chain between them, then passed over Jude’s cuff and hand when Jude folded his fingers tightly. The coat came free without cutting.
Their wrists remained joined.
Jude placed the coat beneath Gideon’s hips, creating a barrier between him and the cold sand.
“Suspenders,” he said.
Gideon nodded.
Jude slipped them from Gideon’s shoulders. One strap was slick with blood. He lowered it, then began unbuttoning Gideon’s shirt.
The cave grew quieter with every button.
Jude started at Gideon’s throat.
His knuckles grazed the hollow beneath Gideon’s collarbone. The next button opened over his chest. Then the next.
Gideon watched Jude’s face.
The outlaw concentrated on the work with an intensity that made the undressing feel more intimate than flirtation would have. His battered mouth had gone still. A lock of black hair hung across his forehead. Firelight moved over the scar through his eyebrow.
When he opened the shirt to Gideon’s waist, Jude stopped.
His gaze traveled over what he had uncovered.
Gideon’s body carried nearly twenty years of violence.
A pale ridge crossed his left collarbone where a Comanche lance had glanced away rather than buried itself.
A bullet scar puckered beneath his ribs.
Three faded lines marked his lower stomach from a cavalry saber broken during a fall.
Another scar, narrow and white, disappeared beneath his waistband.
Jude’s eyes lingered on each one.
He did not ask where they came from.
The absence of questions felt like mercy.
“You’ve been collecting these,” Jude said quietly.
“Some men collect coins.”
“Coins don’t ache before rain.”
“No.”
Jude lifted one hand toward the scar beneath Gideon’s ribs, then stopped before touching him.
“May I?”
Gideon’s throat tightened.
The scar was old. The flesh had been closed for fifteen years. There was no medical reason to examine it.
Jude was not pretending there was.
“Why?” Gideon asked.
“Because I want to know whether it hurts.”
“Sometimes.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Their eyes met.
The chain hung between their wrists. Gideon could have ordered him to stop. He could have turned the question into a joke, except Gideon had never learned how to use humor as armor.
“Yes,” he said.
Jude touched the scar.
Only the tips of two fingers.
He traced the raised edge beneath Gideon’s ribs with a care so deliberate it seemed to separate Gideon from every man who had touched him in violence. Gideon’s stomach contracted. A shiver moved across his skin despite the fever gathering beneath it.
Jude’s eyes lifted immediately. “Pain?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Gideon reached for control and found none.
“Nothing.”
Jude looked as if he knew better.
He removed his hand.
The loss of contact came too quickly.
“Your shirt,” Jude said.
Gideon freed his right arm. The left sleeve caught at the cuff as the coat had. This time the opening was too narrow to pass over the iron.
Jude picked up Gideon’s knife.
“I’ll cut the seam.”
Gideon nodded.
Jude slid the blade beneath the linen near Gideon’s wrist. His free hand supported Gideon’s forearm, keeping the steel away from his skin. The knife moved slowly through the sleeve.
The fabric parted.
Jude peeled the shirt from Gideon’s body and laid it aside.
The wound began behind Gideon’s right side and traveled forward in an angry furrow beneath his lowest rib. The bullet had not entered. It had torn through skin and muscle, leaving a ragged channel blackened with dust and dried blood.
Jude leaned closer.
His breath moved over Gideon’s bare stomach.
“That needs stitches.”
“I know.”
“You have a needle?”
“Inside my vest. Lower pocket.”
Jude retrieved the small leather packet containing the needle and silk thread. A narrow silver flask rested behind it.
Jude shook the flask.
“Whiskey?”
“Enough.”
“Not enough to drink and clean the wound.”
“Clean the wound.”
Jude uncapped it.
The scent filled the cave.
He folded a clean strip of linen, poured whiskey onto it, and positioned himself more securely between Gideon’s knees.
“This will hurt.”
“I’d gathered.”
Jude glanced up.
Gideon recognized his own words from the cell.
“Do you want something to bite?” Jude asked.
“No.”
“My shoulder remains available.”
“That is precisely what concerns me.”
A flicker of warmth passed through Jude’s eyes, but the flirtation vanished when he looked at the wound again.
He placed his free palm against Gideon’s bare waist.
The contact steadied them both.
Jude’s hand was rough and warm. His thumb rested near Gideon’s navel while his fingers curved around his side, stopping short of the torn flesh. The touch was firm enough to hold Gideon still without becoming restraint.
“I’m going to clean it,” Jude said.
Gideon nodded.
Jude pressed the whiskey-soaked linen to the wound.
Fire tore through Gideon’s side.
His body jerked forward. His cuffed hand yanked against Jude’s wrist, pulling them closer, and his right hand closed around Jude’s shoulder.
Jude did not flinch.
“Breathe,” he said.
Gideon’s fingers dug into him.
“Damn you.”
“There. That’s an improvement.”
“Do it.”
“I am doing it.”
“Faster.”
“No.”
Jude cleaned the wound methodically, removing dust, threads of fabric, and clotted blood. Each pass of the cloth sent pain across Gideon’s abdomen. Sweat gathered at his temples and ran down his bare chest.
He kept his hand locked around Jude’s shoulder.
Jude remained between his knees, close enough that Gideon could feel his breath against his stomach whenever he leaned forward. Their chained wrists rested against Gideon’s thigh. Jude’s free hand never left Gideon’s waist.
“Look at me,” Jude said.
Gideon opened his eyes.
He had not realized he had closed them.
Jude’s face was inches from his. Gideon had leaned forward until his mouth hovered beside Jude’s throat. He could see the pulse beating there, strong and quick. He could smell leather, sweat, and the faint clean mineral scent of the night air caught in Jude’s hair.
“Stay with me,” Jude said.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re trying.”
Gideon’s breath left him against Jude’s neck.
The outlaw shivered.
Neither acknowledged it.
Jude set the cloth aside and threaded the needle.
His fingers were steady.
“Have you done this before?” Gideon asked.
“I worked cattle for fifteen years.”
“Cattle don’t complain.”
“They kick.”
“Comforting.”
Jude positioned the needle.
“First stitch.”
Gideon tightened his grip on Jude’s shoulder.
The needle entered.
Pain drove the breath from him. His forehead nearly struck Jude’s, and his thighs closed instinctively around the man kneeling between them.
Jude’s body became the only solid thing in the cave.
“Good,” Jude murmured. “Again.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I expected more profanity.”
“I’m saving it.”
“For Harrow?”
“For you.”
The needle passed through again.