CHAPTER FIVE The Water Between Them #3
Jude ducked beneath a shelf of sandstone.
Gideon followed.
The hidden spring lay inside a roofless chamber enclosed by red stone.
Clear water filled a pool no larger than a wagon bed. Maidenhair ferns grew from the shaded walls, impossibly green against the desert. Rainwater trickled from a narrow channel above, but the spring itself rose from beneath the stone, undisturbed and cold.
Jude sank to his knees.
Gideon reached the water beside him.
“Slowly,” he said.
Jude cupped both hands.
“Slowly,” Gideon repeated.
They drank in small measures.
The first mouthful hurt. Gideon’s body wanted to swallow until nothing remained, but he forced himself to pause. Jude did the same.
Water ran over Jude’s hands and down his wrists, carrying mud and dried blood into the pool’s overflow channel.
They drank again.
And again.
When thirst no longer felt like a blade inside him, Gideon sat back.
Jude washed his face.
Mud dissolved beneath his hands. Water moved through his dark hair, down his bruised cheek, and over the split in his lip.
Gideon watched.
Jude opened one eye. “You’re staring.”
“I’m examining the cut.”
“From that distance?”
“It’s bleeding.”
“So are you.”
Gideon looked down at his side.
The bandage had nearly separated. Blood, mud, and rainwater had soaked through it.
“We clean the wounds before moving.”
“The other men are behind us.”
“They don’t know this place.”
“They’ll search.”
“So will infection.”
Jude removed the rifle and set it on dry stone. “There is the bedside manner I missed.”
Gideon took the knife and cut away his ruined bandage. The wound had reopened at one end, but most stitches remained intact.
Jude examined it. “You need clean linen.”
“We have shirts.”
“Again?”
Gideon opened what remained of his torn garment.
Jude watched him.
“Are you planning to object?” Gideon asked.
“No. I’m beginning to believe you seek excuses.”
“To destroy my clothing?”
“To remove it.”
Gideon pulled off the shirt.
The left sleeve dragged across the chain before coming free. He tore the cleanest section into strips and placed them beside the spring.
Jude’s shirt followed.
He opened it slowly, revealing the bandage Gideon had wrapped around his side and the bruising over his ribs. Mud streaked his chest and stomach. Blood from his cheek had run down his neck.
Gideon looked at the wound beneath the bandage.
“It held.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“Turn around.”
Jude glanced back at the pool. “I can wash myself.”
“Not your back.”
“I have managed for thirty-two years.”
“Your right hand is cuffed to me.”
“A temporary inconvenience.”
“Turn.”
Jude studied Gideon’s face.
Then he obeyed.
He sat at the spring’s edge with his back toward Gideon.
The sight silenced every prepared remark.
Old scars covered him.
Some Gideon had glimpsed in the Red Mesa jail, but clean daylight revealed their extent. Thin white lines crossed Jude’s shoulder blades. Wider ridges descended along his spine and curved around both sides. Near his right shoulder, four small circular burns marked the skin in an uneven row.
These were not the scars of ordinary ranch work.
Gideon dipped a piece of cloth into the spring.
“I’m going to wash your back.”
Jude’s head lowered. “You may.”
Gideon poured water over him.
It ran through Jude’s black hair, gathered at the nape of his neck, and descended over the scars in shining paths. Dust and dried blood moved down his back toward the waistband of his trousers.
Gideon placed the wet cloth against Jude’s shoulder.
His muscles tightened beneath it.
“Pain?”
“No.”
“Then breathe.”
Jude exhaled.
Gideon washed him slowly.
The practical task demanded attention, yet every movement revealed something intimate. The rise of Jude’s spine. The hard shape of his shoulders. The way he leaned almost imperceptibly into Gideon’s touch when the cloth moved across uninjured skin.
Gideon cleaned the back of Jude’s neck.
Water ran from his fingers into Jude’s hair.
“May I?” Gideon asked.
Jude glanced over his shoulder. “What?”
“Your hair.”
The question seemed to surprise him.
“Yes.”
Gideon cupped water in his palm and poured it over Jude’s head.
He worked his fingers carefully through the dark strands, loosening sand and dried mud. Jude’s head bowed beneath his hand. His breathing slowed.
Gideon repeated the motion.
Water transformed Jude’s hair from dust-stiffened black to a smooth, shining darkness. Gideon combed it away from his face with his fingers, then gathered it briefly at the nape of his neck.
Jude closed his eyes.
No man had ever looked less like a murderer.
Or more dangerous to Gideon.
His fingers moved from Jude’s hair to the scar crossing his shoulder blade.
“What made this?”
Jude opened his eyes.
“The long one,” Gideon clarified.
“Harrow’s men.”
Gideon’s hand stopped.
“When?”
“After Dry Mercy.”
“You said you escaped.”
“Eventually.”
Jude looked toward the green ferns growing above the spring.
“They caught me two days after Noah died. Took me to one of Harrow’s horse barns. There was a ring in the ceiling used for lifting engine blocks.”
Gideon pictured the circular burns and long scars.
“What did they want?”
“Noah’s field book.”
“You told me you didn’t know where he hid it.”
“I didn’t.”
“They did not believe you.”
“At first.”
Gideon lowered the cloth.
“How long?”
“Three days.”
The answer was quiet.
“They tied my wrists over my head. Asked the same question until it stopped sounding like language. Where were the notes? Who had Noah told? Which judge was expecting him?”
Jude’s right wrist shifted in the cuff connecting them.
Gideon looked at the rawhide scars still healing there.
“What did you tell them?”
“The truth.”
“And when that failed?”
“I lied.”
“About what?”
“Places Noah might have hidden the book. Men he might have trusted. Anything that sent Harrow’s riders away from the people who had actually helped us.”
Gideon washed the cloth and returned it to Jude’s back.
His touch became gentler.
“Rusk?” he asked.
“He visited.”
“Did he participate?”
“Not at first.”
The meaning settled coldly.
Jude’s mouth curved without humor. “Rusk liked the quirt. Harrow preferred watching.”
Gideon’s hand closed around the cloth.
Jude felt it.
“Do not pity me.”
“I don’t.”
“You’re angry.”
“Yes.”
“Anger is pity carrying a gun.”
“Not always.”
“What is it now?”
Gideon looked at the scars beneath his hand. “A promise.”
Jude turned his head farther. “To whom?”
Gideon resumed washing him. “I haven’t decided.”
He cleaned each old wound as though its pain might still remain upon the surface. The cloth passed over Jude’s shoulders, down his spine, and around his sides. Jude’s body gradually relaxed beneath his hands.
When Gideon reached the bandage around Jude’s waist, he removed it and washed the bullet graze. The wound remained clean and shallow.
He wrapped fresh linen around Jude’s body.
To pass it beneath Jude’s arm, Gideon had to lean close. His chest touched Jude’s back. One arm circled Jude’s waist while his cuffed hand followed the chain across Jude’s stomach.
Jude held the end of the bandage.
Their hands met over his abdomen.
Gideon’s mouth was near his ear.
“Pull,” he said.
Jude tightened the linen.
Gideon tied it.
Neither moved away immediately.
Water trickled into the pool. Wind passed over the open chamber, stirring the ferns.
Jude’s hand covered Gideon’s where it rested against his stomach.
“Finished?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You’re still holding me.”
Gideon withdrew his arm.
Jude turned.
“Your turn.”
“I can manage.”
“You have blood between your shoulders.”
“It isn’t mine.”
“All the more reason.”
Jude shifted behind him before Gideon could argue. The chain brought their joined wrists across Gideon’s lap.
Gideon sat at the spring’s edge.
Jude knelt in the water behind him.
The first handful passed over Gideon’s head without warning.
Cold water struck his scalp and ran down his face.
He inhaled sharply.
Jude’s laugh was quiet. “You announce everything. I thought surprise might improve you.”
“It hasn’t.”
“It improved me.”
Gideon wiped water from his eyes. “You’re becoming reckless.”
“I’m accused of five murders. Where can recklessness lead me?”
Jude poured another handful over his hair.
This time, Gideon was prepared.
Jude’s fingers followed.
They entered Gideon’s hair at his forehead and moved backward, pushing the wet strands away from his face. His fingertips dragged gently over Gideon’s scalp.
The effect was immediate and humiliating.
Gideon’s eyes closed.
Jude repeated the motion.
No one had touched his hair that way in years. A barber cut it. Gideon washed it. Lovers from another life had gripped it in heat or desperation, but tenderness had become a language he no longer expected his body to remember.
It remembered.
Every nerve responded.
Jude worked water through Gideon’s hair, then moved down to the back of his neck. His thumbs pressed into the tight muscles beneath Gideon’s skull.
Gideon lowered his head.
“Pain?” Jude asked.
“No.”
“Then what?”
Gideon recognized his own question from the cave.
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
Jude’s hands descended over his shoulders.
Mud and dried blood dissolved beneath the cloth. Jude washed across old scars without questioning them. His palms followed the heavy muscle along Gideon’s back, moving with a patience that made seduction seem crude by comparison.
Gideon gripped his own knees.
Jude’s thumb found a hard knot beside his shoulder blade.
He pressed.
Gideon’s breath left him.
“There,” Jude said.
“Do not sound pleased.”
“I found where you keep the stubbornness.”
“You’ll need a larger knife.”
Jude worked the muscle slowly.
The cuff between them prevented Gideon from moving far, but he no longer wanted distance. Every pass of Jude’s hand released tension Gideon had carried for years without noticing.
The tenderness became unbearable.
He could have defended himself against hunger. Against provocation. Against Jude’s mouth curved in deliberate invitation.
This was different.
Jude touched him without trying to obtain anything.
No surrender.
No confession.
No debt.
Only care.