CHAPTER FOURTEEN The Man Who Stayed #2
“Awake at last,” he said. “An encouraging development. We had begun to suspect Marshal Shaw was avoiding conversation.”
“He has spoken enough to be irritating,” Jude said.
“An even better sign.”
The doctor examined Gideon with ruthless efficiency. He felt the pulse at his throat, listened to his breathing through a brass tube, pressed careful fingers around the wound, and inspected the stitches beneath his shoulder blade.
Gideon endured the examination in silence until Doctor Keane asked him to sit.
“I can manage.”
Jude and the doctor exchanged a look.
Gideon disliked it immediately.
He planted his left hand against the mattress and tried to push himself upright.
Pain detonated across his chest.
The room tilted. His vision narrowed to a tunnel, and sweat broke cold across his skin. His arm failed beneath him.
Jude caught him before he fell sideways.
One arm slid behind Gideon’s back. The other spread across his stomach, bracing him with the whole length of Jude’s body. Gideon’s head dropped against Jude’s shoulder. He could feel Jude’s heart beating through both their shirts.
“I had him,” Gideon whispered.
“You were unconscious before completing the sentence,” Jude said.
Doctor Keane adjusted the pillows behind them.
With Jude supporting most of his weight, Gideon sat upright.
The position left him breathless.
Jude remained on the bed behind him, chest pressed along Gideon’s back, one thigh on either side of his hips. His hand rested over Gideon’s abdomen, holding him against the steady structure of his body.
“Breathe slowly,” Jude said near his ear.
Gideon obeyed.
Each breath drew Jude’s chest against him. The contact was warm, intimate, and humiliating in a way Gideon could not explain. He had allowed Jude to see every scar. He had surrendered control beneath Jude’s hands in desire and slept with his throat exposed beside him.
Yet he could not sit without being held.
The helplessness entered his bones more deeply than nakedness ever had.
Doctor Keane replaced the bandage.
“The bullet missed the lung and major artery,” he said. “It fractured the upper rib, tore through muscle, and carried enough cloth into the wound to start an infection. The fever has broken. That does not mean you are healed.”
“How long?”
“Before you can stand alone? Several days. Ride? Six weeks if you possess sense, three if Mr. Calder fails to tie you to the bed.”
“I considered it,” Jude said.
“No rope,” Gideon muttered.
Jude’s arm tightened slightly around him. “I remember.”
Doctor Keane looked from one to the other. “He may sit for brief periods. He should eat. The wound must be cleaned morning and evening. No lifting, no shooting, no riding, and no activity that raises his pulse unnecessarily.”
Jude’s mouth moved near Gideon’s ear.
Gideon felt it.
The doctor noticed.
“Unnecessarily,” he repeated.
After he left, Jude continued holding Gideon upright.
Gideon stared at the sunlight on the floor.
“You can release me.”
“Can you remain sitting?”
“Yes.”
Jude loosened his arm.
Gideon’s body swayed immediately.
Jude caught him again.
Neither spoke.
Shame rose hot beneath Gideon’s skin.
He tried to pull away. The movement tightened his wound, and his breath broke.
“Stop,” Jude said.
“I do not need—”
“You do.”
The words were quiet.
Gideon’s jaw tightened.
Jude shifted around him and eased him back against the pillows. His hands remained careful, one protecting Gideon’s shoulder while the other guided his hips. When Gideon was settled, Jude sat beside him.
“I have spent three days lifting you,” Jude said. “Changing cloths while you shook with fever. Holding water to your mouth because you could not swallow without help. You do not need to pretend now.”
“I remember none of it.”
“I do.”
“I am sorry.”
“For being wounded?”
“For putting that on you.”
Jude’s expression hardened. “Do not insult me.”
Gideon looked at him.
“You did not put anything on me,” Jude said. “I chose the chair. I chose every bandage and every hour.”
“You have barely slept.”
“I slept.”
“In that chair.”
“It is an exceptionally cruel chair.”
“You should have used the bed.”
“You were in it.”
“There was room.”
“You were bleeding through the sheets.”
Gideon looked away.
Jude took his chin and turned him back.
“Do not hide from me because your body needs something,” he said.
“I do not know how to lie here while another man exhausts himself keeping me alive.”
“You learn.”
“I should be the one caring for you.”
“You have been.”
“Not now.”
“No. Now it is my turn.”
Gideon’s muscles tightened.
Jude felt it through the hand on his jaw.
“You think surrendering to tenderness makes you weak,” he said.
“I think surrender has consequences.”
“It did when men demanded it from you. Harrow wanted surrender. Cutter wanted surrender. The army wanted silence and called it obedience.” Jude’s thumb moved across Gideon’s cheek. “This is not that.”
“What is it?”
“Love.”
The word landed without spectacle.
No gallows. No gunfire. No entire town listening.
Only a small boardinghouse room and Jude’s hand against Gideon’s face.
“Love cannot survive if only one man is permitted to be vulnerable,” Jude said. “You cannot spend the rest of our lives holding me through every nightmare while pretending you never wake from your own. You cannot wash my wounds and call my trust courage, then deny me the right to touch yours.”
“I am not denying you.”
“You apologize every time I lift a cup.”
“I can lift a cup.”
“You dropped one yesterday.”
“I was unconscious yesterday.”
“You see? Excuses.”
Gideon tried not to smile.
Jude’s expression softened.
“You pulled timber and stone from my body until your hands split,” he said. “You remained in the mine when I begged you to leave. You gave me every ounce of strength you possessed. Let me give some back.”
Gideon looked down at Jude’s hand.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Lie still.”
“That sounds intolerable.”
“Then practice.”
Jude kissed his forehead and stood.
He warmed water on the boardinghouse stove and returned with the basin, soap, linen cloths, and a clean shirt. Steam rose around his hands as he set everything on the washstand.
Gideon watched him arrange the room.
Jude closed the curtains, fed a towel beneath Gideon’s shoulders, and drew the quilt down to his waist. His fingers found the first button of Gideon’s nightshirt.
“May I?”
The question eased something in Gideon before the touch began.
“Yes.”
Jude opened the shirt.
The fabric clung where sweat had dried it against Gideon’s chest. Jude lifted each side slowly, freeing it from the bandages. He guided the sleeve from Gideon’s uninjured arm first, then supported the right wrist while working the cloth over the sling.
When the shirt came away, Gideon lay bare to the waist.
He felt exposed in a new way. Desire had always lent nakedness a purpose.
It had allowed him to offer his body as something strong, something capable of giving pleasure.
Now bruising darkened half his chest. Stitches crossed the torn flesh below his shoulder.
Fever had taken weight from him, sharpening his ribs and leaving weakness visible beneath the skin.
Jude looked at him without pity.
He dipped a cloth into the basin, wrung it out, and touched it to Gideon’s forehead.
Warm water moved over Gideon’s temple and cheek. Jude washed beneath his jaw, around his ears, and along his neck, clearing away the salt of three days’ fever. The cloth passed over Gideon’s collarbones and down the uninjured side of his chest.
Jude’s other hand rested against Gideon’s ribs, steadying rather than restraining him.
“Too warm?” he asked.
“No.”
“Pain?”
“Not there.”
The cloth moved lower.
Jude washed each scar as carefully as he washed unmarked skin. He did not pause over the old cavalry wound or the bullet furrow from Salt Knife Canyon. He treated none of them as damage requiring apology. They were simply parts of Gideon, worthy of the same patient touch.
Gideon’s eyes closed.
The warm cloth crossed his stomach.
Jude cleaned beneath his arms, then lifted him forward just enough to wash his back. Gideon’s forehead settled against Jude’s shoulder. Jude held him there with one arm around his waist while the cloth moved down his spine.
Their skin touched through Jude’s open collar.
Gideon breathed in the familiar smell of him—soap, coffee, leather, and the faint sun-warmed scent that remained no matter how thoroughly Jude washed.
“I am heavy,” Gideon murmured.
“You are not.”
“I am nearly twice the size of that chair.”
“The chair complains less.”
Gideon’s mouth brushed Jude’s neck when he smiled.
Jude’s hand stopped on his back.
The silence between them warmed.
Gideon turned his face slightly. His lips touched the pulse beneath Jude’s jaw.
Jude inhaled, but he did not turn the touch into a demand. He did not move closer or guide Gideon’s mouth. He simply held him while Gideon placed one slow kiss against his throat.
When Gideon leaned back, Jude lowered him onto the pillows.
“Thank you,” Gideon said.
Jude looked startled.
“For what?”
“For not pretending you want nothing.”
“I want many things.”
“But you are not asking.”
“Not until your body can answer without paying for it.”
The tenderness of the statement moved through Gideon more powerfully than seduction could have.
Jude cleaned the wound next.
He untied the bandage and peeled it away. The removal stung. Gideon’s hand closed around the sheet.
Jude noticed.
“Do you want my hand?”
“Yes.”
Jude gave it to him.
Gideon gripped while Jude washed around the stitches. Pain came in bright waves, each one moving from his shoulder through his chest. Jude talked him through it, warning him before every touch.
“Water now.”
Gideon nodded.
“The lower stitch has dried to the linen. I need to loosen it.”
“Do it.”
“Look at me.”
Gideon opened his eyes.
Jude’s face remained inches from his. Gideon watched his mouth while the cloth worked gently against the wound.
“Breathe,” Jude said.
Gideon breathed against his lips.
The linen came free.