Chapter Sixteen
Gray watched Jessie take off after the man by herself, and terror shot through him as she was enveloped by the darkness of the woods in the distance. Considering he was a gunslinger and had stared death in the face multiple times, that was saying something.
Swearing, he mounted his horse and chased after her, fear driving his every move as he raced to find her in the growing darkness of the storm. His breath was shallow and ragged as his heart thundered in his chest. His fierceness was a match for the storm that had started to pelt down rain so hard, it felt like tiny bullets pummeling his skin.
He thought of all the things that could go wrong. Jessie’s horse tripping in the thick woods, causing her to fall and break her neck. Casey finding her and shooting her. Butch finding her and shooting her.
He might just as easily find her dead body on the ground than her sitting alive and well on her horse. It had been reckless of her to go after him alone. The point to traveling together was so he could protect her. He couldn’t do that if she didn’t trust him to help her.
All the gunfights leading up to this moment were nothing in comparison to the dread that caused a rock to form in his stomach. The man had run for a reason, and it couldn’t be a good one.
He dodged trees on his horse, racing down a makeshift path, following the direction he saw Jessie go. He caught up to Jessie and saw her racing dangerously through the woods, dodging tree limbs and almost getting knocked off her horse. She had no care or thought for her own safety, and he gritted his teeth.
He yelled her name as loud as he could, but his voice was drowned out as lightning struck a tree next to her. She was flung from her horse and hit the ground with a sickening thud.
He spurred his horse harder in her direction.
Why hadn’t she gotten up? Why wasn’t she moving?
He jumped off his horse and ran the final few feet to her, rain pelting him hard in the back and the sound of thunder overhead. The storm was growing worse—the wind blew so forcefully it pushed him over in the process of trying to get to Jessie. He knelt beside her and lifted her head into his lap.
There was a branch about an inch thick protruding from her side. Blood rushed from the wound, and from her temple. She wasn’t moving, and her body was limp in his arms.
It looked like way too much blood for someone so small.
“Jessie!” He shook her gently, trying to wake her up, but she still didn’t move. Even as the rain fell hard on her face, she remained still. He tried to check her body for broken bones, but the rain made it too difficult, and the growing darkness made it almost impossible to see.
Groaning, he picked her up, surprised by how light she felt. He cradled her body close to his and placed her on his horse face down, being sure to not to touch the branch. He mounted behind her. He needed to take her somewhere dry and make sure she was okay. Her body was limp in his arms, and she seemed impossibly delicate compared to her usual self. He was used to Jessie being strong, and this vulnerability was unlike her. He didn’t like to see her in this state, and it reminded him of when she’d been taken from him by the man who worked for her father.
He had spotted a cabin a few miles back and decided to go back to it. Even though it looked abandoned, it would to be better than staying the woods or being out in the open.
He raced back toward the cabin, desperately trying to get there as quick as possible. It didn’t take too long, and a sigh of relief left his body as he saw the building come into view.
It had clearly been abandoned long ago. The wooden door was falling off, and the porch had holes in it from disrepair.
He carried Jessie to the door and jerked it open, nearly ripping it off the frame.
The house was made up of one room, with a bed in one corner, and a table that had broken down and fallen to pieces. Nobody was inside the house, as he suspected, so he stepped purposefully to the bed. He lay Jessie down and began to shiver uncontrollably from the cold, now that they were out of immediate danger.
He rushed back outside to his horse and grabbed his valise that had a few medical supplies in it. With purposeful steps, he returned to the bed and brushed aside the vest that hadn’t been pierced. The branch had gone through her lower left side, and he didn’t think it had hit anything major. There wasn’t much blood coming from the wound anymore, and Gray wondered if the branch had stopped the bleeding.
Her breathing was coming in shallow, ragged gasps that made his heart pound faster. He took a deep breath, and tore the branch from her side, applying pressure with a cloth bandage. He silently prayed he didn’t kill her.
After a few moments, he lifted the bandage and was relieved to see that it wasn’t bleeding much. She was lucky. Really lucky that it hadn’t hit her somewhere worse.
Tying off the bandage to continue applying pressure, he sat very still, watching her. She shivered from the cold, and his gaze landed on the fireplace in the corner of the room. He walked toward it to light a fire. There were a few scraps of wood left in it, just enough to light a fire and provide some warmth in the cabin.
He returned to Jessie and began running his hands along her body, checking to see if any of her bones were broken. Nothing else seemed to be wrong from what he could tell, but she’d have a lot of bruises all over her body from that fall when she woke up.
She was still shaking from the cold, shivering on the bed. He had to get her warm, or she’d get sick. Getting sick from the cold or an infection could kill her. He couldn’t help the infection much, but he had to get her warm. Skin-to-skin contact would be the best way to prevent hypothermia from setting in. With winter on its way, the nights had started to become bitter cold.
He pushed the bed as close to the fire as he could, so she could feel as much heat as possible. He removed her wet clothing, leaving her in her undergarments. Her long hair billowed out onto the bed as he took off the hat that clung to her head. It was soaking wet as well, and had been unable to keep her hair dry in the storm.
He removed his shirt and got into bed with her, pulling her against his chest to keep her warm. The fire was in front of her, so she had two ways to gain heat. It was the best option, even if she would be livid when she woke up.
Why did she have to run off after Casey without waiting for him?
Damn it. If she’d just waited a few more seconds for him to go with her, they wouldn’t be in this mess. Maybe they wouldn’t have caught Casey, but she wouldn’t have been knocked unconscious. He wouldn’t have let her be so reckless.
The thunder crashed outside, shaking the ceiling, and he wondered if the old building would last through the storm.
Jessie stirred in his arms, seeking the warmth that his body provided by wiggling her hips up against him. He started to get hard but tried to think of other things to distract himself. The last thing he needed was for her to wake up naked while he was hard as a rock. She had never been with a man before, he was sure. If she had run away from home when she was seventeen and had pretended to be a man ever since, there was no way she could have been with someone.
He looked over her shoulder at her face to see if she was awake, but she wasn’t. At least she wasn’t unresponsive. If she was moving and showing signs of discomfort, that was a good sign.
The tension in his shoulders released. She was going to be okay.
She stirred again, and he felt himself harden more. Damn, it had been way too long since he’d been with a woman, and Jessie was too beautiful for her own good. He gently swept the hair out of her eyes, brushing it back to view her face. His hand lingered on her cheek, enjoying her soft skin before withdrawing his hand to avoid more temptation.
He really needed to bed a woman, and quickly. If he didn’t get with a woman in the next town, he was going to do something with Jessie he regretted.
The thought wasn’t unpleasant, and he knew he would enjoy bedding her. But it would complicate things. Being involved with the woman who was supposed to help clear Luke’s name didn’t sound like the best idea. Especially since they’d been traveling so much with one another. Becoming intimate was a chance for so many things to go wrong, and she could turn them both in at any moment.
Plus, since she was a virgin, he didn’t want to be responsible for deflowering her. If he did, he really would have to marry her. He wouldn’t let her live a life of exile from society.
The firelight provided just enough light for Gray to see her face as she slept. She looked angelic, with her expression so serene that she looked the most peaceful he’d ever seen her. But there was evidence of her living a hard life, as well. Gray knew that her life hadn’t been an easy one of courtships and balls, like she deserved. Spending eight years on the run hadn’t done anything to destroy her beauty, but there was a hardness in her features, even in sleep.
It was hard to believe that she could betray him and Luke, but he had put his trust in others before and it turned out badly. She had gone after Casey like a madwoman today, earning some trust from him, but she still would watch out for herself. It was what Gray would do as well.
It had to be her beauty that had caused her father and the man he owed money to continue to chase after her after eight years. A gambling debt didn’t explain why someone would pursue her for that long. Nobody would wait that long for a gambling debt payment. There had to be another reason that they were still after her, after all this time.
If he had a chance to be with a woman like her, and he wasn’t a gunslinger, he wouldn’t let anything stop him from being with her. If he were chasing after her, he would search until he found her, no matter how long it took.
He wasn’t sure how he was going to help her with her problem. If her father was still after her, he wasn’t going to give up. Marriage seemed like the best solution for her to get what she wanted without the use of violence. But she was stubbornly against it.
The thought of deflowering her passed through his mind again, and he wondered if she would marry him if he took her virginity. His cock was impossibly hard at the thought, and the feeling of her soft body against him almost made him groan out loud. He wouldn’t take her virginity, though. She deserved better for her first time. She deserved to be married—to someone she loved. Just like she wanted.
He didn’t see himself with a wife in the traditional sense, but marrying Jessie wouldn’t be so bad if he could convince her to at least let him bed her as well.
It would solve her problem, and he could have some fun in the process.
Making a mental note to approach the subject of marriage with her again after they helped Luke, he drifted off into a restless sleep.