Defiant Read Free Page B

breath, she cut the deerskin shirt open. She managed to pull it off the uninjured arm but had to cut off the cloth pasted to the right arm with blood.
    His chest was solid muscle, brown and dusted with golden hair that led down to the waist of his trousers. She noticed two scars, one at the shoulder, the other a jagged one on his side. Whoever he was, he was prone to violence.
    She took the beads from around his neck, handling them curiously for a moment. They looked like something worn by an Indian, but this man was no Indian, not with his features and that dark brown hair. She put the beads carefully down on the table, then turned her attention back to her patient.
    Now for the man’s trousers. She hesitated. She had seen a man’s naked body before, but this stranger was so starkly masculine … Even knowing how foolish it was, she suddenly felt very reluctant.
    But he was shivering through the wet cloth. Taking a deep breath, she untied the thongs that held the waist of the trousers and pulled them down. He was wearing nothing underneath. Her throat suddenly tightened at what she saw.
    Taken as a whole, he was magnificent. Sinewy and strong. She looked at the mangled arm, and thought of the injustice of it, like the marring of something perfect.
    She heard footsteps outside the bedroom door and hurriedly placed a quilt over the lower half of the wounded man’s body.
    Jeff came in carrying a basin of water, steam rising from it, and clean towels. He placed the basin on the table next to the bed, then started a fire in the fireplace. Jake followed on his heels, taking up a sitting position on the other side of the bed, his head resting on the quilt, his eyes full of curiosity.
    Mary Jo cleaned her patient’s right arm as best she could. She didn’t see an exit wound, which meant she had to extract the bullet. Praying he would remain unconscious, she found a pair of tongs in the medicine box and probed the wound. It started to bleed again. “Keep wiping the blood away,” she told Jeff.
    He moved quietly next to her and did as she asked. His face, when Mary Jo stole a quick look at it, was tense, and a tear hovered at the corner of his eye. He hadn’t realized yet that compassion and being a Ranger didn’t go together.
    Sweat ran down her own face by the time the tongs finally found metal. She slowly, carefully extracted the bullet. What was left of it.
    Mary Jo heard a moan coming from deep inside the stranger, and she sympathized with him. She also felt triumphant. Perhaps now he would have a chance.
    She cleaned the wound some more, then poured sulfur powder into it and sewed it up. When she finished that, she sent Jeff out to find a piece of wood she could use as a splint. While he was gone she sewed up the wound in the stranger’s leg.
    His lower body was covered again when Jeff returned, holding a strong straight branch. He’d whittled off the knobs and rough spots, and intense pride flowed through Mary Jo. Perhaps because of where and how he’d grown up, he often seemed much older than most boys his age.
    â€œThat’s perfect,” she said, giving him a grin of approval. He beamed back at her.
    â€œCan you hold his arm for me?” she asked. Again he moved quickly to her side, doing exactly as she told him, no longer smiling but intent on his job, almost willing the man to survive.
    Mary Jo concentrated on tying the stranger’s arm to the splint and then using a piece of sheeting to bind it to his chest.
    â€œWill he be all right?” Jeff asked.
    â€œI don’t know,” she answered. She finished and stood up, stretching. “But we’ve done all we can do. If he does live, it’s because of you.” She gave him a hug and held him close for a moment, surprised he allowed it in his newly discovered need for independence. That he wanted maternal assurance showed the degree of anxiety he felt for their unexpected guest.
    But then he