Moonlight on Water (7 page)

Mr. Colton frowned. “You can't walk all the way back to River's Haven when you can't take a single step.”

“I'm sure it's just twisted. I'll rest it for a few minutes, and I'll be fine.”

“Good. Come down to
The Ohio Star
and sit while you rest it.”

“
The Ohio Star
? Thank you, but I think not. Kitty Cat and I must be getting back to River's Haven, so I'll go back up the hill and sit on a bench by the train station. At least that takes me in the right direction.” She did not want to admit that she was unsure if she could walk as far as the riverboat. Looking around in dismay, she asked, “Where did that child go now?”

“To
The Ohio Star
.” He hooked a thumb in the direction of the river.

Rachel wanted to moan when she saw the little girl's skirts bouncing down the hill toward the riverboat. No doubt, as soon as she had heard Mr. Colton mention the boat, she had taken off to visit it again.

“She seems determined to keep you on your toes.” He chuckled as Rachel hobbled a single step. “Or off them. Let me help.”

“Thank you, Mr. Colton, but—”

“Wyatt.”

“Pardon me?”

“My name is Wyatt.” He put his arm around her waist. “If I'm going to call you Rachel, you should call me Wyatt.”

“I didn't realize you were back to using my given name.”

“I never stopped using it.”

Rachel was tempted to fire back another comment, but she had to concentrate on putting the least possible pressure on her left foot. If Wyatt had not helped, she doubted she could have made a trio of steps without collapsing. This was another debt she owed him … another debt she could never explain to her brother.

Five

Rachel paused when she and Wyatt reached the gangplank. It was too narrow for the two of them to walk side by side.

She said, “I can wait here if you'd be so kind as to tell Kitty Cat to come ashore.”

“I'd be glad to be so kind.”

When he put an arm beneath her knees and lifted her as if she weighed no more than a drop of river water, she gasped. “Mr. Colton!”

“Wyatt, if
you
would be so kind.”

She hardly knew the man, and she already found his superior smile irritating beyond endurance. She pushed her exasperation aside. Without his help, she could not get aboard the boat, and standing here on the shore and shouting for Kitty Cat would be humiliating.

“As you wish,” she said as he stepped onto the gangplank.

“I doubt you say those words very often.” He chuckled.

Rachel smiled, but weakly. In the past week, she had spoken those words far too often during conversations with her brother. Arguing with Merrill had gained her as little as being stubborn would now.

She tried to relax, for Wyatt's arms were amazingly gentle. She leaned against him, glad that she did not have to take another step. Once she saw what the damage was to her ankle, she would figure out a way to get back to River's Haven.

Kitty Cat came running as Wyatt crossed to the deck of the riverboat. “Why are you carrying Rachel?”

“She hurt her foot saving you, K. C.”

As the little girl began to apologize, Rachel asked, “What did you call her?”

“K. C. for Kitty Cat.” He winked at Kitty Cat, but the youngster did not lose her frightened expression. “She's going to be all right.”

“Are you sure?” asked Kitty Cat.

“Sure as I'm standing here.”

When he lowered her toward the deck, Rachel let her knees fold and dropped onto a bench. She leaned back against the railing and closed her eyes for a moment.

“See?” Wyatt asked. “She's going to be fine, K. C.”

“I like that name!” the little girl shouted as she spun about on her toes, dancing along the deck. “K. C., K. C., that's me.”

“A nickname for a nickname?” asked Rachel.

“Why not?” Wyatt smiled.

“I … I …”

“Even you, proper as you try to be with that child, can't come up with any reason why not.”

“I'm not thinking too clearly just now.” She shifted her left leg, stretching it out in front of her. “Ouch.”

“You may have done more than twist it,” he said, abruptly serious. “You should have the doctor examine it. Wait here, and I'll find him.”

She cried, “No!”

He paused and faced her. “Are you afraid of doctors?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why won't you have him check your ankle? If it's a matter of money—”

“It isn't.”

“Then what?” Before she could answer, he scowled. “It's another of those damn rules at River's Haven, isn't it?”

“Watch your language in front of Kitty Cat.”

His smile returned as he patted the little girl on the head. “I'm sure she's heard that word before.”

“Rachel says I shouldn't say damn or—”

“Kitty Cat!” she gasped, frowning at Wyatt. “You don't need to encourage her to misbehave. I think we should leave.”

Bowing, he motioned toward the plank. “Be my guest.”

She drew in her feet to stand. Her heel caught between two boards on the deck, and she moaned as pain flashed up her leg.

“Are you done being foolish?” he asked.

“If you wouldn't keep—”

“Encouraging you to misbehave?”

Rachel looked away from his smile, because the concern in his eyes had not changed even when he was amused—or furious.

Wiping his hands on his shirt, he knelt in front of her. He took the hem of her skirt and began to raise it.

She turned on the bench, pulling her skirt out of his grip. Another groan bubbled from her lips as she moved her left leg, but she would not sit there and let this man act so outrageously.

Wyatt sat back on his heels. “Why the sudden modesty?”

“I'm not in the habit of allowing strangers to draw up my skirts.”

He snorted a laugh. “You don't have to tell me that. You look as prim as a nun. However, you're used to showing off your legs if you wear your skirts only to here.” He put a hand on her right knee.

Something blistering riveted her. Not from her ankle, but from where his fingers had settled on her skirt. A soft sound came from her lips. Not a gasp, but neither was it a moan, for this heat created a buzzing sensation along her, making her aware of every bit of her … and of his hand.

Her fingers trembled as she lifted his hand off her leg. She struggled to keep her voice from doing the same while she said, “The skirts at River's Haven are shorter than what's worn in Haven, but we wear pantalets beneath them. Our legs aren't revealed for everyone to ogle.”

“That's a shame.”

“I am not surprised you think so.”

He chuckled. “Outspoken, aren't you?”

Wyatt's smile faded when Rachel grimaced in reply, and he knew she was hurting more than she wanted him to guess. She was wasting her strength trying to hide her pain, because the lines gouged into her face revealed the truth.

He had been horrified to look up from his work on the deck to see a carriage bearing down on a woman and a young child. When he had recognized both Rachel and K. C., he had rushed up the bluff to make sure they had not been hurt. He had not expected that the local sheriff would allow anyone to drive like that in the village. Maybe Sheriff Parker was busy somewhere else.

“Rachel, the only other female on the boat is a little girl who's now looking for Horace up on the deck over our heads, if the sound of her footsteps are any clue. Your ankle should be checked. You refuse to let the doctor in Haven do that. If you've got any ideas on how examining your ankle can be accomplished without me moving your skirt aside, I'd be glad to hear them.”

Her eyes, which were dimming with anguish, looked down into his. His hand rose toward her cheek, but he lowered it before he could touch her. Having sympathy for her was one thing. Getting mixed up with her was something completely different.

Since her first visit to
The Ohio Star
, he had had trouble staying focused on anything but the memory of her snapping eyes and guileless laugh. Horace had bellowed at him more than once to keep his mind on his work while they worked on the boiler or the broken paddlewheel. When he had dropped a hammer into the river yesterday, it had taken him half the morning to retrieve it.

All because he kept thinking about pretty Rachel Browning who treated a man so coolly that she tempted him to consider ways to melt the reserve she tried to keep in place between them. Pretty Rachel Browning who wore her skirts no lower than her knees. Images of her slender legs draped over his arm threatened to lead him into a most complicated direction. He would be right pleased to see those legs as his hands slid up them, but she would not give him the opportunity. She was the sort of woman who would want a man to settle down and stay with her. He was the sort of man who did not want to stay anywhere.

Her voice was soft and unsteady when she said, “All right. If you must move aside my skirt …”

“I must.” He reached for her skirt.

“No, I think it'd be better if I did.”

Before he could take the hem again, she drew her skirt up her outstretched left leg. He stared as the toes of her black shoes appeared, then the rest of her shoe that reached halfway up her calf. Above it, a single handbreadth of lace was revealed. Breathing was suddenly a chore as his gaze wandered from her simple shoes to that lace that teased him to discover how much more was still hidden.

“Is that far enough?” she asked in the same faint voice.

He nodded, not sure he could speak. What was wrong with him? He had been in taverns and brothels along these rivers since he was not much older than K. C., and he had seen harlots showing off far more than this. He had become accustomed to their easy lack of inhibition as well as his own. So why was he now acting like a lad with his first woman?

“What's going on here?” asked Horace as he walked toward them.

His partner's voice freed Wyatt from his mesmerism with the leg in front of him. He cursed silently. He should not get all off-kilter about a leg hidden in enough lace to keep anyone from guessing its real shape. The problem was that he knew its shape after her leg had rested on his arm.

“Rachel twisted her ankle saving K. C. from a carriage that nearly ran the kid down. I'm checking it.”

“I can see that,” Horace said. “It looks as if you've got everything well in hand.”

Rachel's face became an explosion of red as Wyatt growled, “Horace, watch yourself.”

“Miss Rachel,” Horace hurried to say, “I didn't mean to insult you in any way.”

“I know that,” she replied, each word sounding more breathless than the one before and making Wyatt wonder how badly she had hurt herself. “You've been very nice to both Kitty Cat and me.” The look she gave Wyatt suggested that she would not say the same about him.

Wyatt shook his head, clearing it of the stupid thoughts of having this woman soft and willing and warm in his arms. She was prickly and disagreeable and cold as the ice that gathered at the river's edge on winter mornings. Maybe that was how the men liked their women in that strange group out at River's Haven, but not Wyatt Colton.

He cupped Rachel's left foot in his hand, moving it to rest on his thigh. Beads of sweat appeared on her forehead beneath her drab bonnet.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“I know that,” she said as she had to Horace.

“Can I do anything to help?” his partner asked.

“I'll let you know in a moment.” He looked up at Rachel again. She was biting her lower lip. “I'm going to unbutton your shoe now. It may hurt.”

She nodded. “All right.”

“You don't have to bear it in silence.”

“I know.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “Please be quick.”

Without a buttonhook, the tiny, stiff buttons on her shoe were uncooperative. K. C. sat on the bench and put her arms around Rachel. The little girl's bonnet dropped back over her shoulders. Leaning her head on K. C.'s curls, Rachel said nothing as he worked to remove her shoe.

He drew off her shoe and grimaced as he touched her already-swelling ankle. “Did you really expect to walk back to River's Haven on this?”

Rachel leaned forward to examine it. She was pleased when Wyatt moved aside. She was hurting too much to argue further with him. “I had no idea it was this bad.”

Kitty Cat slipped off the bench and sat cross-legged on the deck next to Wyatt. “We need some leeches,” she said with as much authority as if she were a grizzled doctor instead of a little girl.

“I'm afraid we're fresh out of leeches,” Wyatt said, ruffling her hair. “Horace, would you get some of those rags we were using in the boiler room?” When Rachel started to protest, he gave her a cockeyed grin and added, “The ones without dirt and rust on them.”

“Right away.”

As Horace went to get the rags, Wyatt asked, “Do you want something to ease that pain? I think there's some wine up in the saloon.”

“That might not be a bad idea.”

Kitty Cat jumped to her feet and offered to retrieve the bottle. When Wyatt told her where to find the wine, she rushed up the stairs.

He looked back at Rachel. “I thought you'd refuse a drink.”

“Why?”

“I figured you had some sort of rule at River's Haven that prohibited anything that wasn't on some approved list.”

“You have the wrong idea about our lives at River's Haven.”

“I don't think so. I think you have so many detestable rules out there that neither you nor K. C. can be penned in by them.”

“Me?”

He did not answer as he turned to take some rags from Horace. Gently he wound several of them around her ankle, taking care not to touch the swelling. She was amazed how comfortable the binding felt, for it seemed to enclose the pain and keep it from surging up her leg.