Page 47 of Heart on the Line

“It’s what I can do for you, Miss Mallory.” He thumped the crate down on her counter, the loud bang making her wince. Then he patted the top of the box and winked. “I believe this is the package we’ve been waiting for.”

Personally, Grace would have preferred waiting a little longer. And having a different deliveryman. Amos or the marshal, for instance.

“From San Antonio? My, that was fast.” She forced a small smile to her lips as she stepped closer and pretended to examine the address on the box. Dunbar loomed over her, close enough that she could feel his breath on the top of her head. Too close. Too . . . unsettling.

Grace stepped back and cleared her throat. “Thank you for delivering this. I should have time to sort through the contents later this afternoon. I’ll send word—”

His palm slapped the wood of the crate. Grace flinched. “Why wait?” Dunbar winked at her again as if he were laughing at her puny efforts to shoo him away. He flung the outer door closed with a flick of his wrist, then strode down the counter to the half-door that separated her office from the customer area. He reached over the top, unlatched the small bolt that held it closed, and pushed through, crossing bold as brass into her inner sanctum.

“Mr. Dunbar!” Grace protested. “Customers are not allowed in this part of the office. Western Union officers only.”

“Aw, who’s gonna know?” He marched over to where the crate sat and hefted it up off the counter as if the box of books weighed little more than a crate of goose down.

Grace scuttled backward.

“Besides, I’ve seen Bledsoe back here with you. If it ain’t off limits for him, it ain’t off limits for me.” He swept past her and dropped the box onto her desk. On top of the message she’d just copied for Emma.

That put some starch in her spine. Grace marched over to the desk, grabbed the corner of the document she’d been working on, then tried to lift the edge of the box enough to slip the paper out. The box didn’t budge. Not until Dunbar, drat his too-muscled hide, lifted it back up for her. His smirk sparked her indignation even higher as she yanked the page out from under the box and tucked it under her logbook to keep the contents confidential.

“I’ll have you know that Mr. Bledsoe is a Western Union agent, as well,” she pronounced. “From Denison. He has privileges that you do not.”

Dunbar leaned an elbow on the crate and ran his gaze over her. “Oh, I think we all know about his privileges.”

Grace bristled. “How dare you make such ugly insinuations. I insist you leave. At once.”

“You want me gone?” He shrugged as if her desires were really of no consequence to him. Which they weren’t, obviously. “Then I suggest we open this box and retrieve the items you promised me.”

He leaned closer, his eyes losing their teasing light.

Tori had been right. His eyes were cold. And hard.

“Once I have what I came for,” he said in a menacing tone that sent shivers of alarm shooting down her spine, “I’ll be on my way.”

24

Helen woke from her doze with a start. Her neck, stiff after falling asleep in the least comfortable chair known to man, sent a sharp jolt of protest through the muscles at the base of her skull as she jerked her head around to check on her patient.

“Sorry,” Lee mumbled with a grimace as he reached for his injured thigh. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Helen lurched forward, grabbing the Bible in her lap at the last second before it slid to the floor. Carefully, she set the book next to a glass of water on the small table near the head of the bed, then stood and checked his injury. “Is it paining you?”

What a stupid question. He had a hole in his thigh. Of course it was paining him.

“Not too bad.” He glanced at her, a guilty, little-boy-caught-red-handed look on his face. “Until I try to move.”

“Well, don’t move then,” she scolded.

Good grief. She’d finally found a man she wanted to impress, and here she was dousing him with vinegar instead of honey.

He chuckled, though, and the sound muted her self-recriminations. Perhaps this one actually preferred tart to sweet. What a boon that would be. Tart was her specialty.

Lee shifted a bit on the mattress. “I . . . uh . . .”—his gaze dodged hers—“got to make use . . . of the chamber pot.”

“Oh!” Helen snapped upright. “Um . . . do you . . . need help?”

She and Claire had cut away his denims to make sure there weren’t any hidden wounds, so all he wore were his drawers. The quilt covered his lower extremities, though, exposing only his thigh so she could change the bandage or apply a new poultice.

Still, the man was injured. He needed a nurse, not a shy female nervous about seeing a man in his underclothes. If he required assistance, she’d do what needed to be done.