Page 60 of Heart on the Line

He looked like he wanted to say something, but she shook her head. She wasn’t finished.

“I know how much you want to help Grace. How you feel like she’s your responsibility, your victim to save. But you’re not the only one shouldering this load. There are good men looking for her. Smart and capable men who know Grace personally and care about her. Doesn’t the Bible say there’s a time to kill and a time to heal? Well, this is your time to heal, Lee. So stay put and heal. Please.”

“I can help, Helen.” He limped toward her, a muscle in his jaw twitching each time he put weight on his left leg. “I might not know Miss Mallory as well as these friends of yours, but I know Lockhart. I’ve studied him for months. I know how he thinks, the games he plays. My information can aid their search.”

Helen swallowed. He was right. And heaven help her, when he looked at her with those heroic green eyes, glowing with the fire of determination, she melted inside.

Yet not to the point of becoming a mindless puddle. The man still needed a keeper, and she was the only one fit for the job.

“All right,” she said. He blinked, no doubt stunned by her capitulation. Well, brace yourself, cowboy. This bronc ain’t done buckin’ just yet. “I want Grace found as much as you do, and if you have information that will help, I’ll get you in on the rescue action. But on my terms.”

The smile stretching beneath his mustache faltered. “What terms?”

“The men will return to town at nightfall. Hopefully, they’ll have found Grace by then. But if not, I’ll be sure you’re there to meet them. I’ll borrow Betty’s buckboard and drive you there. You are not to get anywhere near a horse.”

His mustache twitched suspiciously, but his lips didn’t curve. “I suppose I can live with that.” He gave her a pointed look. “For now.”

Helen ignored the qualifier. “And while we wait for the marshal and the others to return, you’ll do nothing more strenuous than lie around and run your mouth with all that essential information you feel so compelled to impart.”

“Anything else?” He spoke in a stern tone, but Helen was almost certain she saw a twinkle in his green eyes. It set her pulse to jumping like a pack of startled katydids.

“As a matter of fact, there is.” She eyed him from top to bottom. “You’re not going anywhere until we find you a decent pair of pants.”

Lee laughed. The deep, rich sound echoed through the tiny room and flooded Helen’s chest with an unfamiliar yet thoroughly delectable warmth. She wanted to grasp it, nestle it close, and never let it go.

But that would mean holding fast to the man before her. A man she had no right to hold.

Unless, of course, she was holding him in order to help him back to the bed, which might be required. As his laughter faded, so did his color, leaving him pale and bit unsteady on his feet.

Helen moved to his side and slid an arm about his waist. He smiled his thanks, a sheepish grin that seemed to admit his show of strength had been a thin veneer all along. It brought an answering smile to her lips, because it meant he trusted her enough to expose his weakness. Something people who’d grown up in their circumstances rarely did.

As she helped him to the bed, he wrapped his right arm around her shoulders. Surely just to ease his balance, but little frissons of awareness danced over her skin anyway. He limped, she supported, and the crutch mostly got in the way, but they managed to get to the bed in one piece. Not wanting to drop him into place and jar his wounded leg, Helen eased him down by sitting with him. His fingers dug into her upper arm as he let the crutch clatter to the floor and reached for the mattress with his left arm.

Thinking to fetch a cool cloth to wipe his brow, Helen started to rise, but Lee’s grip held firm on her shoulder.

She turned to him, her brows arching in question.

“I’m sorry about your mother.”

Five simple words shouldn’t have such a profound impact on her, but they did. Helen’s chin trembled slightly. She gritted her teeth to still the reaction. “Thank you,” she whispered as she dipped her head, the empathy radiating in his gaze too much to absorb.

People had said the same words to her countless times at her mother’s funeral, and even Betty and Katie had murmured similar sentiments when they learned of her history. Yet no one had ever spoken them with such depth of understanding, as if they recognized her pain because they had lived through it themselves. Somehow it hurt and healed at the same time.

He didn’t say anything else for a long minute. Just sat next to her and gently rubbed her arm with the fingertips that draped over her shoulder. Then, after a final squeeze, he withdrew his arm and braced it behind his back to better support his weight.

“Lockhart is a master manipulator.” Lee frowned at his injured leg, and Helen imagined the thoughts running through his head. Frustration at his limitations. Regret, perhaps even guilt, for letting himself be shot in the first place. As if he could have stopped such a thing from happening.

“We know,” Helen tried to reassure him. She pushed to her feet and crossed to the washstand to pour him a glass of water and fetch a cool rag. “The marshal is taking that into consideration.” She wrung out the excess water from the cloth, the droplets tinkling as they splashed into the basin. “Before I left town, I heard Tori say something to Emma about grabbing a list of all the ranchers and farmers in the area from her delivery records. She and Ben were going to mark the households that would be the most likely targets for a confidence man like Lockhart. Secluded places, homes with adult daughters or widows who would be susceptible to his flattery.”

Lee straightened, his forehead wrinkling. “Wait. There was a woman. On the train.” He shut his eyes tight. “Dark hair, I think. She wore a straw hat trimmed with a thick black ribbon. A schoolteacher.”

Helen stilled halfway around the bed. The water sloshed slightly in the glass, but it made no sound. Neither did she. Not even to breathe. She wanted nothing to distract Lee from his recollections. This could be the key to finding Grace.

“She boarded the Fort Worth & Denver City line in Washburn.” He moved his hands in the air as if physically arranging the train car and its passengers. “I was in the rear of the car, pretending to sleep with my hat pulled over my face. Lockhart sat four rows ahead, chatting across the aisle with some drummer selling patent medicines. The only females in the car were attached to families. Up front, a young wife, giggling and hanging on her husband’s arm as if they were on their wedding trip. And in the rear opposite me, a middle-aged woman traveling with four children who seemed determined to either climb on her, climb on each other, or climb over the seat in front of them to annoy the other passengers. Then the teacher boarded, and Lockhart lost all interest in the drummer.”

Lee finally opened his eyes, but his gaze remained unfocused and distant.

“Lockhart jumped to his feet to help her with her bag then offered to share his seat with her. She tried to refuse at first, but the only completely unoccupied seat was the one in front of the mother with the monkey children. When she pursed her lips in disapproval, Lockhart made some comment about how she reminded him of his favorite teacher, who’d been a strict disciplinarian but who’d also gone out of her way to ensure that he didn’t fall behind when he had to miss school to work the family farm. He quoted a poem or something fluffy and romantic, and the woman smiled. A gentle steering was all it required after that for him to get her to sit with him.