Page 38 of At Love’s Command

He didn’t smile, just held her gaze with serious intent. “You’re right. I was so focused on the task in front of me, I didn’t give a thought to what others might need. What you might need. Forgive me.”

His eyes glowed with such fervor, such sincerity, she barely managed a whispered, “You’re forgiven.”

Finally, a smile touched his lips. A crooked half-grin that had her stomach attempting acrobatics. “Thank you for the use of your horse. It’ll save us some money and perhaps some time.”

Josephine bit back a smile at his attempt to soften his honesty. She was costing them time. They’d had a packhorse hired and ready to go, and they would have been on the road by now if she hadn’t stormed across the street to confront them. But she didn’t regret it. Time wasn’t the only valuable commodity to be considered. Trust. Openness. Communication. They were important too. And had she not come, Matthew would have left never knowing how she felt, and she would have stewed over his callous disregard for her feelings. But now . . . now he stood before her, promising to take her needs into consideration and proving once again that his honor ran as deep as his loyalty. A woman could build a life with this man. Even an opinionated physician who’d thought herself destined for the shelf of spinsterhood.

Of course, he had to be agreeable to such an arrangement. Oh, and survive his mission—the mission she’d assigned him.

One by one, the Horsemen reappeared, apparently having decided they’d given their commander sufficient time to smooth the lady’s ruffled feathers.

Yet Matthew never looked at them. He looked only at her. “Do you have any other questions or concerns?”

She had a lot of concerns, mostly centered around everyone making it out of Uvalde in one piece. But she shook her head. “I’d still like to say that prayer, though. If your men wouldn’t mind.”

Matthew raised his arm and made a sharp motion with his hand that his men responded to without question. In the next moment, she was surrounded on all sides, the shadows from their bodies blocking out the sun.

“Hats off, boys,” Matthew ordered. “Josie’s gonna pray for us.”

All three removed their hats and bowed their heads as if prayer was a familiar posture.

Josephine dipped her own head and folded her hands at her waist. “Dear Lord, watch over these brave men. Keep them safe from harm, and grant them success in rescuing Charlie. May they be like David’s mighty men, striking fear in the hearts of the wicked and winning victory for the cause of the righteous. We ask these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

A quiet chorus of amens echoed around her as faces lifted and hats found their way back to heads.

“A fine prayer, ma’am.”

Josephine blinked. The compliment came from Mr. Brooks. She nodded, feeling acceptance from him for the first time.

The Horsemen moved to their respective horses and started to mount. Josephine followed Matthew, not quite ready to separate from him.

Matthew looked over the back of his horse toward Mr. Davenport. “Got a verse for us, Preach?”

The big man swung up into the saddle, peered off into the distance for a moment, then turned back toward her and winked. “Romans 8:31. ‘If God be for us, who can be against us?’”

He gave a waggle of his brows, then set off. Wallace and Brooks followed. But as Matthew started to mount, Josephine took hold of his arm.

“Wait.”

He pulled his foot out of the stirrup and pivoted to face her.

Without taking time to think the instinct through, Josephine pushed up to her tiptoes, grabbed his face, and planted a kiss on his mouth. “Be careful,” she ordered before she turned her back and marched across the street to her boardinghouse.

Several dozen thudding heartbeats pounded in her chest before she finally heard the sound of Phineas’s hooves cantering out of town. Only then did she turn to watch Matthew ride away.

He made a glorious picture. Tall in the saddle. Valiant. Unafraid of the dangers that lurked ahead. A hero on a noble quest.

A rather romantic notion for a woman who’d packed away dreams of handsome knights long ago in favor of the reality of a career in medicine. It seemed she hadn’t done quite as good a packing job as she’d thought, however, for all the quantifiable scientific evidence coursing through her at the moment pointed to one undeniable conclusion. She was falling in love with Matthew Hanger.

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

Matt hunkered behind a rock at the rim of a canyon wall and lifted a pair of field glasses to his eyes. He counted twelve men in the outlaw camp below. Fifteen horses in the remuda, meaning there could be other men in the area not in his line of sight. The surplus mounts might be pack animals, but Matt preferred to plan for the worst possible odds instead of blindly hoping for the best.

It had taken nearly two hours of scouting this morning to locate the camp. The ransom exchange was supposed to take place at noon by a large dead oak known as the Hanging Tree two miles west of Uvalde. A rather grim landmark, but one the locals knew well.

Wallace had uncovered the location of the infamous tree with nothing more than a roguish smile and a listening ear. After dark fell the night before, he’d snuck into town, infiltrated the largest of the five saloons on the main thoroughfare, and worked his charm on one of the ladies employed there. Not only did he discover the location of the tree, but he gathered intelligence on a new gang holed up somewhere outside of town. A gang whose members drank hard and treated their paid companions with a rough hand. Wallace offered a sympathetic ear to one such companion and learned that her Friday night customer had bragged during their last encounter about coming into some money soon. He’d be able to afford a high-class strumpet for his next pleasuring and would no longer have to put up with her inferior attentions. Still carrying a grudge over that indignity, the woman had told Wallace everything she could about the man—mean eyes, pockmarked face, and a bright blue neckerchief riddled with tobacco stains tied about his neck.