Chapter One
The quarter moon and the few stars that hung in the sky gave the lone traveler, a young woman forced to travel to San Francisco alone when her cousin who had been accompanying her had been killed in a freak accident, very little light to travel in. She wished she could see the trees she was passing through better, but she couldn't make the moon change shapes or force more stars to come out; besides, she had no time to stop. If she made the kind of time she was hoping too, she'd be out into wide open country before the sun arose for the day. However, those plans were changed as she heard what sounded like a firearm going off and then the definite sound of a commotion off to her left. When the wind picked up and began kicking up some dirt, she pulled her scarf around the majority of her face and tied it so it wouldn't move. She then turned her horse off the path and pushed the animal through the woods. When she'd traveled, maybe, four hundred feet, she saw a man lying on the ground being attacked by three men. She quickly removed her small pistol from the pocket in her skirt and shot the man who was getting ready to stab their victim lying on the ground. The attacker dropped to the ground, dead. The other two men ran not even stopping to see who it was that had come upon them.
She jumped off her horse, ran to the stranger on the ground and gasped. He'd been shot in the shoulder and stabbed twice in the thigh. She quickly grabbed whatever cloth she happened to have in the supplies she always carried with her and went to work on stopping the bleeding. The few times she looked at the stranger's face she couldn't help but think 'he sure is a handsome one'. After she'd taken care of the stranger the best she could, she started hunting around to see if there was anything she could make a travois out of. While she wondered if the bullet had gone in through the front or the back, it didn't matter. The fact that bullet had gone straight through the man's shoulder made it so she didn't feel more panicked than she already felt. As it was, she consoled herself with the fact that at least she just had to tend to his wounds, not play surgeon.
"No," the man started tossing his back and forth, "Have to warn...have to warn my brother...' his voice trailed off as Marissa, who had knelt down beside him and laid her hand upon his uninjured shoulder.
"Shhh, you'll be fine, sir. I'm watchin' ya now. Nobody here's gonna hurt ya now. I give ya my word." She just hoped her aunt and uncle would understand her late arrival. She watched as the stranger opened up his eyes and as he looked upon the stranger who had stepped in to help him, as if to ask who she was and what had happened.
Feeling like she had no time for introductions, the young woman quickly told him how she'd found him and apologized for the dead man that was nearby. "I haven't had time to bury him. Who was he?" she asked glancing over at the dead man, though she never got an answer as the good looking stranger went to answer only to slip back into unconsciousness. She sighed as she retrieved her bedroll and began laying it out near the stranger. She'd never even come close to sleeping near a man before only she couldn't see how she was going to get away from doing it now. The man was hurt; he might need her help during the night. If she was to be there for him, she couldn't be sleeping hundreds of feet away from him.
"Well, girl," she said as she finished laying out her bed and began taking care of her horse, "it looks like we'll have to turn back in the mornin'. I don't have a clue how far the next town up the line is; however, Lodi isn't that far back. Our friend will need a doctor. After all, without proper medication, infection could set in." The horse only neighed as his owner tethered him to the closest true and then laid down. A portion of the young woman rested the best she could, the other part kept an ear open, prepared for what could prove to be one very long night.
~oOo~
"Jarrod! Heath!" Nick slammed the door behind him as he entered the house, causing Victoria, who had just been preparing to put new flowers on the small table in the living room, to jump slightly backwards.
"Nick!" Victoria looked at her middle son, who looked as if he had more than one layer of dirt upon his clothes and face, with exasperation in her voice. "Can you not enter a home without raising the roof?"
"Sorry, mother." Nick apologized as he entered the living room, looking around as he did. "I thought Jarrod and Heath were supposed to be back by now." His brothers had gone to Lodi; Jarrod to see a client and Heath to talk to a man about some horses. Nick had been expecting them home for the past few hours, and he was now growing impatient.
"Jarrod sent a wire this morning. His business is taking a bit longer than he thought it would." Victoria told him once she had the flowers in place. "He also said Heath was having a bit of trouble ironing out the deal on the horses." The fact that she wasn't worried could be seen, as she was more than relaxed as she stepped away from the table.
Nick was annoyed at that. He was sure it meant "Old Man Johnson" was trying to raise the price on the horses to a ridiculous amount. Only there was nothing he could do about it at the moment. He had to grab a sandwich and get back out to the north pasture and get the fence fixed, not just repaired enough to keep the cattle from leaving their land. "Well hope they both get home soon. Fred needed to talk to Jarrod about a man he has in the jail, and I need Heath's help here on the ranch." Nick growled the last part as he left the living room and headed to the dining room.
Victoria only smiled as she followed her son. She might have told him to settle down, and that his brothers would surely be home by the following day. Surely he could survive a twenty-four hour delay.