Free Swept Away by Mary Connealy Page A

A chest of drawers stood beside the bed, cleared off except for a tidy lace circle with a brush and comb and mirror centered on the lace.
    “I’ve had a steady stream of patients for the last couple of hours, which is why I couldn’t get up here until now.” Dare’s voice had more of a bite than Luke liked, especially as it was directed at Rosie. “Someone might have heard you moving around.”
    “Yes, I realized that.” Rosie tugged on the corner of the bedspread, already very neat, but apparently she thoughtshe could improve on it. “If I needed to take a step, I listened for your voice and could tell when you were walking your patients out. Then I’d move to another section of the room and sat quietly while I tidied it.”
    “You bought this house with this junk already in it?” Luke sat at the table, complete with tablecloth.
    “These things belong to someone else?” Rosie seemed very interested in that.
    “I mentioned that the families moved out of Broken Wheel. Whoever owned the house left a lot of stuff behind. It all came with the place, so now I own it. I need to get rid of everything, but I’ve stayed busy doctoring and it’s been easy to ignore it.”
    “Get rid of?” Rosie jumped as if she’d been poked with a pin. “So then if there are clothes of a size that might fit me, I could . . . could . . .”
    “You could have them, with my thanks for finding a use for them.” Dare made a grand gesture. “There’s nothing in this room I want.”
    “How can you say that when you don’t know what’s in here? You might be giving away valuable things.”
    Dare paused, his brow lowered as he thought that over. “If you find a satchel filled with gold coins, I’ll kick up a fuss. Otherwise it’s all yours.”
    “I’ve been through most everything and there’s not a speck of gold to be found. But that box right there”—she pointed to a crate sitting by itself—“has women’s clothes about my size. I’m wearing a dress, a pair of shoes, and a few other . . . um, garments I found in here.”
    Since Luke didn’t see anything on her but the dress, he decided the garments were unmentionables. He was glad she hadn’t mentioned them.

    “I would be sincerely grateful for the use of these things—that is, if you’re sure.”
    “They’re yours.” Dare poured himself a cup of coffee.
    Luke was starving and in no mood to talk about the contents of a junk room. He’d just spent the night in a cramped attic with a ceiling three feet above the floor. So he’d been lying down with few other choices. There was so much junk in the attic, he’d been hard-pressed to find a space big enough to stretch out and sleep. And now, as he considered it, it made sense that Dare hadn’t accumulated this many things in the two months he’d been living in Broken Wheel.
    Luke had to admit, it had never occurred to him to tidy up.
    “I did a bit of dusting, but the room needs to be scrubbed. I’ll need warm water to do it right.” Rosie began dishing up a plate for Luke. He enjoyed her fussing even as he felt guilty over her serving him.
    Not that he could have stopped her.
    She had an oddly fierce look in her eye, as if an undone task before her was an insult, a sin she was committing by not setting to work.
    There were three empty plates. Rosie waved Dare toward the table. “You haven’t had time to eat either, unless you got a very early start. I haven’t heard you take a break all morning.”
    Dare sat as Rosie served him breakfast. She asked, “Did that woman come back last night?”
    “Nope. But after she and Bullard left, I had a wrangler come in with a broken arm. Got in a fight over at the saloon. I got a couple hours’ sleep before my first patient of the morning.”

    Rosie patted Dare on the shoulder as she set a filled plate before him. That irked Luke for no reason he could understand. But she shouldn’t be putting her hands on a man, and especially not Dare Riker. He’d been