Free Elizabeth Lane by Lydia Page A

back onto the ground.
    “What is it? Your ribs? Keep still a minute.” Her fingertips slid over his sun-burnished flesh as she fought to detach her feelings, to make believe this was just another injured man she was touching, and not Donovan Cole.
    But try as she might, Sarah could not close her mind to the manliness of his body—the finely sculpted curve of arm and shoulder, the splendor of his broadly muscled torso, the shadow of coarsely curling chestnut hair that trickled along the midline of his flat, tan belly to disappear in- Stop it! Sarah tore her eyes away from the distinctly male bulge that rose below his belt line. There was no part of a man she hadn’t seen before, she reminded herself bitterly. Donovan would be no different from Reginald Buckley, or from anyone else, for that matter.
    He flinched visibly, biting back a yelp of pain as Sarah’s fingers probed along his left side.
    “Hurts there, does it?” She paused, studiously avoiding Donovan’s eyes.
    His sharp exhalation answered her question.
    “Nothing feels broken, but you may have a cracked rib or two. How about your legs? Your arms?” Sarah tried to sound disinterested, as if it didn’t matter one way or the other. She was conscious of the three children, huddled in a worried little cluster, watching and waiting.
    “My legs and arms are fine!” he groused. “Annie, Katy, you take Samuel and go back in the house! This isn’t a blasted sideshow!”
    “They’re just concerned about you,” Sarah murmured as the youngsters scattered for the porch. “And you can hardly blame them, after what happened to their father.”
    “Oh, damnation, don’t I know it?” Donovan sat up gingerly, blood dripping down his temple to mingle with the rough, reddish whiskers on his unshaven jaw. “I’d give anything if they’d just pull up stakes and go back to Kansas with me. But Varina’s as stubborn as that mule of yours. This was Charlie’s land, and now it’s hers. She won’t budge an inch.”
    “Varina’s the finest woman I know. But you’re right, she can be stubborn. Hold still, now, while I clean up that gash on your head. Then we’ll see to your ribs.” Sarah fished a pint of cheap whiskey and a clean wad of cotton wool out of her bag. “This’ll sting some.”
    He held himself rigid, wincing as she dabbed away the blood. “This doesn’t change anything, you know,” he muttered through clenched teeth.
    “I didn’t expect it to.”
    “You’ve still got till Monday night to be gone from Miner’s Gulch. Otherwise, I spill your treachery to the whole town.”
    “Save your bluster, Donovan.” Sarah balled another wad of cotton wool and saturated it with the whiskey, hoping he wouldn’t notice her quivering hands. “I told you I wasn’t leaving. I meant it.”
    His green eyes, inches from her own, narrowed like a puma’s. “If you’re gambling on the chance that I’ll back off, forget it. You’re the lying scum of the earth, Sarah Parker Buckley, or whatever your name is. I’ve hanged nobler souls than you, and I won’t have my nieces and nephews growing up under your influence. I won’t have my sister—ouch!” Donovan snarled as the stinging alcohol penetrated raw flesh.
    Sarah had never realized words could hurt so much. Inwardly she recoiled as if he had struck her, but nothing showed in her face. Whatever happened, she could not let him see how deeply he had wounded her. She could not give him the satisfaction or the power.
    Gulping back tears, she forced her features into an icy mask. “I’ll not have you telling me where I can or can’t make my home,” she declared coldly. “Do your worst, Donovan. It won’t make any difference. I can be just as stubborn as your sister, and I’m not going anywhere.”
    “Then you’re a fool.” He stared sullenly past her shoulder as she applied a plaster to the cut. Her hands trembled where they touched his face. More than anything, she wanted to be done with this