Once A Gunslinger Read online

  Working quickly, she pulled on the pump over the sink until water filled one of her largest pots. She put it on to boil and then grabbed some clean rags from the linen closet to use as bandages.

  Upstairs, she stripped the heavy quilt from the bed her father had slept in until his death two years ago, and then covered the mattress with a big oilcloth and the oldest sheets in the house. They couldn’t let the man die, but she wasn’t about to let some gunfighter bleed all over her mother’s fine featherbed.

  Stepping back, she surveyed the large corner bedroom where her father had spent his last days. She still gave the room a thorough cleaning every week. The oak nightstand and dresser were free of dust and the lace curtains, which let sunlight through the two banks of windows, were pristine white.

  The old wagon groaned and creaked outside the window, scattering her thoughts and alerting her that her brothers had returned with the patient. She peered through the glass and noticed the unfamiliar black horse tied to the back of the vehicle. Even from this distance, she could tell the animal was a beauty.

  Joel and Ian struggled to hoist the man’s inert body from the wagon bed, and Billy raced out of the barn to help them. At last they headed toward the house, the gunfighter balanced awkwardly between them.

  Savannah rushed down the stairs and threw open the back door. As they approached, her gaze was drawn to the stranger’s burnished blond hair and dusty black clothing. He was large and lean—familiar somehow. They drew closer, and the sight of the man’s pale, blood‐streaked face riveted her.

  Her heart stopped, and then picked up again double time. Joel’s patient was no stranger. He was Tristan Kane. The only man she’d ever loved.

  Chapter Two

  Pain. Blinding, twisting pain.

  A red‐hot curtain of agony blurred Tristan’s vision. Terror pierced him when he heard the low murmur of voices. He’d gotten his wish—Johnny had shot him. But apparently, death didn’t bring the peace he’d hoped for.

  “I’m in hell,” he whispered, knowing there was no other explanation. He hadn’t earned heaven.

  A sharp laugh erupted from his right. “Not yet. But don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll make it there eventually.” The voice was all too familiar. No demon; simply part of his past.

  He forced his eyes open, wincing when Joel McKenzie’s face came into focus. “God. Not you.”

  It was strange to see his old friend after all this time. So much had changed, yet Joel still looked remarkably the same.

  “If you wanted to kill yourself, why didn’t you do it somewhere else? You knew I couldn’t let you die, you son of a bitch.” Joel’s voice was weary and bitter, and Tristan realized looks could be deceiving. Joel had changed nearly as much as he had.

  Tristan met Joel’s furious gaze for a long, tense moment. “How could you let me live?” he said at last. “You know what I am. What I’ve done.”

  Joel shook his head and turned away to wash his hands in a basin of steaming water near the bed. “I know what you think you are. But I’m in no position to judge.”

  Tristan closed his eyes, humbled and shamed. Joel had always possessed the ability to see both sides of a situation. It was an attribute Tristan had long envied, for he had never known anything but black and white.

  Abrupt and businesslike, Joel asked, “Can you turn over? I need to dig out that bullet and stitch you up before you lose any more blood. You were lucky. You’ll be sore and weak for a while, but it really isn’t that bad.”

  Tristan ignored Joel’s request. He’d hidden the scars that criss‐crossed his back for years and didn’t intend to let anyone, even Joel, see them now.

  “Quit being stubborn, Tristan. Joel’s only trying to help.” A soft, feminine voice intruded on the silence, shaking Tristan to his very soul.

  Until this second, he hadn’t thought to question his surroundings, but now he realized Joel must have taken him home instead of to his office. He turned his head slowly, hoping he was hallucinating. But as he’d feared, Joel’s sister, Savannah, stood on the other side of his bed.

  Her blue eyes were dark with concern, and her auburn hair fell about her slim shoulders in riotous disarray. If he’d looked in her direction first, he’d have thought he was in heaven, not hell, because she was still lovelier than any angel.

  “Get her out of here,” he muttered, speaking to Joel, but unable to tear his gaze from Savannah. “Then I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “Nonsense. Joel needs me to assist him.” Savannah’s voice was smooth and determined, but he saw the hurt that flared in her beautiful eyes.

  Joel seemed oblivious to the undercurrents. He laughed, his good humor restored. “Tristan, you remember Savannah, don’t you?”

  Of course, Tristan remembered her. She’d been seventeen the last time he’d seen her. A lovely little butterfly—battering the hell out of his heart with her gossamer wings.

  He’d always loved her, even when they were children, and she’d followed him around like a lost puppy. When they’d grown older, he’d courted her for nearly a year. He’d intended to marry her, but the war had ruined his plans.

  She’d never understood his decision to fight for the Confederacy, especially since her entire family had remained loyal to the Union. She’d begged him not to go, forcing him to make a choice. He’d foolishly walked away from her, starting the downward spiral that had ended this morning when Johnny Muldoon had put a bullet in his back.

  She’d crossed his mind more times than he could count during the last few years, but he’d always assumed she’d married someone else long ago. A quick glance at her left hand proved his supposition wrong. He knew a moment of sharp, stinging joy when he saw she didn’t wear another man’s ring.

  To cover his discomfort, he glared at her, willing her to go away. He could take anything at this stage in his life except renewed hope.

  Savannah stared back, her blue gaze steady and searching. “It’ll be all right, Tristan. I promise.”

  He didn’t want her promises, didn’t want anything from her at all.

  It was too late now to think about what might have been. Besides, she would be horrified when she found out what he had become.

  The hell with it. He struggled to turn over as Joel had asked. Let them look. The mess a Yankee prison guard had made of his back would send Savannah running faster than any words ever could.

  Joel stepped forward and helped him shrug out of his shirt. Dried blood made the cloth stick to the wound. Despite Joel’s gentleness, Tristan nearly passed out from the pain.

  Joel drew in a sharp, shocked gasp when the cloth fell away, revealing what lay beneath. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Elmira,” Tristan answered. “One of the guards took a dislike to me.” As he spoke, he held Savannah’s gaze, daring her to flinch or look away.

  She did neither. Her eyes widened but, other than that, she gave no visible sign of the disgust she must be feeling. He wondered why it surprised him. She’d always been brave; his pretty little Savannah.

  It was all too much. He’d expected to see Joel, had known he’d have to face some painful truths by coming here. But he hadn’t prepared for Savannah. She made him long to be the man he’d been before war and guilt had changed him.

  The memories came fast and hard, overwhelming him. He was drowning in the depths of her eyes, losing the distance he struggled so hard to maintain.

  “Oh, Tristan,” she whispered.

  He couldn’t bear the pity he heard in her soft voice. Closing his eyes, he flexed his shoulder, welcoming the intense pain. It broke over him in waves, chasing away the image of a little girl with skinned‐up knees and auburn pigtails who had looked at him as though he’d hung the moon.

  It was better if Savannah pitied him. God knew he no longer deserved her love or respect.

  Darkness stole into the corners of his consciousness, and he let it claim him. Oblivion was far preferable to the agony of remembrance.

  * * *
* *

  “Is he all right?” Savannah tried to remain calm, but it was impossible, given the fact that Tristan had just gone still as death.

  Joel leaned forward and pressed two fingers to the tanned column of his patient’s throat, then drew back with a look of relief. “He’s unconscious. It’s probably for the best. I’m going to take the rest of these bloody clothes off, and then I’ll need you to help me turn him.”

  “I’ll try.” Shaken to the core by the events of the last ten minutes, she was unable to do anything but watch as her brother stripped Tristan Kane bare, then wrapped a sheet around his lean hips.

  She traced the familiar contours of Tristan’s beloved face with her gaze, finding all the little ways in which time and disillusionment had aged him. There were fine lines around his eyes, and his sensual mouth seemed perpetually grim. His brow was furrowed with pain, and she longed to bend forward and brush her lips against the lean curve of his sun‐bronzed cheek.

  Unfortunately, she’d given up the right to comfort him long ago.

  At Joel’s signal, she reached out and placed her hands on Tristan’s body. She braced one on his bare shoulder, the other at his waist, trying to ignore the warmth of his skin beneath her fingertips.

  A lock of his hair brushed her knuckles, and she gave in to the urge to tuck the errant strands behind his ear. She’d always loved his hair. It was the color of wheat, thick and rich, too long now, but still beautiful.

  Tristan’s hair was exactly the same color as Billy’s. Dear God, what am I going to tell him about Billy?

  Joel began probing the wound, and she forced herself to concentrate on holding Tristan steady. It was difficult because the sight of his blood made her tremble with terror. She’d assisted Joel before and had grown accustomed to the death and violence men did each other, but this time everything was different.

  Tristan wasn’t just another patient. He meant far more to her than he should.

  “How about you? Are you all right?” Joel flicked the twisted ball of lead he’d extracted from Tristan’s body into a tin dish on the dresser.

  Irrelevantly, she noted that it was the same dish her father had once used for spare change.

  Joel’s blue gaze held hers in silent understanding. “I know this must be hard for you.”

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Her brother knew something of her feelings for Tristan Kane, but even he couldn’t possibly realize how difficult she found it to be here, touching this man who she’d loved one way or another for as long as she could remember.

  She handed Joel the basin of hot water then watched as he washed Tristan’s skin. The metallic scent of blood assaulted her senses, and she gave in to the insistent pull of memories in an attempt to escape it.

  Ten years had passed since she and Tristan had parted, but her heart had always belonged to him, never to Michael.

  Michael. The thought of her late husband riddled her with guilt, as it always did. She turned her face from Joel’s sympathetic gaze and squeezed her eyes shut, determined not to let the threatening tears fall. Was it so wrong to be happy that Tristan had survived the war when Michael had not?

  Of course, it was wrong. She’d given Tristan an ultimatum, her or the Confederacy, never dreaming he’d turn and walk away.

  Broken‐hearted and pregnant, she’d turned to Tristan’s twin, begging him for help. Michael hadn’t wanted Tristan’s child to be born a bastard so he’d proposed, graciously saving her reputation in the bargain.

  He’d wanted a true marriage, though she hadn’t realized it at the time. He’d promised to give her time to get over Tristan and grow accustomed to the thought of sharing his bed, but he’d left for the war just days after their wedding, and she’d only seen him twice after that. Both times, she’d refused his advances.

  Then he’d been killed. Guilt and regret had been her constant companions ever since.

  She never should have married Michael. She should have been stronger. She should have proudly admitted that the child she carried belonged to Tristan and waited for him to come back.

  Joel began to stitch the ragged wound, and her gaze fell to the scars that knotted Tristan’s upper back. Prison, he’d said. Until today, she hadn’t even known he’d spent time in Elmira. He’d been whipped. She couldn’t imagine what else he’d suffered.

  One thing was certain, Tristan was no longer the sweet, quiet boy she’d fallen in love with. He was a gunfighter. A hardened, cold‐blooded killer.

  At last Joel finished and stepped back, washing his hands in a basin of water. He’d read an article by an English doctor named Lister not long ago. She’d heard him say a dozen times in the last few months that he could have saved hundreds of men during the war if he’d only known then what he knew now. As far as she knew, this was the first time he’d had a chance to use those principles.

  She prayed they worked.

  “I need to get out of here for a few minutes,” Joel told her, his voice rough with emotion. “Would you mind staying with him for a while?”

  Savannah wanted to protest. She needed to escape. She needed time to pull herself together after the shock of seeing Tristan again. But she knew this had been hard on Joel, too.

  Michael had died in Joel’s care, of a gunshot wound Tristan had inflicted. She wondered if her brother blamed Tristan, or if he truly believed it to be the accident he’d described when he’d told her of her husband’s death.

  “Go ahead,” she murmured. “Take all the time you need. I’ll be fine.”

  Joel gave her a relieved glance, then left the room. Once he was gone, she allowed herself to gaze down at Tristan’s pale, beloved face.

  . “Don’t you dare die. I can’t bear to lose you again.”

  * * * * *

  After leaving Tristan in Savannah’s capable hands, Joel headed for the liquor cabinet in the parlor. He pulled out a bottle of old scotch, intent upon drowning his guilt and anger in the bottom of a glass.

  “That’s not the answer, Joel.” Ian’s reproving tone startled Joel so badly he nearly dropped the bottle. He’d been so focused on his goal he hadn’t even noticed his brother in the room.

  “Mind your own business.” Joel turned to give Ian a scathing glare. “You don’t know anything about it.”

  “Don’t I?” Ian raised an eyebrow and put aside the book he’d been reading. He leaned back in the old leather chair that had been their father’s favorite. “How is he?”

  Joel grabbed two glasses and sat down in the chair across from his brother, pouring them both a shot. “He’s lost a lot of blood, but I think he’ll be fine.”

  The bracing scent of the whiskey made his hands shake. It had been a long time since he’d given in to his weakness, but he was badly in need of liquid courage tonight.

  Ian took the glass he offered, downing the drink in one quick swallow. “I nearly had to hogtie Billy to keep him away from Tristan’s room, especially after I told him Tristan was his uncle. He’s got a bad case of hero worship. In fact, I think he’s out practicing his quick draw right now.”

  “Wonderful.” Joel grimaced and put his drink aside, untouched. Ian was right. He’d need all his wits about him if his patient’s condition worsened. “He’s changed.”

  “Haven’t we all?” Ian stared off into space for a moment, obviously battling his own demons. They seldom spoke of the war, and Joel had no wish to dredge up the past tonight.

  “I shouldn’t have brought him here, but all I could think about was getting him away from that crowd. I couldn’t let him die that way. Not after I lost Michael.”

  Ian’s blue eyes held sudden understanding. “Michael’s death wasn’t your fault, Joel.”

  Joel gave a bitter laugh. “Wasn’t it? The wound Tristan received today is far worse than the one he gave Michael. I made a mistake. That’s the only reason Michael isn’t with us today, happily married to Savannah and raising a passel of children.”

  Ian shook his head, his dark hair falling ove
r his forehead. “You’re a doctor, not God. You did the best you could.”

  Joel buried his face in his hands, unable to meet his brother’s confident gaze. “I wish I could be sure.”

  But he could never be sure. And he didn’t want to tell Ian his reason for doubt. How could he admit he’d been stumbling, stinking drunk the day Michael died?

  But how much longer could he hide it now that Tristan had come back into their lives?

  * * * * *

  Tristan ran.

  His heart pounded in his chest, and each breath of smoke‐filled air strained his burning lungs. No matter how fast he ran, he couldn’t escape the death and destruction that followed him.

  Crashing through the blazing undergrowth, he dodged the bloody, sightless corpses littering his path. Bullets whined like angry bees past his ears, and the thundering roar of cannons reverberated inside his pounding head.

  He never would have found his way through the chaos if not for the voice that called from up ahead, prodding him on. A voice that sounded so much like his own.

  “Just a little farther. You’re almost there.”

  His limbs leaden, Tristan fought to take those last few steps. He couldn’t breathe. Michael was so close now but, when he stretched toward him, his hand closed on thin air. Michael slipped away from him, as he always did.

  “You killed me.” Michael reappeared, suddenly serious, his image shimmering just beyond reach. “Why did you do it? How could you kill me?”

  Tristan fell to his knees, clenching his fists as the flames drew nearer. “I’m sorry, Michael,” he sobbed, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I’m so damned sorry.”

  And then the fire consumed him.

  When Tristan awoke, he was drenched in sweat and trembling from the reality of the nightmare. It was the same dream he’d had nearly every night since Michael’s death, but it never lost its power. Sometimes he went days without sleep just to escape it.

  He attempted to sit up, but sank back with a groan when a shaft of pain ricocheted through his shoulder. He surveyed his surroundings warily, battling overwhelming weakness and disorientation.