Clockwork Cowboy

Chapter 20

His head cracked against a chair as he fell. With her heart frozen in shock, Nova lunged to his aid. As a child she'd witnessed a large bull killed instantly from lesser impact to the skull. If a one tonne beast couldn't survive a blow like that, then how could Jese survive?

Despite her eagerness to distrust him, and her avid dislike of his playboy nature, Nova didn't want the man dead. Placing two fingers apprehensively to his throat, Nova found a faint but steady pulse. Hope surged in her heart. She rolled him to his side and made sure his head fell back slightly, opening his airways. The feeble sound of oxygen being dragged into his lungs was music to her ears.

Nova hadn't witnessed her father drinking himself into this kind of stupor before. The fact that Jese had managed to make her father look saintly - in less than a week of knowing him - was a bad omen for their future together.

She ran her hands down his sides, adjusting his limbs and checking for breaks. Her brows puckered together in consternation. The flash of scarlet she'd seen as he'd fallen forward had once again caught her attention. Inspecting it now, she found blood had seeped through a rough bandage - staining his sleeve.

The bandage was too high to inspect by rolling up the sleeve, so Nova unbuttoned his shirt and tugged it off. Uncovering a bronzed and masculine shoulder. Momentarily distracted from the task at hand by his blinding perfection.

With an angry shake of her head, she focused on the badly wrapped bandages. Managing to undo them without causing any blood flow, Nova reached the final swab. A torn petticoat. And under it she found a bullet wound, with shrapnel still embedded there. Yet a new low. Nova wondered if the gunfight had anything to do with the petticoat.

Hooking her arms under his armpits she dragged him inside and laid him next to the puppy's crate. With one last check of the wound, Nova went to find clean bandages.

When she returned - a short time later - with bandages and medicines, she found the furry little bundle clumsily dragging itself out of its crate with its front two legs. Desperate to get to Jese.

"No, no, no," Nova scolded the puppy. She scooped it up and placed it carefully back in its crate. "You can't trust him!" She gave the forlorn creature a scratch between the ears. "He thinks he is the Grim Reaper." Jese's threats to get rid of the pup were still fresh on her mind.

#

Jese woke from a deep sleep. His face was covered by a furry warm pillow, which was the proud owner of a strong heartbeat. Moving a hand to his face, he gently moved the object aside. Finding himself eyeballing the young pup. Not flustered by his rude awakening, the puppy yawned and rearranged himself under the woollen blanket which covered him.

He felt the antelope fur below them, and the warm glow on his exposed skin from the open fire. Glancing about he noticed his shirt had been replaced by a slightly larger blue creation, while his previous shirt hung on the back of a chair.

Hearing nothing but the odd bang of pots and pans coming from the next room, he called out to his hostess, "Nova?"

He heard the scrape of a chair being pushed back, and then his fiancee walked through the door, the peppery smell of cooking celery wafted after her. Nova's eyes sought his face, before a relieved smile reached her lips. "You're awake."

Those glorious curls that had been free around her shoulders when he'd last seen her were now pulled back in a practical manner. There was a soft expression which lingered around her eyes. Compassion? Caring? Could that woman be capable of such emotions?

He grimaced. Biting back the pain, "You didn't get rid of me that easily."

Her thorns returned quickly. The soft note of compassion in her eyes replaced with that of cool disdain. "I don't need to get rid of you. You are doing a good enough job by yourself."