Jesse by Barbara Goss (best romantic books to read TXT) 📗

She brought in Shep to feed him. Charlie stroked his shiny coat.  She recalled how Shep had growled at her brother. “You knew that Leo was a bad one, didn’t you, boy?”

Charlie was glad to have Shep for company. Each night, he slept on a rug at the foot of the bed.

Two weeks had gone by, and there was still no word about Leo or Jesse.  Charlie thought about putting on her gun belt and hunting for Leo herself.

Jesse was in her prayers every night.  Why hadn't he come home yet?

Jesse opened his eyes slowly. He wondered where he was and what had happened to him.  He tried to sit up, but severe pain knocked him back down.  He was in a neatly furnished room with fluffy white curtains on the windows and a few chairs near a bureau.  Where in blazes was he?  And how did he get there?  Why did his body ache so?

He felt around.  Someone had propped him up with several pillows behind him. Why?

Jesse closed his eyes and tried to bring up his last memory.  He remembered having a bite to eat at an eating place... Jesse held his head as he tried to recall more. Yes!  He recollected Roy walking in and approaching him, but then his memory grew foggy.

He had to get home to Charlie.  He was done tracking Leo and his gang. Jesse closed his eyes again and tried to remember what had happened to him, but he couldn’t recall anything beyond confronting Roy.  They must have had a shootout, but he didn’t remember it.

The door to the room opened, and Jesse turned to see a man he’d never seen before enter the room and walk up to his bed.

 “So, you are awake!”

The man was small, gray-haired, and wore wire-rimmed spectacles.

“Where am I?  Who are you?”

The man turned and pulled up a chair to sit by Jesse’s bed.

“I’m Dr. Benedict.  Josiah Benedict.  You are a guest in my home.  I thought you’d be more comfortable here in my home rather than at my clinic, and safer, too.”

“Safer?”

“You have a nice hole in your back,” he said.  “Anyone who would shoot a man in the back is dangerous.  I wanted to keep you safe.”

“My back?  Someone shot—” Jesse stopped mid-sentence.  He remembered challenging Roy to a shootout, and that scoundrel had shot him in the back.  Jesse felt like jumping from the bed and racing to find Roy Barkley.  "That lily-livered chicken.”

“Do you know who shot you?” the doctor asked.

“Roy Barkley.  He works at the lumberyard.”

 “I’ll have the sheriff pay Mr. Barkley a visit after I examine you.  I saved the bullet I pulled from your back.  If it matches his gun... well, he’s going to jail, so don’t worry.”

“I’d love to get a hold of him myself, but I just want to go home.”

“You won’t be going anywhere for a while.”

Jesse tried to sit up again, but the doctor pushed him gently down.  “You’re a lucky man.  The bullet nicked a lung and barely missed your spine.  If it had hit your spine, you might have been paralyzed.  You are also fortunate that someone in the street was smart enough to apply pressure and carry you quickly to the clinic or you’d have bled to death.”  The doctor peered at him from above his spectacles.  “Are you a praying man, by any chance?”

“I am,” Jesse said, followed by a long drawn-out sigh.  “Thanks to my lovely wife.”

Chapter Sixteen

 Charlie paced the sitting room floor.  She was beside herself, worrying about Jessie, his money, and Leo.  She couldn’t just sit home and do nothing, but what could she do?  She was smart enough to know that she shouldn’t go out hunting Leo alone, but Sean couldn’t leave Sophia on her own.  Sophia wasn’t like Charlie—she didn’t shoot, and she wasn’t a good rider. She was a typical New York lady, which is probably why Sophia had suiters in Niagara Falls, and she hadn’t.

A loud knock on the door startled her from her thoughts.  She opened the door to see Deputy Marcus Campbell.

He removed his wide-brimmed hat.  “Howdy,” he said.

“Good morning, Deputy.  Won’t you come in?”

Marcus stepped into the sitting room.  “I just stopped in to tell you with the help of my brother Daniel, we have all three of your brother’s friends locked up.”

Charlie let out a sigh of relief.  “Thank God.”

“They were riled up some when I told them Leo had run off with a box of your money, as they had made a pact to share everything they stole,” Marcus said.  “So, they told me where they think Leo might have gone.”

Charlie got excited.  “Where?”

“The one named Wally said that after Leo visited his sisters they were to meet at Lilah’s, but if the three men were no longer there, they’d meet in Laramie at a saloon called The Branding Iron.  They weren’t sure if he’d still go there now that he had money and no plan to share it.”

“It seems to me he’d go somewhere else, then,” Charlie said.

“That’s what I told Wally.  Then George mentioned that Leo had been close to a saloon woman in Woodcliff, named Ginger.  He kept mooning over her, and they had a hard time getting him out of Woodcliff.  George thinks he’ll go back there to pick up Ginger and take her with him.”

“Where is Woodcliff?” Charlie wasn’t at all familiar with the area.  The only places she knew were Sunset Creek and Sterling’s Mill.

“It’s between Sterling’s Mill and Cheyenne.”

“I’ll find it,” Charlie said.

“You can’t go alone.” Marcus rubbed his chin.  “Tell you what: I’ll give you a few trustworthy men from my posse to go with you.  I’d