Jodi Thomas by The Texans Wager Page A

she remembered what Carter’s note said: “Be my wife, all my life.”
    It didn’t matter if Zeb Whitaker was alive or dead. There was no more running. She’d agreed to Carter’s terms of marriage, and she wouldn’t back out.
    Beneath the covers Bailee moved her fingers as Carter had done, hoping by repeating his action she too would fall sound asleep. She remembered the way his lips had touched hers, how she’d felt safe in his arms. Finally she fell asleep thinking of being wrapped safely in his embrace.
     
    After a restless night Bailee was up and in the kitchen at dawn. The sun came through the long windows, brightening the room. Carter had disappeared from the rocker, but he’d already made a pot of coffee, which told her he was up and probably working.
    She’d only had time to slice a few strips of bacon when he charged through the door and bolted to shelves over the washstand. For a moment the bright slice of sunlight made her blink, and she couldn’t see what he did in the shadows.
    “What ... ?” Her question died on her lips when she saw blood staining the front of his shirt.
    He didn’t look at her as he searched for something amid jars lined along the top shelf.
    “Are you hurt?” Bailee grabbed his arm and pulled until he turned to her. “Carter, are you hurt?”
    There was no need for him to answer. She saw it on his face. Tiny cut marks slicing into his throat and chin bubbled blood a drop at a time.
    He would have pulled away and resumed his search, but she held fast to his arm. “Dear Lord, Carter, what happened?” She dabbed at the cuts with a kitchen towel.
    “I was shaving.” He smiled as though realizing what a fool he must look like.
    Bailee moved between him and the counter. She tried to stop the bleeding at his throat by pressing each spot with her towel. “You made such a mess, you’d think it was the first time you shaved.”
    His blue eyes met hers. “It was,” he said simply.
    Bailee’s hand stopped moving across his face. All she could do was stare into his eyes. He didn’t say more; he didn’t have to. She knew he’d attempted shaving because of her words. When she’d been embarrassed in the barn, she’d said she broke the kiss because of his beard.
    When a drop of blood bubbled over the spot where she’d been blotting and ran across her finger, Bailee remembered her purpose. “Sit down,” she ordered. “Let me have a look at the cuts.”
    He didn’t move, and she realized how close they stood to each other. Another inch and the entire length of their bodies would have been pressed together. Blood from his face had dripped in crimson raindrops on her sleeves and apron front.
    “Sit down,” she ordered more gently, moving aside. “I know what you’re looking for. I saw the yarrow leaves in a jar when I was cleaning. My grandmother always kept them for cuts. She swore they closed wounds like magic.”
    This time he did as she said. He pulled a chair from the table and sat.
    She grabbed an old jar from the back of the cabinet. Bailee wasn’t at all sure the leaves would work. Her father ridiculed any medicine that didn’t come out of a doctor’s bag. She’d seen a medicine box on the bottom row of the bookshelf. If the leaves didn’t work, she’d see what else Carter kept that might be helpful.
    Carter waited. Bailee poured cold water into a pan and moved to the table. Standing above him, she carefully worked across his face, cleaning blood off a square at a time. He’d done a good job of removing his beard. Unfortunately, in places he’d taken several layers of skin along with the hair.
    Once the cold water cleaned them, most of the tiny cuts stopped bleeding; only a few stubbornly flowed. Bailee crushed the leaves onto the cuts and waited. She tried not to meet his stare, for his eyes might make her forget what she needed to do. His jaw was strong and square, a little too square for him to be thought of as handsome, but it was a nice jaw just the