Page 11 of Love’s Silver Bullet

“Promise you’ll help us keep her path clear until then.”

Another groan almost sandpapered his throat, but he quickly cut it off.

“Heck, Sul, she’s practically your little sister, so you’re the big brother who can protect her from herself.”

Heaven help him, he was trying, but the Almighty sure wasn’t making it easy …

“Jake, open your eyes, please!” More fabric rustling and the deadly scent of lavender shivered him as much as her gentle shake on his arm. His eyelids almost jerked open at the sudden catch of her breath when her hand gently touched the back of his head.

“Oh, no—you’re bleeding!” she rasped, and the panic in her voice unleashed an onslaught of guilt. Fortunately, it also unleashed an idea to save him from a shooting lesson he did not want to continue. He held his breath. Maybe—just maybe—if she thought he was knocked unconscious, she would go for

help ...

Wouldn’t she?

He barely breathed as he lay perfectly still, pretty sure this was his best option. Because the last thing he wanted was to return to a lesson where he was besotted with creamy bare shoulders, bewitched by a deadly neckline, or betrayed by a look of longing—in both his eyes and hers.

“Jake, wake up!” She rattled him but good this time, and a part of him felt almost guilty at the terror that laced her tone, but it was for her own good, he told himself. It took everything in him to battle a gulp. And mine.

“Oh … J-Jake!” Tears wobbled her voice as she threw herself across his chest to hug his neck, her weeping wracking his soul as much as his body. “Don’t die, please!”

But sweet mother of mercy, he just might because the moment her body landed on top of his, he’d stopped breathing altogether. So much heat scorched through him, it was a wonder she didn’t go up in smoke. He couldn’t see because his eyelids were pasted to his eyeballs, but he sure in the devil could feel, giving his mind’s eye a vision he’d seen more than once in his dreams.

The press of her body against his, the scent of lavender surrounding him like the silk of her hair, which now splayed haphazardly across his mouth. Tears dampened his neck as she wept, her heaves nearly twitching his arms with the impulse to hold her, comfort her.

Sheridan! Go-get-help, he mentally commanded, desperate to get her off of his chest, away from his arms, miles from his lips. But she just continued to cry, drenching his neck with her tears while her sorrow drenched his conscience with guilt. She moved a hair, and his body went to stone at the touch of something warm and soft on his neck, the caress of her lips kindling a fire deep down inside. No! Please, God, make her go …

“J-Jake, I’m so -s-orry …” she whispered, her voice nasal with grief as she hugged him close once again while her hair tickled his nose. “I’m going to go get help now, so don’t move …”

Move? Well, he sure didn’t want to, but God help him, a tingling sensation began to burn inside his nostrils, mounting every time Sheridan’s hair grazed the tip of his nose … until … until …

Nooooo!! But it was no use. Against his will, his body drew in a sharp breath that tightened the muscles in his chest, eyes squeezing shut while he ...

“Ah-choo!”

—————

Sheridan froze, body jolted from the force of Jake’s sneeze. “Jake?” She shot up, fingers trembling as she gripped his shirt, lips parted in hope while she scanned his face for some sign of recovery. “Jake—wake up—please!” she begged, but his eyes remained closed as his breathing suspended. She saw a faint twitch in his eyelid, and in one erratic beat of her heart, it all came back, something Maggie had once told her.

As a nurse at St. Mary Louise Hospital in Virginia City, Maggie had cared for an adorable little boy named Wally who was recovering from a particularly nasty case of influenza. All the staff loved him, of course, but the little stinker hated taking his medicine. So every time the nurses tried, little Wally Wilder would pretend to be asleep.

“Let him sleep,” the doctor ordered, “because he needs that more than anything, then treat him when he’s awake.”

So, every time Maggie arrived to give his medicine, of course Wally was sleeping. Until one day he sneezed. “People don’t sneeze when they’re sleeping, unconscious, or in a coma,” Maggie explained, so she promptly tiptoed over and tickled Wally into a fit of giggles that won her his heart, a game they continued until the day his parents took him home.

Sheridan’s eyes narrowed as she studied Jake with more precision—his even breathing, his face an unmovable mask save the almost imperceptible flicker of his lids, body stone-cold still and silent …

Except for that sneeze.

A slow smile slid across her lips as she hiked a teasing brow. Ah-ha! Playing games, are we now, Mr. Sullivan? Well, I’ve got a few games to play too ...

Smiling, she leaned in to breathe warm in his ear, her words laden with concern. “Now, don’t you worry, Jake—I’ll be right back with help.” She pressed a soft kiss to his cheek and couldn’t help a grin when that formidable jaw tightened hard as rock.

Pretending to rise, she sat up to admire him because heaven knows she may never get this close again. Ridiculously long lashes as thick as his ebony hair rested on high cheekbones in a hard-sculpted face that had always melted her with a smile.

Until today.

No, today, Jake Sullivan had shown her a side of his personality she’d never seen before.