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Chapter Twenty-two
Once Tynan sat down, he didn’t seem able to get up again. Chris rebandaged the wound in his leg, finding that the bullet wasn’t in it as she’d feared. While she worked on him, he lay still, leaning back against the post, his eyes closed, seemingly unaware of Chris’s hands on his thigh. She tried to touch him as little as possible, tried to not show how the sight of his torn flesh upset her.
“I don’t think Prescott can handle the old man. Prescott’s not mean enough. He’s too trusting.”
“Ty, how long did you spend with that man? Did you really have to live with him?”
“Off and on until I was six, but kids learn fast. It didn’t take me long to learn that I had to take care of myself.”
“As independent as you are, why didn’t you run away when he…when he sold you? Couldn’t you have gone back to Red’s?”
Tynan opened his eyes and looked at her. “I was drunk, and he kept me that way for two days before the”—Ty grimaced—“sale.”
“But you were only six years old.”
“I’ve never met a little kid yet that didn’t like beer. You ought to get some sleep now. You’ll need rest for tomorrow.”
Standing, she took the bucket of bloody water and moved away from him, watching him as he leaned against the pole. He looked as if he were asleep but she could see the dark light of his eyes between his lashes. He planned to stay awake all night to protect them from the old man—but he didn’t tie the man or incapacitate him, and she wondered why.
She moved away from Ty to go back to the spring to get fresh water.
“Chris.”
She was startled to hear Asher’s voice so near.
“May I speak to you?”
“You should be asleep. You have a hard ride ahead of you tomorrow and Ty says—”
“Ty says! That’s all I hear, that Tynan says this and Tynan says that.”
“He is the leader of this group,” Chris said, “and it’s been his decisions that have kept us from getting killed.” She continued on her way to the spring.
He caught her arm. “I didn’t mean to be angry. I guess I’m just jealous. Chris, the real reason I wanted to talk to you is…”
“Yes,” she said, looking up at him in the moonlight. “What did you want to say to me?”
“I wanted to ask you to marry me.”
Chris was taken aback for a moment. All she’d been able to think about for the last few days was getting away from Dysan. “Isn’t this rather sudden?”
“You know it isn’t. Chris, I’ve fallen in love with you, with your spirit and your courage. Any woman who’d chop through the back of a wagon to make herself heard is the woman I want to spend my life with, no milksop women for me.”
“And it’s not my father’s money? Or the fact that he’s offered you a position in his business? That doesn’t make me more attractive to you?”
Asher opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. Instead, he drew Chris to him and kissed her softly and gently. “At one time, I thought that I’d have married Del Mathison’s daughter if she were as ugly as my father’s favorite mule, but then I met you and everything changed. Chris, you’re like no other woman I’ve ever met. I wish with all my heart that you’d marry me. And if it’s your money you think I’m after, I’ll give up all claim to it. I think that with you at my side, I could start over again, and this time I wouldn’t fail.”
Still holding her in his arms, he smiled down at her. “I don’t think you’d allow any failure on my part. I think if there were a setback in my finances, you’d crack a whip over my head, and not allow me to give up.”
She smiled back. “No, I don’t guess I do give up, not if I want something badly enough.” Suddenly, she thought of Tynan. “Unless I have to give up,” she murmured.
“I think we’d make a good pair,” he said. “We’d have my level-headedness and your spirit. I could keep your feet on the earth and you could prevent me from giving up when the going gets rough.”
She laughed. “You make us sound like a merger.”
He snuggled her closer. “Some mergers can be quite good. Chris, please say you’ll think about it. I’ll do whatever you want. If you want me to renounce your father’s money, I’ll do so. Whatever you say.”
“That seems rather drastic and my father does want someone to help him run the place.”
