She meant to sound outraged, but her voice came out in a thready squeak.
“Look, I’m not having the beloved schoolteacher of Pine Creek come down with pneumonia on my time. Move!”
She sat still, her practical nature telling her that what he was suggesting made sense, but the woman in her felt insulted at his tone and the casualness with which he commanded she undress. She knew that Jacob Wyse didn’t especially care for the idea of schooling and schoolteachers, at least he didn’t when he was younger. His opinions must not have changed much.
“A gentleman … would offer me … his coat.” There was no holding back her teeth chattering now. She watched as a grim smile spread over his handsome face.
“A gentleman might,” he agreed.
She reminded herself that he looked good but his temperament had always been wild and brooding. She realized the unpredictable weather might be easier to deal with than him and wondered if the rain had lifted any so that she might just leave.
“It’s still pouring; you can hear it.”
“How did you know what I was thinking?” Lilly asked.
He smiled a real smile then, just briefly, and she felt her heart catch in her chest.
“What’s in a woman’s mind is easy enough to figure out—it usually involves what they think they want and what they wish they had.”
She tried to ignore the blush that warmed her cheeks; his arrogant words made her fume.
“You should open a shop …” she suggested. “Doctor Wyse’s thoughts on women and the summation of their brains.”
“Stop the hoech-nawszich schoolteacher talk and undress, or I may take it into my professional head to help you out.”
She tried to stand, outraged at his words, but her skirt had frozen to the hay. She could only flounder in an undignified manner.
He bent to lift her, then staggered as if her weight was too much for him. She huffed in embarrassment until she realized that he’d reeled backward in a sudden wash of pallor. “What’s wrong?” Lilly asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
A bead of sweat dripped down his cheek.
“Jacob, are you ill?”
He seemed to rally at her question and stood upright, wiping his cheek. “Nee,” he said in a hoarse voice. “But neither am I … a gentleman.”
She stared at him as he opened his heavy black coat and slid it off. She gasped when she saw the blood that stained his white shirt, beginning near his left shoulder and expanding downward to his elbow. “Jacob! What happened?” A dawning awareness struck her. She glanced to the horse in the far stall and then back to the man who nearly sagged before her. “You’re the one they’re looking for? The horse thief?”
“Smart girl,” he acknowledged, his eyes narrowing with pain.
Jacob allowed himself to sink down onto a bale of hay. He slid off his hat and closed his eyes. For some reason, it felt all right to reveal his wound to the serious, wide, blue eyes of the schoolteacher. She might talk high, but he knew from overhearing conversations that she loved the kinner she taught. And anyone who had a heart for children had compassion, and he needed some right now.
He heard her tussle with her skirts and then opened his eyes to watch her come forward and kneel between the sprawl of his legs. She was nothing if not practical, he thought as she matter-of-factly reached to examine his wound with slender fingers. She leaned close to lift the edge of the handkerchief he’d used to help staunch the blood flow.
“Before the cancer took Daed he taught me a lot about veterinary science, so I learned something about wounds,” she murmured.
Of course you did. He had to think to keep from muttering the comment aloud.
“You were shot from behind, obviously. From what I can see of the exit wound, it looks clean. No arteries were hit or you would have bled to death by now.”
“Thanks for the thought.”
“What happened exactly?”
He looked away from her, staring up at the broad barn beams above them. “I was fool enough to give in to—let’s say a reckless urge—and stop by Tom Granger’s farm because I heard a horse in pain and distress. I got sick of all the unfairness in life, and when that idiot farmer left the barn with a bloodstained whip in his hand, I went in and put the mare on a lead and led her away. Granger saw me, shot me, and I’ve been hiding out here since last night. I’m lucky