"Ma, Ma," a high-pitched voice yelled. "He looks dead."

Andrew Larkin cursed as agony knifed up his thigh and threatened to split his skull, but he struggled onto his elbows. He squinted as an assortment of human shapes floated and danced before his blurred vision. Bright New England sunlight shattered into a rainbow of colors around a skinny young girl in a dark brown frock and wrinkled white pinafore. Her grimy fingers dug in the furry neck of the huge mongrel panting into Drew’s face. He inhaled the acrid odor of fresh manure from the nearby fields.

"I’m. Not. Dead." He said as a slender coverall-clad figure crouched in the road next to him. Urgency set his nerves to thrumming. President Cleveland couldn’t wait. He had to get moving. "Why don’t you help me back onto my horse, son? If your Ma gets here, I’ll let her take a look."

"I am Ma," she snapped impatiently as she jerked free the battered straw hat shading her face and settled back onto her bare heels. Shockingly thick auburn hair, fastened with a leather thong, tumbled down her back. Her face clearly showed her resentment at the way his gaze moved over the way her baggy overalls snugged her flared hips, clearly outlining her shapely derriere. A flush burned red flags on her cheeks. "Your leg is bleeding, mister, and…"

To his amazement, her fingers brushed like butterfly wings over his face and through his tumbled hair. He flinched when she probed a tender spot behind his ear.

"You took quite a wallop on the head. Hold still."

She wiped her perspiring brow with a sun-browned forearm, then pulled a worn jackknife from her hip pocket, flipped the blade open and calmly proceeded to cut away his bloodstained pant leg. The little girl whimpered.

"Don’t be afraid, Martha. He’ll be fine," Her cultured voice flowed over him like warm honey, soothing as a mother’s lullaby.

The child frowned, but her whimpers ceased.

"Look, I need to be on my way. I have important business..." Drew heard his words slur, but he couldn’t wait, couldn’t take the chance that Margaret Warren would escape. He winced when the cold blade slid along his flesh and lifted his whirling head. "Take it easy with that thing. It’s not my fault your child spooked my horse."

Her cool hands stilled when her head jerked up. "My child what?"

Fighting nausea, as well as his wavering vision Drew answered. "You heard me. Your little girl ran under Lancer’s hooves."

"Martha?" she questioned, then returned her gaze to the knife blade slicing closer to his groin.

He glanced at the girl in time to see her give a guilty nod. Tiny fingers knit into the wrinkled material of her pinafore and she toed the ground before she dropped her eyes. Two round tears rolled down her cheeks. The big dog slumped at her feet with a long-suffering sigh.

"Oh, dear. I’m truly sorry. Martha knows better," the mother added sternly, directing her words at the weeping girl. She rubbed her fingers over her denim-covered thigh, drawing his gaze. He shouldn’t notice her innocently sensuous gesture, but he did.

She flipped aside the cut fabric. Cool air hit his thigh and the woman sucked in a shocked breath. Drew glanced down, already knowing what he would see. The barely healed incision where the doctors had removed a shattered bullet gaped nastily, seeping blood. Her fingers trembled. He slumped back with another curse.

"Vat ve got here, Missus?" Drew had been unaware of the huge man wearing an open-necked cotton shirt and soiled coveralls until he knelt beside them. The Swede’s thick accent was barely understandable. Wide as a barn, his shoulders dwarfed the woman’s slender shape. His coarse visage contrasted sharply with her delicate features, but his pale blue eyes showed concern.

She gently shook Drew’s shoulder when his eyelids drooped. "Tell me where you’re visiting. I’ll send a message to your people that you’re hurt." Worry, tinged with guilt, sharpened her tone.

"No one’s expecting me." The desperate need for total secrecy kept his dizziness at bay for the moment. Only his partner, Red Banning knew where he was headed. And the Irishman would wait for him until Hell froze over.

"Much as I hate to take the chance, we’ll move him to the house, Karl," she murmured as though unaware Drew listened.

"Dis is not vise, ve must send him avay."

"But it’s Martha’s fault he’s hurt. We can’t take the chance he’ll collapse somewhere else. They’ll ask questions." She removed her hand from his shoulder and stood. "Send Amos for the doctor and have Jennie and Anna make up a fresh bed in the attic with the older boys."

His muzzy thoughts puzzled over her instructions. Older? Girls and boys? She looked too young to mother the little girl hovering next him, never mind older children.

Karl bent and effortlessly lifted Drew into his muscular arms. Everything spun at the resulting jolt. Darkness blotted out the light.