“Two days and three nights,” replied Nola Sutton, knowing what he was trying to ask. “That’s how long you’ve been unconscious. It’s morning again.” She stood up and walked to the window with a swish of dark blue silk. When she pulled the curtain back, brilliant sunlight slanted into the room and made Longarm wince. He narrowed his eyes against the glare. After more than forty-eight hours of darkness, he wasn’t ready for that much light.

  Nola Sutton strolled back over to the bed and sat down while Longarm’s eyes adjusted. The window had a thin frosting of ice on it, and the frozen crystals broke the sunlight into shifting patterns of color. It probably would have been beautiful, if he had felt good enough to appreciate the sight.

  He looked at her again and saw that she had drawn the robe closed. Feeling slightly disappointed, he said, “There were some fellas ... chasing me ...”

  “Mallory’s men,” Nola said with a nod. “They came to my office door and knocked a few minutes after you barged in.”

  “You ... didn’t let ’em in?”

  “I invited them to come in and look around all they wanted,” she said. “By that time, I had thrown a comforter over the sofa where you were lying. They couldn’t see you, and I told them that no one had been in the office all evening except me. They took my word for it and went on to look for you elsewhere.”

  “You were ... taking a mighty big chance,” Longarm told her. “If they had come in ... and found me ...”

  “I would have killed them,” Nola said simply. “My hand was on my gun in the pocket of my gown, and I know how to use it.”

  Longarm frowned at her. He hadn’t expected such a cold-blooded answer from such a lovely woman. Evidently, she had more spunk than most of the rest of the people in town combined.

  “I thought Mallory ... had everybody in Galena City buffaloed,” he said.

  Nola shook her head. “Not everyone is afraid of him, and he knows it. His men have their orders. They know not to push me too far.”

  “Well, I’m obliged for what you’ve done for me.”

  She smiled and shrugged. “I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for strays.”

  “You reckon that’s what I am?” asked Longarm, returning her smile.

  “You certainly looked like you’d had better days. After Mallory’s men were gone, I had you brought up here and sent one of my girls for Granny Winslow. When she saw how much blood you’d lost, she told me you’d probably die. I told her to do her best for you. Now that you’re awake, I’m convinced that you’re going to live after all. I can tell by your eyes that you’re a very stubborn man.”

  “I’ll take that ... as a compliment,” murmured Longarm. “Right now I’m ... a mighty sleepy man all of a sudden.”

  “Then you should rest,” Nola said softly. “When you wake up again, you should eat something, but for now, just sleep.”

  That sounded good to Longarm. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift away. As sleep began to claim him, though, he suddenly asked himself a question: now that Nola Sutton had him, what was she going to do with him?

  He dozed off before he could come up with an answer.

  True to her word, Nola had a bowl of hot broth waiting for him when he woke up again. Only she didn’t deliver it herself. Instead, when Longarm opened his eyes, he found a young woman with blond hair bending over the bed. “Are you awake?” she asked brightly.

  “I reckon I am,” Longarm replied. He shifted and found that the pain in his side, while still there, was not as sharp this time. It didn’t take his breath away.

  But the blond damned near did. She was big—tall, broad-shouldered, heavy-breasted. She looked like the sort of girl who had been raised on a farm or a ranch, and fairly recently, too, since she wasn’t more than twenty years old. Her skin even retained a trace of a tan that working in the sun must have given her. At the moment, however, her working outfit was considerably different than it had probably been earlier in her life. She was wearing a short red dress with a flouncy skirt and black lace stockings. The dress was cut low enough to reveal the upper third of her large breasts. Thick wings of hair a shade lighter than honey framed her lovely face and fell past her shoulders.

  “I have some broth here that the cook just brought up,” she said to Longarm. “I want you to eat every bit of it.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. He wasn’t in the habit of arguing with ladies as pretty as she was, and besides, in his weakened condition, she could hold him down and spoon-feed him if she was of a mind to.

  She helped him sit up in bed, propping several pillows behind him. The quilt slipped, and Longarm grabbed for it out of habit. The blond laughed and said, “Don’t mind about that, honey. There’s nothing under those covers I haven’t seen plenty of times before.”

  “That may be true in general, ma’am,” said Longarm, “but you ain’t seen this particular one.”

  She laughed again. “Don’t be too sure. Somebody had to get those bloody clothes off of you and help clean you up, you know.” She gave him a mischievous smile. “I’ve been looking forward to getting to know you better when you aren’t passed out from a gunshot wound. By the way, my name’s Angie.”

  She stuck out her hand like a man, and Longarm shook with her. “You can call me Custis,” he said.

  “I know. Your name’s Custis Parker. Nola heard some of the men talking about you. You rode into town, raised hell, and got shot, all in one day.” Angie suddenly frowned. “Some people say you killed Mrs. Keegan. Is that true?”

  “Is that the woman who was shot in the back in an alley?” Longarm suddenly felt even worse about the woman’s death. He hadn’t even known her name when she had saved his life and lost her own in the process.

  “She was shot, all right, and she’d been abused.” Angie was glaring at him now.

  Longarm met her gaze squarely and said, “I didn’t kill the lady, Angie. I was there, but it was the men who were trying to bushwhack me who shot her. They’re the ones who abused her, too, and then sent her to try to trap me.”

  She nodded, and Longarm could tell she believed him without reservation, now that she had heard it from his own lips. She said, “They were Mallory’s men, weren’t they?”

  “I reckon so.” Longarm sighed. “I suppose when you get right down to it, I am to blame for Mrs. Keegan’s death. I was trying to stir things up by asking questions about Mallory. I guess I stirred them up a little too good.”

  “I think I’d be better off if I didn’t hear about all that,” said Angie. She went to a dresser on the other side of the room. A tray with a bowl on it sat there, and Longarm saw wisps of steam rising from the bowl. He could smell a delicious aroma in the air, too, and the realization hit him suddenly that it had been a long time since he’d had anything to eat. Hard on the heels of that thought came his stomach, cramping with hunger.

  Angie brought the tray over to the bed. “Can you manage by yourself, or do you want me to feed you?”

  “I’m a mite light-headed, but I’ll give it a try.” Longarm reached for the spoon beside the bowl.

  Before he could reach it, a wave of dizziness hit him, and he had to sag back against the pillows. Angie said firmly, “You just sit there, Custis. I’ll take care of you.”

  “I reckon I’d better let you,” he said reluctantly. “I wouldn’t want to spill that broth.”

  “Absolutely not. It’s hot, and if you dump it in your lap, you might burn something important.”

  Longarm chuckled. She was a brazen hussy, he thought, but what else could you expect from a gal who worked in a saloon? That didn’t mean he was going to like her any less. Some of the best women he’d ever known had been the ones whom society found the least respectable.

  She spooned up some of the broth and leaned toward him, saying, “Open wide.” Longarm took the spoon in his mouth and swallowed the hot broth, and as he did so, he noticed that Angie was holding her own mouth open slightly, and her tongue darted out to lick over her lips. She was breathing a little harder, too, he realized as she continued to feed him. Obviously, it didn’t take a whole hell of a lot to get her all hot and bothered. Right about now, Longarm could say the same thing about himself.

  All in all, it was a mighty interesting meal, but Longarm was still too weak to do anything about it. He ate as much of the broth as he could and then lay back down again, letting the strength from the broth seep into him. He felt himself growing drowsy again and didn’t fight the sensation. The last thing he was aware of was Angie bending over him and pressing her lips to his forehead. “Sleep well, Custis,” she whispered.

  Longarm tried not to lose all track of time. The curtains had been closed when Angie was in the room with him, and he had assumed it was night again. They were still closed when he awoke, but he saw strips of brightness around them that told him it was day once more.

  He was aware of something else—a pressing need in his bladder. He lay there for a moment, trying to ignore it, but that was impossible. With a groan, he pushed the covers back and started to swing his legs out of bed.

  “Here now! What do you think you’re doing?” a woman’s voice asked him sharply.

  Longarm froze. He was uncovered, and his manhood was standing up straight and tall, not from arousal but from the need to relieve himself. Whatever the reason, it was enough to draw the attention of the woman who was standing up from a chair on the other side of the room.

  Coolly, she appraised his shaft, then shifted her gaze to his face as if she wasn’t overly impressed. “You shouldn’t be getting out of bed,” she said. “If you need something, I’ll get it for you.”

  She was a brunette, slender in a simple gray dress. Longarm put her age somewhere between Nola Sutton and Angie. She was pretty, too. Not as elegantly lovely as Nola or as earthily attractive as Angie, but definitely pretty in a dark, intense way. Under other circumstances, Longarm was sure he would have appreciated her looks even more, but right now he had other things on his mind.

  “Chamber pot,” he grated out.

  The woman nodded. “I’ll fetch it for you.” She went to the end of the bed and bent down to pick up a porcelain pot with a handle on it. She carried it around to Longarm.

  He practically grabbed it out of her hands. “Much obliged,” he said. When she didn’t go anywhere, he added, “That’s all. I reckon you can go now, ma’am.”

  She shook her head and said, “I don’t think so. I don’t want you falling and injuring yourself again, Mr. Parker. Nola would never forgive me.”

  Longarm thought there was a slight accent to her words, but he didn’t take the time to ponder the question of where she was from. “Ma’am,” he said through gritted teeth, “if you’ll just step out of the room ...”

  “I’ll turn my back and go over there,” she said, pointing to the far side of the room.

  Longarm hesitated, then nodded in agreement. A little embarrassment was one thing; having his bladder blow up was another.

  When he was finished, he leaned over and put the chamber pot back under the bed himself, knowing that if he didn’t, the brunette would do so. Bending hurt his side, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t stand. He sat back in the bed and pulled the covers over himself again. “Much obliged,” he repeated.

  The brunette turned. “I’m called Rafaela,” she said. “If there’s anything you need ...”

  Longarm was hungry again, but this time he wanted more than broth. “I reckon I could do with some solid food,” he said.

  Rafaela nodded. “All right. The cook should have something left over from breakfast. I’ll see what I can find—but only if you promise to stay in bed.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ m feeling a mite stronger than I was, but I don’t reckon I’m up to dancing a jig just yet.”

  Rafaela smiled faintly and turned toward the door. She paused and looked back at him. “Just one more thing, Mr. Parker,” she said. “Don’t call me ma’am. I’m a whore, not a schoolteacher.”

  The undertone of bitterness in her voice took him by surprise. Angie certainly hadn’t seemed bothered by what she did for a living. Rafaela was obviously different, though.

  Longarm shook his head and said, “I can’t help it, ma’am. My ma raised me to respect women no matter what. I’m too old to be breaking any habits now, Miss Rafaela.”

  She caught her breath, and Longarm thought he saw a flash of something in her eyes, maybe a chink in the cool facade she put up. But then she said, “I don’t suppose it matters, does it?”

  Before he could answer, she was gone.

  When the door opened a few minutes later, he expected to see Rafaela coming back with his food. Instead, yet another young woman brought the tray into the room. She smiled at Longarm, seemingly totally unmindful of the fact that she wore only a thin shift that clearly outlined her small breasts and long, sensuous legs. Straight hair the color of midnight hung far down her back, almost to the curve of her hips. She was Chinese, and her face possessed a doll-like prettiness. She was definitely flesh and blood, though, and so was Longarm. He became all too aware of that as his eyes lingered on the dark, erect nipples thrusting out against the gauzy material of the shift.

  “Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “How many of you gals are there?”

  She looked confused by the question, and he wondered how much English she spoke, if any. She could speak the lingo at least a little, he discovered, because she said, “I am called Mickey. Rafaela say to bring you this food.”

  The tray in her hands contained a plate filled with steak, potatoes, gravy, and biscuits. Longarm practically snatched it out of her hands as she brought it over to the bed. He didn’t know what looked better to him right now—the food or the woman. He was glad he didn’t have to decide between them.

  He dug in with the knife and fork on the tray as Mickey went over to a chair and primly sat down. “I wait, take back tray,” she said.

  “That’ll be fine,” Longarm told her. He kept eating.

  Despite his hunger, his eyes kept straying over to her. In her own way, she was as attractive as Nola and Angie and Rafaela, and just as different as each of them, too. Even dressed as provocatively as she was, there was an innocence about her, a quality that was almost childlike, although she was definitely not a child.

  Fate had a damned peculiar sense of humor, he thought. Here he was being attended to by all manner of beautiful women, and although he had responded physically to all of them, there wasn’t a thing he could do about it right now. His strength might be coming back, and the bullet hole in his side might be healing, but he would still have to recover quite a bit before he could properly bed any woman again, let alone beauties like his four nursemaids.

  And to be honest, none of the four ladies had even expressed an interest in crawling into bed with him except for Angie, he reminded himself.

  He was just mopping up the last of the gravy with the final bite of biscuit when the door opened and Nola Sutton came into the room. She was wearing a green dress that was provocative without being brazen. She smiled and said, “Hello, Mr. Parker. How are you feeling?”

  Longarm swallowed the last bite and said honestly, “A whole heap better. I could do with a pot of coffee, though.”

  Nola nodded. “I’ll see that one is brought up.” She turned her head and spoke to the Chinese girl. “Mickey, take Mr. Parker’s tray downstairs and then bring him some coffee.”

  Mickey stood. “Yes, Miss Nola.” She kept her eyes downcast.

  Nola put her hand under Mickey’s chin and gently tipped her head up so that the young woman had no choice but to look at her. “You’re not in China any longer,” Nola reminded her. “You may work for me, but you’re not a slave, Mickey.”

  Mickey smiled. “I will try to remember.”

  When Mickey was gone, Longarm commented to Nola, “That’s, ah, an unusual gal.”

  “Not so unusual,” said Nola. “She came over here as a child with the rest of her family. Her father and brothers helped build the Central Pacific Railroad. There wasn’t enough money to feed everyone in the family, though, so when Mickey was seven, her father sold her.”

  Longarm’s jaw tightened. “That’s a hell of a thing to do.”

  “I agree. That’s why I bought her from the man who owned her when he came through here a while back.”

  “You bought her,” repeated Longarm.

  “It was the only way to get her away from him. Just another business transaction, as far as he was concerned.” For a moment, a faraway look appeared on Nola’s face. “But it wasn’t just business any longer when Mickey told me some of the things he’d done to her. A couple of the men who work for me caught up to the son of a bitch between here and Virginia City and brought him back. I explained to him why he was going to die before I—”

  She stopped short and took a deep breath, then went on. “But I shouldn’t be telling these things to a lawman, should I? Even though you’re a federal man, and murder is a state crime.”

  Longarm tensed, and his mind flashed back to the night he had blundered into Nola’s office with a bullet hole in his side. He remembered her saying something then about him being a marshal. Obviously, she had found his badge and bona fides.

  “Who else knows?” he asked grimly.

  “That you’re a lawman?” Nola shook her head. “Only me. I didn’t tell any of the girls. And only Rafaela, Angie, Mickey, and the cook know you’re up here. I’ve asked them not to say anything to anyone, and I can trust them.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Certain. I’d trust any of them with my life.”

  “That’s just what you’re doing,” said Longarm, “by hiding me out from Mallory.”

  “I told you before, I’m not frightened of Mallory—” That was when a gun went off downstairs.

  Chapter 10

  Longarm and Nola both stiffened in surprise. He sat up straighter in the bed while she turned toward the door. “Wait a minute,” Longarm said sharply as he prepared to throw the covers back and swing his legs out of bed. “I’ll help—”