Read Online Rocky Mountain Man (Historical) by Jillian Hart - Free Book Online

the drying grasses and the tall trees waltzing with their branches outstretched and the sunshine warm and friendly? The splashes from the water bucket sprinkled across her bare feet and plopped onto the soft earth.
    There, in the loose dust in the path, were tracks. As clear as her own footprints heading to the well, but those imprints hadn’t been there when she’d gone to fetch water.
    She looked around carefully and shivered. Was it her imagination or did the wind have a mean edge to it? Nothing knelt behind the woodpile, not that she could see, or crept through the unmown grasses.
    The giant cat tracks ambled along the road, as if the cougar had been heading to town and following the doctor’s buggy. Maybe the animal had continued on. Maybe not. Maybe it was watching her from the thicket of the crowded evergreens—and getting hungry.
    She certainly had no notion of being any creature’s breakfast! Heaven on earth! She’d been out this way on her deliveries once a week for several years now. Before yesterday, the most wildlife she’d seen in these woods had been a few grazing deer. She picked up her pace and sprinted up the porch steps. With the stout wall to her back she felt safer as she looked back, at the fresh tracks—they looked just like her little kitty’s paw prints back home except each imprint was as bigas her foot. She didn’t feel safe until she shut the door behind her.
    â€œW-water.”
    â€œMr. Hennessey?” She nearly dropped the bucket in shock. Coming to her senses, she set it on the nearby table and was at his side without remembering crossing the room. His eyes were open and in them she read the agony he was in. “Oh, it’s so good to see you.”
    His hard mouth curled into a frown. “Water.”
    â€œOh! Of course. I can’t believe it, but I wouldn’t give up hope for you. The doctor was less than encouraging, but I knew.” She was babbling, and she couldn’t stop the happiness from bubbling up. “You’re going to be fine. I know it. I’m so glad. You were so heroic, coming to my rescue as you did.” Her fingertips reached out—she simply couldn’t help it.
    Emotion overwhelmed her and tears blurred her vision as she stroked the side of his face. Stubbled with prickly whiskers, it felt so good and right just to feel the very manly texture of several days’ growth. Her chest clenched tight with an odd longing. It wasn’t sexual—she’d tried very hard not to notice the incredibly perfect chest of his and more, much more.
    It was something else, something amazing. Her very being seemed to quicken and that warmth new in her chest seemed bigger. It hurt, strangely, and she didn’t know what to say. How to tell him she knew he was weak and he would be bedridden for a long while, but she wouldn’t let him down.
    He’d saved her, and she intended to save him right back.
    â€œW-water,” he snarled.
    At least he had the strength to snarl. That had to be a good indication, right? She smiled at him because nothing could dim her gratitude. She raced to the table and stole a tin cup from the shelf overhead. Her fingers were trembling, she spilled water everywhere, but she didn’t spill a drop when she eased down beside him on the wide feather bed and held the rim to his cracked lips.
    He groaned with pleasure as the cool goodness ran across his bottom lip and over his tongue. He swallowed with difficulty and grimaced in agony at the pain it must have caused.
    â€œOh, I am so pleased,” she told him, holding the cup to his mouth again. “It is not every day a woman gets her very own hero.”
    Hero? Hardly. Duncan growled and, although he’d only swallowed twice, it had exhausted him. He lay panting, eyes tearing, his entire body vibrating with unbearable pain and he remembered her humming. He remembered her at his side and how she’d told the