Summer Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

opened the shirt near the jagged hole to reveal a bandage soaked in blood.
    “I will get someone to carry him upstairs.” Sofia had already started toward the door.
    Alone with Reed Benton, Kate pressed her palm over the oozing wound in his shoulder and closed her eyes. Fate had not taken her dream, as she had thought, but had flung it in her face with a challenge.
    She whispered a litany of frantic, silent prayers.
Saint
Perpetua, please help him.
    Their life together was just beginning. She wasn’t about to lose him now.

4
    Kate was afraid to leave him, even for a moment. Afraid to look away from the big man stretched out on the crisp white sheets.
    Her face had burned hot with the shy embarrassment of a silly spinster when Sofia stripped Reed of his boots and clothes and removed the useless, soiled bandage someone had wrapped around his shoulder.
    The housekeeper worked with skilled and competent hands, never flinching, doing what had to be done to make Reed more comfortable. If she noticed Kate’s discomfort, she made no comment as they worked side by side.
    “How could this happen? Who would do such a thing to him? Why?” Kate cried as she held a wet towel to Reed’s bleeding nose and then to his swollen lip.
    “For five years, he has been a Texas Ranger, fighting to keep the frontier safe. Ever since his wife and child were taken from him.”
    Kate felt betrayed. Reed had led her to believe he was only a rancher. Why would he fail to tell her that he was also a Texas Ranger?
    At last he had been dosed with laudanum, washed, and bandaged. There was nothing more they could do for him but wait for the fever to break.
    When Sofia sat back and sighed, Kate admired her strength. The woman must have endured much over the last few hours, and yet she still appeared calm and collected, not a hair out of place. Her silk gown was crisp and for the most part clean, whereas Kate’s drab beige outfit was smeared with Reed’s blood.
    She closed her eyes, thought of those frantic moments downstairs when she had pressed her hand over his wound, trying to will the blood to stop, terrified of its heat as it oozed from his shoulder beneath her palm.
    Finally, Sofia stepped away from the bed.
    “The minister should be here soon. Perhaps the doctor will come—but with him, one never knows.” Sofia shrugged, and then her voice faltered. “People will gather from all over the ranch. We will . . . bury Reed Senior before sundown.”
    Kate saw something in Sofia’s eyes: Here was a woman mourning much more than the loss of her employer, much more. “You loved him, didn’t you?” Kate asked softly.
    Sofia’s eyes instantly flooded with tears. She made no attempt to blink them away.
    “I have loved the señor since the day I first came to this ranch. I will love him until the day that I die. He was a great man. A man of pride and courage.” She looked at the open window beside the bed where delicate lace curtains stirred with the shifting breeze, looked out toward the wide, endless rolling grasslands and beyond. “He was a man who would do anything,
anything
to see that this place he built from nothing survives. I did what I had to do to make the señor happy in his final days. I hope you can understand that, señora.”
    Kate offered, “You go and see to the mourners, and I will stay here.” She wanted nothing more than to pull a chair up to Reed’s bedside and watch him sleep. Her emotions were still in turmoil. To sit quietly beside him would surely be a gift.
    Sofia acquiesced. “Stay if you wish, but I assure you, he will sleep for hours. You can use the room across the hall for now. Perhaps you wish to change and freshen up? The señor had a room built just for bathing. It is at the end of the hall.”
    Kate glanced down at Reed, who was still unconscious. She crossed the room and stepped into the hallway with the housekeeper; then she lowered her voice.
    “Sofia, you
do
know that Reed and I are married, don’t