To Love an Outlaw (Into the West #1) (A Wattpad Reading List Choice)

Chapter 10

“It’s still there,” he muttered, his surprisingly alert gaze following Callie’s every movement. She frowned.

“What’s still there?” She shot a querying look to Noah, who shrugged and shook his head. The gunfighter became more adamant, shaking Callie’s wrist.

“The…bullet. It’s still in me. Gotta…get it out.”

Callie looked in horror at McQuade’s chest, where blood still oozed steadily. The bullet hadn’t gone straight through? She raised her eyes to Noah, who mouthed the word “Doc” at her. Quickly she nodded, and then leaned back over Sonny, saying in as calm a voice as she could muster, “Then we’ll get it out, Mr. McQuade. We’ll take you to town and get Doc and—“

Sonny pulled forcefully on Callie’s wrist, yanking her closer to him as he rasped out, “No time! You gotta dig it out. I’ve been sick before from the lead. The last doc told me I may not survive another shot.”

With the gunfighter’s grasp surprisingly strong and imprisoning, Callie met Noah’s disbelieving stare. McQuade was asking her to cut through his skin,  to fish the bullet out, to possibly fatally harm him? She frantically wanted to shake her head “No!” But what was her alternative? Take him to town against his will, and perhaps kill him in the process? Either way she had a good chance of killing him. It was really just a matter of choosing between neglecting him or attempting to save him. And with those two choices before her, Callie knew which one she would select.

Pulling her wrist from McQuade’s weakening grasp, she stood abruptly, flashing a glance at the boy.

“We’ll take him home, and I’ll do my best.” Looking back down at the gunfighter as he fought to remain conscious, Callie said decisively, “I hope you can help us stand you up, Mr. McQuade. I’d rather not work on you in the middle of the road.”

With an audible sigh of relief, Sonny nodded his head in the sand, while Noah jumped up and retrieved the gunslinger’s hat, and tied his horse to the back of the wagon. And then he joined Callie beside Sonny. Together they placed their hands under his shoulders and pushed him upright.

Oh, it was like being shot all over again! Sonny thought as the pain plowed through him, strong enough that nausea rose from his stomach, threatening to lower him to vomiting in the road. He actually dry heaved as he sat up, turning swiftly to the side so as not to foul the widow’s Sunday best. Both Callie and Noah paused, waiting for him to recover his composure, the widow worried enough that she began stroking his shoulder, one hand smoothing in a circular motion in an effort to calm him. The gunfighter could have kissed her. Her touch burned through his shirt, unless that was the heat from the sun, and Sonny fought to suppress a groan of relief from her caress.

Once his stomach stopped its mutiny, he gave a curt nod and braced himself for the next move. Noah hunkered himself under McQuade’s opposite arm and said, looking at the beleaguered man’s profile, “Here goes, Sir. Don’t get mad at us,” and then he and Callie surged to their feet, raising the tall gunfighter to near his full height.

“Goddammit!” Sonny bit out the first expletive either one of them had ever heard him utter, and his body nearly collapsed between them. Black spots swam before his eyes, and nausea truly threatened to overtake him. He could practically feel the blood pumping out of the wound, and swayed precariously between his two props.

From a distance he heard the angelic voice of Miz Callie West urging him to stay awake.

“Don’t you dare fall unconscious on us, Mr. McQuade! We can’t hold you up without your help. Do you hear me?”

He tried to nod his head, to allay the lovely widow’s fears, but he couldn’t bring himself to move more than twitch his booted feet forward, inch by inch. The pain in his shoulder was excruciating; he wished he would pass out, but not until they made it to the wagon, which seemed a hundred miles away.