"Do you think that she'd be willing to bring my meals up here?"
"I doubt it," Hubbard said. "But I enjoy being served by Willa as much as the next red-blooded American male. I'll ask her tonight when I have supper there."
"You don't eat at home?"
"My wife of twenty-three years died last summer," the doctor said, his grin fading, "of pneumonia not much worse than yours. But she wasn't nearly as young or as strong."
"I'm sorry," Longarm said, meaning it. He had liked Dr. Hubbard from the first moment the man had entered his hotel room and jammed a thermometer into his mouth.
"Here," the doctor said, pulling a couple of bottles of the elixir out of his medical kit and opening one. To Longarm's surprise and amusement, he upended the bottle and took a sample for himself.
"Yep, Marshal, it's the right stuff."
"Was there any doubt?"
"There isn't now," Hubbard said with a wink as he snapped his bag shut and eased off the hotel bed. "Got to go now."
"Will I see you after supper?"
"Yep."
Longarm took a long slug of the bottle and smacked his lips. The medicine was good. "Better give me a couple of extra bottles," he said.
"Better give me some cash."
Pants pocket, Doc."
Hubbard pulled out the last of Longarm's cash and counted it solemnly. Looking up, he said, "Doesn't the government pay you fellas enough money to do your job?"
"This trip has been a lot more expensive than any of us back in Denver expected. Would it be too much to ask you to wire my boss, Marshal Billy Vail, for some extra cash and to let him know what I'm up to?"
"I'd be happy to do that."
"I don't suppose you have paper and pencil on you?"
"I do," the doctor said.
Longarm didn't feel much like writing Billy a telegraph message, but he knew that one was long overdue so he scribbled, "Billy, Send more money. Pneumonia in Wickenburg but will recover shortly. Mrs. Ortega cleared and safe in Yuma. Will arrive there next week. Send a hundred dollars."
The doctor read the telegraph message and raised his eyebrows. "You are definitely too optimistic about getting out of this bed next week. But I like the sound of the hundred dollars. It ought to cover my fees quite nicely."
"Like hell," Longarm said, breaking into another fit of coughing that nearly doubled him up in his bed.
Dr. Hubbard patted Longarm's shoulder and quickly left him to his private misery. Longarm upended the bottle of elixir, and sighed as the sweet but fiery medicine trickled down his ravaged throat. He sneezed and blew his nose and groaned.
"Sonofabitch," he croaked, "I don't need this kind of grief."
He must have fallen asleep, because it was dark outside his window when the doctor, whom he'd given a key to his hotel room, knocked and then opened the door.
"Marshal, have you died yet?"
Longarm jerked into wakefulness. He felt a little better, he guessed. "No such luck, Doc."
"Then I guess you'll want Willa to bring up some supper after all. Something soft to swallow for that sore throat."
"She's going to do it?"
"I told her I sent a telegraph to Denver asking for a hundred dollars expense money. I take it that she is going to consider herself a big expense. About like me."
"I'd be willing to pay her a whole lot more than you," Longarm said, forcing a smile.
Hubbard sat down beside him on the bed and turned up the wick to his bedside lamp. He produced a thermometer and Longarm dutifully opened his mouth. "I hope you washed the damn thing this time."
"Not since I shoved it up Abe Benford's ass," the doctor said without cracking a smile as he jammed the thermometer between Longarm's teeth.
Longarm started to chuckle, but that caused his throat to ache, so he just lay still and suffered in silence until Hubbard removed the thermometer and eyed it critically. "Temperature is still about a hundred and two," he said. "But that's not going to fry your brains."
"What brains I have left."
"I'm glad you said that and not me," the doctor told him as he pulled out his stethoscope and rechecked Longarm's lungs, saying, "I'm sure you realize that I'd rather do this with Miss Handover."
"Goes without saying, Doc."
"Cough."
Longarm coughed.
"Sounds awful."
"Thanks for the encouraging words."
Hubbard stood up and put away his instruments. He glanced over his shoulder at the door. "I told the cook over at the Sagebrush Cafe that I wanted you to eat a lot, but nothing that was going to aggravate your sore throat."
"Good. How long until Willa arrives?"
"Ten or fifteen minutes, but you sure don't look like any prize with your face all scratched up."
Longarm turned his lamp down low. "Better?"
"Turn it out and it would be even better yet."
"Once Willa gets here and I've had my supper, I'll try to get her to help me do that," Longarm said, knowing that he was bluffing and in no condition to do much more than lie still and breathe.
"In your pitiful condition, a woman like Willa would send you to an early grave."
Longarm suspected that the doctor was only half serious, and so he clamped his mouth shut and resolved to stop the banter.
"Nothing but food, lots of liquids, and rest," Hubbard warned as he headed for the door again.
"Be sure and lock it on your way out," Longarm croaked.
"What's the matter, having second thoughts about Willa?"
"Nope, but a man in my line of work makes a lot of enemies over the years," Longarm explained. "And I just don't feel up to killing any bad men today."
"Understandable," Hubbard said. "Willa can get her key at the front desk."
Longarm thought that was just fine. He drank a little more elixir, turned down the bedside lamp even lower, smoothed his hair, and wished he felt up to a shave and a bath. He was a dirty mess, with mud still caked in his hair and the creases of his skin. No doubt about it, Willa Handover wasn't going to be dazzled by his pitiful appearance.
She arrived in fifteen minutes, just like Dr. Hubbard had predicted, and the moment Willa sashayed into his room, Longarm felt a whole lot better.
"Marshal Long," she said, setting a big tray of steaming food down on his bed, "you look awful."
"I feel even worse."
Willa's soft, warm fingers touched his bruised and battered cheek. "I'm going to help you feel better, Marshal."
"For the money?"
She laughed. "Partly, but also because my father was a lawman and he was the finest person that ever walked the streets of Tucson, Arizona."
Willa leaned forward and kissed Longarm on the forehead. "You're burning up and it isn't with desire for me."
"It could be."
"Not a chance," she told him as she got a napkin out and spread it across his raspy chest. "Now, we'll start with the vegetable soup with bread, not crackers."
"Sounds good."
"And then we've got some beef stew, and we'll finish up with some vanilla pudding. How does that sound?"
"Everything you say sounds good."
She laughed. A nice, throaty, sexy laugh. Longarm felt like laughing too, only he knew better than to try. "Tell me all about you," he said as she dipped a spoon into the vegetable soup and brought it to his lips.
"I'm a girl who likes strong and wealthy men."
Longarm took a gulp of the soup. It was excellent. "I'm neither."
"You're at least strong," Willa said, looking into his eyes. "And as for the wealth, well, a girl can't have everything."
"I sure am glad you're not the Widow Wallace," Longarm whispered.
She gave him a quizzical look and then kept the soup coming.
CHAPTER 17
Longarm wrapped himself in Willa, his body thrusting mightily as the young woman moaned under his weight, breasts heaving as if she had climbed some great mountain. When Willa began to cry out with passion, Longarm covered her sweet lips with his own and then their bodies stiffened, fire coursing into fire.
"Oh," Willa gasped, "I can't get enough of you, Marshal."
"You're wearing me down to the bone," he said with a smile. "You seem to have forgotten that I'm a sick man."