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pink woolen blanket. He glanced around, looking for his weapon and trying to see who besides Emma Colby he had to contend with. Banged up as he was, he wouldn’t be much good without a gun.
    “I’m sorry if the settee is uncomfortable. I wasn’t able to move you upstairs.” The woman smiled. “We had enough trouble just getting you into the parlor.”
    Having such a radiant smile focused on him was unbelievable. Before he’d passed out, his best guess had been that he’d awaken in a jail cell, or, more preferably, at the pearly gates. Never would he have expected to be lying in front of a woman in what was probably the nicest house he’d ever stepped foot in.
    Then that word sank in. She’d said we . “You’ve got somebody else here?”
    Her smile remained frozen. “Yes—there’s Lorna.”
    Drawn to an almost undetectable sound, Lang looked at the door leading out of the room in time to fasten upon a pair of round blue eyes, which rounded even more when they discovered he was staring into them. In a flash, the blond head disappeared. Apparently Lorna was shy. And no one to be afraid of.
    He frowned. “You two women dragged me in here all by yourselves?”
    “Yes, we did.”
    Emma Colby didn’t appear big enough to haul a grown man’s deadweight very far, and he doubted the blonde was much bigger. He looked her over from the crown of her head to her slim shoulders and frame to her little feet encased in small, sturdy black boots. “I’ve put you to too much trouble.”
    “You weren’t so difficult to manage.” She blushed under his visual assessment.
    Lang shook his head in amazement. He was still free—and living to see a pretty woman blush! He looked toward the door, and listened for any more sounds coming from the house. There was nothing but the unholy loud ticking of a clock. He truly was alone in a house with two ladies, at least one of whom seemed to know quite a bit about doctoring. Things could definitely be worse. Much worse. He screwed his lips into a grin.
    The woman named Emma averted her eyes. “Are you thirsty, Mr. Tupper?”
    Deep inside, he froze. Mr. Tupper… She’d said his name before, he remembered now. She knew who he was. Did she also know he was wanted by the law?
    How else would she know his name?
    Lorna’s frightened blue eyes peeking at him made more sense now. That wasn’t just shyness making a complete stranger regard him as if he were a dangerous character. To think—he’d gone from law-abiding farmer to desperado in the space of a month! If it had been anybody else, the absurdity of the situation might have had him in stitches. As it was, the only stitches he could produce were the ones over his mangled body parts.
    He studied Emma Colby’s profile. “Mr. Tupper” she called him, and she’d said his name with relative calm. There was no accusation in her tone. And yet he wore nothing that would reveal his identity, carried no letters that might have familiarized her with the name Lang Tupper. So the only way Miss Emma Colby could know him was through reputation…as an outlaw.
    He knit his brows together and scrutinized her intently. Now that he got a better look at her, he could tell she was a little on the mousy side. Not nearly so pretty as Lucy—not that being unlike that other woman was necessarily a bad thing, he thought a little bitterly. Emma’s hair was a light brown color, like fallen leaves, and her cheeks had a fine dusting of freckles. Her mouth, when it wasn’t smiling, was nothing extraordinary. But her eyes, wide set and green, shone like precious gemstones with a rare intelligence. And beneath that calm of hers, he detected tension.
    She was testing him. But what did she expect him to say? More interestingly, what did she want him to say?
    Lang knew one thing—he hadn’t come this far only to be handed over to the law by an earnest female. “Maybe you’re confused…or I am. What name did you call me?”
    “Tupper,” she said, cocking