At Love's Command

by Karen Witemeyer

  Josephine checked the pulse at Mr. Wallace’s wrist and was satisfied with the steady beat beneath her fingertips. The loss of blood had weakened him more than the gunshot itself. Once he regained his strength, he and his captain would be out of her hair. They didn’t seem the type to hang around if they could sit a saddle, and one didn’t need both arms in working order to accomplish that feat. She’d advise against it, of course. The body healed faster when not strained by unnecessary exertion. But she doubted Matthew Hanger would listen. Warriors didn’t loll about when there was a battle to fight.

  Although, if they’d managed to capture the rustlers, they might be between battles. Josephine glanced in the direction of the street where she’d left Matthew Hanger, even though she couldn’t actually see him through the walls of her clinic. What did cavalrymen do when there was no battle to fight?

  “That’s none of your concern,” she murmured under her breath as she straightened her patient’s bedding.

  She turned to leave and spotted the wooden ladder-back chair sitting stiffly in the corner. It was about as pliant as the man who planned to spend the night in it.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake.” Josephine rolled her eyes, flounced out of the infirmary, and mounted the stairs on a quest for pillows.

  Matt led Phineas and Cooper to the livery, paid extra for a bag of oats for each animal in addition to the hay that came with the boarding fee, then set to work relieving them of their gear and brushing them down. He tended to Wallace’s horse first, ensuring Cooper had fresh water, clean hooves, and a liniment rubdown. The kid always pampered his gray. A carryover from his own pampered upbringing back east. Not that the horse didn’t deserve it. A cavalry mount was as much a part of the regiment as the soldier on its back. Taking care of the horse’s needs wasn’t just a responsibility, it was an honor.

  Matt moved to the next stall and patted Phineas’s dark red coat as he eased in alongside him. A vision of the lady doc’s hand brushing Phin’s neck, her long, pale fingers combing through the black of the horse’s mane, jabbed into his brain. He frowned.

  The last thing he needed to be thinking about was a woman. Especially a bossy one who thought she could keep him away from his team. She might have managed to remove a bullet, but that didn’t mean he trusted her with Wallace’s life. She didn’t know the kid. Didn’t share a history with him. She might care about his health on a professional level, but she could never care the way Matt and the other Horsemen did. Bonds forged in the heat of battle were ironclad.

  A woman couldn’t understand that. Shoot, most men couldn’t understand that.

  Matt had seen soldiers sicken after being injured on the battlefield. Blood poisoning. Fever. Gangrene. All after successful surgeries. He’d keep his own watch on Wallace. The lady doc with her sassy mouth and gut-slamming green eyes would just have to accept that.

  He lingered in the stable for the hour he’d promised, giving Phineas and Cooper the thorough care they deserved and giving his head a chance to clear. Seeing Mark go down had shaken him. He’d been able to concentrate on nothing past getting the kid the help he needed. But he’d accomplished that objective, at least in the immediate sense, which meant he could turn his mind to other matters. Like the rustlers and ensuring they received the punishment they deserved. Like the next job the Horsemen would take.

  Francis Kendall had funneled a handful of requests to him, but none of them seemed terribly urgent. The Austin newspaperman who managed their correspondence in exchange for reporting their stories researched the letters sent to Hanger’s Horsemen in care of the paper and verified the authenticity of the requests before passing them along. The thin, bespectacled reporter made an odd member of their team, but he served his purpose and saved Matt the headache of culling through the letters himself.

  Maybe he’d read through the requests again. He had to pass the time somehow while he waited for Wallace to wake up.

  Matt swung his saddlebags over his shoulder, then grabbed the pair that belonged to Wallace. He pulled both rifles from the saddle scabbards, then trudged back to the clinic. He wasn’t about to leave their guns unattended. Preach and the others would be back later tonight. They could take charge of the weaponry then. In the meantime, Dr. Jo’s infirmary was going to double as an armory.

  A grin quirked Matt’s mouth. She was gonna love that.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  You can’t bring all of that in here!”

  Somehow Matt managed not to smile at the sputtering doctor as she sprinted from the examination room to run him down in the hall. He’d made no effort to silence his entrance, knowing the picture he made strapped shoulder to boots with guns, ammunition belts, and knives. Too bad he didn’t have Preach’s saber. It would’ve been a nice addition. He knew he was being ornery, but he couldn’t resist the opportunity to get a rise out of Miss Josephine. She was as headstrong as they came. Opinionated. Obstinate. Taking her off her high horse would be just the distraction he needed.

  She squeezed past him and used her body as a blockade to keep him from advancing down the hallway. Arms spread wide, her fingers brushed the top edges of the white wainscoting. Her chest heaved slightly, either from her mad dash to stop him or from the passion that set her green eyes ablaze. Either way, it looked good on her.

  “This is a place of healing, not a . . . gladiatorial arena.”

  He raised a brow at her. “You thinking to hold me at bay by stackin’ a bunch of highfalutin words between us? Won’t work.”

  She blinked, then tilted her head. Frown lines creased her forehead.

  Yep. Throwing her off her game was a pleasure, indeed.

  “I know you’re an educated woman while I’m just a . . . what did you call me? A gladiator?” He could think of worse monikers. He kind of liked that one, actually. “But I ain’t afraid of fancy vocabulary. Spout it all you want. I’m used to dodging real bullets. Verbal ones won’t scare me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Her arms slowly lowered. “I’m not trying to engage you in . . . linguistical fisticuffs. That’s just the way I speak.”

  Uh-huh. She was searching for big words now. On purpose. That slight pause was a dead giveaway. She apparently enjoyed a good sparring match as much as he did.

  “Speak however you like,” he said with a dismissive shrug. “Just don’t expect it to deter me.” He took a step forward.

  Dr. Jo didn’t move. Well, she crossed her arms, but that was a fortification of her stance, not a retreat. “Glower as much as you like,” she countered. “Just don’t expect it to deter me. Your weapons must be stored elsewhere.”

  “Where would you suggest? Want me to dig a hole out back and bury them? I can’t just leave them out on the front stoop or in the tack room at the livery. As much as I’d like to believe that all the people in Purgatory Springs are honest folk, I’m not about to tempt fate by leaving my valuables unsupervised. The guns stay with me.”

  “Those guns are the reason Mr. Wallace nearly bled to death. I won’t have them in my infirmary.”

  Matt’s jaw tightened at the not-so-subtle hint that he and his lifestyle were responsible for Mark’s condition. “These guns aren’t responsible for Wallace’s injury,” Matt said, giving the rifles in his hands a lift. “These guns are responsible for saving our lives when the rustlers attacked. Rustlers who are all alive, having sustained only minor injuries, by the way. Because these guns were handled by men who respect human life and do all in their power to preserve it.”

  She frowned at his argument but didn’t offer a reply. Hopefully that meant his logic had found a crack in her opinions.

  “These are the tools of my trade, the key to my livelihood,” he said. “You wouldn’t appreciate someone demanding you leave your doctoring bag outside simply because they didn’t approve of scientific advancements. You’d want to keep it close at hand because it is part of who you are. I’m asking for the same courtesy.”

  “Fine. But will you at least unloa
d them? I doubt an invading army is planning to storm the clinic any time soon.”

  He supposed he could grant her that concession. With the rustlers rounded up and taken into custody, there was no immediate threat. It might go against his grain not to be battle-ready at all times, but if she was willing to let him keep the guns, he’d see they were unloaded.

  “Deal.” He set the rifles against the wall and held out his hand.

  Slowly, she uncrossed her arms, then reached out and clasped his hand in a firm shake. The contact sent an unexpected frisson charging up his arm, and a wave of warmth pulsed through his chest. Her eyes widened slightly, as if she’d felt it too, but she withdrew her hand, and the sensation abated before he could examine it more closely.

  Miss Josephine stepped aside and allowed him access to the small recovery room. He just couldn’t think of her as Dr. Jo when she wasn’t actively tending a patient, since the Dr. Joe he’d conjured in his mind at first hearing the name was a portly fellow with white muttonchop whiskers, spectacles, and a paunchy midsection. Matt retrieved the rifles, but instead of striding through the now unobstructed doorway, he held his position and allowed his gaze to follow his opponent’s retreat.

  “I’ll bring dinner for the two of you in a couple hours,” she said, her back turned to him as she marched down the hallway.

  Her hospitality surprised him. She clearly didn’t want him here, yet she offered to feed him. She was a contradiction.

  “Thanks.”

  Miss Josephine glanced over her shoulder, her eyes dancing with mischief. “Broth.” A touch of triumph quirked the edge of her mouth. “Residents of the infirmary eat from the invalid’s menu.” She gave him a quick examination, as if inspecting his health and evaluating his ability to eat solid food. “Perhaps I’ll add a little milk toast.”

  “Sounds hearty.” Only a touch of sarcasm laced his words. In truth, it was all he could do not to laugh outright. She dueled with words the way Preach fenced with his cavalry saber. Matt would have saluted her for her combat skills if his hands hadn’t been full.

  A wide smile blossomed, exposing white, straight teeth and transforming her face from that of the contrary doctor he’d been sparring with to an enticing woman he suddenly wanted to get to know a whole lot better.

  She’s not for you, Hanger. Matt frowned as she disappeared back into her examination room. Josephine Burkett was a settling-down kind of woman, and Matt was about as unsettled as a fella could get. Too rough around the edges. Too hardened by war. Too dependent on violence for his livelihood. The exact opposite of what an educated woman who hated guns and lived to heal people would want.

  “Is it true?” Elizabeth Carrington burst through the clinic’s back door, slightly out of breath, her toddler son, Grant, braced on her right hip and a basket slung over her left arm. “Do you actually have two of the Horsemen here?”

  Josephine turned from where she stood at the stove in front of a pot of boiling water. “Good evening to you too, Lizzie.”

  Her friend pulled up short at the sight of Josephine at the stove. Lizzie raised a brow and twisted Grant slightly behind her as if to shield him from an atrocity. “You’re not cooking, are you?”

  Josephine laughed. “Of course not. I want my patient to recover.” Although the other occupant of her infirmary might have earned a dose of gastrointestinal distress with his gun-toting stubbornness. Then again, she’d taken an oath to do no harm. “I’m just sterilizing my surgical instruments. I know better than to infringe on your territory.”

  She and Lizzie had struck up a partnership soon after Josephine opened her practice in Purgatory Springs. Josephine paid her a monthly stipend to provide evening meals for herself and any patients staying at the clinic. As the wife of the local mercantile owner, Lizzie had ready access to foodstuffs and could make even the simplest dishes taste better than most of the restaurant food Josephine had eaten back in Philadelphia. Plus, she always had the latest news to impart, and since she was the only woman in town close to Josephine’s age, they had quickly become fast friends.

  “I brought some chicken soup for the injured one,” Lizzie said as she set the basket on the cabinet closest to the stove. She pulled out a jar filled to the brim with golden broth and chunks of chicken, carrots, and celery. “Then I have roast beef with potatoes and onions, corn bread, green beans, and a slice of cake for the other one.”

  Josephine left her instruments to simmer and swooped in to steal the most adorable male in her clinic from his mama. “Anything for me?” she asked as she zoomed Grant through the air before snuggling him in for a hug. “Or are the Horsemen the only ones eating tonight?”

  “It would serve you right if I left you to fend for yourself.”

  A dire threat indeed. Josephine kept store-bought bread and jam on hand for breakfast, and since she could boil water successfully, she managed tea without much trouble. But anything that required actual chemical transformation from raw ingredient to baked/fried/roasted edibleness was best left to the experts. Lizzie knew this, of course, and wasn’t above using such knowledge to her advantage.

  Lizzie retrieved a pot from the cabinet and poured the soup into it. “You still haven’t answered my question, you know.”

  “Did I need to?” Josephine grinned at Grant and took his small, fisted hand inside her own. “You obviously knew the two men were here.”

  “I knew two men of some sort were here. The town’s been buzzing ever since the one rode in on that big red horse of his and carried the other into the clinic.” Lizzie rolled her eyes. Not that Josephine could see it, since her attention was wrapped up in making faces at the towheaded boy in her arms, but she could definitely hear it in her friend’s tone. “What I didn’t know was if these two men are the two men—two of the four Horsemen that Daddy hired to help fight off the rustlers.”

  Lizzie’s father was Terrance Dalton, the rancher who had organized the cattlemen in the area to pool their resources and hire outside help. She probably knew more about the two men in the infirmary than Josephine did.

  “I can’t say for sure,” Josephine said. Lizzie was the root stalk of the Purgatory Springs grapevine, and torturing her for just a little longer was too rich a temptation to resist. “They didn’t proclaim themselves Horsemen when they came in. The bullet lodged in the younger one’s shoulder left little room for chitchat.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Out with it!” Lizzie brandished a wooden spoon in a manner that would have been menacing had her son not started clapping and reaching for it as if grab-the-spoon was a game he played with her regularly.

  “All right.” Josephine laughed as she pulled Grant out of reach of the spoon. “One of them did happen to mention fighting rustlers. Same one who wears a vest that closely resembles US Cavalry attire. Oh, and his name is Matthew Hanger. Does that help?”

  “I knew it!” Lizzie thrust her spoon into the air in victory before retreating back to the stove. She might adore amassing information for the purpose of redistribution, but she always confirmed her facts before sharing. Unfounded gossip had no place on Elizabeth Carrington’s grapevine. In truth, she was more of a journalist than a rumor mill. It was why everyone came to the mercantile for the scoop on local happenings. They knew her information could be trusted.

  Grant’s lower lip started to quiver as his mama left with the spoon. Diagnosing the problem and quickly devising a treatment, Josephine lifted the boy in front of her, then leaned in and blew on his neck in a loud, messy fashion. Grant dissolved into giggles, and Josephine’s heart dissolved into mush.

  Lizzie grinned at her son’s laughter, then caught Josephine’s eye. “Any news on your brother?” she asked as she stirred, her expression growing more serious. “I’ve been praying for him.”

  “Nothing good to report, I’m afraid. According to Darla, Charlie’s still running with a rough crowd. I worry about him.”

  Charlie and her father were at odds more often than not these days. Two stubborn men set
on having things their own way. The last she’d heard from their housekeeper, Father had threatened to cut off Charlie financially in order to force him into an honest day’s work. It might be just what Charlie needed, but then again, it might widen the divide between them instead. If that gulf expanded any further, she feared Charlie might be lost to them forever.

  “I’ll keep praying for him,” Lizzie said, her eyes aglow with sympathy.

  “Thank you.” The heartfelt words barely scratched the surface of her gratitude.

  Tiny hands patted Josephine’s cheeks, bringing her attention back to lighter matters. She shifted Grant to her hip, bent forward, and nuzzled his neck. “Auntie Jo’s going to get your tummy!”

  The little boy squealed and bent backward over her arm as she tickled his rib cage. Josephine grinned. Nothing in the world could instill more joy and hope into a person than the laughter of a child.

  Grant was the first baby she’d delivered in Purgatory Springs, so she naturally felt a special attachment to him. But when the grinning fifteen-month-old’s sparkling blue eyes looked at her with complete trust and acceptance, she couldn’t help wishing, for just a moment, that she could be in a position to have a child of her own.

  Few men considered twenty-eight-year-old, career-focused women prime wife material, however, and the men willing to overlook her shortcomings in those areas had significant enough shortcomings of their own to keep her firmly on the unmarried path. In truth, as much as her heart panged at the thought that she might never have children, she was content with her lot. God had called her to medicine. Of that she had no doubt. He’d placed a passion within her for scientific learning and a heart that ached on behalf of the hurting. She might never have what other women did, but what she did have was special, and she wouldn’t regret making whatever sacrifices were necessary to fulfill her vocation.

  Besides, the only man to stir even a hint of romantic interest in her in recent memory was more likely to court death than a woman of medicine. He was a mercenary, for crying out loud. A man who made his living with his gun. The exact opposite of everything she believed in.