She unbuckled a saddlebag. It wasn’t proper to be going through a man’s personal belongings without being married. Unsettled, she rushed the chore. Her fingers touched cotton, and she pulled out a shirt. A paper fluttered to the ground. Mr. Jackson made a dive for it.
She snatched it up. “Not for you.” She was thankful she retrieved it before him and that the barn floor was dry so there wouldn’t be telltale wet marks. It wouldn’t do if Dr. Logan thought she’d been sneaking through his private papers.
Holding the paper with great care, she slung his clean shirt over her shoulder, wishing she didn’t notice the scent of leather mixed with the smell of spice. It smelled just like him, making her feel warm and safe, and how could that be when he was taking their home from them? Can’t trust your nose, goose. She planned to put the paper back, hoping he wouldn’t notice it had been moved. Silly, really, since he would know she might have seen it, since he’d let her retrieve his shirt.
As she moved closer to the saddlebag, a ray of light snaked through the barn wall, illuminating a name she knew, and knew well. Her pa’s perfect penmanship caught her unaware. She traced his name with her fingertip. He’d touched this paper. It was the last thing that she knew for sure he had written. With this new loss, her grief weighed heavier, and this one final contact with her pa overcame her good manners.
Before she knew what she was doing, she’d read the document from beginning to end.
Bile rose and burned her throat. She swallowed the thick spit. She wouldn’t let her father get away with this. Not this. Anything but this. Unconcerned about how much her mother would have chastised her for unladylike behavior, she bent and gathered a large amount of her dreadful black skirt into her hand, hiking it higher than her ankles. With the other, she grasped tight the disturbing paper she’d discovered. With her head down, she charged toward the cabin.
Blinking back angry tears, she shoved the paper in her apron pocket as she ran over the bumpy ground. She was going to send Dr. Logan packing, and she didn’t care if she had to shoot him again. This time she’d aim for his heart, and his Mary could wonder what happened to him forever for all Heaven cared. Angel would be amenable to helping bury him out where Pa had planned to pen the pigs last spring.
The fingers of the earth snagged her foot. In her hurry, she’d forgotten about the hole in the path. On her way to the ground, she heard an awful popping noise and felt a lightning bolt of pain. Right before she hit the dirt, she grasped the paper tighter. Then her mind took a nap.
Heaven opened her eyes. Her face felt sticky. Touching it, she found it covered in mud. Why was she on the ground? She braced herself with one hand and pulled her leg a fragment closer. Pain landed like a mule kick in her chest, taking away her breath and sending it to the Mississippi. “Why, God? Why?” As soon as life around her began to sour, it went on to curdle soon after.
She smacked the ground with a fist. “How much more pain are You planning to send my way, God? I can’t take it anymore!” How would she manage now? Because she’d surely broken her leg. Could it get any worse? She’d shot a man, caused her sister to go blind, and now she’d messed up her own body.
“Angel!” Her sister’s hearing had improved since losing her sight. Heaven hoped to reap the benefit. She shivered, causing waves of pain to roll through her leg.
“Angel!”
Nothing.
Maybe she should shout for Dr. Logan. No, she wouldn’t ask him for anything.
“Angel! Help me! Please help!”
What was taking the woman so long to get his shirt? He paced the floor of the cabin, wondering how he was going to explain Heaven’s father’s will. Standing up straight in a pile of goose poop would be easier than telling her he only wanted—
Angel bumped into him, or did he bump into her? “Dr. Logan! Heaven’s calling. She cried, ‘Help!’ Can you see what’s happening?”
“I didn’t hear her, but I’ll go see.” Apparently Angel had no intention of letting him go alone, he discovered as he followed her to the door. Stepping out on the porch, he didn’t see anything, but he heard a moan. “Miss Wharton?”
“She’s by the barn. I can tell.” Angel headed to the steps. “Come on, she needs us.”
“I’m right behind you. I see her. She’s lying in a heap on the ground.”
“I bet she fell in that hole she keeps telling me to watch out for.”
“It looks like she did.” Travis looked to the sky for a moment. Why, God? He couldn’t seem to escape people who needed doctoring.
Angel squatted next to her sister. “Heaven, you fell in the hole, didn’t you? Good thing Dr. Logan and I are here to save you.”
Travis bent over. His head wound thumped. “Do you think you can walk?”
“No, I can’t get up at all.” Heaven’s forehead was drawn tight with the pain.
“Guess I’ll have to carry you inside then.” He slid his arms under her and lifted.
She screamed and went limp.
Travis was thankful she didn’t weigh much, since he wasn’t feeling quite as strong as he did yesterday. Yesterday he’d been in good health on his way to his new life. Today he had a hole in his head and a beautiful woman in his arms. Now that she was captive, he took the chance to observe her without fear of being shot. Her face, missing the angry hue of this morning, was alabaster white. And holding her close, he noticed the tiny speck at the corner of her eye wasn’t dirt but a birthmark in the shape of a teardrop.
“Angel, can you get the door?”
“Are we by the hole?”
“About two steps in front of it.” He waited to see if she would cling to him or head out on her own.
“Then I’ll start at three.” She took a step and started counting. When she reached ten she stopped. “Will you tell me if I count wrong? I don’t want to trip on the step.”
“I will.” He followed behind her as she made quick time across the yard.
“Seventeen. I should be at the step. Am I?” Angel looked over her shoulder. Her gaze hit his chest.
“Yes you are, and there are three …”
“I know. Three steps.” Confidence showed in her stance as she flew up the stairs and made it to the cabin door. “Stick her on Pa’s bed, I guess.”
Travis’s stitches pulled as he lowered Heaven. As the blood rushed to his cut, his head throbbed.
She opened her eyes and cried out with pain. “It hurts! Did I break it? My leg, is it broken?”
“I’m not sure yet, since I haven’t had a chance to inspect the damage. It might be a bad sprain. I’ll have to take off your boot so I can look at it.”
“Angel can do that.” Her face was no longer white but red.
“She could, but can she tell if your leg is broken or if it’s a sprained ankle?”
He could see the waves of indecision on her face. “I’m a doctor. I’ve seen a lot of ankles.”
“Ladies’ ankles?” Horror showed in her widened eyes.
“No ma’am, just soldiers’ ankles. Will you let me look at it?”
She nodded.
He unlaced her boot and pulled at the heel to remove it. She screamed.
He stopped. “I’m going to have to cut this off of your foot.”
“You can’t.” Her voice wavered. “Please. It’s my only pair.”
And she wouldn’t have the money to buy another pair he guessed. “It has to come off, Miss Wharton, and if I have to pull it off, it’s going to hurt so much you’ll wish you could shoot me twenty more times.”
“No, wait. Please. We have laudanum in the kitchen. Angel, can you show him where we keep the medical basket? I can’t stand this pain.”
“You have laudanum? Why didn’t you use it when you were stitching me up last night?” If she had, maybe they wouldn’t have had this conversation this morning. He might still be sleeping, and she wouldn’t have stepped in that hole.
“I forgot we had it.”
“Forgot it? Or didn’t want to offer it
?” Travis shook his head in disbelief. “Please?”
“I’ll get it.” He chastised himself for making her think he wouldn’t give it to her. Angel collected the basket while he found the medicine and grabbed a spoon. He hesitated giving it to her, having seen others take even a small amount and not be able to stop once the pain was gone. Still, he didn’t think he could treat her like a soldier and set her leg without the pain being deadened. His shoulders tensed as images of the battlefield slammed against each other in his mind. Here he was taking care of someone—again. All he’d wanted to do was raise horses, and now everything was complicated. He had to treat her; he couldn’t just walk out of the house and leave her there.
Soldiering forth, he sat on the stool next to the bed. He poured the liquid into the spoon. “Open up and swallow fast. This won’t taste good.”
He gave her the large dose and waited for the telltale haze to slide across her eyes, signaling the power of the drug. She smiled at him and then winked. Startled, he withdrew his eyes from hers while wondering if he’d given her too much. She was quite small, not like the men he’d treated. Even the youngest were larger than she was.
“Angel, I need you here, too, or rather, I would feel better if you stood close by while I treated your sister. I noticed your sister prides herself on propriety.”
Angel nodded, her lips screwed up as if she were considering saying something.
“Is there something on your mind, Little Miss?”
“It’s just that if something improper happened, I wouldn’t see it. So how can I protect Heaven?”
He sighed. From what he’d quickly learned about the Wharton women, they were all about protecting each other from harm. “No, I suppose you can’t see me, so you’ll have to trust me. I’ll tell you everything I’m doing as I do it so you’ll be able to hear my voice and know where I am.”
“Guess that’s all I can do.” Angel rushed past him and scooted him off the stool. “You stay by her foot. No way am I letting you kiss her, not when you’ve been calling for Mary.”
Mary. He felt like he’d been gut shot. How had Angel known about her? He must have said her name last night while under the influence of the fever. It wasn’t likely he’d ever be kissing her again. Just another failure in his life. No matter that others said, it was better this way. He didn’t think so then, but now that he was looking at the beautiful woman in front of him, the pain of betrayal was beginning to fade. But he brought it back to the front and filled in the diminishing colors. He wouldn’t be blinded again by a pretty face, no matter how sweet that teardrop by her eye looked or how the softness of her skin tweaked a long-forgotten feeling of wanting to be responsible for someone. No, he wouldn’t be dazzled by such things. He’d take care of her long enough to see her back on her feet, and then he’d leave.
Leave? But the farm was his, wasn’t it? It was a dilemma. If he left, someone else would eventually take it from Heaven and Angel. Or worse, Heaven would actually kill the next man who rode down her drive. That had to be why Caleb had given him both the farm and Heaven. As if you could give a daughter away without her knowledge. He had some cogitating to do.
“Dr. Logan.” Heaven’s voice was thick as honey.
Her eyes were glazing, and Travis knew the medicine was working. “Yes, Miss Wharton?”
“I don’t …” She blinked or more like closed her eyes and opened them slowly. “’Tis not working—the medicine.”
“Yes it is, Miss Wharton. I do believe it’s about time for me to slip off that boot.”
“Dr. Logan. You are a beautiful man.” Heaven’s eyes lowered, and she stroked his hand with a finger. “You have such capable-looking hands.”
His hand felt as hot as a poker just out of the fire where Heaven’s finger had mapped its way across the back of his hand. He jerked it back. This was not something he’d ever experienced in the battlefield.
Angel snickered. “Maybe we should keep him, Heaven, if you like him so much.”
Travis wiggled the boot free. Heaven whimpered. “Stop. Please stop!” “It’s off now.” He slowly rolled down her stocking to see if the skin had broken. He hoped not, because that would mean months of recovery.
“I’d like to keep Dr. Logan.” Heaven’s voice seemed thicker. He liked the way it sounded.
“Dr. Logan?” Her eyebrows couldn’t seem to settle in one place as she attempted to focus on him.
“Yes, Miss Wharton?” Travis wondered how he would splint the ankle.
“I think I could love you. Could you love me, too?”
Heat crept up his face as Angel put her hand in front of her mouth to hold back the laughter. He was glad she couldn’t see him, because she would likely tease him mercilessly. He wasn’t a stranger to that, not with having older sisters.
“I’m sure I could, Miss Wharton. You are a mighty desirable woman.” If she knew what else her pa had given him besides the land, would she still be saying that? He’d have to figure out what to do with these two soon. His plans hadn’t included a wife, much less one with a precocious sister.
“Then I think we should get married soon, Dr. Logan. Pa’s right. And I’m so tired of being alone. If we were married, I’d not be alone anymore.”
She stared right at him; shimmering sapphires with feathery lashes pierced his heart in the lonely place, making a hole where she entered like a thief in the night. She’d make someone a beautiful wife, but not him. Then her eyes closed, and her head fell back on the pillow. From the way she was snoring, he knew she would be out for a while.
Her ankle was sprained, not broken. The tightness in Travis’s neck released. Heaven’s treatment wouldn’t be pleasant, but not as unpleasant as it would be if she had broken a bone. She’d have to soak her foot in a bucket of cold water several times a day. He shivered again. As cold as this cabin was this morning, he wondered if a layer of ice would form across the top before she could plunk her foot into it. He felt sorry for her, but it was better than a broken ankle. The last time he’d treated a broken bone, an infection turned the foot green. He shuddered at the memory of sawing off that man’s foot. At least this time the patient should retain all of her parts.
“Angel, I need some old clothes that I can cut into strips. I have to bind your sister’s ankle. Do you think you could find me something to use? Something Heaven won’t be angry about us taking scissors to?”
Angel stood. “I suppose we could use one of Ma’s crinolines. Heaven won’t be happy about that though.” She twisted a curl in her fingers.
No, she probably needed her mother’s things to make new clothes for her and Angel. “What about a shirt of your father’s?” Caleb wouldn’t be needing those anymore. A man’s shirt didn’t have enough fabric to make anything useful for the remaining Whartons.
“Pa left a shirt and a pair of pants behind. Sometimes Heaven wears the pants though, to clean out the barn.”
Since the barn belonged to him now, he knew Heaven wouldn’t need to muck it out. “I’ll take the pants. They’ll make long and strong strips. If Heaven complains, I’ll find a way to calm her down. Can you bring me the scissors from your sister’s sewing basket, too?”
Angel took a step forward and touched Heaven’s arm. “Heaven? He wants me to get the scissors. I know I’m not supposed to, but if you don’t wake up and tell me not to, then I’m going to do it.”
Heaven remained still.
“Guess that means it’s okay.”
Angel’s toothy grin lightened his mood, and then the dangers of a blind child handling sharp scissors occurred to him. “I imagine this one time it will be okay to break your sister’s rule. Just point the sharp end to the ground. Don’t run or skip on your way back here.”
“I can do that. Pa’s pants are hangin’ on the wall peg behind you.”
Light on her feet, Angel took off, seeming to forget her vow of never leaving Travis alone with her sister. He shook his head. That poor girl needed to be able to do more things on her own. He wou
ld tell Heaven about the soldiers he had worked with and how their attitudes about life got better when they were treated normally. Not that Angel acted like a spoiled invalid. Far from it, she was as sharp as a razor just run over a strap. It seemed to him Angel’s problem was her sister. Maybe he could work with Heaven on that while he was here waiting for her to get strong enough to go … to go where? It seemed she and Angel didn’t have a place to go.
Angel brought him the scissors. “Heaven never lets me touch these. I told her I could, and I would be careful. Can I cut the strips out of Pa’s pants?”
Travis wanted to say yes. “If there was another pair, I would say yes. But since we only have the one, I probably need to cut them so we get straight strips.”
Disappointment flashed over her face, and her little body seemed to grow smaller as he hunkered down on the stool. “I understand.”
“I think you could do it, darlin’, but one wrong cut, and we’d have to get into your mama’s petticoats. I would rather Heaven be mad at me than at you if a mistake is made.”
Angel lifted her face and beamed. “So it’s not because I can’t see?”
“No, Little Miss, I don’t want to get your sister’s ire up.
She’s already shot me once this week.”
Angel giggled. “That she did, Dr. Logan.”
Annabelle grasped the edge of a chair as the dining car rounded a curve, sending her off balance. She would have landed on the floor if not for the gentleman who caught her.
He steadied her. “Are you all right? These trains often take you on a ride you didn’t purchase a ticket for.”
She touched her chignon, checking that her hair hadn’t escaped its silver net. “I’m fine, sir. Thank you kindly for assisting me.”
“My pleasure. Thaddeus Kincaid at your service anytime, Miss …?”
“Singleton. Thank you again, Mr. Kincaid.” She noticed the clipped speech and harsh ending consonants. Mr. Kincaid was not a southern man.
Bride's Dilemma in Friendship, Tennessee Page 7