Radclyffe - Promising Hearts

  As Caleb retracted the probe, Vance opened the jaws of the forceps and pressed deeper into the wound, finally closing the instrument at the point where she knew the bullet to be. With a slight twist to free the surrounding tissue, she extracted the forceps with the bullet held firmly in its jaws. "Kate, press down on the wound now."

  It had taken her just over a minute to complete the entire maneuver.

  "Never seen it done slicker," Caleb murmured.

  Wordlessly, Vance turned away from the table and laid the forceps with the bullet still clamped tightly in the jaws onto the cloth Mae had spread out beneath her other instruments. "I imagine you know what needs to be done, Caleb."

  "Yes," Caleb said grimly, swabbing the area around the wound with a whiskey-soaked cloth. "Now we wait."

  Vance walked to the sideboard and dunked her bloodied hand into a basin of water. Without bothering to dry it, she crossed the room to a door that led out into the alley behind the building, opened it, and stepped out into the dark.

  "Is there anything I can do to help you?" Kate asked quietly.

  "Let's turn him over and get him covered. I suspect he'll be as comfortable here as anywhere else for the next few hours." Smiling faintly at the two women, Caleb went on, "This is the part that's so wearing, because we've done all we can really do. I've never seen anyone get a bullet out that was in that deep so fast and with so little damage to all the other structures. No one could have given him a better chance." He slid his arm under Jed. "You two take his arm there and turn him toward you when I lift."

  Once Jed was on his back, Mae retrieved a blanket from a cabinet along the wall, and she and Kate spread it over him.

  "Jessie's in the other room," Kate said. "She's hurt. Could you look at her now?"

  "Of course. Go get her."

  When Kate returned to the anteroom, Jessie bolted to her feet, her face pale.

  "Kate?"

  Putting a smile on her face, Kate hurried to her. "He's alive. The bullet's out."

  "Oh Lord," Jessie sighed, closing her eyes. They'd ridden more than twenty-four hours straight without stopping for food or water. The stress and fear made her weak, and she swayed.

  "Here now," Kate said quickly, wrapping her arm around Jessie's waist. "You need some looking after. Come in the other room and let Dr. Melbourne check you."

  "The horses. I have to see to the horses. They need to be stabled and fed."

  "And so do you," Kate said firmly. "Now don't argue. As soon as you're taken care of, I'll make sure your horses get to the livery."

  "Charlie. Charlie Baker came down with us. He should be right outside somewhere. He can do it."

  Kate briefly recalled passing a man in the dark, slumped in a chair just outside the door, on her wild rush inside. "I'll find him. Now come with me."

  Too weary to think anymore, Jessie allowed Kate to lead her by the hand into the back room. When she saw Jed lying so quiet on the table, his eyes shut, his chest just barely moving, she bit her lip to stop the tears and looked quickly away.

  "He's tough as one of those wild horses of yours, Montana," Mae said compassionately. "He wouldn't take kindly to you doubting him."

  Jessie nodded.

  "I don't think you need me any longer, do you, Doc," Mae said as Kate started to gently unbutton Jessie's shirt. There was something so private about the way Jessie kept her eyes fixed on Kate's face, as if Kate were all the strength she'd ever need, that Mae had to turn away.

  "No, we'll be fine," Caleb said absently as he rummaged in the cabinet for more supplies. He did not notice as Mae followed the path Vance had taken a few moments before and disappeared through the back door.

  Kate opened Jessie's wool shirt, saw the bloody tear in the thin cotton shirt she wore under it, and gasped. "Oh, Jessie."

  "I'm okay," Jessie said swiftly, gathering her wits when she realized how frightening this must look to Kate. "It barely touched me."

  "It touched you," Kate murmured, cupping Jessie's chin and brushing a thumb over her cheek. "That's all that matters."

  "Just don't worry," Jessie said, trying not to grimace when Caleb wiped at the blood caked onto her side with a damp cloth.

  "Don't be silly." Kate kept one hand on Jessie's shoulder as she watched the doctor work. She felt Jessie tremble. "I love you. I'm allowed to worry."

  If Caleb Melbourne heard, or cared, he gave no sign of it. At length he straightened. "I'm going to tape a clean cloth over this. It should be changed three times a day and the area cleansed." He looked at Kate.

  "I'm quite sure you can take care of that."

  "Yes," Kate said steadily.

  "No riding for a couple of days."

  "She won't," Kate answered before Jessie could protest.

  Jessie motioned toward Jed. "How long will he need to stay here?"

  "He shouldn't be moved very far for at least a week. We'll get him over to the hotel or Mae's place in a day or so."

  "I need to go out to the ranch to see to things tomorrow," Jessie said. She swallowed. "The men are going to be pretty stirred up about this."

  Caleb frowned. "You'd best see they don't go doing something crazy. I might have a good surgeon here, but that doesn't mean I'm in the market for more patients."

  Jessie said nothing.

  "Let's go home, Jessie," Kate said gently. She intended to find out exactly what had happened and what Jessie intended to do about it. But for now, all she wanted to do was hold her.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It had started to rain, and it was so dark in the alley behind Doc Melbourne's that Mae could not see her way around the puddles.

  "Lord, could this night get any worse," she muttered, lifting her dress. Her shoes were already a ruin. Her heart lurched when a form materialized from the shadows ahead of her, and she reached into the inner pocket of her dress for her Derringer. As the figure approached, she drew a breath and steadied her hand. She'd not be taken in an alley.

  What she did--and with whom--she did by conscious will.

  "You shouldn't be out here," Vance said. "It's far too dark and inclement."

  "Is there something wrong with your brain?" Mae snapped, her fear overriding her manners. Shaking now, she secured her gun and tucked it away. "I almost shot you."

  Vance slid out of her coat and swept it around Mae's shoulders.

  "Well, at least I would have been close to treatment if you had. Where's your shawl?"

  "I left my room in rather a hurry, if you'll recall." It was difficult for Mae to see Vance's face, as the moon had disappeared behind the storm clouds. Still, she could make out enough to know that Vance had been standing in the rain for a long time. Her hair was plastered to her forehead and neck, and the coat that Vance had covered her with was soaked through. Mae placed her palm against Vance's chest. "You're wet to the skin."

  "As you will be, if you stand here much longer." Vance cupped Mae's elbow and guided her down the passageway toward the main street. "You should go straight home and get warm. Have some tea and a fire or--"

  "And while I'm getting all comfortable, just what are you planning to do?" Abruptly, Mae halted, jerked her arm away, and faced Vance in the street. "Wander around until you catch your death?"

  "I think that unlikely. I've lived outside in weather like this for far longer--"

  "I'm sure you have. I'm sure you've seen things that no one else could understand even if you explained them," Mae said sharply, "but you don't have to now." She took Vance's hand and gripped her cold fingers. She didn't need to see her face to know that whatever had plagued her in the doc's office still had a hold on her. Her voice had a hollow ring to it, as if she had to force the words out from some deep place. "Come back with me and let me make us both some tea."

  Vance hesitated, still trapped between worlds, part of her reeling from the images of battle, the other drawn to the strength and tenderness in Mae's touch. She sensed Mae shiver with cold, and that made her decision. "If
you've whiskey for the tea, I could use some."

  Mae wrapped her arm around Vance's waist. "Living where I do, that's one thing I never run out of. Come along, now. The street's turning into a river of mud."

  Vance very rarely lamented the loss of her arm, because there were far greater things to mourn. But at that particular moment, she wished she had two just so she could lift Mae in her arms and carry her across the treacherous thoroughfare. She'd never had the desire to do anything of the sort before in her life, but she wanted it now like an ache in her bones. She contented herself with resting her hand in the center of Mae's back to guide her. "I'm sorry for the weather."

  Mae laughed as they set out, splashing through the puddles they couldn't see and sliding in inches of deep mud. "Unless you called the rain, you've no need to be."

  "A lady shouldn't have to--"

  "I know you don't mean yourself, because I'll wager you've tramped through worse than this. And believe me," Mae gasped, hurrying the last few feet down the alley to the stairs, "so have I. I walked behind a wagon most all the way out here."

  "Well, you shouldn't have to do anything of the kind now."

  "Are you all right?" Mae asked quietly. "I know you were bad there for a little bit."

  "I'm recovered, I believe. Thanks to you." Vance leaned against the building, one leg up on the first stair, the other on the ground. Mae stood close to her, one arm still resting on her hip, her body angled between Vance's legs. The eaves sheltered them from the worst of the rain, and the lights in the windows on the second floor provided enough illumination for Vance to see Mae's face. She brushed the wet tendrils of hair away from Mae's throat, allowing her fingers to linger on the sleek column of her neck. Mae's skin was cool but the blood beat hot just beneath her smooth skin. That unmistakable rush of life made her all too aware of the void in her own being, and she realized how easily she could feed off Mae's passion, taking, with nothing to offer in return.

  "You should go upstairs now and draw a bath. Get warm."

  "I think I might," Mae said, trying to decipher the brooding look on Vance's face. Their bodies nearly touched, and the slow brush of Vance's fingers over her skin stirred heat in places that the far more demanding caresses she endured from others never awakened. She could return to the saloon, back to the noise and press of bodies and mindless coupling, or she could spin out this fragile thread that fluttered between them a little longer. "Join me."

  Vance gasped, not at the unexpected invitation but at the image of intimacy that came instantly to her mind. Mae's pale skin shimmering with crystal droplets in the lamplight, her lids languid with heat. She dropped her hand away, but she could not step out of the reach of danger. Mae was so close to her that she could feel the outline of Mae's body curving into her own. "I...can't."

  Emboldened by the storm that raged around them and by the terrible tension of what they had just done for Jed, Mae skimmed her mouth over Vance's lips. It was a fleeting kiss, but one that could not be called anything less. "Then come upstairs and have that drink."

  When Mae turned and started up the stairs, a chill far colder than the night's enveloped Vance with such swiftness she shook under it.

  She looked up the stairs, and when Mae paused on the landing to glance down at her, she followed.

  v "I don't want to leave him here alone," Jessie said, standing in the open doorway of the doctor's office and staring out into the rain. Doc Melbourne had sent them out, saying there was nothing anyone could do just now. Charlie had been waiting and, after getting word on Jed's condition, had gone off to deal with the horses. "I'll walk you to your parents' and then come back."

  "You'll do nothing of the kind," Kate said, pulling her cloak around her shoulders. Jessie, she noted, seemed oblivious to the weather, but Kate feared it was more shock than toughness. The only time she'd ever seen Jessie so shaken was when she'd been sick with the grippe last winter, and she knew firsthand that Jessie was capable of running herself into the ground from worry. Kate intended to see that did not happen now. "Caleb said he wouldn't wake up until tomorrow at the earliest, but if you're set on staying, we'll both stay."

  "We can't do that. Your parents don't know where you are. They'll be beside themselves." Jessie hunched her shoulders and stepped out, pulling the door partly closed to prevent the rain from pouring into the room. Her shirt was immediately soaked but she didn't mind. The biting cold seemed to get her blood going. In between being sick with worry, she'd mostly felt numb. When her father had died in a stampede, it had been over so fast that the pain had been a swift slice to her heart.

  This...watching Jed's life seep away, was killing her bit by bit. The only thing she'd ever experienced that had been worse was when Kate had been sick, and that had been as close to dying while still breathing she ever wanted to come. She swept her fingers over Kate's cheek.

  "Besides, you should get some rest."

  Kate crossed her arms. "Oh, and you don't need any?" Now that the crisis was at least somewhat controlled, her fear was giving way to anger. Anger that it might have been Jessie on that table bleeding to death. Anger that somehow Jessie must have known this kind of danger was possible and hadn't told her. "When is the last time you've slept? Or eaten anything?"

  "Kate--after the shootout, with Jed hurt so bad, I couldn't think of anything except getting him here." Jessie passed a weary hand over her face. "All I could think was that this was his only chance."

  "I know, darling. I know." Kate couldn't argue with her. She sounded so tired, so fragile. It was so unlike her, and all Kate wanted to do was protect her.

  "Maybe I was still too late."

  "No. No, you weren't. Mae's right. He's very strong, and Vance did a miraculous job of getting the bullet out. You got him here in time.

  I know it."

  "I'll feel better if I can keep an eye on him."

  Kate smoothed both hands over Jessie's shoulders and down her arms until she clasped her fingers lightly. "Jed was like this when you were shot, too. He didn't want to move from this spot until we knew something." She drew Jessie's hands to her breast and pressed them over her heart. "But he went about taking care of things at the ranch because he knew you would want him to. He would want you to take care of yourself and the Rising Star."

  Jessie tugged Kate close and leaned her forehead against Kate's.

  They stood in the shadows as the rain beat down around them, the night so black that the few lighted windows along Main Street looked like the disembodied eyes of wild animals lurking in the wilderness. Despite the eerie sense of isolation born of her fear and fatigue, Jessie had never felt so completely anchored to this earth as she did in this moment with Kate in her arms. "If you weren't here with me right now, I don't think I could make it until morning."

  Kate kissed the base of her throat, then laid her cheek against Jessie's chest. "You could. But you don't have to. You won't ever have to."

  With a sigh, Jessie wrapped her arm around Kate's shoulders.

  "Let's go somewhere and get out of this rain. I think I'll feel a whole lot better if I can hold you."

  "I know that I will," Kate murmured.

  "Lord," Jessie muttered as they left the shelter of the porch and ventured into the street. "I think you better go back inside, and I'll go see if I can find a buckboard to borrow. You can't walk all the way to your parents' house in this."

  "Why don't we check the Nugget. There must be someone there we'll know who has a wagon. My father's probably at the newspaper office, but I expect he walked."

  "You stay here, then, and I'll go to the saloon."

  "It makes more sense for me to come with you, especially if we find someone to give us a ride."

  Jessie hesitated for a moment, not wanting to subject Kate to the unsavory atmosphere in the saloon, but she could see the point of Kate's suggestion. "Okay, then." She took off her Stetson and put it on Kate's head. "Might help a little."

  Laughing, Kate reached up and held the brim of the
unfamiliar headwear. "Now you'll drown instead of me."

  "I'm more used to it." Jessie put an arm around Kate and tilted her head down to keep the stinging water out of her eyes. As they set off in the direction of the saloon, she tried to angle her body so that the winds struck her first and not Kate. Raising her voice to be heard over the howling storm, she shouted, "Stay close when we get there."

  Unconsciously, Kate gripped her bag more tightly and felt the weight of Mae's recent gift inside. She thought it best to show it to Jessie later, when she could explain how she had come to have it.

  Nevertheless, she liked knowing that she could protect them both, if necessary. "Don't worry. I'll be fine."

  When they reached the board sidewalk on the opposite side of the street and ducked beneath the short roofs that protected the doorways, they could hear one another without shouting. Jessie wiped a wet sleeve across her face. "If this keeps up, there'll be flooding in the gulches up in the hills." She shook her head. "The foals can get trapped. I'll have to get men up there tomorrow."

  "The men, not you," Kate said as they hurried along. "You're exhausted, and I'm not letting you go back out there again so soon."

  Jessie clenched her jaws, remembering the sounds of gunshots coming from behind as she and her men had ridden toward one of the line camps. Ambushed on her own land. Bile rose in her throat and fury threatened to burn a hole in her gut. She'd be going back, and soon.

  She was the law on the Rising Star, and she intended to send a message that no one could threaten her men or her livestock. But she thought it best to bring that up in the morning, when Kate was more likely to see reason.

  "I'm thinking I should stay at the hotel for a few days," Jessie said. "That way, I can ride out to the ranch to see to things and then come back to town in case...in case the Doc needs me for anything."