Hannah frowned, “What choice?”
“There’s a blizzard coming. I know it’s snowed steady since Christmas, but what’s coming will make travel impossible for a while after. So here’s your choice. Be trapped here for the better part of a week with your young man, just the two of you alone in this shelter. You know what that will lead to when people find out. Or we can load him back in the buggy and take him over to Doctor Thomas’s cabin. You’ll be snowed in here alone then.”
Hannah didn’t even think, she knew what would happen when Reverend Bing and Reverend Theodore found out they’d been alone for a week. She’d get her dream come true and be Henry’s wife. She just prayed in time her angel would be right and he'd come to truly be hers. “I don’t think we should move him again. He’s too weak, another trip might just kill him.”
Penny smiled. “Of course, dear. You’re the one with the medical training; I’m sure you know best. Now he’ll wake in the morning and you’ll have seven days before anyone will get out here to you. I think I’ll make sure you have a chaperone, though, to keep things from getting too intimate.”
“A chaperone?” Hannah’s face fell. If someone else was trapped with them, then her plan wouldn’t work.
Penny laughed. “Don’t worry, dear, this chaperone won’t derail your plan. Just make sure Marshal Wheeler doesn’t get amorous and anticipate the wedding night.”
Penny walked to the door and opened it. In strutted a black and brown Rhode Island Red rooster with a bright red comb and wattle. He strutted in and right over to Hannah, clucking as he came. The angel smiled. “That’s Bob. He’s an attack chicken and he knows he’s to keep you and your virtue safe.”
Hannah couldn’t help but laugh. “A rooster? The thing you choose to protect my virtue is a rooster?”
“Bob is a very special rooster. You’ll see, he’ll let you and your lawman get to know each other but not get too close. Plus, he’s good company. You can talk to him and he never shares your secrets.” Penny looked down at the bird. “Keep Hannah safe, Bob.”
The rooster clucked and then crowed as if to say he’d see to it. Penny nodded and stepped out the door. “Remember, Hannah, if you need me just call out to God and ask for me. I’ll be around.” Then she was gone and the door shut on its own. Hannah looked down at the rooster. “Well, Bob, guess it’s just you and me and the man with a hole in his back.”
The bird tilted his head first one way and then the other before giving a quiet cluck and walking over to the bed and looking at Henry lying there. Hannah went over and pulled Marshal Wheeler’s arms out of the shirt and coat she’d slit up the back and removed them both to make him more comfortable. She needed to get him off the oil cloth so she could wash it and hang it to dry in case she had need of it again. She knew Penny had told her she’d be alone without anyone for the next seven days, but it was ingrained in her to keep her birthing and doctoring kit ready. She rolled the oil cloth until it was bunched against Henry’s flesh, and then she rolled the unconscious Marshal over onto his left side and rolled the oil cloth up against his front. She carefully lowered him back onto his stomach, rolled him onto his right side, and finished rolling the oilcloth. She lowered him back onto his stomach and pulled the roll off the foot of the bed. She quickly wiped it clean and hung it over her table to dry. Then she stoked the fire in the fireplace and the cook stove to keep the cabin warm and made herself a pile of blankets and quilts to sleep on. She quickly changed into her nightgown and slid under a quilt. Once she was covered, Bob came over and roosted at her feet. She quickly slipped into sleep knowing she’d have a full day tomorrow caring for Henry Wheeler.
Henry knew he was dreaming. He remembered getting shot and trying to get to Hannah Coppersmith’s cabin. But now he was reliving another New Year’s Eve, the one five years ago when he’d asked Esther to be his wife at her family’s party.
The strawberry blonde with the bluest eyes he’d ever seen had laughed at him on his knee holding up a ring to her. “Get up, Henry. You can’t be serious.”
He frowned. “I’m very serious, Esther. I love you and want you to be my wife.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s not possible. Surely you know you were just a bit of fun for me while I waited for Augustus to make up his mind. He did today. He asked me to become Mrs. Rayner over lunch and I said yes.”
Henry stood and slipped the ring in his pocket. “I see, and yet tonight you let me attend your parents’ ball. Why? To make fun of me?”
She shook her head. “Of course not, Henry. You’ve been a good friend. I wanted to share my joy with you.”
Henry looked at her and saw the laughter she was trying to hide in her eyes. “I see. One last bit of fun with ole Henry. Well, when you wake up and realize that my love is better than Rayner’s money, it might just be too late, Esther.”
He turned to leave. “Don’t be like that, Henry. Why don’t you go and ask Hannah to dance, it would make her night.”
Henry looked across the ballroom where the younger Coppersmith sister sat all alone. Hannah, the one who everyone knew was going to go to college and become a nurse. She talked of nothing else. She was set to start at the end of January. “I don’t think so. Give my regrets to your family for me.”
With that, he left not just the ball but the entire house. He knew he was being rude but he didn’t care. He got outside and went to fetch a handsome cab when Augustus Rayner came up beside him. “She’s mine now, Wheeler. Make sure and stay away from her or I’ll have to teach you respect.”
Henry looked at the man. He was two years older than both himself and Esther. “You have nothing to worry about, Rayner. I know where I’m not wanted.”
“See that you do.” The older man clapped him on the shoulder, squeezing to try and bring him to his knees, but Henry Wheeler was nothing if not tough and proud. He stood, vowing never to kneel before the rich dandy. Instead, he nodded and pulled away as a cab stopped for him. “The Brooklyn Club.”
He spent the rest of the night drowning his sorrows in cheap whiskey. When he finally woke in the morning, he was lying on his bed, a flyer clutched in his hand. “Wanted: young men looking for adventure. Become a member of the United States Marshal Service.” It gave an address in the Wall Street district. The longer Henry looked at it the more it appealed to him. A life of adventure chasing criminals. NO lying women in sight. He stood, and when he was sure he could remain standing, he headed for the office of the U.S. Marshal Service to sign up as a deputy marshal.
His dream changed and he lay on the frozen ground, snow falling all around him again. When Esther looked down on him, he called out to her and suddenly she changed and was Hannah. Hannah, whose cabin he was heading for when he’d passed out. But where was his beloved Esther? Why hadn’t she loved him like he loved her? Five years and more than halfway across the country and she still filled his mind. She always would be the woman he loved, even if she never loved him back. Then gratefully he moaned, and a quiet voice lifted his head and poured a small amount of a bitter liquid into his mouth. “Swallow, Henry, this will ease the pain and let you rest.”
He did as he was told and slipped back into the blackness from before. All his pain, both in his back and his heart, slipped away into the blackness as well.
Three
Henry woke warm but in pain, the smell of bacon and coffee filtered through the pain in his back. He started to sit up and that caused the pain in his back to increase and he sucked in a sharp breath, which caused the woman at the cook stove to turn. “So Marshal, you’re awake. Please stay in the bed; you came very close to dying last night. You lost a lot of blood and the bullet that hit you missed your spine by a mere couple of inches.”
The vision before him was indeed Hannah Coppersmith, Esther’s little sister all grown up. “I made it then?”
She turned and looked at him, and his body reacted. When had little Hannah become this beautiful woman in front of him. The glow from the fireplace to her side and th
e lantern behind her had her hair blazing in the colors of sunset: orange, red, yellow, gold all mixed together. Her gray eyes brought to mind the sky just after a storm before the sun emerged and turned it blue, full of passion and spent fury. The dress and simple white apron she wore did nothing to hide the womanly curves in all Henry’s favorite places. He was again reminded that this wasn’t the wallflower he’d last seen in New York. No, this woman was all woman. “What do you mean, you made it then?”
Henry tried to pull himself upright in the bed but once again the pain was more than he could bear and he lay back on the bed. “I was trying to get here last night after I knew I was shot. I knew I couldn’t make it to the Doc’s place on the far side of Creede.”
She walked over to him with a plate of eggs and bacon. “For your information, you didn’t make it. I found you in the middle of the road about two miles from here at the turnoff to Topaz. Your horse standing over you.”
“How did I get here then?”
“I got you in my buggy and brought you here, then I removed the bullet and cleaned your wound. I ended up destroying your coat and shirt. However, I thought keeping you alive was more important. Now let me help you sit up slowly so you can eat. You’re going to be very weak for a while. You lost a lot of blood.”
“I need to get out of here and check on Reverend Theodore.”
The nurse easily stopped him from trying to stand. Henry was surprised at how little effort it took her to restrain him. She was right; he was very weak.
“You aren’t going anywhere, Marshal. Not only are you weak as a newborn, there is a major blizzard blowing outside. You wouldn’t even make it to the end of my yard without getting lost in the white out.”
“That’s not good, you know what people will say when they find out we were snowed in together alone. You should have taken me to Doctor Thomas when you found me.”
Hannah’s hands turned into fists sitting against her waist. “You wouldn’t have lasted to Doctor Thomas’s place. You almost didn’t last till I got you here. When I found you it was like death was standing over you, waiting to snatch you at a moment’s notice.”
Henry shook his head. “But your reputation. Hannah, what will everyone think after this?”
Henry watched as she glared down at him. “Do you really care, Henry Wheeler? Because it would be the first time you cared about me.”
“That’s not true. I care about you. I care about all you young ladies that were kidnapped. Why do you think I was out and about last night? You of all people should know how I feel about New Year’s Eve.”
Hannah’s eyes flashed with anger and Henry was almost certain he could see the storm clouds building in the gray sky of her eyes. “That’s right, because of Esther. Is that why you’re worried, because I was Esther’s little sister?”
“You know that’s not true; she chose someone else. I don’t care what she thinks of me anymore. However, I don’t want her to accuse me of destroying you to get back at her.”
Hannah gasped and started to cry. “You don’t know? Oh my goodness. How is it you don’t know?”
Henry was confused, what was she talking about? “Know what?”
“Esther is dead, Henry. Augustus killed her three months after you left New York.”
Henry sat staring at the woman who saved his life. “That’s not funny, Hannah.”
He watched as a tear rolled down her cheek. “No, it wasn’t. He beat her to death and then fled west somewhere. Esther’s gone, and he’s out there somewhere never having paid for killing her.”
Henry reached for Hannah and she moved close, he took her hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I’m sorry I wasn’t there, maybe I could have stopped him.”
Hannah looked into his eyes and he saw her pain hidden deep inside. “No one could have saved her. She knew he was mean. She knew he would hurt her and she even knew he’d kill her one day, but she wouldn’t leave him. Not even for you. She was convinced she loved him.”
Henry started to pull her toward him to comfort her when there came a loud screech from the foot of the bed. “BWAAKK!” Then he had a face full of brown and black feathers and a burning sensation in his hand. He jerked his hand away and looked at the huge rooster standing on the bed between him and Hannah. “What is that?”
Hannah smiled. “This is Bob, he’s my protector.”
Henry’s face scrunched up in a frown. “You have an attack chicken?”
Hannah picked up the big fowl and started stroking it. “Bob isn’t a chicken, he’s a rooster. His job is to keep me safe and, as you can see, he takes it very seriously.”
“Why’d he attack me?”
“He thought you were trying to get too forward with me, Marshal. Let that be a warning to you.”
Henry shook his head. “If he comes after me again he better be warned, he just might become dinner.”
Hannah glared at him. “No one is eating Bob. It’s time for your pain medicine and then you need to rest. This afternoon I’ll need to change your dressing and make sure that wound is not getting infected.”
She handed Henry a glass of water with some medicine she’d mixed in from a bottle. He drank it knowing it would do no good to fight with her. He was hurting anyway, and he was also tired and sleepy just from sitting up and eating and talking. Who knew a bullet could take so much out of a man? As he drifted off to sleep, two things were on his mind. Who had shot him in the back? The second was that Esther was dead and her killer was free. What, if anything, could he do about that?
Hannah turned Henry on his side and pulled the bandage free of his stitches. She looked and felt, noting that it wasn’t hot or putrid which she didn’t expect, but fever would be the first sign of infection. She put a clean bandage on and then left the mostly asleep patient to himself. She smiled as she looked at Bob sitting on the bottom right bed post staring at Henry like he was daring the Marshal to move. Penny Ryder had a strange sense of humor leaving that feisty rooster to look after her, but she had to admit he was doing an admiral job; maybe too good. If Henry couldn’t get close to her at all, how was she supposed to convince him that he wanted to marry her? Even though he hadn’t come right out and said it, she knew he knew that was going to be the outcome of this snowstorm and his getting shot. He’d hinted at it by talking about her reputation. The only way to save that was for him to do the right thing and marry her. She knew for her that wasn’t a hardship, she’d been in love with him from the first time her sister had brought him home with her. He’d sat and talked to her, one of only a few people who listened when she told them she was going to go to college and become a nurse. Others, including Esther, had laughed at her but not Henry; he’d looked her in the eye for a few minutes and then nodded just once. “Hannah Coppersmith, I think you can become whatever you set your mind to become.” That was what he’d said and that was when she knew she was in love with him. The only other person who listened was her best friend’s grandpa, Nugget Nate Ryder, Penny’s famous husband. He’d even gone so far as telling her father that when she was ready, there was a fund set for her to go to nursing school.
Sure enough, when she applied she was told that all classes had been paid for in full, all she needed was to purchase the materials she’d need and pay for boarding. Her father had seen to it that those were covered, because Mr. Ryder had let him in on one of his lucrative business deals with the understanding that Hannah would be allowed to follow her dream. It was the only thing that had kept her from being married off to someone like Augustus Rayner.
However, she had never forgotten that the first person to believe in her dream was Henry Wheeler. When her sister had told her that she had accepted Rayner’s proposal, Hannah had begged her sister to marry Henry instead. When Esther had laughed and said Henry was a poor choice for a husband, Hannah had gotten mad and told her sister if Esther didn’t want him, she’d take him. Esther had laughed even harder at that. “Oh Hannah, you are such a silly little girl. Henry doesn’t even know yo
u exist. If you don’t believe me I’ll prove it. I’ll ask him to dance with you tonight, and when he doesn’t you’ll see he isn’t worth this crush you’ve built up in your head. He’s just some shopkeeper’s son, not our kind. He was good for a few laughs and some stolen kisses, not much of anything else.”
Yet here he was, a United States Marshal investigating the man who had almost ruined Hannah and eight other women. While Esther’s perfect husband of their status was a murderer and wife beater on the run. But still, did Hannah want to be married to someone who was still in love with her dead sister? His reaction to being told she was dead had proved he’d still had feelings for Esther, and the fact that when he first saw her while he was lying in the road he’d thought she’d come to rescue him. She was confused and if it wasn’t for the waist deep snow, she’d get outside and try to figure out if she wanted Henry Wheeler knowing he loved another.
She opened the door and grabbed the shovel she kept on the small porch for hauling out the ashes from the fire place and stove, and immediately set to clearing a path to the small three stall lean-to that housed her mare, Henry’s stallion, and the cow someone had given her for payment of her medical services. She needed to make sure they were fed, and milk the cow before it became over-full and pained. The hard work of shoveling and cleaning and caring for the animals would give her time away from her patient and his effect on her thoughts and feelings. At least until she had to return to the cabin and see his half naked physique again. Why did that stupid Bob have to stop her from being able to feel his strong arms around her and his chiseled chest against her? Darn Penny and her stupid chaperone rooster anyway.
Hannah the Healer Page 2