by Kathy Otten
“Aye, but—”
“You performed admirably. As well as any assistant surgeon with whom I’ve yet to operate. You do your William proud.”
While she’d waited months to hear such high praise from him, his tone was flat, almost sarcastic. Maybe it was lack of sleep and the pain of his burned shoulder.
“Why do I sense this does not please ye?”
“It does. You’ve pressured me since March to acknowledge you as a nurse. I do. You are truly as good as any assistant surgeon. You’ve accomplished all you set out to achieve. You are now free to return to Falmouth and hence to Washington.”
“I do not understand.”
“Forgive me. What do you not understand?” He lay his bone saw and each instrument precisely inside the green velvet lined case.
“Aye, I be wanting ye to recognize the part of me who is a nurse, but I am a woman also, and from the way ye have kissed me, I thought…”
“Thought what? That we would marry, set up a practice together, like you and William, and go happily into the sunset?”
“I…I…”
“Has it occurred to you that if I am truly not Charles Peter Ellard, then my medical diploma is no longer valid? Would you want to be with me if I were no longer a physician? Because, Mrs. McBride, like you, there are two sides to me as well. Both physician and man. And while you seem to embrace the doctor side of me, you continually reject the man.
“I am not William. I will never be your William. I am however a man, with all the desires and needs of a man. If you cannot embrace that side of me as much as you cling to the doctor I may no longer be, then I would prefer that you take yourself far away before I do or say something I might come to regret.”
****
What happened?
Somehow Gracie found herself backed into a corner of the tent watching as doctors, attendants, and patients moved around her in a blur. Numb. That’s how it felt. Like that day in March when she was twelve and Callum accidently knocked her into the Charles River. Before he could haul her out, her legs and arms had gone numb. It had taken hours in front of the fire before her insides had stopped shaking.
This time even her insides were numb.
“Ma’am? Ma’am? You’ll have to move, please.”
She blinked. A young private stood before her, his brow furrowed. Behind him two ambulance attendants with a loaded stretcher between them, waited to place the wounded soldier on the table.
“Sorry,” she mumbled and sidled away along the outer edge of the tent. How long had she been standing there? How many people had heard his cruel words? Several men glanced her way. Even Captain Breen sent her a quick apologetic smile. But Doctor Ellard never looked up from his next patient.
Focused on the ground, Gracie slipped out of the tent and hurried across the clearing to the Sanitary Commission wagon. Climbing inside, she slid down between two barrels and drew her knees up, crossing her arms on top and resting her forehead. She felt like a little girl again, hiding in the hold of the Americana, praying her da would come and save her from all the bad.
But her da was back in Boston with her mother and her brother Bryan. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled over her lashes. She wasn’t even sure why she cried. For Callum and Michael? For William? For the brave men and boys who lost their lives, in a war that seemed to never end? Or was she crying for herself? For her exhaustive uphill battle to be respected as a nurse?
Was he right? Had she somehow created a fantasy in which life went on as before with Doctor Ellard conveniently replacing William?
Except, he wasn’t Charles Ellard. He was Jason. Would his medical degree really be worthless if he accepted the person he was born to be? What would he do if he were no longer able to practice medicine? Would he forsake his birth and keep his diploma? Sweet Mary Jesus, she hadn’t thought this through. He was right. She had brought nothing but chaos into his life.
She leaned her head back against the side of the wagon box and swiped the moisture from her cheeks. And what of her future? Would she want to marry Jason if he was no longer a doctor? She’d be hard pressed to find another physician willing to give her a place in his practice.
Last night he’d asked her to marry Jason, but she wasn’t even sure who Jason was. Could she sacrifice the nurse side of herself to become his wife?
Sitting here feeling sorry for herself wasn’t helping. By the saints, she was a nurse. There was still a war and the poor man with the wounded face waited. She pushed to her feet and climbed out of the wagon.
A couple of ambulances rolled past on their way to unload near the surgery tent.
A loose tendril of hair escaped its bun and blew across her face. With her finger, she looped it behind her ear and made her way back toward the surgery tent to borrow a needle. Maybe she’d ask Captain Breen instead.
Two attendants stood at either end of a litter, holding a wounded soldier, between them. Unconscious, his long legs hung off the end between the arms of the attendant who held the wooden handles.
“Don’t know how long this fellow was laying out there, but he looks pretty bad.”
“Major?” The ambulance corpsman called to a doctor coming out of the surgery tent.
“What should we do with this one?”
Recognizing the physician Doctor Ellard had shoved aside earlier, Gracie made her way toward them. But an obstacle course of ambulances, horses, and wounded, coming in from the battlefield slowed her progress as she carefully stepped over and around the men.
The doctor leaned over the wounded man, peering closely at his head, then straightened and gave his own a shake. “Nothing to be done. Put him over there with the other mortal wounds.”
He turned away, and the ambulance corpsmen carried the soldier to the area assigned for the dying. Gracie altered her course to angle over to where the men were headed. Normally, she wouldn’t have followed, but this was the same doctor who had almost bungled the amputation. For all she knew, this was the man who believed in bleeding and purging.
She reached the wounded soldier as the two corporals lifted him onto the ground. They folded the litter in half and left.
Red clay covered a liberal amount of his uniform. Gun powder and a swath of blood disguised his face. Blood matted the man’s hair and caked on the side of his neck and collar. Head wounds bled a lot, but this appeared excessive, and still glistened, either from the earlier rain, or because the wound still bled.
The young man’s lanky frame triggered a sense of something familiar…something…someone…
She studied the shape of his nose, his forehead, and a mouth which normally spread wide with a smile. Shock dropped Gracie to her knees.
She gasped and cupped her hand over her mouth. “Sweet Mary Jesus, Robbie.” The soft words spilled out in a huff of breath warm against her palm. Tears blurred the image of his face. Hand shaking, she reached out to touch the chilled skin of his cheek.
Robbie. She pushed the stiffened hanks of hair off his forehead. Leaning close, she felt his soft shallow breaths against her cheek. He was still alive, but lying on the ground in a damp uniform, for how long?
She pushed to her feet and snatching up her skirts, ran. She dodged men and horses, jumped over the wounded in her haste to reach the surgery tent and the only man who could save him. She would not lose Robbie too.
He was stitching closed a gash when she found him. Using only his right hand, his assistant aiding him in the process of tying off each knot much like two people knotting a string after wrapping a package.
He glanced up, but said nothing, returning his attention to his long row of stitches. Sweat glistened across his brow. He held himself stiffly as though an invisible board had been strapped to his back. If it were anyone but Robbie, she would have felt guilty for asking him to do more.
Instead she waited, shifting her weight nervously from foot to foot. To keep from ordering him to hurry, she bit down on her lower lip.
“Mrs. McBride.” He stepped back
from the table allowing his assistant to bandage the wound. He wiped his hands on a linen towel. “You’ve had time to regroup and have no doubt returned to redouble your effort to convince me of my wrong thinking—”
“’Tis Robbie. He’s hurt bad. Ye have to help him.”
He pushed his needle through the chamois cloth, folded over the flaps, and tied it closed. “Robbie?” His brow furrowed. “Robbie? Ah yes, the young puppy, Corporal Reid. Gunshot wound to the left shoulder. Minimal laudable pus. Minimal fever. Interesting case for my paper on—”
“Doctor, ye must come now.”
He glanced around the area. He might have been searching for another patient he could claim took priority. He might have been looking for another surgeon who was free to assist her. That way he could avoid spending any more time in her presence.
She didn’t care. “Can ye not hurry?”
He blew out an exhausted sigh. “Very well. Lead on.”
She whirled on her heels and hastened from the tent. She didn’t have to turn around to see if he followed. She felt him behind her, his long legs easily keeping pace as she wove around horses, ambulances, and men, back to the area where Robbie lay.
“Mrs. McBride,” he said.
She turned.
He’d stopped at the edge of the area. “I’m not certain you are aware—”
“Aye,” she snapped. “I be aware. But I cannot be certain the diagnosis of a doctor ye called a bloody idiot, to be an accurate one.”
“I assume you refer to comments I made to Major Deavers? I did not call him a bloody idiot. I merely suggested that medical men of his generation were an antiquated group of Rush disciples. Also, that he had an ignorant knowledge of amputations.”
“What does it matter? His diagnosis cannot be trusted, and he be the one who put Robbie here.”
Expecting him to follow, she turned and maneuvered around the group of men, some silent, others softly moaning. She dropped to her knees beside Robbie. Reaching out, she carefully lifted hanks of blood-soaked hair away from his wound and brushed it over his ear toward the back of his head.
Black, mud spattered boots and long legs stepped into her periphery. She glanced down at the squared leather toes which brushed the edge of her skirt.
Expecting him to say something, she looked up.
He stood beside her as if frozen. All color had drained from his face. Sweat glistened across his chalky complexion. His hands shook and he curled his fingers into fists.
“Can’t.” He shook his head. His breath huffed out in short, shallow breaths, like a dog panting on a hot summer day.
Pale and sweaty, he looked as if he were about to collapse from a heart seizure.
“Doctor?” Until this moment, she’d forgotten about his strange reaction to the patient with the head wound at Armory Square. She reached up, intending to wrap her fingers over his fisted hand, but he shook his head, still gasping for breath.
He whirled and stumbled around the wounded, heading for the shadows of the tree line.
She lay her hand against Robbie’s cheek and leaned close. “Doctor Ellard is coming to take care o’ye, and ye’ll soon be right as rain.”
She pushed to her feet, lifted her skirt with both hands, and hurried toward the trees.
He sat with his lower back against the gray, fissured trunk of a scrub oak. Curled forward, his forearms rested on his up drawn knees, his hands clenched into fists.
As she dropped beside him, he seemed unaware of her presence. His breathing rasped in and out, in short wheezing puffs that heaved his chest up and down. Sweat dotted his forehead. His hand pressed against his chest, rubbing the area as if he were in pain.
She rested her hand on his shoulder. He didn’t look at her. She wasn’t sure he could.
The night of his previous attack at Armory Square, she’d rubbed his back until he calmed.
She slid her hand lower, rubbing in slow circular motions, but it had no effect.
That night he’d been in his shirt sleeves with only the thin cotton between her hand and his back. Today with his waistcoat, and the thick bandage wrapped over his wounded shoulder, could he even feel her hand? Sliding her palm lower, to the curved center of his spine, she continued to create slow circles, hoping the pressure would reach his muscles, but this attack had such a terrible hold on him, she grew desperate to find another way.
Still rubbing his back, she slipped her other hand under his arm, inside the tight space between his knees and chest. She grasped his hand. The heat of his palm warmed her chilled fingers, though he didn’t seem aware of their cold.
His heart thudded wildly, his pulse thrumming through the vein at the back of his jaw, as if he’d been running for his life.
When she’d been a little girl on the ship from Ireland, a man had pulled her into a dark corner and lifted her dress. He’d touched her and put her hand against the front of his pants. She’d bitten him and kicked his shin. It had given her enough time to get away. She’d hidden down in the hold, curled into a ball, trying to catch her breath, her heart racing with every creak and groan of the ship. She’d stayed there until her da found her the next day.
But what fear had caused this?
It couldn’t be the gruesomeness of the wound. He’d just performed an amputation and tossed the poor man’s leg into a pail as if it were no more significant than trimming the crust from a slice of bread.
Her thumb brushed back and forth against his knuckles. His skin cold beneath her touch.
Was it because he knew Robbie? But he hadn’t known the soldier at the hospital that night.
“Ye have to breathe slower.”
He didn’t seem to hear. If anything, his face had grown paler.
She slid the hand on his back up higher, over his collar to the back of his neck. The cords rigid, the muscles hard as stone. She worked her finger tips in small circles from the small bump of bone at the base, into the dark silky hair at the top.
“This cannot be good fer ye, Doctor,” she murmured as she tried to massage away the tension.
“Ye have to breathe slower.” How could she break through?
“Inhale. Exhale. Please Char—Jason. Breathe with me, Jason. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe. Nice and slow.”
Was this what Robbie and others had tried to tell her when she first arrived at Armory Square? That Doctor Ellard had gone crazy at Fredericksburg? Was this what had happened? But this wasn’t crazy, this was fear. Mind-numbing, terrifying fear.
There had to be some way to break its hold. She would not lose him too.
“Tell me a joke.” The words burst from her lips before she could even think them. “Make me laugh. Ye read the whole book. Please, Ch—Jason, tell me a joke.”
She squeezed his hand. “Think. I know ye can do it. Think on the pages ye read. The farmers, gone halves on a pig. The boy crowned king before he could marry. See the words.” She continued to rub his back, deep massaging circles. “The physician whose patient ate the prescription and got well. Think on them. See the pages in the book and tell me a joke. Please, Jason.”
He closed his eyes. His fingers turned in her palm to squeeze her fingers.
She bit her lip against the strength of his grip, praying she wouldn’t cry out.
He rocked, ever so slightly. His eyes still closed.
“A Federal regiment was attacked.” He drew several more panting breaths. “By a whole brigade. God, I feel sick.”
“Ye can do it. Think on the words o’the joke.”
“Unable to withstand such odds…regiment fell back about forty yards…”
The pressure of his fingers around her hand tightened. He leaned toward her.
She slid her hand across his uninjured shoulder and pulled him to her. His head rested against her breast.
“My heart…feels like I’m dying.”
“Ye are not dying. I have ye. Now tell me the joke.”
“…regiment fell back…losing their flag…to the enemy.”
His struggling breaths drew a spell of harsh coughing from his lungs. “Chest hurts. My head. Feels like…I’m going to pass out.”
“Ye will not. I have ye. Now tell me yer joke.”
His words mumbled against the bodice of her dress. “Suddenly, a tall Irishman dashed from the ranks and…attacked the squad of Confederates…” He drew several short-winded gasps. “Irishman…felled several with his musket…snatched the flag…and returned…safely to his regiment.”
The harsh desperation of his breathing eased with each word he spoke. “The soldier was…surrounded by his comrades who…praised him for his gallantry…”
He raised his head and turned his blue eyes her way. “The hero…cut them short…saying, ‘Say no more…about it. I just fetched my whisky flask…which I dropped among the rebels, and I thought…I might as well bring the flag back with it.’ ”
A laugh burst from Gracie’s lips, unbidden, despite her fear for Robbie, despite her worry for this man in her arms. Her light chuckles continued, for several seconds, though she wasn’t even sure the joke was that funny.
“You laughed.” A spark of wonder lit his eyes. Then with a long-exhausted sigh, the tension in his body slackened, and he relaxed against her.
“Aye. Sweet Mary, ’twas the funniest joke ye’ve told.”
His hand snaked around her waist, and he lifted his head. “Thank you.” He released her hand and cupped her face, his long fingers sliding into the hair at the back of her neck as his thumb brush over the sensitive skin of her cheek.
She shivered as warmth pooled in her abdomen. Slowly, she melted into his touch.
He leaned close. Shadow deepened the blue of his eyes as he searched her face.
She brushed the backs of her fingers against the rough stubble which covered his cheeks.
He turned slightly and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. His tongue swiped across the thin skin, before he shifted and pressed his mouth to hers.
She slipped her arms around his neck, kissing him as he eased her onto the ground.
He moved above her, absorbing his own weight with his knees and uninjured forearm.