“Didn’t make sense, him fallin’,” Tom added as they situated the body on an examining table. “He’d been up there lots of times.”
Grandpa stripped back the sheet from Mr. Buchanan’s body, revealing the gash on his left lower abdomen. “Was he alert when you found him?”
“Alice came upon him after she heard a crash in the barn.” Tom looked to his wife, whose eyes remained red-rimmed.
The woman stared down at her father-in-law’s bloody body in shock. Jess touched her arm. “Alice.” The connection brought her out of her trance as Grandpa examined Mr. Buchanan’s head.
“Did he say anything when you found him? Was he alert at all?”
“He mumbled.” Alice’s palm flattened against her chest, head shaking. “Didn’t make no sense. Sounded like he was drunk or somethin’.”
Jess met her grandpa’s eyes. Stroke? Seizure? The results of a head trauma?
“We have to stop the bleeding,” Grandpa said. “Then we can figure out what caused the fall.” Her grandfather scanned the room. “Where’s August? He has supplies, and I could use his help with the sutures.”
Jessica blinked, her brain sifting through her grandpa’s words. “August?” Surely, he couldn’t mean... “The German?”
Her grandfather’s brows formed a firm line. “Yes, and friend.”
“Friend?” Jessica dropped the sheet in her hands, heat shooting into her face.
“No German is going to touch my Dad.” Tom’s voice seethed with the same hiss of bitterness teeming up Jessica’s throat.
Grandpa released a burst of air through his nose, feathering a few hairs on his moustache. “We’ll solve this later. Right now, I need your help. Take over here.”
Jess jerked off her traveling jacket and pushed back her hair, which still hung loose from the wagon incident. She replaced Grandpa at the table, applying pressure to Mr. Buchanan’s wound. The bleeding had slowed, but his pale face, his lips taking on a faint blue hue, sent clear warning. Jess had seen worse—much worse—but she also recognized all too well the chill of death lurking unseen in the shadows of the room.
Grandfather moved to a nearby cabinet and rifled through some supplies. “Whether you like it or not, Tom Buchanan, that German’s been a faithful assistant to me for over five months now and he’s the one who was supposed to bring in my much needed supplies so I can try to save your daddy’s life.”
Jessica’s insides curled. Why on earth would her grandfather ever build a relationship with a German—especially enough to hire him as an assistant? After all those people had done to her family? After David’s injuries and her... her... She closed her mind to the dark thoughts crowding in.
“He’s your assistant?” Jess couldn’t curb the fire in her voice, even for her grandfather. “A German soldier?”
His emerald gaze flickered to hers, clearly aware of the tone, his brow edged high. “He’s no soldier. The men are noncombatants. Mostly sailors, except for the band.”
Jess squeezed her eyes closed, trying to make sense of the situation. Sailors and a band housed behind barbed wire at The Mountain Park Hotel? “Band?”
“They were caught at our ports when America joined the war. Only a few were ever soldiers.” Her grandfather looked past her. “August?”
“I am here, Doctor.” The deep, calm voice rose from the doorway.
Jess pressed a little harder, her eyes narrowed as she peered from the treatment room at the handsome stranger. He stepped toward her grandfather, his arms not only laden with his supplies, but also her cane. Red dirt from the road outside dusted his white shirt and his hair stood in an erratic blond mop on his head, reminding her of their very public encounter on the side of the street.
Her face flushed hot. She focused back on her patient.
Well, at least he hadn’t left all the supplies strewn across the street when he’d jumped to her rescue. Her agitation curbed as she inwardly conceded to the fact he’d probably saved her life. She pinched her lips closed on the admission, however.
“August. Thank God you’re here.” Her grandpa cupped a palm to August’s shoulder with a familiarity that only dug the bitterness in Jessica’s chest even deeper. “Did the medicines come?”
“Yes, especially the Dakin solution, sir.” He placed the supplies on the nearby counter. “I will do whatever I can to assist you, Dr. Carter.” The man’s gentleness flowed from his words in an unnerving contradiction to every ugly picture against him forming in Jessica’s head.
She groaned and leaned forward to hear their quiet conversation, but the voices lowered. Tom and Alice exchanged nervous glances, and Jessica offered them a smile with more reassurance than she felt. “There’s no one who can help your father as well as Grandpa, Tom.”
Tom grunted but Jessica knew, despite the man’s annoyance at her grandfather’s unlikely friendship, he was a faithful doctor to the people all over Madison County. And his judgment was usually solid, except when it involved a certain blond foreigner whose piercing gaze pinched her stomach like nervous tweezers.
Grandpa moved back to her side and examined the body, his brow tight. With the slightest of movements, he leaned close. “Have you given a blood transfusion before?”
Visions of her three archaic trials at the Front rushed to mind. Heat drained from her face but she met her grandfather’s eyes unswervingly. “Two. Kimpton-Brown.”
“Successful?”
She swallowed the growing lump in her throat. “One was.”
Her grandfather’s lips firmed into a line. “We’ll use a modified version of the Kimpton-Brown.” He faced the worried couple. “Your father has lost a lot of blood, Tom. Too much to survive without help.”
“What do you mean?”
“I need to transfer new blood into him, but you’re not going to like the processes.”
Tom’s palms went to his hips, his face paled. “Will he live if you do?”
“He may, but without it, he’ll definitely die.”
Tom looked at Alice and then back to her grandfather. “Do whatever you have to do.”
Grandfather braced his own hands on his hips and nodded. “I have a few pints of blood saved.”
“You’ve saved some?” Jess attention rocked to him. “Who trained you on the coagulation process?” How on earth, back in the wilds of Appalachia, had her grandfather learned the newest process for storing blood? He never ceased to amaze her.
“A physician from New York came through about a year ago with the latest research.” Her grandfather’s gaze swung back to Tom’s. “But I’ll need three trained hands to help me with the process.”
“Three?” Tom followed her grandfather’s gaze and Jessica’s breath seized.
August Reinhold.
The German.
***
The weariness of her travels, combined with the stress of the procedure, slowed Jess’ steps toward the front door of her grandparents’ sweeping white farmhouse. Tall and narrow, with a front porch to ‘hold a gang’, as her Granny said, the house welcomed her forward. A sudden swell of peace encircled her like a hug, loosening some of the tangles in her muscles from the tension of the long surgery.
Whether it proved a success or not, only time would tell. The first twenty-four hours remained the most crucial, which was why her grandfather stayed behind for the night to keep watch over Mr. Buchanan. The memory of the surgery brought another unwelcome reminder of Mr. Reinhold’s presence. His quiet demeanor, ready to provide whatever assistance needed, tightened Jess’ muscles all over again. Her grandparents had a lot of explaining to do, and there was no time to discuss it while a man’s life weighed in the balance.
A gentle hum drifted along the late afternoon breeze from the side of the house—and the perfect person to provide some explanation to all the madness of this day. Her grandmother. Jess pulled her bag securely up on her shoulder and rounded the corner. Tenderness rooted her in place at the sight of the petite matriarch bent over her vegetable garden,
a bonnet shading her pale face and ever-present apron cinched around her small waist. Years spun backwards, stabbing into the fresh wounds of loss like the edge of a scalpel. Her mother should have been there, tending the garden alongside her granny. Her throat tightened around a thousand unshed tears.
She almost lost her carefully clenched hold on her bedraggled emotions at the tender sight of something so normal, so simple. A place to which she could never return.
She hesitated to interrupt the sweetness of the scene so she watched, sifting through the ache for the forgotten, wishing for a different middle to this story. Her grandmother finally stood and stretched out her back, glancing up at the cloudy sky. Tendrils of silver and brown swirled beneath the bonnet from the gentle tug of the wind.
The thread of magic broke as her grandmother’s gaze settled on Jess’s face.
“Jessica?” Her grandmother laughed and rushed forward. “Oh, sweet girl, I’m so glad to see you home.”
And in a second, she rested in her grandmother’s comforting embrace. “Granny.”
Granny pulled back and studied Jess’ face, then drew her into another hug, her laugh returning. “Ah, it’s been too long. Too long.”
As the scent of lilacs surrounded Jessica, followed by an immediate yearning for a mother who was impossible to reach, Jessica wondered if she’d not been gone long enough. Two years melted away with that single scent.
“I made strawberry shortcake to celebrate your homecoming.” The little woman slipped her arm around Jess’ waist and headed for the back door.
She slid her grandmother a look. “Isn’t today a wheatless day? And isn’t sugar on short supply?”
“Oh, ye of little faith.” Her grandmother tsked. “I baked the cake yesterday and I have ten cans of applesauce left to sweeten up my baking, along with a few homemade remedies to keep things tasting scrumptious.”
Lillian Carter and her homemade remedies. Jess’ grin pulled broad against her cheeks and she released a sigh she had been holding for two years.
Jess followed her grandmother into the house and breathed in the aroma of apples, pine, and sugar. Fresh air ruffled the white curtains in the windows, sending shadows across the sitting room floors.
“I fixed up your old room upstairs.” Granny moved ahead into the kitchen. “We rented out your parents’ cottage last year to bring in some extra money.”
Jess peered out the dining room window as she passed and caught sight of the roofline of the cottage, shrouded by a group of trees. The rock house sat at the back of her grandparents’ property, carved from the mountain fieldstone when Jess’ parents moved from England years ago. She’d always planned to raise her own family there some day.
She glanced down at her cane.
Former plan.
The cottage was too big for only one person and renting it made good sense, even if it didn’t feel good. “Someone local?”
Granny shrugged a shoulder as she pulled the cake from the cake safe and then gestured toward the kitchen table with the plate in hand. “No. A widow who’s bringing in good business with her dressmaking. She’s not much older than you. Anna’s her name.”
Jess digested the information, a myriad of questions popping to mind about a widow moving to the secluded mountain town, but weariness kept her quiet. She hadn’t stood on her leg or walked so much in several weeks.
“Why don’t you take your things up to your room and then come join me for cake?”
And a talk, if she knew anything about her granny. She smiled as she pulled herself up the narrow back steps leading from the kitchen to her secluded room at the back of the house. Scents of honeysuckles and rose petals met with a unique smell of home.
The room looked the same as when she left. A four-poster bed in the center, covered in one of her grandmother’s colorful quilts. A dresser to one side of the bed and a nightstand to the other, and on the opposite wall stood her writing desks. She grinned and dropped her bag on the bed before running her hands across the clean sheets of paper scattered over wood. She’d spent hours writing articles for local papers about the rights of women to vote, or own their own property, or earn similar wages as their male counterparts.
And though the process had proved painfully slow, things were changing. What a shame it took a war to push women into the workforce and show men all around the country their value.
She stepped to the window and stared out over the back garden, the cottage a bit clearer from her heightened vantage point. Her father had loved his little sanctuary, with its vine covered rock walls reminding him of England. Her mother had loved it because her father did.
Mother. The loss hollowed out with a deeper ache. Jess lifted her eyes to the guardian mountains on every side and almost whispered a prayer. Almost.
She’d grown out of practice with praying. After the days and nights of watching men die in her arms, of piecing broken soldiers back together for an unknown future, of almost losing her brother or having a piece of her innocence stripped away, of nursing her mother until she drew her final breath and then helplessly watching her father grieve... somehow, prayer felt futile.
She ignored the tiny nudge, the call to whisper to the creator of those mountains, and joined Granny back in the kitchen instead.
“Your grandpa sent a message by Joe Gentry’s boy that you’d arrived and was helping him with a surgery.” Granny gestured toward the kitchen table with a plate of cake in hand. “How’d things go?” She placed the plates down, both brimming with strawberry shortcake.
Jess joined her at the table. “Time will tell. The fact he survived the transfusion is a success in itself.”
She sliced her fork through the cake, her mouth watering at the scent of butter and strawberries mixed. “They’re still so new, it’s difficult to predict the outcome. Mr. Buchanan had a hard fall.”
“Well, I’m sure your grandpa was glad to have you there. Experienced help is hard to find since most medical folks are across the Pond.”
So, what about Mr. Reinhold? During the entire surgery, he’d stood like a statue, complete with his unnerving calm. Jess steadied a forkful of cake on her fork and peered at her granny. “It seems he’s trained one of the internees?”
Her grandmother gave no reaction except the slight pause of her movements as she took a bite. “You’ve met August?”
“After I stepped off the train to the vision of barracks and barbed wire, as a matter of fact.”
Granny placed her fork down on the table and pressed both palms flat, meeting Jessica’s gaze with a direct one of her own. “I know you’ve had a hard time during this war. And I can’t imagine what you’ve had to endure over there.”
“No, you can’t.”
Granny raised a brow. “But your grandpa and I weren’t going to risk you not coming home just because you’re angry at the entire country of Germany.”
Jess put her own fork down and crossed her arms. “They almost killed David, and I’ve held hundreds of men in my arms who weren’t so lucky—all because of those Germans.”
“Do you think we ain’t felt the sting here? Ten boys lost, so far. About eighteen of the Dorland boys left from the school to head over and we’re hopin’ they make it back alive.” Granny didn’t back down. “Each family grieving the loss, or possibility of it, but the men in that camp aren’t the ones fighting in Europe. They’ve been imprisoned since the day America joined the war. First in New York and then moved here.”
“You should have told me about the camp.”
Granny lowered her gaze, a mild acquiesce to her guilt. “Maybe, but your grandpa and I were afraid you wouldn’t come home if we did, and we were selfish enough to want one grandchild here instead of lost to war or England.”
A flame of Jessica’s anger deflated a little at the recognition of her grandparents’ loss, the same shared loss aching through her quiet moments. She sighed out some of her fight. Stay in England? Even with the defilement of the beautiful grounds of the inn, Jess coul
dn’t imagine living anywhere but couched within these mountains.
“I still should have been given the fair choice to decide whether I wanted my neighbors to be Germans or not, especially since one is not only my neighbor but my grandfather’s assistant.” The fire flickered back to life in her temper.
“You aren’t at war with August or any of those men at the camp, Jessica Ross.” Granny took another bite of the cake, then pointed the fork at her like a weapon. “You’ve gathered up your enemies for years, but not from the camp.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Not three weeks after your mama died, and you were packing up to return to the war.” Her brow edged the words a little sharper. “Running away from your hurt, I’d reckon. And on top of all your grief, you’ve added these horrible pains of betrayal, David, and the war?”
Jess stood, each additional sentence stabbing fresh reminders, stings she wanted to forget. “And now I should have a daily reminder of what the war took from me by Mr. Reinhold’s presence? How can you trust someone like him, let alone have him serve patients?”
“August has been a great help to us since you and David left for the war.”
“How ironic then that you found a German to replace us.” The words hissed with enough venom to surprise Jessica.
Her granny’s gaze, hardened into a convicting gray. “We found a good and kind-hearted man to offer the same compassion our grandchildren used to give to the people of this town. Something a world broken from war needs a whole lot more than a heart filled with blind hatred.”
Jess’ eyes stung from the swell of tears invading her vision. They came without warning now, overwhelming and unwanted, stabbing at her weakness, reminding her of watching her mother die or her brother, David, be beaten by a German spy. Helpless. Useless. She shoved her chair back into place, her granny’s truth and her own scars ripping into her like the terrors haunting her nights. Without another word, she ran from the house.
The Thorn Healer Page 3