Lynna Banning - High Country Hero

“I figure another three hours till we make camp.” He squinted against the sun behind her, reached up one hand, pulled his black hat down to his eyebrows. Beneath the tilted brim, his green-gray eyes narrowed.

He was waiting for something, but what? She hadn’t requested a necessary stop, or even time to rinse her dry mouth with a bit of water from the canteen. She hadn’t slowed him down in the slightest. And after her inquiries about her patient—the location of the wound, the presence of fever and a dozen other questions he had simply sidestepped—she had given up. She prayed that the wounded man would still be alive when they reached him.

She had been an ideal traveling companion, pushing as fast as she could, never complaining. So why was he looking at her like that?

“You all right, Doc?” he called back to her.

“Yes, of course. Why do you ask?”

“Mighty quiet.”

“I am…thinking.”

He grinned suddenly. “You know, I’ve about got you figured out.” He turned back to scan the trail ahead. The Bear Wilderness area loomed before them, a thick tangle of Douglas fir and spruce that swathed the hills in various shades of brown and green.

Sage stifled the laugh that bubbled up in her throat. “Nobody has figured me out, Mr. Lawson. Not my father, not my mother. Mama and Papa let me go to medical college because they were afraid I would run away if they didn’t. But they didn’t understand.”

Now that her medical studies were concluded, the one thing she missed was being kept busy. Too busy to dwell on why she sometimes felt restless, as if her skin had shrunk overnight. She liked probing the mysteries of diphtheria and puerperal fever, liked finding out what was true and what was old wives’ tales or just superstition.

But what was beneath her own surface was a mystery she didn’t want to poke into.

“And just what have you figured out?” The words leaped out of her mouth before she could catch them.

He twisted to face her again. “You sure you want to know?”

“Of course. Though I doubt very much your observations will prove insightful.”

“Well, you’re not gonna like this, but here goes.” He looked straight into her eyes. “You’re all locked up inside. Afraid to feel things.”

“I most certainly am not! Whatever gave you such a ridiculous idea?”

He held her gaze without smiling. “The fact that you swim with your eyes closed. Like you don’t want to…I don’t know, let yourself go and enjoy it, maybe.”

“That is presumptuous, Mr. Lawson.” To give herself something to do, she flapped the reins, then realized every step the mare took brought her closer to him.

“You can call me Cord, Doc. You’ve seen me half-dressed, and I’ve seen you, well, vice versa. I think maybe we’ve been introduced good enough.”

“Mr. Lawson!”

He didn’t even blink. “You’re right about the ‘presumptuous’ part, though.” Again, he twisted to scan the trail ahead. “I don’t have a lot of fine manners to trip over,” he called over his shoulder.

“You are certainly correct on that score,” Sage murmured.

“So,” he continued, “I just say what I think. I’m not wrong very often.”

Sage took her time about answering. She drew in a long breath, expelled it, drew in another. “You are wrong this time, Mr. Lawson.”

“Cord,” he reminded her. “You know, I’ve only seen you smile three times in two days, Doc. Once was when you swam the river. The point is, you were a little scared, but it felt good, didn’t it?”

She swallowed instead of replying. Her father had taught her it was bad manners to argue on the trail, but she was so mad she felt like heaving the canteen at him. Tears stung her eyes. She straightened her shoulders.

“Well, Cord, I am not smiling now.”

“You think about it, Doc. I know you’re riding with me to do good for your fellow man. Might be this journey could do you some good, too.” He moved forward at a faster pace and this time did not look back.

Sage reached behind the saddle and grabbed the first thing her fingertips encountered. Her camisole. She didn’t alter her pace, didn’t make a sound. But that old feeling of restless hunger was back, flooding her entire being until she wished she could just jump out of her skin and escape.

She used the garment to dab at her eyes until they reached a grassy clearing. When Cord called a halt, she wadded up the muslin and stuffed it under her saddle.

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