Debra Cowan - Whirlwind Wedding

In the two weeks she’d worked for Dr. Butler at the fort, her aid had been confined to helping deliver babies and stitching the toe of a little boy who’d cut himself with his daddy’s ax. But during her work with the nuns, she had assisted in surgery a few times.

After the doctor washed his hands, he removed the blood-soaked pad Catherine had placed on the Ranger’s thigh. Dr. Butler’s fingers probed the gaping exit wound. Catherine looked away, took a quick steadying breath, then stepped up beside him. She wet a folded square of linen with the carbolic acid Dr. Butler sometimes used for sterilizing wounds.

He cleaned around and inside the wound, then Catherine handed him a pair of forceps. He located a bullet quickly, but it took several minutes to dig it out. Though still unconscious, the Ranger moaned. This time Catherine reached up to stroke his brow.

Finally, Dr. Butler dropped the bullet into the soap tin’s lid. The ping sounded sharply in the quiet room. “There’s just the one. Looks like the other one in his leg and the one in his arm went on out.”

With one hand, Catherine held the lamp for the doctor and with her other she continued to stroke the Ranger’s forehead. His skin was flushed and burned her palm.

She counted each of the twenty-seven stitches it took to close the wound. She knew the danger lay in how deep the injury had gone, the degree of infection and the risk of the man ripping open his stitches.

Dr. Butler cleaned the wound again. He washed his hands, then, as he stared down at the patient, dried them on the fresh cloth she’d laid on the bedside table. “I fully expect he’ll go, Catherine.”

“Maybe not.” She could only think that her fervent desire for the man to live was due to the fact that her mother had died so recently. “He could pull through.”

“Maybe.” The doctor looked doubtful. “I’ll leave some laudanum in case he wakes up at all.” He placed a small brown bottle on the washstand next to the bed. “That will ease his suffering. Just try to make him comfortable. I’ll check back tomorrow.”

Catherine nodded, then glanced at her bed. Even unconscious, Jericho Blue made her leery. She didn’t care to have the big man under her roof for a prolonged period, but whatever her intention when she’d answered the door, she wasn’t getting rid of this man tonight.

D arkness shifted into light. Day into night. Jericho was swept along on a vicious red tide of pain. He burned, then froze. Searing agony gripped his leg and throbbed in his arm. Images floated through his mind. The face of his partner, Hays. A dark-haired boy. A woman with a soft voice and gentle hands that soothed his blistered flesh. He rocked on the ebb and flow of hurt before sliding into sweet surrender.

Something woke him. Pain or the light spilling through the window?

He struggled to open his eyes against the glare of the sun, awareness trickling back. A sharp ache pierced his skull. His right leg felt as if it were on fire. And he was naked. He didn’t recognize the soft bed that held the clean, comforting scent of a woman. His gaze tracked from the right, noting a tall, dark-wood wardrobe in the middle of the wall, an open door, a small dressing table, a stand to his left holding a pitcher and washbasin. None of it was familiar. The window stood open a few inches to let in fresh, warm air, and a lacy curtain fluttered there. He was in someone’s house.

He sorted through the blur of memories in his head. The ambush outside of Whirlwind, a young boy shooting with the McDougal gang. Bullets tearing through his arm and leg. His partner’s scream of surprise. Hays Gentry had been dead by the time Jericho dragged his own lead-riddled carcass over to his side.

Using a length of rope from his saddlebag, he had fashioned a tourniquet for his thigh. He had wrapped a bandanna around his bleeding arm, then clumsily secured his lanky partner onto Hays’s dun mare, and trailed the McDougal gang as far as he could while the tracks were fresh. Hours later, he’d lost them and returned to the scene of the ambush, picking up a single set of hoofprints. Hoofprints that had led him here.

His gaze shot to the open doorway and he tried to sit up. Agony clawed through his lower body and he cursed. Easing down, he panted with the effort not to cry out. A clean white bandage wrapped his right wrist up to the middle of his forearm.

He recalled waking a couple of times and a woman holding a cup of cool water to his lips. Cool dampness on his forehead and chest. He’d been shot in his gun arm. And his right leg. With his left hand, he weakly patted his way across the sheet and felt the bulk of bandages beneath.

His thigh was wrapped tightly and throbbing as if a coyote had made two meals out of it.

“Sir?” The sweet, lilting voice was tentative. The speaker sounded breathless, as if she’d hurried to him. “Oh, good. I thought I heard you.”

Jericho struggled to focus on the figure in the open doorway. Her voice. “You helped me.”

“Yes.” She moved toward him, concern drawing her finely arched brows together.

Sweat stung his eyes and he blinked. She was pretty. More than pretty. Was he conscious? Her long black hair was pulled back with a white kerchief and flowed over one shoulder like ebony silk. He registered strong features and porcelain skin before his vision hazed. She leaned over him, smelling of sunshine and soap. A low humming sounded in his ears. She was talking.

“Dr. Butler removed a bullet. There was one in your leg, but not in your arm. You were shot twice in the thigh.”

“What’s my leg look like?” The room spun and he felt himself sliding away. He’d seen men with the same injury lose their leg to rot. “Will it keep?”

“I think so. You seem to be fighting off the infection.” She smiled and he could see her eyes were blue. Clear blue like that fancy bird made of colored glass his ma had.

“I made it to Whirlwind.”

“Yes. You were tracking the McDougal gang.” Her hand fluttered over the bandage on his arm. “Dr. Butler will check your leg when he comes.”

Jericho’s head swam and he felt himself slipping away. “I came to your door.”

“Yes. You told me your name, then went unconscious.”

“How long have I been here?” The pain pulled at him, dragging him into a black hole of helplessness.

“Three days.”

He grunted. “Your name?”

“Catherine Donnelly.”

“Cath—” Everything went black.

The next time Jericho awoke, the sun was setting. His mouth was as dry as wool, the pain deep and gouging. He felt someone in the room and turned his head to the right, staring into the prettiest blue eyes he’d ever seen.

“Hello,” she said softly.

“Hello.” His voice sounded rusty and dry. He remembered her. “Miz Donald?”

“Donnelly.”

“Catherine.”

“Your fever broke.” Triumph underscored her words as she fussed with the blanket draped over his body.

Pain pushed the fog from his mind. He felt as weak as a newborn babe.

“Let me get you something to eat.”

“Was I out a long time?”

“You woke earlier today. Do you remember?”

He nodded. Three days he’d spent in this bed. Useless. Helpless.

“Dr. Butler will be pleased when he comes by to check on you.” She seemed to glide out of the room, her fluid movements economical and controlled.

The plain gray dress and white apron draped her body in long, sleek lines. Curved in all the right places, she had full breasts and a slim waist. If a man weren’t careful, her blue eyes could draw him in, distract him enough to forget why he was here.

She returned with a thick crockery bowl and a spoon. Pulling a ladder-back chair close to the side of the bed, she set the bowl on the bedside table. A fragrant steam drifted to him and made his mouth water.