Shannon Farrington - An Unlikely Union

The Doctor’s Wounded Heart

Union Army physician Evan Mackay runs his ward of the Baltimore military hospital with tremendous skill but no warmth. He will do his duty by the Confederate soldiers in his care, but sympathy and tenderness left him after the death of his brother, a Federal soldier. So why can’t he stop himself from warming to his beautiful, compassionate, unapologetically Southern nurse?

Two years of war have shown Emily Davis that the men on both sides of the war need all the comfort and care they can get. And that includes a stubborn, prickly Scottish doctor. As Evan opens his heart to Emily, she can only hope he’ll let her fill it with forgiveness…and love.

“In these past two weeks I have come to believe that you are different.”

Emily didn’t know what to say to that. More than anything, she hoped he would see her for the woman she was. But all he saw was a potential Unionist.

“Thank you for your assistance,” she said.

She filled a cup, intent on carrying it to the first soldier she found awake. Dr. Mackay thought the water was for him. His long fingers brushed hers as he took it. Emily felt a shiver travel straight up her arm.

“Thank you,” he said. “You have always been very kind.”

Something significant passed between them in that moment. So much so that Emily once again had difficulty breathing. She felt as though the real Evan Mackay was standing before her, the honorable, gifted physician who had served God and humanity before distrust and disgust had darkened his heart.

She did not break his gaze. “I am praying for you, Evan.”

He gave her hand a quick yet gentle squeeze; then he moved for the door. Emily felt the warmth of his touch long after he had exited the ward.

SHANNON FARRINGTON

is a former teacher with family ties to both sides of the Civil War. She and her husband of over eighteen years are active members in their local church and enjoy pointing out God’s hand in American history to the next generation. (Especially their own children!)

When Shannon isn’t researching or writing, you can find her knitting, gardening or participating in living history reenactments. She and her family live in Maryland.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

—Ephesians 4:32

For Eric, the man of courage, faith and compassion that I always knew I would marry.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Excerpt

Chapter One

Baltimore, Maryland

1863

Emily Elizabeth Davis stood in the dark, narrow corridor between the hospital wards and prayed for strength. Weary as she was, she wanted to remain strong for the sake of her friend and fellow nurse, Sally Hastings. The poor woman had given way to tears. Emily couldn’t blame her. She was near tears herself.

For days now the wounded soldiers had been arriving, thousands of them, train after train, crammed in like cattle. They were dying of thirst, of infection and despair. When word reached Baltimore that General Lee’s forces had met the Army of the Potomac in the farm fields of Pennsylvania, the entire city held its breath. Would Maryland soon behold her sons in liberating glory or by the horrors of the casualty lists? For a state divided between Federal and Confederate sympathies, it turned out to be both.

Emily and the other nurses had anticipated the soldiers’ arrival, but it didn’t make caring for them any less painful.

“I thought I could do this,” Sally cried, “but I don’t think I can.”

This was not the first time the pair had nursed wounded men. Following the battle of Antietam, one year earlier, they had gone down to the office of the U.S. Christian Commission and volunteered. They were subsequently placed in the West’s Buildings, a cotton warehouse on Pratt Street that had been converted to a U.S. Army General Hospital. Emily and Sally had cared for scores of bleeding men, Confederate and Federal alike, but this time the task was more difficult. The men they presently nursed were their own schoolmates and neighbors.

The members of the Maryland Guard, once so dashing in their butternut uniforms, now occupied these bleak, crowded rooms. Although Baltimore was their home, the Confederate men were held by armed guards, deemed prisoners of war.

Sally wept upon her shoulder. “First Stephen...now this...”

Sally’s brother, Captain Stephen Hastings, had been listed as missing in the great battle at Gettysburg, and, only moments ago, the man she hoped to one day marry had lost his left arm.

“Oh, Em, I am absolutely wicked.”

“No, you are not,” Emily said gently. “Why ever would you say such a thing?”

“When the stewards returned Edward to his bed, all I could think of was, ‘He will never waltz with me again.’”

Emily blinked back tears of her own, sympathizing with her friend’s pain. Edward Stanton had danced the farewell waltz with Sally at the last ball before the Pratt Street Riot, the day Federal soldiers had come to Baltimore and opened fire on innocent civilians. It was the first bloodshed of the war. Outraged at the soldiers’ attack, Edward, and many others, had headed south to enlist right away.

The days of silk dresses and white-gloved escorts had given way to months of broken bodies and bloodstained petticoats. Mirth and merriment surrendered to weariness and worry.

“Try not to fret,” Emily said. “Edward will dance with you again.”

At least she prayed that would be the case. It was only one of the numerous petitions she had whispered during her time at the hospital. As a believer and a volunteer nurse, Emily desperately longed to bring comfort to those she came in contact with. She wanted to be a light in this dark, battle-weary world.

“Remember, God is the great physician. He can—”

The door to the opposite ward pushed open, hitting the wall with a forceful thud. Evan Mackay, a newly arrived Federal doctor from Pennsylvania, glared at them.

“Rebels!” he said, angrily spitting the word. “Shouldn’t you women be tending to them?”

The man was as tall as Abraham Lincoln himself, with shoulders as broad as a ditchdigger’s. Although he spoke with a Scottish accent, which Emily thought was a dialect straight out of poetry, she was severely disappointed. Evidently not all Scotsmen were as noble or heroic as the men Robert Burns had written about. She couldn’t imagine Dr. Mackay had ever even stopped to look at a red, red rose much less compare his love for his sweetheart to one.

I seriously doubt the man even knows the meaning of the word love.

Of all the physicians in this hospital, he displayed the most hostile attitude; he had an open disdain for the Confederate men. Emily felt it her duty as a Southerner to protect the wounded from Dr. Mackay’s wrath.