Linda Miller - An Outlaw's Christmas

A half hour passed before Clay returned, with Dr. Jim Howard, the local dentist, riding stalwartly along beside him on the mule that usually pulled his buggy.

Everybody in Blue River liked Dr. Howard, whose young daughter, Madeline, was one of Piper’s best students. At eight, the little girl could read and cipher with the acuity of an adult. Mrs. Howard, however, was not so easy to like as her husband and daughter. Eloise wore nothing but velvet or silk, dismissed the town as a “bump in the road” and told anyone who would listen that she’d “married down.”

“Miss St. James,” Dr. Howard greeted her, with a friendly smile and a tug at the brim of his Eastern-style hat, as he stomped the snow off his boots on the schoolhouse porch, the way Clay had done a moment before. Doc was a large man, good-natured, older than his wife by some twenty years, and his eyes were a kindly shade of blue. He carried a battered leather bag in one gloved hand.

Piper barely stopped herself from rushing over and embracing the man, she was so glad to see him. The responsibility of keeping Mr. McKettrick alive had, she realized, weighed more heavily upon her than she’d thought it did.

She merely nodded in acknowledgment, though, as he closed the door against the cold daylight wind, and she hung back when Clay led the way through the schoolroom and into the chamber behind it.

Of course she couldn’t help overhearing most of the conversation between Clay and Dr. Howard, given that the whole place was hardly larger than Dara Rose’s chicken coop out on the ranch, classroom, teacher’s quarters and all.

Clay was asking how bad the injury was, and Dr. Howard replied that it was serious enough, but with luck and a lot of rest, the patient would probably recover.

Probably recover? Piper thought, sipping from the mug of coffee she’d poured for herself. When Clay and the doctor—more commonly referred to as “Doc”—came out of the back room, she’d offer them some, too. She owned three cups, not including the bone china tea service for six nestled in her hope chest, which would remain precisely where it was, unlike her once pristine quilts.

“I’d like to take Sawyer out to my place,” she heard Clay say.

“Better wait a few days,” came Doc’s response. “He’s lost a lot of blood. The bullet went clear through him, though, which saves me having to dig it out, and Miss St. James did a creditable job of binding him up. He’ll have scars, but the wound looks clean, thanks to her.” A pause followed. “There’s a bottle of carbolic acid in my bag there—hand it to me, will you?”

There was another short silence, during which Clay must have done as Doc asked, soon followed by a hoarse shout of angry protest from the patient. He swore colorfully, and Piper winced. She believed that cursing revealed a poor vocabulary, among other personal shortcomings.

“Can’t take a chance on infection setting in,” the dentist said peaceably, evidently unruffled by the outburst. “The burning will stop after a while.”

Sawyer muttered something unintelligible.

Piper’s hands trembled as she set her coffee mug down on her desk. Doc’s reply to Clay’s statement about taking his cousin out to the ranch echoed in her mind. Better wait a few days.

All well and good, she thought fretfully, but what was she supposed to do in the meantime? There was only one bed, after all, and she couldn’t sleep in a chair until the man was well enough to be moved, could she?

Mr. McKettrick was indeed badly injured, but this was a schoolhouse, frequented by children five days a week—children who would go home after dismissal and tell their parents there was a strange man recuperating in Miss St. James’s room. She wouldn’t be able to hide him from them any more than she could hide that enormous gelding of his, quartered in the shed out back. Even unconscious, Sawyer filled the place with his presence, breathed up all the air.

Clay emerged from her room just then, took a second mug from the shelf near the stove and poured himself some coffee. He was probably cold, Piper realized with some chagrin, having ridden in from the ranch, proceeded to Doc Howard’s, and then made his way back to the schoolhouse again.

“I guess we’ve got a problem,” he said now. Was there a twinkle in those very blue eyes of his as he studied her expression?

“Yes,” Piper agreed, somewhat stiffly. Maybe Clay found the situation amusing, but she certainly didn’t.

Clay took another sip, thoughtful and slow, from his mug. He’d shed his long coat soon after he and Doc arrived, and his collarless shirt was open at the throat, showing the ridged fabric of his undergarment. Like Sawyer, he wore a gun belt, but he’d set the pistol aside earlier, an indication of his good manners. “You probably heard what Doc Howard said,” he told her, after a few moments of pensive consideration. “I could stay here with Sawyer and send you on out to the ranch to stay with Dara Rose and the girls, but it’s hard going, with the snow still so deep.”

Jim Howard came out of Piper’s room, wiping his hands clean on a cloth that smelled of carbolic acid. “I gave him some laudanum,” he told Clay. “He’ll sleep for a while.”

Piper propped her own hands on her hips. She’d spent a mostly sleepless night hoping and praying that someone would come to help, and she’d gotten her wish, but for all that, the problem was only partially solved.

Perhaps she should have been more specific, she reflected, rueful.

“Must I point out to you gentlemen,” she began, with dignity, “that this arrangement is highly improper?”

Clay’s grin was slight, but it was, nonetheless, a grin, and it infuriated her. She was an unmarried woman, a schoolmarm, and there was a man in her bed, likely to remain there for the foreseeable future. All her dreams for the future—a good husband, a home, and children of her own—could be compromised, and through no fault of her own.

“I understand your dilemma, Piper,” he said, sounding like an indulgent older brother, “but you heard the doc. Sawyer can’t be moved until that wound of his mends a little.”

“Surely you could take him as far as the hotel without doing harm,” Piper reasoned, quietly frantic. She kept her hands at her sides, but the urge to wring them was strong.

Dr. Howard shook his head. Helped himself to the last mug and some coffee. “That could kill him,” he said bluntly, but his expression was sympathetic. “I’m sure Eloise wouldn’t mind coming over and helping with his care, though. She’s had some nursing experience, and it would temper any gossip that might arise.”

As far as Piper was concerned, being shut up with Eloise Howard for any length of time would be worse than attending to the needs of a helpless stranger by herself. Much worse.

“I couldn’t ask her to do that,” Piper said quickly. “Mrs. Howard has you and little Madeline to look after.” She turned a mild glare on Clay. “Your cousin needs male assistance,” she added. She’d dragged Sawyer McKettrick in out of the cold, cleaned his wound, even taken care of his horse, but she wasn’t about to help him use the chamber pot, and that was final.

“I’ll do what I can,” Clay said, “but Dara Rose is due to have our baby any day now. I can’t leave her out there alone, with just the girls and a few ranch hands. Once the weather lets up, though…”

His words fell away as Piper’s cheeks flared with the heat of frustration. She could demand to be put up in the hotel herself, of course, until Sawyer McKettrick was well enough to leave the schoolhouse, but that would mean he’d be alone here. And he was in serious condition, despite Doc’s cheerful prognosis.

What if something went wrong?