The Wild One (47 page)

"Stand at the head of the table, Amy, and
put your hands on either side of his head to steady it," the doctor
directed. "Good." Wiping the razor on the leg of his breeches, he
shaved the area around the wound with as much skill as any barber.
Amy watched the soft clumps of hair tumbling forlornly down over
her knuckles, falling on the pillow, the table, the floor. Finally
Plummer set the blade aside. "There. That ought to do it. Now,
brace his head real steady, Amy, and don't let it move." And then,
noting her pallor, he added, "You don't have to watch if you don't
want to."

She didn't want to — but she could no more
look away than she could stop breathing. It was as though by
finding the courage to watch, she was somehow going through this
ordeal right along with him. To look away and abandon Adam to such
a thing, to allow him to suffer it all by himself, seemed cowardly.
She would be brave — for him. And so she held his head and held up
her own and forced herself to take deep, steadying breaths as she
watched Plummer draw his scalpel and make his first cut. As the
doctor progressed, first with scalpel and then with the trephine,
Amy found herself gently talking to the unconscious man as though
she could somehow soothe him.

"He'll not hear you," Plummer grunted,
leaning his weight into the trephine and rotating it, "but if it
makes you feel better, go ahead and talk to him."

"It
does
make me feel better. And
maybe he
can
hear me. . . after all, who's to say that he
can't?"

"What a fanciful girl you are," Plummer
said, amused. "But the best assistant I ever had. Now, keep your
wits about you. We're almost there."

Amy no longer wanted to look. She squeezed
her eyes shut and locked her knees together and it was then, as she
stood there holding so tightly onto Adam's head that her arms began
to ache, that she noticed that his breathing had changed. Her eyes
flew open.

"Dr. Plummer?"

"For God's sake, girl, not now."

"His breathing — it doesn't sound the way it
did a moment ago . . ."

Still gripping the trephine, Plummer paused
only long enough to note that Amy was correct.

"Tarnal hell, I'm losing him."

Amy, fingers entwined in Adam's hair to
better anchor his head, the terrible grinding vibrations of the
trephine coming up through her palms, shut her eyes and prayed like
she never had in all her seventeen years.
Please don't die
,
she begged silently, pressing her palms to Adam's ears and willing
her own life into his fading body,
please, please, don't die . .
.

But Adam's soft respirations were coming
more and more slowly, growing ineffective, growing faint.

Please God. Oh, please, give him a chance, I
beg of you —

"Pay attention there, Amy!" barked Plummer,
his upper lip beaded with sweat as he tossed the trephine down on
the table. It began to roll away. Impatiently he slammed it back
down. The trephine rolled again, this time falling off the table
and hitting the floor. Plummer swore and left it there. And now
Adam was no longer taking shallow little breaths, but gasping
desperately, trying to draw air into his dying lungs. Tears stung
Amy's eyes, burned in her sinuses. She had seen fish in buckets die
like that; to see a man going the same route, especially one as
strong and handsome as this one, filled her with an unbearable
agony.

"The devil take it," Plummer swore, grabbing
up the scalpel and prying the plug of bone loose. "Damnation!"

And now even the erratic gasps were coming
slower and slower. Amy sniffed back the tears. Oh, God help her,
this was awful, awful, awful —

"Come on, damn you, breathe!" Plummer all
but yelled, his voice rising in urgency as Adam gave a final, heavy
sigh and fell still. He watched the trickle of red, red blood
oozing up and out of the gaping wound. "
Breathe!
"

But as each moment filed past, Adam did not
move, did not breathe, and Plummer's frozen, rapt expression began
to melt into despair. He stood staring down at his patient, hands
clenched and a myriad emotions crossing his face, before his
shoulders finally sank and, looking haggard and old, he swore
beneath his breath and turned away in defeat.

"Call in the undertaker, then," he said
bitterly. "I've lost him."

Chapter 2

Will fled. Plummer wiped his brow and
trudged off to tell Sylvanus the bad news.

And Amy was left alone with Adam.

She stood there with him for what seemed
like a long time, her hands caught in his bloody hair, her palms
still pressed to his ears as though she could keep the life from
leaving him. As she stared down at his body, its fragile warmth
still caught between her hands, its still face buried in her
pillow, her throat closed on a harsh sob. He couldn't be dead, he
just couldn't, he was too young, too strong, too handsome —

But he was.

Gently turning his head and coming around to
his side, she bent, bringing her cheek to his cheek, her temple to
his temple, and let the tears come.

And it was then, with her damp face pressed
to his, that she felt the tremulous fluttering of a pulse, soft as
a butterfly's wings, beating in his temple.

She pulled back.

"Adam?" she whispered, barely daring to
speak.

Another moment passed. And then his
shoulders rose on an inhalation of Herculean proportions, rising
up, up, up, only to settle back down on an equally huge
exhalation.

"Breathe, Adam! Oh, please, breathe!" And
then, when he didn't, Amy put her lips next to his ear and yelled,
straight into his head, "
Breathe!
"

Adam breathed. Plummer came charging back
in, Sylvanus right behind him. Seeing the rise and fall of Adam's
shoulders, Plummer hurried forward, opening his bag as he went.
Adam was coming back to life — literally — beneath Amy's
bloodstained fingers. She returned to the head of the table, put
her cheek next to his, and unable to contain her excitement, unable
to stop the tears from coursing down her face, coached each slow,
gathering breath by matching it to her own.

"Breathe . . . breathe . . . breathe . .
."

Each respiration was stronger than the last.
Whispering words of encouragement, Amy stroked the sides of Adam's
head with her thumbs, marvelling at the strength and will of a man
who could come through what this one just had, and live. She looked
up at the doctor and laughed with joy.

"Oh, Dr. Plummer — you did it, he's
breathing!"

"
We
did it," he corrected with a wry
smile, and reaching into his bag, extracted a handful of lint. He
was just pulling off a wad of it when tremors began moving through
Adam's body, ending in twitches of his fingers, a jerk of one
leg.

"What's wrong with him now?" Amy cried in
alarm.

"Nothing." The doctor smiled. "He's just
waking up."

"Waking up?"

"Yes. Once I took the pressure off his brain
by releasing the blood clot, it's only natural that he regain
consciousness. That is, if God wanted him to live."

"Obviously, God
does
want him to
live!"

A groan of pain came from deep within the
pillow. Quickly, the doctor plugged the wound with lint and
threaded his needle, preparing to stitch it shut. Adam was flexing
his fingers now. Trying, weakly, to raise his head. Plummer pulled
the wound shut, pinched it with one finger, and stabbed the needle
through.

Adam's whole body jerked, his hand flailing
blindly before hitting Plummer's wrist with nearly enough force to
break it. The needle went flying, only to be jerked back by the
thread. Plummer let out a curse, and Adam began thrashing
about.

Amy couldn't hold him down.

"Keep him still, Amy!"

She threw her full weight across him, trying
desperately to restrain him. He fell back to the table, struggling,
as both Will and Sylvanus added their weight. Her heart pounding,
Amy leaned down and put her lips against Adam's ear. "It's all
right," she soothed. "You're going to be just fine, but you have to
be still! We're not trying to hurt you. I know how frightened you
must be, but the doctor must do this in order to save your
life."

A muffled groan came from deep within the
pillow.

"Dr. Plummer?"

"What, Amy?"

"He's suffocating; can we at least let him
turn his head so he can breathe?"

Plummer pushed back. "Aye, go on."

Gently lifting Adam's head, Amy turned it so
that his right cheek lay on the pillow. The pale blue eyes were
wide and staring, the handsome face flushed and damp with sweat.
"Just give him a moment," Amy pleaded, noting Plummer's impatient
scowl. She dipped the rag in clean water and tenderly wiped Adam's
cheek and brow. "That's not too much to ask, is it?"

Plummer nodded his assent and allowed
Sylvanus to draw him off into the parlor. No sooner had they left
than Amy noticed Will, his face like paste, standing nearby.

"Will, what
is
the matter?"

"Nothing," he whispered, staring down at his
friend. "Nothing a'tall."

Amy gave him a sharp glance, then returned
her attention to the man who lay on the table. "It's all right,
Adam," she murmured, stroking the damp hair that still adorned all
but the back of his head. "Just relax."

Adam stared fixedly at the wall, his lips
just grazing the bloodstained pillow. "Not Adam . . . Charles."

It came out
Chaaahles
, on a deep and
startlingly elegant drawl that left the "r" from the name and
marked him as anything but the rebel they'd all assumed him to
be.

Amy's jaw dropped open and horrified, she
whirled to stare at her brother. "He's a —"

"Redcoat." Will went green and shot a
terrified glance at the door through which the doctor had just
passed. "An officer, if you must know." He hugged his arms to
himself and stared at Amy, his lower lip thrust out, his eyes both
fearful and defiant. He looked like the frightened child he was.
"What would you have me do, leave him out in a field to die?"

Amy, paling, grabbed Will by the sleeve. "Do
you realize what you've
done
?"

Will looked as though he were about to cry.
"Now you know why I was half-hoping he wouldn't make it."

"Why on earth did you bring him home?"

"I felt guilty."

"For heaven's
sake
, Will!"

Beneath them, the officer lay quietly on the
table. In despair, Amy realized he must've heard every word — and
known they were his enemy, long before they could say the same
about him. Lying gravely wounded and separated from his countrymen,
his army, and everything familiar to him, helpless and at the mercy
of the very people who'd declared themselves to be his enemy, he
must be terrified. Waking up to what he had, he probably thought
they were practicing some wicked torture on him.

She touched his brow and gently smoothed his
hair back. "Charles."

"Oh, Juliet, forgive me," he whispered — and
hooking an arm around Amy's neck, pulled her roughly down against
him. Caught off balance and completely off guard, Amy all but
tumbled across his chest. As she flung out an arm to stop her fall,
his lips found hers, and in the next moment, he was kissing her
with a desperate passion, one arm locked around her back like a
vise.

Will ripped her from his embrace. "Don't you
touch my sister, you damned lobsterback, you!"

"Will!" Amy cried. "Can't you see he's
mistaken me for someone else? Leave him be, he's clearly out of his
head!"

"Juliet . . ." The officer sounded confused,
groggy, his voice rising in worry. "Juliet, where am I?"

With a nervous glance toward the door, Amy
leaned down to whisper in his ear. "Listen —" Her cheeks were
flushed, her pulse pounding madly; heaven help her, her legs were
weaker now than they'd been all during the surgery! "I don't know
who this Juliet is, but I'm not her. I'm Amy.
Amy
. Can you
understand that?"

He hesitated. "Amy?"

"Yes, Amy. Now listen to me. We're rebels
and you're a king's officer, and you must say nothing to the doctor
about who you are or it'll be the end of us all!"

"I am not . . . such a fool as that," he
murmured thickly. "But if you would be so kind . . . as to bring me
a candle . . . I shall take great comfort in being able to see
you."

Amy exchanged glances with Will. The candle
was three feet away from his staring eyes.

"You see, it is frightfully dark in here . .
. and I . . . I am afraid . . . that your doctor cannot see what
he's doing."

Will blurted, "But the candle
is
—"

Amy clapped her hand over Will's mouth and
slowly shook her head from side to side, warning him not to say any
more.

"Don't worry, Charles," she said gently.
"When the doctor comes back, I'm sure he'll have a candle for you
to see by."

His hand found hers and pulled it down to
his lips. "You . . . my dear angel . . . are a great comfort to
me."

"Amy, quick, Plummer's coming back!" Will
cried.

"All right, let's get this over with,"
muttered the doctor, composed once more as he and Sylvanus strode
back into the room. "At this rate I'll be here 'til
dinnertime."

Amy pulled her hand from Charles's. Then,
with gentle pressure, she guided his head back to center so that
his brow lay once more in the cradle of the pillow, which she
adjusted so that he could breathe. A redcoat. Not just
any
redcoat, but an officer who was probably, judging by those
beautifully groomed hands and the elegant cadences to his speech, a
member of the upper ruling classes, no doubt with blood as blue as
his eyes. God help them! What were they going to do?

But injured though he was, he had enough
presence of mind not to betray himself or the two youngest
Leightons by speaking in front of Plummer — and for that Amy
uttered a silent prayer of relief. He didn't move a muscle as the
doctor resumed stitching up the wound, merely suffering his fate
with stoic resolve and never realizing that just above him, Amy was
reliving that brief, desperate kiss that he had claimed. He never
saw her flushed cheeks, never knew that her tongue had come out to
touch and taste the lips that he had mistakenly claimed. And in
that moment Amy, remembering his hard strength, the roughness of
his cheek against her own, suddenly wished that
she
was the
owner of the name he had uttered . . .