Open Country (14 page)

Silence. Molly could sense Martha’s astonishment. Or was it disbelief? Amusement? Would it be so unusual that an unremarkable woman like herself would garner a proposal from a man like Hank? Which, of course, she hadn’t. But still . . .

Martha finally burst into action, hands flapping in distress as words rushed out. “Oh my Lord. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know, ma’am—I mean Miz Wilkins. No one said—holy Christ—I mean—Jesus. I didn’t even know Hank was courting—I mean after he went after that girl from the fort—oh ma’am, I didn’t mean nothing, and as for Hank and the girls, that didn’t mean nothing either. Just scratching an itch, that’s all it was, I swear it. He’s a good man. The best. Once he said his vows, he would never break them, I just know it.”

Feeling somewhat appeased, Molly patted her shoulder. “It’s all right, Martha. All that was before I even met Hank. Water under the bridge. If it’s acceptable to you, we’ll forget this conversation entirely.”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. It never happened. And if it did, I already forgot it.”

“Thank you. Hmm. We’re out of hot water. Would you mind heating more?”

As Martha happily escaped to get more water, Molly pressed a hand to her flushed cheek and struggled not to laugh. That had to be the most uncomfortable conversation she had ever suffered through. Wouldn’t the brothers die if they—

“You need to know more, just ask,” a hoarse voice said.

She jumped back, almost crashing into the table beside the bed.

Hank blinked up at her, his expression wryly amused. “Although I doubt there’s much you don’t know about me by now. Wish I could say the same . . .” His voice trailed off. His eyes opened and closed in slow, sluggish blinks. “I don’t feel so good.”

Embarrassment forgotten, Molly studied him, noting the flushed cheeks, the sweat, the too-bright eyes. His fever was rising again. Hurriedly she dampened a cloth in the cold water and draped it over his forehead.

“What’s wrong with me?” he mumbled.

She debated worrying him, then realized she had lied to the man too many times already. “Your arm’s infected and you’re running a fever.”

He lay still for so long she wondered if he’d lost consciousness again. With mounting alarm, she dampened another cloth and spread it over the bandages on his chest. Where was Brady?

“Then cut it off.”

She jerked her gaze back to his. “What?”

“If it’s killing me, cut it off.”

The words sent terror pounding through her chest. It was a moment before she could find the breath to respond. “No. Absolutely not. Not unless I have to.”

He looked at her. She recognized in his eyes a man who saw his own death and wasn’t afraid. It made her want to scream at him for giving up so easily. “No!” she said again, louder, sharper. Leaning over him, she took his face in her hands. His cheeks were rough with whiskers and felt hot against her palms. She could almost feel the life ebbing from him. “You will not die,” she said fiercely. “I will not allow it! Do you understand?”

His fever-cracked lips split in a slow, crooked smile—the first he’d ever given her. “Sweet Molly,” he whispered. Then his eyes rolled back into his head.

“No!” she cried, shaking him. “Don’t leave me!”

Martha appeared at her side. “Lordy, what’s wrong?”

Seeing the fear in the other woman’s face helped Molly gain control of her own. Thoughts raced through her mind with sudden sharp clarity. This was good. He was insensate. He wouldn’t feel pain when she opened up his arm.

She rummaged through the medicine basket for what she would need. “Boil these,” she ordered, handing Martha a pair of scissors, two scalpels, and tubes of needles and horsehair ligatures. And this.” She added a roll of gauze to the pile. “Cut it into six-inch strips first. And find another lamp.”

As Martha rushed out, Molly called after her. “And send someone for Brady. I’ll need him in case Hank wakes up. Tell him to hurry.”

 

 

MOLLY HAD NEVER WANTED TO BE A NURSE. SHE HAD NEVER felt that compelling need to tend the sick or do battle with disease that drove others into the healing professions. She had simply wanted to be with Papa.

After Mama died and her older sister moved to Savannah, he was all she had left. And she knew with a child’s certainty that he would leave her too if she didn’t make herself so useful he would have no reason to move on without her.

So she became his apprentice, his unwilling assistant within the nightmare walls of the surgical room. She never liked it. She never grew accustomed to the sickness and blood, or the pain she often brought to patients already in agony. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t harden herself to the suffering or step back far enough to see the good that might come from her clumsy efforts. In misplaced sympathy, she writhed along with her patients, which did them little good and left her trembling with nausea. But because of Papa she muddled through, trying to do less harm than good and vomiting in despair when it was over. It ripped a hole in her soul every time.

But now with Hank . . . something had changed. She felt no doubt. No flinching uncertainty. No will-sapping sympathy.

She would do this. She would save Hank because he needed her and she owed him and she couldn’t bear that he should die. She wouldn’t weaken this time.

When Brady came back, she was ready.

“I’m going to reopen the incision,” she told him. “I have to cut away the dead tissue and clean out the wound. Every two hours it must be flushed with bromine solution then repacked with gauze and mutton tallow.”

As she spoke, Brady’s face lost color, but he didn’t interrupt.

“We must keep him from injuring his arm while it’s exposed,” Molly went on. “Strap him down if necessary.”

“He won’t like that.”

“Then you’ll have to restrain him. Can you do that? If not, I’ll have to administer chloroform, which might be a risk in his weakened state.”

“I’ll hold him.”

Molly studied him, seeing the lines of fatigue, the terror in his ice blue eyes. He looked like he’d aged a decade in the last few days. But she couldn’t worry about that now.

Pushing sympathy aside, she rested her hand on his arm. “Don’t fail me, Brady.”

He met her gaze without flinching. “I won’t. My word.”

“Good. Let’s get started.”

HANK AWOKE TO BRIGHT SUNLIGHT AND THE AWARENESS that something had changed. The pain wasn’t so bad, and he no longer felt like he was fighting his way through swirling black fog. He could think again. And the first thing he thought of was his arm. Was it gone? Had she cut it off?

He didn’t want to know.

Not yet.

But he looked anyway.

Still there. Still whole
.

Relief hit so hard, he shuddered. He still felt weak, but not sick and not trapped in that empty place that made him feel like he was drowning.

He was alive. He was going to make it.

Movement against his right side startled him, and he looked down to see a woman in a chair next to his bed. She was asleep, bent forward with her head resting on her crossed arms beside his hip. He recognized the sorrel hair. Molly. His wife.

When had he taken a wife?

He remembered confusing dreams broken by times of wakefulness when he rose out of the void to find her gently stroking his brow, or whispering words of reassurance in her soft Southern voice, or one time crying softly while she did something to his arm. He remembered watching her across a crowd of people sitting in benches on a train, then another time, seeing her asleep in the bed beside his. He remembered wanting to tell her he was sorry, although he wasn’t sure why or for what. He remembered his brother and Jessica. He remembered . . .

Heart pounding, he watched a kaleidoscope of images flash through in his mind. Jack laughing. Sam trying to teach the hound to dance. Brady watching Jessica cross the yard. His parents. Elena, Sancho’s sister and the daughter of the previous owner of the ranch. The way the sky turned brown when the ranch burned. The hillside rushing toward him when they dynamited Sancho’s cave.

Faster and faster the images came. The new house. The mines. Laying the first section of track on the spur line. Loading the part for the concentrator then boarding the passenger car in Sierra Blanca, then . . .

. . . nothing . . .

. . . until he woke up in El Paso at that doctor’s house.

It was all there. Everything but her.

He looked down at the woman sleeping at his side. How could he forget some things and remember others? And how could he meet a woman, marry her, then lose all memory of her during the time it took to travel from Sierra Blanca to El Paso? It made no sense.

Lifting his right hand, he brushed a glossy curl from her cheek, wanting her to wake up and look at him, hoping when she did, it would free the memories trapped somewhere in his head.

He wanted to remember her.

The way she smelled, the way her breasts fit his hands, the look on her face when he moved inside her. He wanted to remember the sound of her laughter. He wanted to know if he loved her and why he had taken a wife when he’d come to accept that he would live his life alone. He wanted to know where all those memories had gone and how he could get them back.

He needed to remember her.

“Look at me,” he said.

With a jerk, she opened her eyes. She sat up, blinking groggily until her gaze focused on his. He watched emotions flit across her expressive face—joy, relief, then worry, and finally something that almost looked like dread.

“You remember,” she said.

He sensed her withdrawal, and it confused him. He didn’t know what to say to her, how to tell the woman with whom he’d exchanged vows and shared a bed that she was a stranger to him. Reaching out, he cupped her cheek, tracing the smooth arc of her cheekbone with his thumb. “I do,” he said. “Everything but you.”

“Oh.”

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected—tears, anger, disappointment—something more than “Oh.” Instead, she seemed to turn to stone. It concerned him the way she stared at him without blinking, without even breathing. Wanting to dispel that feeling of distance growing between them, he gave her a half-smile. “So I guess we’ll have to start over. Make new memories.”

She moved then, her mouth opening and closing twice before any words came out. “Is that what you want? To stay married?”

Surprised, he let his hand fall back to his side. “Why wouldn’t I want to stay married?”

She looked down and began fussing with her skirts. “Since you don’t remember me, I thought, well, perhaps you’d prefer to just forget the whole thing.”

“Forget we’re married?” Which was exactly what he’d done, although not in the way she meant it. Suddenly his defenses came up. “Why? Don’t you want to stay with me?” He’d heard that excuse before.

Her gaze flew to his, then quickly away. “It’s not that, it’s just that, well, if your feelings have changed . . .”

“Changed from what? Do you think because I don’t remember you, I can’t still care for you?” He had no memory of whether he had cared for her or not, but judging by the way he felt about her now, with her being almost a stranger to him, he must have cared for her a lot when she wasn’t. A stranger, that is. Before he forgot her.

Jesus
. He was getting a headache with all this thinking and wondering and not remembering. He had to put an end to it before he was too confused to think at all. “Let’s just let it ride for now, okay? Get to know each other again if that would make you feel better. Maybe my memory will return, and we can go on as if nothing happened. If not, we’ll start over. Pretend we’re courting or something.”

It was starting to sound less fun by the minute. He didn’t like courting. He didn’t know how to act or what to say, and the one time he’d tried it—other than with Molly, apparently—he’d felt big and awkward and clumsy. So much easier if he could just say, “We’re married. Take off your clothes.” Neat and simple.

He glanced at her, wondering if he should give it a try.

Her expression said not.

Just as well. He wasn’t feeling that perky.

“Well, I suppose we could do that,” she finally said. “If you’re sure.”

He wasn’t sure of anything but nodded anyway. He was just relieved to have most of his memory back. And if he had to court a wife for the second time he didn’t remember from the first time, well . . . he’d do it . . . and hope they got to that taking-off-the-clothes part before he was so old he started losing his memory all over again.

With a weary sigh, he closed his eyes, wishing he had his strength back and was free of this stinking nightshirt. “When can I go home?” he asked, trying not to whine.