High Country Bride (20 page)

E
MMELINE AROSE WHEN
R
AFE DID
,
the next morning, and dressed hurriedly in practical calico while he went downstairs to build up the fire in the cookstove. Although it was now the third week of June, there was a distinct nip in the air, and according to Concepcion and Phoebe Anne, it wasn’t unheard of for a freak snowstorm to strike in summer. She glanced out the bedroom and was relieved to see that the ground was bare.

When Emmeline descended the back stairs, she found Dr. Boylen hunched at the kitchen table, talking quietly with Rafe and probably waiting for the coffee to brew. He’d spent the night on the parlor sofa, and had already been up to the spare room to look in on Mr. Cavanagh more than once; Emmeline had heard him passing in the hallway several times.

Despite the fact that he presented a somewhat debauched appearance, Emmeline liked the doctor. She knew he was highly skilled at his profession, and wondered what demons drove him to the occasional and apparently unfortunate excesses in other areas of his life, which she had also heard about from Concepcion.

“Good morning, Emmeline,” he said, and smiled. He looked grayish and gaunt, in the first struggling light of day, as if he were caught in the throes of some private and fathomless pain, with no hope of freeing himself.

She nodded.“Good morning, Doctor,” she replied, and glanced at Rafe before meeting that too-wise gaze again. “I trust you’ve been to see our patient this morning. How is he?”

Boylen nodded. “I’ve seen him. He’s hurting pretty bad, but that’s to be expected. I gave him a dose of morphine—much as I dared, anyhow. He’s got some ugh days ahead of him, I’m afraid, but my gut feeling says he’ll be all right in time, if he doesn’t try to get back in the saddle too soon.” He paused, sighed appreciatively when Rafe handed him a cup of the coffee he’d surely put on to brew first thing. He dosed the stuff liberally with sugar and cream, and a dollop of something from a flask drawn from his inside coat pocket, and took a deep draft before going on. “Fact is, Cavanagh ought to be in a hospital. Too bad there isn’t one handy.”

Emmeline was getting pretty good at making breakfast for her hardworking husband. She brought in the egg basket from the porch—one of the ranch hands gathered them from the hen house each morning—and fetched bread and salt pork from the pantry. While Rafe and the doctor were eating, both of them showing good appetite, despite the events of the day before, she packed her husband a lunch of cold meat sandwiches, fruit preserves, cheese, and, finally, sweet cream sealed in jar. Red, the bunkhouse cook, would feed the rest of the crew, up at the work site.

Angus joined them a few minutes later, fully dressed and noticeably subdued, and Emmeline filled a plate for him, which he accepted gratefully. Apparently, she was the only one who couldn’t have forced down a bite of food if it meant her very life. Even Concepcion, when she appeared, ate two pieces of bread, toasted in the oven and well buttered, and she’d been in the thick of the carnage.

“Kade’s horse still here?” Dr. Boylen asked presently, chewing.“I’ll ride him back to town if you haven’t already sent somebody.”

Emmeline, standing with her back to the stove, her hands behind her, couldn’t hide her misgivings. “You’re leaving?” she asked.

Boylen nodded, took a noisy slurp from his coffee mug, swallowed with a gulping sound. Emmeline smiled slightly.

“I’ve got you and Concepcion here to look after my patient,” he explained, as an apparent afterthought. “Two of the best nurses I’ve ever run across. Cool-headed, both of you.”

“But—” Emmeline began.

“All you need to do is watch over him,” the doctor went on. “If you see any signs of infection, send somebody to fetch me. Otherwise, just keep him warm and clean, and try to get him to take some broth. He won’t have the stomach for much else, not for a while, anyway.”

Concepcion gave Emmeline a reassuring smile, along with a slight nod, but said nothing.

“What do we owe you, Doc?” Angus asked, in his booming voice, raising one hip off his chair so he could pry his wallet from a back pocket.

The doctor named a hefty fee, and Angus paid it without equivocation, putting his wallet back and then reaching for the egg platter, intent on a second helping. “You did a mighty fine job, Frank,” he said. “I’m beholden to you.”

“Not now, you aren’t,” Frank replied, looking at the payment with open satisfaction before folding the bills and tucking them into his inside coat pocket. “I ought to ply my trade more consistently,” he mused, half to himself.“It can be quite lucrative.”

Rafe, who had taken the seat at the opposite end of the table from his father, pushed back his chair and stood up. He kissed Emmeline on the forehead, right in front of everybody, and chuckled when her cheeks took fire.

“That was a fine breakfast,% he said. He reached for the tin lard pail containing his lunch. “See you around suppertime.”

She nodded, and walked him as far as the back door. “You be careful today, Rafe McKettrick,” she whispered. “Mr. Cavanagh will testify that it’s dangerous work you’re doing up there on the mountain.” She blushed again, thinking that Mr. Cavanagh could tell Rafe a good deal more than that, if he chose.

Rafe kissed her again, lingeringly, since they were on the back porch, and therefore out of sight of the others, who were still in the kitchen. “It’s nice to know there’ll be a pretty woman down here, worrying about me,” he teased.

Emmeline gave him a little shove, in playful exasperation, just as Angus came out, putting on his hat. He smiled briefly but offered no comment.

“Thought you might stay home today,” Rafe said to him, his tone pensive.

“Well, you thought wrong,” Angus answered. “Let’s get rolling. We’re not paying those men to stand around in front of the barn, smoking tobacco and swapping lies. There’s a house to be built.” Saying that, he winked at Emmeline. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll look out for your bridegroom.”

“Thank you,” Emmeline said, and hurried back into the kitchen.

Concepcion put wash water on to heat, then gathered the bloody sheets and garments from the day before into a pile on the back porch. She and Phoebe Anne would spend the day washing, so it fell to Emmeline to look after Mr. Cavanagh. After the doctor had examined him one more time before leaving for Indian Rock on Raindance, Kade’s horse, she bravely mounted the back stairs, proceeded along the hallway, and rapped at his door.

“Come in,” he growled.

Emmeline turned the knob, stepped over the threshold, hoisted her chin up a notch. So far, not one word about the unfortunate incident in Kansas City had passed between them, but she knew it was inevitable. She could have held her peace on the subject forever, but she was not naïve enough to expect the same courtesy from Mr. Cavanagh.

“Good morning,” she said, holding out the mug of venison broth she’d heated for his breakfast. “I brought you some soup.”

“I don’t want any damn soup,” he said. He was scowling at the ceiling as he spoke, his features in profile, but Emmeline could tell by the strain in his voice and the pallor of his skin that he was suffering.

She drew a deep breath, released it slowly, and summoned up a smile.“Be that as it may,” she said,“you must take as much nourishment as you can. Your—your body needs food to mend properly.”

He turned his head to glare at her—maybe it was the word
body
—and his eyes, sunken and shadowed, devoured and then dismissed her, all in the space of a second. “Go away,” he said. “I have no need of your singular services. Not at the moment, at least.”

Emmeline’s face throbbed with indignation; her blood stung like venom in her veins. So, she thought, in miserable fury, he not only recalled their first meeting, he meant to torment her with oblique references to it. Perhaps he would even resort to blackmail.

“I will be glad to go away,” she replied tautly, liftingher chin,“as soon as you take some of this soup.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, in a low rasp, just when Emmeline felt sure she’d swoon from the tension. She was pretty sure he wasn’t asking how she happened to be in his sickroom. He’d probably been as surprised by their encounter in town as she had.

She set the mug on the bedside table, dragged a chair away from the wall, and sat down close to the bed, summarily ignoring his question. “Can you raise your head on your own,” she began,“or shall I assist you?”

He kept glowering at her, holding his tongue, stubbornly waiting for an answer to his own. Which, after all, had been put first.

“I’m married to Rafe,” she reminded him.

“Ah, yes, Rafe,” he said. “Mr. McKettrick’s ‘firstborn.’” He paused to ruminate for a few moments, then brightened, though his expression was anything but friendly.

“Well,
Lola
, my congratulations. You’ve certainly come up in the world since I saw you last.”

It took her a few flustered moments to remember that she’d introduced herself by that name the night they’d met at Becky’s boardinghouse. She swallowed painfully, and her face got hot again. Her tongue seemed to be tied in a knot.

Holt actually smiled. In his present state, however, it was hardly reassuring. Indeed, it was more like the grin of a demon.“Don’t tell me you
lied,”
he drawled in mocking tones, and if he hadn’t already been so badly injured, she probably would have fetched him up alongside the head with the first blunt object she could lay her hands on. “Not
you.”

She fought back a rush of tears, knowing he would interpret them as a bid for sympathy, and never believe any explanation she might offer, no matter how eloquently it was made.“My name is Emmeline,” she said.

“I know,” he replied. “Becky told me, and Rafe mentions your name in every other sentence.” He glared at her. “Give me that damn soup. I think I might be hungry after all.”

At any other time, she would have taken serious issue with his tone of voice, let alone his demanding manner, but that morning, she did not have the luxury. She picked up the mug in one hand, and supported Mr. Cavanagh’s head with the other, while he took several sips of the broth.

“Enough,” he said, choking a little.

She lowered his head to the pillow, then set the mug aside, frowning as he coughed.“Are you all right?”

“As a matter of fact, Mrs. McKettrick, I am not all right,” he answered, after a brief and alarming struggle to regain his breath. His tone was scathing. “You see, yesterday, through no fault of my own, a log fell on me, and damn near took off my right leg.”

“You needn’t swear,” Emmeline pointed out stiffly.

He chuckled, but there was no humor in the sound. “Oh, yes, Lola,” he said, “I
do
need to swear. It’s the only thing, besides a shot of morphine delivered through a horse needle, that gives me any relief at all.”

She sighed. “I can see you are set on being dfficult,” she said.

“A brilliant conclusion, Lola.”

“Don’t call me that again!” she said, glancing once toward the open door. The last thing she wanted was for someone to overhear his ranting, and start asking questions. Mr. Cavanagh might just be despicable enough to answer them.

“You’ll forgive me, but ‘Mrs. McKettrick’ is just too formal,” he said,“after all we’ve shared, I mean.”

“We haven’t shared anything,” she hissed, getting up to peer into the hallway, which was blessedly empty, and then shut the door. She sat down in the chair again, hard.

He leered a little.“Haven’t we?”

“If you say we have, I’ll deny it!”

He made another effort at smiling, every bit as unconvincing as the ones before it.“Do you think they’ll believe you?” He paused.“Or me?”

“Why should they take your word over mine?” she scoffed, but she was worried, and he obviously knew it.

“Maybe they won’t,” he allowed, “even though I’m a blood relative. On the other hand—”

Intent on ending their conversation, Emmeline recalled the brief instructions Dr. Boylen had left with her and Concepcion, before heading back to town, and took refuge in the distraction duty offered. All business, she uncovered his leg, peeled back the bandages, and inspected the wound for infection, even though the doctor had surely already done that during his morning visit.

“Emmeline,” Mr. Cavanagh said, to get her attention.

“What?” she asked, wincing inwardly at his bruised and inflamed flesh, and the jagged stitches that would leave a map of long, jagged scars from his ankle to his upper thigh.

“I need to use the bedpan,” he said forthrightly, “and I’m not about to do that with you here.”

“I’ll just step out for a while, then,” she replied, and nearly tripped over her hem getting to the door.

Mr. Cavanagh’s low, gruff chuckle followed her into the hallway, and she stood for a long time, leaning against the closed door and struggling to regain her composure. She had to speak with Becky as soon as possible; her aunt was the only person in the world who would understand, and offer advice.

It was only as she was descending the back stairs that certain of Cavanagh’s words hit home.
Even though I’m a blood relative….