At Love's Command

by Karen Witemeyer

  She tossed her head, modulating her tone to match his volume. Neither of them wanted their disagreement overheard. “I’m not hiring you to keep me safe, Captain. I’m hiring you to rescue my brother.”

  He made a growling sound in his throat, then released her arm. “Quit calling me Captain.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  He blew out an exasperated breath. “My military rank obviously holds no sway over you, and even in trousers there’s no way I could ever confuse you for one of my men, so let’s just keep formal titles out of this. Unless you want me to start calling you Doctor at every turn.”

  No. The forced formality would itch under her skin. Much like she supposed her sarcastic use of his rank was doing to him now.

  “I encouraged the men to take this job because I wanted to help you,” he said. “You, Josie. Not your brother. If you came to Uvalde with us, I’d be little use to my men or to your brother, because I’d constantly be worried about your well-being. If it came down to keeping you safe or rescuing your brother, I’d abandon your brother and my men in a heartbeat.”

  He’d abandon his men? For her? Josephine’s pulse accelerated so quickly, she became a little light-headed. His men meant everything to him. She’d seen that truth in how he cared for Mr. Wallace. It reflected in the way they all trusted him, looked up to him. Was it just because she was a woman that he made such a claim? Some chivalrous impulse to save women and children first? Gazing at his earnest face, it felt like more. It felt . . . personal.

  “I need to be there, Matthew,” she pleaded. “I want Charlie to know that despite Father’s rejection, his family still supports him. Still cares.” He started to shake his head, and she jumped in with a compromise. “What if I didn’t come to the rescue itself, but simply stayed nearby? Somewhere close enough that I could meet up with you as soon as you get Charlie away?”

  His gaze sharpened. “It would have to be outside Uvalde. That place is a viper’s nest.”

  She nodded quickly, not wanting to give him the chance to second-guess the offer.

  “We plan to disembark at Chatfield in order to do some reconnaissance on the outskirts of Uvalde without anyone being aware of our presence. You can stay there.” He was dictating again, but she didn’t care this time. He was giving her what she wanted. Or close enough to satisfy.

  “I’ll wait for you in Chatfield,” she vowed. “Out of harm’s way. You have my word.”

  He held her gaze for a long moment. At first he seemed to be ascertaining the reliability of her promise, but then something changed. Softened. Heated. Her heart responded with a thrumming vibration, but he turned away and glanced toward his men. He caught Mr. Davenport’s eye and gave a little sideways jerk of his head. Some kind of signal, apparently. Then he turned back to her, the heat she’d seen in his eyes banked to something far more polite and far less interesting.

  “Walk with me?” He extended his arm.

  What was he about? Was he trying to distract her? Or did he want to spend time with her away from his men while their horses rested?

  Hoping he was motivated more by the latter than the former, she slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. “All right.”

  Some of the tension radiating from him eased at her acceptance, and she hid a smile. Could it be that the mighty Matthew Hanger was nervous around women? It was such a departure from the always-in-control cavalry officer that she found the discovery quite delightful. Especially if his reaction had more to do with her specifically than women in general.

  That would be a helpful piece of knowledge to obtain. Of course, testing the theory would require surrounding him with other unmarried women to observe his reaction. Her smile dimmed. A passel of beautiful variables flirting with her subject failed to thrill her research-loving soul. Perhaps scientific inquiry was not the proper course of action in this situation. Besides, her method was bound to be flawed. As invested in the outcome as she was, she wouldn’t be an objective observer. She wanted to prove that he had a special interest in her, because she had a special interest in him. One that seemed to grow stronger the more time she spent in his company.

  Once they were a fair distance away from the others, Matthew broke the silence. “Tell me about your brother.” He glanced her way, any evidence of nervousness swallowed by pragmatism. “Physical description, personality, how he’s likely to react when we arrive.”

  Ordering herself not to be disappointed in his chosen topic of discourse, Josephine turned her mind to Charlie. She was here to secure his rescue, after all, not to secure herself a beau.

  “He’s slender in build,” she said, “taller than me, but an inch or two shorter than you, I would say.” She eyed Matthew’s height, only getting a little distracted when her gaze tangled with his on the way back to the ground. Thankful for the trousers and boots that made tromping through tall prairie grass an uncomplicated matter, she lengthened her stride, enjoying the stretch of muscles long confined while riding. “His hair is dark brown and curls a bit around his collar. His face is clean-shaven.” She tried to think of anything that would make him easy to identity, besides the fact that he would most likely be in restraints. “He wears a black hat with a band made of silver conchos. Never goes anywhere without it.” Her pace slowed as a disheartening idea occurred to her. “I suppose they could have stolen it. The silver’s not worth much, but these men seem desperate to wring every last coin from him that they can.” She stopped altogether. “Do you think—” Her voice cracked. “Do you think they’ve beaten him?”

  She hadn’t allowed her mind to consider what kind of torture Charlie might be enduring, choosing to focus instead on what she could do to help him. But now that she had handed her burden to the Horsemen, the floodgates opened. Visions of his face swollen and bloodied. His posture bent sideways as he cradled broken ribs. His body riddled with bruises and welts. Josephine trembled at the horrible pictures her imagination painted, her own body aching in sympathy.

  Matthew moved to stand in front of her and cupped his hands around her upper arms. His touch was gentle. Comforting. And as she raised her chin to meet his gaze, she felt his strength seep into her, helping her banish her fears with logic and hope.

  “They won’t hurt him,” Matthew said, his voice firm, confident—as if he had no doubt that what he said was true. “Not yet, anyway.” That was slightly less inspiring, but the fact that he wasn’t glossing over things for her sake made it easier to believe him. “If they want to collect a ransom, they won’t damage the merchandise. It’s not in their best interest.”

  She gave a jerky nod. It was all she could manage as she struggled to control her emotions.

  He seemed to sense her turmoil, for his grip tightened slightly on her arms and he leaned closer, his face mere inches from hers. His hazel eyes glowed with promise, a promise she fought to believe.

  “I’ll get him back for you, Josie. I swear it.”

  “I know.” Her lips curved of their own volition, so moved was she by his vow. They’d known each other for such a short time, yet in that moment she had no doubt that he would sacrifice his life to accomplish his mission. It was just the kind of man he was. Honorable. Capable. Selfless. The kind of man this world needed.

  But the idea of him giving his life for her brother stirred fear instead of bringing comfort.

  She raised her hands and grasped his arms above the elbows, closing the chain that held him to her and her to him. “As much as I want my brother back, I want you to come back too, Matthew. Promise me you will.”

  His throat worked, but he said nothing.

  Josephine bit her lip, her gaze falling to somewhere around his collarbone. “The only thing worse than losing my brother would be carrying the knowledge that I was the cause of a great man’s death.” She forced her gaze back up to his face, a face lined with experience, hardened by war. Yet in his eyes she saw his noble soul and champion’s spirit. “I might not know you well, Matthew Hanger, but I’ve seen your heart. The
world would be a darker place without you in it.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  Matt stared at the top of Josie’s head, her admiration crawling over him like a colony of fire ants, nipping at his conscience, at his honor. She was saying those words to the man she thought he was, not to him.

  “I’m not a great man,” he ground out, his voice like gravel. “You don’t know the things I’ve done.” He released her arms and stepped back.

  Her hands fell to her sides, but they soon found their way onto her hips. The confusion he expected to see on her face was nowhere in evidence. Instead, she looked downright miffed.

  “Must you be so contrary? Contradicting me at every turn? It’s really quite tiresome.”

  “I’m trying to be honest.” And heaven help him if her combative stance didn’t get his blood firing. The self-pity that had slumped his posture a moment ago ceded to the warrior inside who insisted on winning whatever battle he faced.

  “Good,” she said. “I like honesty. What I don’t like is a man assuming he knows better than me and running roughshod over my opinions.” She lifted her right hand from her hip and jabbed her index finger into the dip of his shoulder. “I’ve seen your dedication to your men. I’ve seen your patience with young boys barraging you with questions. I’ve heard accounts of you risking your life to fight for those beset by wicked men. I’ve seen you worship with a Bible in your lap and a song on your lips. I didn’t make up my opinion on a whim, Mr. Hanger. I have empirical evidence to back my claims.”

  Matthew crossed his arms. “Your evidence don’t show the whole picture. You haven’t seen me kill.”

  She flinched but didn’t back away. “My father was a soldier,” she said. “He killed men in battle. Yet I respect him more than any man I’ve ever known. I might despise humanity’s need to solve disputes with guns instead of words, but I understand the nature of war and don’t lay blame on those who wage it.”

  He should just surrender now, accept her terms, and allow her to keep her heroic opinion of him. But he couldn’t. Some perverse need drove him to expose the dark places of his soul, to prove that he wasn’t the man she thought him to be.

  “I’m a harsh taskmaster.” He jutted his chin, daring her to see the real man beneath the façade. “I’d drill new recruits until they broke—insulting them, torturing them for hours in the hot sun or the freezing snow. More than one have called me a monster.”

  She raised a brow. “Yet your men would follow you into Hades if you asked it of them. That tells me that even at your worst, you are thinking about what is best for them, and they know it. You’re training them to survive.”

  He frowned. Stubborn woman, insisting on believing the best of him when she didn’t know the worst. Time to bring out the big guns. His heart pounded in his chest, and his throat tightened around the words marching up his craw.

  “You haven’t seen me fail to save women and children from a slaughter my own troops rained down on them.”

  Her eyes softened, but the line of her mouth remained as firm as ever. “And you haven’t seen me fail to save patients who died under my scalpel.”

  The statement brought him up short. He’d never considered that someone outside the military could understand the deep-seated regret and self-blame inherent in watching a person die, one he’d sworn to protect. Matt looked at Josie with new eyes—eyes that didn’t just see a beautiful woman and a skilled doctor, but someone familiar with the path that led through the valley of the shadow of death.

  “I still see their faces.” He clamped his jaw closed. He hadn’t meant to divulge that. Commanders didn’t admit weakness in front of their men. But then, she wasn’t one of his men, was she?

  The horrors of Wounded Knee flashed through his mind. The sharp scent of gunpowder wafted into his nostrils. The boom of the Hotchkiss guns echoed in his ears. As he looked out over the Texas prairie, he didn’t see grass. He saw bloodstained snow. Scores of dead Lakota. The old woman he’d tried to save. The children. The boy with Matt’s bullet in his shoulder. All gone. Slaughtered. And he’d been part of the massacre.

  A gentle touch on his upper arm cleared the choking haze of memory. He blinked the smoke of past battles from his eyes and focused on lovely green eyes shining not with pity or disgust, but with understanding.

  “I see them too,” she said. “The old man whose heart was too weak to endure the stress of removing the cancer that was killing him. The woman crushed by a wagon who’d lost too much blood by the time I got to her. The stillborn babe who never took a first breath.” Her lashes dipped, brushing across the freckles lining the tops of her cheeks. “I tell myself I did everything I could. That their deaths were outside my control, but I still feel regret.” She raised her lashes and peered into his eyes with a vulnerability he’d never thought to see on her face. “And when I’m particularly tired or discouraged, I torture myself with questions of what I could have done differently.”

  “How you could have saved them.” He did the same. Not only with how he could have saved the old woman and those kids, but how he could have stopped the entire fiasco from happening in the first place. If he had forced the Lakota to surrender their weapons when they’d first tracked them down. If he had restrained the medicine man who’d incited the rebellion. If he had—

  “But torture isn’t healthy,” Josie said, cutting off his spiraling thoughts. “It tears apart the soul.” She smiled at him, a knowing smile that made him suspect she knew exactly where his brain had traveled. “One of my medical professors liked to say, ‘You won’t find success with patients in the present if you dwell on the failures of your past.’ I think he was right. So when a loss comes, I examine what went wrong, learn what I can to inform future decisions, then leave it behind. I have to if I want to serve my patients to the best of my ability.”

  “‘But this one thing I do,’” Matt murmured softly, “‘forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.’”

  Her smile stretched wide. “Exactly! I love that verse from Philippians. It’s seen me through many a late-night mental battle.”

  He had a hard time imagining this strong-willed woman losing ground in any battle she waged, but he knew better than most how different things were in the dead of night, how nightmares could distort reality, and how shadows of doubt and recrimination loomed large.

  “Preach quoted it the day we decided to leave the army and start the Horsemen,” he said. “It kind of became our creed.”

  “A fitting motto.”

  They fell into an easy silence after that and began walking again. Their arms hung loose at their sides, his knuckles brushing the back of her hand on occasion. Whenever the unintentional touch occurred, awareness zinged up his arm and shot into his chest, causing his lungs to constrict and his breathing to become slightly erratic. He could feel the pull of her. So close. Mere inches of no-man’s-land separated them. Territory yet unconquered. He steered his step minutely closer to hers, the warrior inside urging him to lay claim even as the gentleman insisted he hold the line.

  The back of her hand brushed against his. At her instigation, not his. By accident or design? He slanted a look at her, but the hat she wore hid her eyes from him.

  He chomped at the bit holding him in place. Her hand swung past his in a near miss just as a bird called from the south. The sound blasted through his ears like the bugle call to advance. The soldier surged forward. Crossed no-man’s-land. And claimed the fair maiden’s hand.

  When she offered no resistance, his galloping heart slowed to a canter, the triumph rising in his chest tempered by the sheer wonder of the feel of her fingers resting against his.

  “How long did you serve in cavalry?” she asked, finally breaking the silence that stretched between them.

  “Thirteen years. Joined up after Custer’s defeat at Little Bighorn.” Matt thought back to the naïve kid he’d been, so eager to make a difference, not realizing the p
rice he’d be asked to pay.

  She tilted her face to peer up at him. “You must have been very young.”

  He grinned. “I didn’t think so at the time. Twenty-two was a man grown. But looking back, the man I am today feels ancient in comparison.”

  “Not ancient,” she said, humor sparking in her eyes, “just well-seasoned. At least, that’s what I tell myself when I overhear the old-maid whispers.”

  “Old maid?” Matt’s feet planted in the ground as the need to defend her against such outlandish accusations fired his blood. “You are nothing of the sort. Old maids are spinsters who are either too timid to face the world or such grouches that they find nothing but fault in it. You are far too vibrant, intelligent, and kind to fall into either category. Not to mention the fact that the idea of you being old is ludicrous. Me? I’m practically in my dotage. But you?” His voice softened as he reached between them and ran the back of his finger across her cheek. “You are a rose in full bloom.”

  A touch of pink colored her skin, and her lashes lowered to hide her eyes. He clenched his jaw. He’d said too much. Gotten too personal. But the idea of some snoopy busybodies calling Josie an old maid just because she wasn’t married riled him so much that words had just tumbled out of him before he could think better of it.

  “Sorry. I know it ain’t exactly polite to comment on a woman’s age.”

  Her head came up, and she pinned him with her gaze. “Don’t you dare apologize, Matthew Hanger.”

  There she went again, throwing around his full name as if it were the exclamation mark on her sentence. A man really shouldn’t enjoy being harangued, but Josie’s rants were more like teasing in disguise, having more to do with lifting him up than tearing him down. And while her highfalutin vocabulary might intimidate him just a tad, it was hard not to appreciate her wielding it on his behalf.

  She jabbed him with her finger again. “You will not retract that compliment. Do you hear me?”