He shook his head. “It ain’t no use. I been through them all. It ain’t here.” He dropped the bag onto the table. “It probably rode off with one of the men who escaped.” His head came up, and a muscle ticked in his jaw. “Doesn’t matter. It’s just a compass. I can buy a new one.” The flatness of his tone stirred her compassion.
“It does matter. Let’s look through these one more time. Maybe you missed something.”
He raised a brow and glared at her.
“Don’t get in a huff, now.” She rolled her eyes and opened the bag she’d confiscated. “You’ve suffered a head trauma.” Judging by the size of the jagged gash and the extensive bruising around it, he’d sustained a serious contusion while vacating his sniper position in the tree. “It’s possible your normally eagle-eyed vision is operating at less than optimal efficacy.”
His mouth twitched just a hair at the corner. “Matt’s right about them ten-dollar words of yours. They make a man’s head hurt.”
“Your head hurts because you butted a tree limb with your cranium, Mr. Brooks. It has nothing to do with my choice of vocabulary.”
That bit of sass earned her a chuckle as Jonah shook his head and dragged one of the saddlebags he’d discarded earlier back toward him for another examination.
Fifteen minutes later, Josephine’s optimism for finding the missing compass had faded, and Jonah’s mention of ten-dollar words had reinvigorated her concern for Matthew. As she lifted silent prayers for the safe return of both the compass and the man she loved, somehow the two became intertwined. The longer they went without recovering the compass, the more she fretted over Matthew’s failure to return as well.
“That’s odd.” The statement, the first Jonah had uttered since renewing his search, brought Josephine’s head around. “There’s a slit in the side seam.” He bent his elbow at an odd angle as he dug around in the leather bag. “Could just be the stitching wearing out.”
She bounced up on her toes. “Or it could be a hidden pocket. This is the bag of an outlaw, after all.”
Jonah met her gaze, a flash of excitement, of hope, dancing between them. It was all she could do not to push him aside and take over the exploration herself.
“Get your knife. We can cut away the seam entirely.” She’d offer her scalpel, but she didn’t want to dull the blade.
He shook his head. “I think I’ve . . . got it.” He pulled his hand from the bag, a tarnished brass pocket compass in his palm.
Josephine beamed at him and clasped his forearm. “You found it! Oh, Jonah, I’m so glad.”
Now, if only . . .
Preach let out a sharp whistle. Jonah’s smile evaporated, the steely sharpshooter back on high alert.
“Got movement to the north,” Preach reported.
“The captain?” Jonah took a step toward Preach as he slid his father’s compass into his pocket and reached for the rifle he’d left leaning against the barn wall.
Preach shrugged. “Too far out to tell. Man on foot. One, maybe two horses.”
Matthew! It was him. Josephine had not a single doubt. She sprinted past the Horsemen, ignoring their shouts to stop, their warnings that it might not be him.
Dashing into the paddock, she wove between the horses, her eyes set on the one at the far end, nearest her brother.
“Stop her!” Preach yelled.
Her father looked up from the injured Gringolet horse he’d been tending. “Jo?”
She offered no explanation. Just ran. Her pursuers’ footsteps pounded behind her.
“Charlie! Leg up!”
Her brother stood at Percival’s side, currycomb in hand. The saddle and blanket had been removed. He turned to face her and surely spotted the men on her heels. For a moment she thought he might not comply, but she should have known she could count on the irrepressible scamp to have her back.
Charlie tossed the comb aside as she neared, braced his legs apart, and made a step of interlocked fingers. His eyes sparked with the same loyalty and mischief that had led them to master this maneuver as kids, in defiance of their father’s insistence that such a move was too dangerous for a girl.
He gave her a nod. “Ready!”
Three more steps and she was there. She planted her left foot in his palm, gripped his shoulder for balance, then kicked out her right leg as he tossed her up and over. Safely astride Percy’s back, she grabbed the reins and set off. With no saddle or stirrups, the jump over the downed fence threw her forward against the horse’s neck, but she recovered and kicked Percy into a gallop.
“Go get ’em, Jo!” Charlie’s proud call rang in her ears.
The more ground she covered, the more her heart urged her on. It was Matthew. She recognized his hat, his vest. But not his stride. He was hurt. Limping. Cradling his side as he led a horse with a man draped over the saddle. Taggart.
Phineas, like his master, limped behind. Head low, steps ginger, a darkened spot above his right shoulder. But like his master, he was alive. Alive and beautiful.
I’m coming, Matthew!
His head came up, as if he’d heard her heart’s vow. His posture straightened. The lead line fell from his hand.
“Josie.”
She swore she could hear her name on his lips, even though distance combined with Percival’s hoofbeats and those of the horse charging from behind made that a scientific impossibility. But then, science didn’t know everything.
Matthew started to jog toward her, his steps growing surer the more ground he covered. Josephine calculated the remaining distance. She let Percy run a few more strides then reined him in. The moment he slowed enough for her to dismount without breaking a limb, she slid from his back. Her dismount was not as graceful as she would have wished. Her impatience left her stumbling, but she corrected her balance before sprawling on her face, and that was all she cared about. Staying on her feet so she could get to Matthew.
And then she was in his arms. Crying. Laughing. Her palms splayed across his chest. Her gaze drinking him in.
“You came back to me.”
He cupped her face. The pad of his thumb grazed her cheek in a caress so tender, so filled with love, her heart squeezed. After raking her face with his gaze as if he sought to memorize every line and freckle, his hazel eyes finally met hers. “As long as I have breath in my bones, Josie mine, I will always come back to you.”
Then his lips crashed onto hers, and everything inside her exulted. She returned his kiss with all the passion her worry had tamped down, giving her love free rein. A moan escaped him, and she tried to move away, afraid she’d exacerbated an injury with her enthusiasm. But he tightened his hold, pulling her even closer, deepening the kiss until everything but him faded from her mind.
“I’ll, uh, see to Taggart for ya, Cap. Phineas too.”
The sound of Preach’s voice barely registered in her love-clouded brain. Matthew’s kiss gentled but didn’t stop. One of his hands left her face, his arm moving sharply for a moment, as if waving his man away, before coming to rest at the small of her back, then pressing up the length of her spine.
A warm chuckle filtered over them, followed by words that had something to do with Preach leaving his horse for Matthew to use. Then, finally, they were alone again.
Matthew didn’t ease his hold on her for several long minutes—minutes filled with kisses that heated her blood and curled her toes. When he finally lifted his mouth from hers, her breathing came in ragged little pants. His forehead rested against hers, and his hands curled over her shoulders.
“Marry me, Josie.”
Her eyes flew open. Slowly, she leaned back and peered into his face. He met her gaze with such humility, her chest ached.
“I know I’m not much of a catch. I’m a warrior past his prime with blood on his hands and regrets on his soul, but I love you more than I ever loved anyone or anything in my life. After my folks died, I swore I’d never take a wife, never risk the pain of that kind of loss again. But I think it would hurt more to wal
k away from you now.”
A tear rolled down her cheek. He wiped it away with a knuckle roughened and scarred by battle, yet it stroked with such gentleness, she couldn’t help leaning her face toward him to seek more of his touch.
“I can’t promise you a life free from trouble or hardship,” he said, his voice husky with emotion, “but I can promise you that I will love you every moment of every day.”
All these years, she’d thought she was destined to minister to other people’s families, not one of her own. That no one would want a headstrong woman employed in a man’s profession. Since no man had stirred her heart into wanting more, she’d been content with her lot. Until Matthew Hanger burst into her clinic, snapping orders left and right, fighting for the life of his friend. He might be a battle-hardened warrior, dictatorial and stubborn, but he’d treated her like an equal from the day they’d met. He valued her abilities, trusted her instincts, and had risked his life to save hers. Multiple times. How could she not love him? He was everything she’d never thought she’d find.
They might have a lot of details to sort through to successfully combine two radically different lives into one, but if God could join their hearts so completely, she had no doubt that he would find a way to blend their lives as well.
“I love you, Matthew,” she said with a smile she could no longer contain, “and nothing would make me happier than to be your wife.”
He grinned and bent his head toward hers for another kiss, but she leaned away, her attention darting to the ugly brown stain on the left side of his vest.
“But first, we better tend to that, don’t you think?” She raised a brow, warning him not to argue, then reached for the buttons of his vest and, one by one, pushed them through their holes.
Matthew chuckled softly and opened his arms in surrender, letting her have her way. “Tend to me as much as you want, Doc,” he said with a wiggle of his brows that made her fingers stutter on the buttons. “I’m all yours.”
Epilogue
FOUR MONTHS LATER
See you next week, Mrs. Timmons.” Josephine held the clinic door wide as the young woman she’d just examined exited the clinic. The October breeze had turned chilly over the course of the afternoon, but Josephine welcomed the fresh air.
Mr. Timmons jumped up from the bench where he’d been waiting outside and immediately took his wife’s arm to help her down the boardwalk steps to their wagon.
Heavy with their first child, Elmira Timmons placed a supporting hand beneath her belly as she paused to smile over her shoulder. “Thanks, Dr. Jo. I keep telling Harland that we still got at least a month, but he frets somethin’ fierce.”
“Well, Harland knows where to find me if that babe of yours decides to get an early start.”
The young husband nodded, his face as serious as if he’d been called upon to give a graded recitation in front of the class. “Clinic during the day. Gringolet at night. If you’re on another call, I’m to ask Mr. Watson or Miss Darla to get word to you.”
“That’s right,” Josephine praised, trying not to grin too widely. Expectant fathers needed as much soothing as expectant mothers. “And if the baby comes on October 21?”
“I’m to fetch Dr. Peabody or Madge Smith.”
“Excellent.” Josephine had made arrangements for one of the younger, more open-minded San Antonio physicians to cover any patient emergencies that might arise among her clients on Saturday. And if he were unavailable to assist with a birthing, an older woman from church who had twenty years of midwifery experience had volunteered to assist.
Being roused from bed for delivery duty was a doctor’s lot, but she and Matthew had agreed that their wedding night would be an exception to the rule.
As the Timmonses continued on their way, Josephine glanced down the road to the west, unable to stop her heart from giving a little jump. Matthew was due back today. He’d wired her this morning to expect him. The usual place. The usual time. She checked the watch pendant hanging from a chain around her neck. Less than thirty minutes.
She spun back into the clinic and closed the door behind her. She needed to get ready.
Her instruments had already been cleaned and her medical bag restocked before Mrs. Timmons arrived for her appointment, so all that remained was to tidy up the examination room and go through her correspondence.
After her examination table had been wiped down, her clinic stethoscope stored in its drawer, and her medicine cabinet locked for the night, Josephine took a seat at the small desk in the corner and sorted through the stack of mail that had accumulated. A medical journal, the monthly bill from her druggist, an envelope from Purgatory Springs. Seeing the personal missive, Josephine set the rest aside and tore open the letter from Lizzie Carrington.
Dear Jo,
I thought you’d like to know that Daddy’s arm is healed up right as rain after his accident with the barbed wire. Dr. Fields has proven to be just as competent as you promised. She’s assured me that there is no sign of lockjaw and that the infection I initially panicked over was mild and easily treated.
Josephine sent a quick prayer of gratitude heavenward. Ramona Fields had been one year behind her in school, and the two of them had often been paired together in their laboratory studies. Ramona was exceptionally bright if a bit timid. When Josephine decided to move her practice to San Antonio in order to be closer to Charlie and her father, Dr. Fields had been her first choice to replace her in Purgatory Springs. A competent doctor to tend the people Josephine cared about, and a community accustomed to female physicians for a doctor struggling to find a place to utilize her talents.
Now, about your wedding! Is your dress finished? I can’t wait to see it. And Matthew? Has he returned from his latest mission with the Horsemen? I pray he is well. Have you convinced him to accept your father’s offer of a partnership in Gringolet yet? A married man should settle down, you know, not go traipsing all over creation putting himself in the path of wayward bullets. I thank God that Paul is content with the mercantile. I don’t think I could endure the constant worry—
“Hey, sis.” Charlie’s call, followed by the closing of the back door, interrupted Lizzie’s epistolary chatter. “That package you’ve been waiting for finally arrived.”
Charlie stepped into the room and handed her a long, thin parcel.
Her sign!
She jumped to her feet and grabbed it with all the excitement of a child on Christmas morning. “It came! I worried it wouldn’t get here in time.” She used a penknife to cut through the binding string, then tore off the brown paper. She laid the black wooden shingle on her desk and ran her hand lovingly across the white stenciled letters.
Dr. Josephine Hanger.
Charlie came up behind her and peered over her shoulder. “That just looks wrong.”
Josephine elbowed him in the ribs. “You’ll get used to it.”
Charlie let out a beleaguered sigh. “I suppose. But you can’t Hanger it up until next week. You’re still a Burkett for a few more days.”
Josephine groaned as she turned to face him, her eyes rolling with excessive drama. “‘Hanger it up’? Really? That was terrible.”
Charlie’s eyes danced. “That’s what happens when you have a brother who’s always Hangering around next door.”
“Stop!” She swatted lightly at his chest but couldn’t keep laughter from bubbling out of her mouth.
Having the teasing brother back that she remembered so well from her youth made her relocation to San Antonio worth every heartache that came with saying good-bye to friends. Charlie now joined her for church, held down a job, and made a delightful nuisance of himself on a regular basis. She couldn’t be more pleased with his turnaround.
Tension still existed between the Burkett men, but there was no outright animosity. After they’d returned home, her father had given Charlie a choice. Either buckle down and learn the business of Gringolet, join the army, or find a job elsewhere to support himself. There’d be no more
allowance. He’d only have access to funds earned by the sweat of his brow.
Even in the best of times, Charlie had chafed under his father’s management, so working at Gringolet was out of the question. With Matthew’s influence, Charlie could have easily found his way into a cavalry unit, but her brother rejected that option as well. Which left finding work locally. A task that proved difficult. Having a reputation for colluding with outlaws didn’t inspire a great deal of trust in prospective employers, but God was in the prodigal-redeeming business, and in less than a month, he’d opened a path.
Josephine’s father had insisted on bestowing a generous reward on Arnold Watson when he learned the measures the camp cook had taken not only to keep his daughter safe during her captivity, but also to protect Charlie during the gunfight. Arnold had used that money—along with funds whose origins Josephine chose not to question—to open an eatery in the vacant storefront next door to her new clinic on the outskirts of town.
The Chuck Wagon Café made the perfect neighbor for a doctor who could barely boil water. Arnold kept her fed with simple cowboy fare that had proven popular with the locals. So popular, in fact, that he soon needed someone to wait tables and help in the kitchen. Charlie proved the perfect fit. His charisma made him a natural with the customers. Not only that, but Arnold swore her brother had talent in the kitchen. Even more amazing, Charlie actually enjoyed the work. Cooking gave him the freedom to experiment and make his own mark. Something he’d never been able to accomplish under their father at Gringolet.
“You really need to redo the main sign as well,” Charlie said. “Medical Clinic is so boring. I’d vote for Bullets & Babies.”
“What? That’s awful!” Yet she couldn’t stop a giggle from escaping.
Charlie made a comically thoughtful face. “Babies & Bullets?”
She planted her hands on her hips. “Just because my practice leans heavily toward expectant mothers and violent injuries does not mean I need to advertise that fact to the world.”
As was often the case when a female doctor started a medical practice, women comprised the majority of Josephine’s clients. However, after word spread about her being the personal physician for Hanger’s Horsemen and the future wife of Matthew Hanger himself, she started collecting a new clientele. One a bit rougher around the edges, whose presenting symptoms included bullet holes, penetrating knife wounds, and head trauma usually brought on by collisions with liquor bottles. She never thought she’d miss Mrs. Flanders’s carbuncle, but every once in a while, it would be nice to treat an actual illness.
At Love's Command Page 30
