The Courageous Brides Collection

by Johnnie Alexander, Michelle Griep, Eileen Key, Debby Lee, Rose Allen McCauley, Donita Kathleen Paul, Jennifer Uhlarik, Jenness Walker, Renee Yancy

The short walk to the colonel’s quarters cooled his feverish skin, so much that he shook beneath his greatcoat.

  She shot him a sideways glance. “You tremble as if you have the chills. Are you well?”

  He kicked at some snow with the tip of his boot. “Need I remind you I am born and bred a Boston man? I am not used to such a severe climate.”

  “Well, I think it suits you.”

  He frowned. “Why?”

  She blinked up at him. “Is your temperament not as extreme?”

  The pixie! He grinned in full as he led her up the stairs to the colonel’s door. “I fear you’re coming to know me too well.”

  The colonel’s wife rushed over to them as they entered the foyer. “There you are! And about time, too. We are just going in to dinner.”

  Beyond her, the last blue tail of an officer’s jacket disappeared through a door.

  “My apologies, Mrs. Crooks.” He spoke as he helped Emmy—Miss Nelson, out of her coat. Giving himself a mental thrashing for his lapse, he removed his coat as well, handing both off to the servant standing nearby. It would not do to think of Emmy too intimately, or her Christian name would fall unguarded from his lips.

  Miss Nelson stepped nearer the colonel’s wife, mischief in the tap of her shoes. “The doctor was working overtime.”

  The woman’s hands fluttered to her chest. “Nothing serious, I hope.”

  “Very serious, I’m afraid.” Laughter danced a jig in Emmy’s gaze as she looked at him.

  Blast the woman, and hang the effort of ever thinking of her as anything other than Emmy—his Emmy. He tugged at his collar. Gads, but it was hot in here.

  “Oh, dear! It’s going to be a very long winter, I suppose.” Mrs. Crooks ushered them to the dining-room door.

  Besides the empty chair reserved for the colonel’s wife at the foot of the table, only two other seats remained. A servant held out Emmy’s seat. James sat opposite, a lieutenant’s wife at his right—one very large with child—and a major to his left—one with a sizable interest in Emmy, judging by the way his gaze traveled over her.

  The man leaned forward, ogling her as if she were the appetizer now being served. “Major Darnwood at your service, madam. I’ve only recently arrived. And you are?”

  Emmy answered with a small smile—one that did not reach her eyes. “Miss Nelson, Dr. Clark’s assistant.”

  “Oh, miss, is it?” He leaned back, elbowing James. “Your assistant, eh? Wonder if I could get her to assist me.”

  Anger curled his hand into a fist, yet he flexed it and rested his palm on the man’s shoulder. “Did you know, Major, that if I apply a little pressure to your carotid artery, which is just a twitch away from my index finger, you’ll land in your soup before the next spoonful reaches your mouth?”

  The man glowered and shifted in his seat, putting as much space between them as politely possible.

  A smirk lifted James’s lips, but the victory didn’t last long. The lieutenant next to Emmy closed in on her, serving her a slice of roast goose and a whisper, his shoulder brushing flush against hers. Her jaw tightened, and scarlet spread across her cheeks.

  James bristled. Enough was quite enough.

  He pushed back his chair and stood. Throbbing pounded in his temples. The world tipped. He reached out a hand to grasp the table’s edge. Why were there suddenly two colonels sitting where there should be only one?

  “My apologies, sir, for interrupting this festivity.” His voice rasped, and the duo-colonels melded into one.

  No, this could not be happening. Not to him.

  He quickly slugged back some wine from his goblet before continuing. “Miss Nelson and I must return to the ward.”

  “Such a sorry business, Doctor.” Mrs. Crooks shook her head. “But your commitment to the men is admirable.”

  “Indeed. Well then, you are excused.” The colonel and all the men stood as Emmy rose. “Happy Christmas to you both.”

  Emmy’s steps clipped next to his, but she held her tongue until they cleared the foyer. “I was enjoying that dinner, despite the few rogues in attendance. You’re taking this guardianship thing too far. What is wrong with you?”

  Shoring his shoulder against the wall, he shuddered. Heat poured off him in waves.

  And his next words barely made it past the raw flesh in his throat. “I am ill.”

  Chapter Eight

  Emmy shoved aside her plate of cold beans on the dispensary counter, having managed only a few more bites of leftover dinner. Her appetite was gone, taking with it the remnants of her optimism. How much longer could James hold on?

  The front door opened on a whoosh of cold air. Major Clem entered with a tug at his hat, a dusting of snow stark against his blue overcoat. “Afternoon, Miss Nelson. On my way to file a report with the colonel and thought I’d check in on the doctor. How’s he doing?”

  The question slapped her hard. She’d been trying all day not to answer it, to ignore the symptoms, the way his life was packing its bags for a long, long journey—one from which he wouldn’t return.

  “Not good.” The words tasted like milk gone bad, sour and rancid.

  “Sorry to hear that.” He rubbed the back of his neck, sending a sprinkling of white falling from his coat. “But if anyone can pull him through, it’d be you.”

  She snorted, and though vulgar, it could not be helped. “Your confidence, while appreciated, is misplaced, Major. I fear I’ve done all I can.”

  His boots thudded on the wooden planks. He stopped in front of her like a bulwark, immovable and stony. “I don’t know much about medicine and such, but here’s what I’ve learned of war. Find out where your enemy is then strike hard as you can, and for God’s sake, keep on moving. To stop is to die.”

  She wanted to grasp on to the strength he offered, but her hope hung as lifeless as her limp hands at her sides. A simple “Thank you” was the best she could manage.

  “I trust you’re taking great care of the doctor, but give a thought to yourself as well.” He nodded at her half-eaten beans before he wheeled about and strode from the dispensary, out into January’s brittle arms.

  The last light of day colored the room in a lifeless pallor. She shivered and lit the oil lamp. Taking the major’s words to heart, she once again hauled out the fat medical book she’d taken from James’s shelf. It flopped open from the crease she’d made in the binding, having pored over the same section one too many times.

  Rubbing her heavy eyes, she tried to focus on the words. Ink blurred into fuzzy lines. No need though, really, for she could recite the diagnosis and procedures in this chapter without error. The measles had hit James hard, and his body had fought valiantly. But once pneumonia set in, what little strength he’d rallied bled out in rib-breaking coughs that produced nothing other than thick green mucus and weakness.

  She slammed the book shut, the noise of it a satisfying thwack. This wasn’t fair. None of it. She’d tried it all. Papa’s treatments. Medical journal advice. Textbook treatises on the proper care of lung inflammations. She’d tended patients like this before, but none of them drained her of every possible cure—or wrenched her heart in quite the same way.

  Fatigue pressed in on her, sagging her shoulders. Despite the major’s admonition, she considered giving up. Simply march right into James’s chambers, lie down by his side, and close her eyes to life along with him.

  Wretched hacking hurtled out from his room down the corridor. She jerked up her head, listening with her whole body. This was new. Gurgly. Choking.

  Ugly.

  She raced from the dispensary and flew into his chamber. “James!”

  He writhed on the bed, chest heaving—and a small trickle of blood leaked out the side of his blue lips. Sweat darkened the chest and armpits of his nightshirt. The doctor who’d saved so many lives now fought for his own.

  Snatching a cloth from a basin on the stand, she knelt next to him. “Shh. Be at peace, love,” she cooed as she wiped his face. “Be at peace
.”

  He stilled.

  So did she. Not that she hadn’t known the truth for weeks now, but speaking the words aloud made it real. She loved him—the man who at any moment might stop breathing altogether.

  Tears burned down her cheeks and hit her lips, tasting like loss. She brushed back his hair, wishing, praying his green eyes would open, that he’d berate her manner of healing…and tell her what to do.

  “Don’t leave me. Do not!” Her cry circled the room, but James neither woke nor stirred.

  Defeated, she rested her cheek against his chest, now fluttering with quick breaths. At least the thrashing had stopped. “Oh, God.” Her voice soaked into his nightshirt along with her tears. “Please don’t take him, not yet. Not now. Show me what to do.”

  All the anguish of the past three weeks closed her eyes. How long she lay there, she couldn’t say, long enough, though, that when she lifted her head, darkness crept into the room from every corner.

  James’s breaths still wheezed on the inhale, rattled around, and gurgled back out. Nothing had changed. Nothing.

  Or had it?

  She shot to her feet, listening beyond his labored breathing. In the distance, a steady beat pounded on the night air. Drums.

  Of course! Why had she not thought of this before?

  Darting from the room, she raced to her chamber and grabbed her woolen cloak then snatched the lantern off the counter. She flung open the dispensary door as easily as she flung aside any care for her own safety or caution. What did it matter anymore?

  She took off at a run toward the gate, already shut for the night. She might have exhausted every resource known to white man, but Makawee was a master of the “old medicine.”

  Scorching heat. Frigid cold. James swam from one extreme to the other, all the while gasping for breath beneath the dark waters of pain. He’d give anything to emerge from this ocean of hurt—even his own life.

  Occasionally blessed relief allowed him to float…a gentle touch on his brow or water pressed against his lips. But those were not enough to pull him out of the deeps.

  And so he sank.

  Until the whisper came. No, something stronger. He strained to listen. A mourning dove cooed. The haunting sound reached out like a rope, tethering him to a faraway edge of land.

  “Be at peace, love. Be at peace.”

  He clung to those words, holding fast when his chest burned and his ribs crashed and air was nearly a memory.

  Peace.

  Love.

  His eyes shot open. Maybe not. Hard to tell. So he stared, waiting for shapes to form out of the darkness. Was God’s face the next thing he would see?

  He blinked. Slowly, his gaze traced silhouettes. Color, though muted, seeped in and spread. Smoky sweetness wafted overhead, altogether foreign and pleasing.

  “James?” Fabric swished. Troubled blue eyes bent near to his. “James!”

  Ahh, dear one. His heart beat loud in his ears. Could Emmy hear it, too?

  He struggled to lift his hand, wipe the single tear marring her sweet cheek, erase the fear shadowing the hollows beneath her eyes.

  But it took all he had in him to simply open his mouth. “Emmy.”

  The effort cost more than he could spare. Blackness covered him like a blanket pulled over his head.

  When his eyes opened again, morning light streamed in, kissing the top of Emmy’s blond hair. She sat in a chair next to his bed, her face bowed over the pages of a book.

  “Em—” he croaked. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Emmy?”

  The book hit the floor.

  “James?” She slid from the chair and knelt, face-to-face. “Stay with me this time.”

  “I’d…like…to.” He inhaled strength, or was it her trembling smile that bolstered him so? “Water? So thirsty.”

  She retrieved a mug from the nightstand then propped him up with her arm behind his shoulders. More liquid than not trickled down his chin, but it was enough to simply have her embrace sustain him—so satisfying that he drifted away once again.

  Next time he woke, the room was empty, save for the ticking of the New Haven clock he’d brought with him from Cambridge. The last light of day peeked into his chamber window—but which day? How long had he lain on this bed?

  He pushed himself up, propping the pillow behind his back. The room spun, but his lungs didn’t burn, nor did he feel the need to hack until his ribs fractured.

  “Well!” Emmy swished into the room with a smile that would shame a summer day. “Good to see you are on the mend, Dr. Clark.”

  “Oh? It’s back to that now?” His voice, while raspy, at least worked this time. “I rather liked it when you called me James.”

  Fire blazed across her cheeks. She turned from him and poured liquid into a mug. “Yes, well, I tried anything and everything to pull you through.”

  “Whatever you did apparently worked.”

  She held the cup to his mouth, and as water dampened his lips, his thirst roared. He grabbed the mug from her and—though she warned against it—drained it. His stomach revolted, and he pressed the back of his hand to his lips.

  “When will you listen to me?” She removed the mug then settled the chair so that she faced him.

  Slowly, the nausea passed, and he lowered his hand. “I did listen—especially when you called me James.”

  She smirked. “I see your wit is quite recovered as well. Tell me”—she leaned closer, her worried gaze searching his—“how are you feeling?”

  He studied her for a moment. Her cheekbones stood out. Her dress hung loose at the shoulders—and the brooch he’d given her for Christmas was pinned at the top of her bodice. Dare he hope she entertained a place in her heart for him? And if she did, then what? How could a wife fit into his life at a time when he needed to focus on scholarship?

  He sank into the pillow. The questions exhausted him. He’d think on them later. For now, better to get her to do the talking. “I might ask the same of you. How do you fare?”

  She nibbled her lower lip, one of her stalling tactics. Her chest rose and fell with a deep breath. “I am better, now that I know you are well. You gave me quite a scare, you know. I thought I’d lost you. I tried everything, but nothing worked.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his chin, where whiskers scratched. He could only imagine the days—weeks maybe—of hard work she’d endured for him. She should be attending dinners and dances, not slogging away in a sick man’s chamber. How many other women would willingly suffer through such?

  “Yet I live, thanks be to you.” His words came out more husky than he intended.

  She laughed. “More like thanks be to God and to Makawee.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I employed every manner of care I knew for pneumonia. I read through all your books and applied those treatments also. But I believe it was Makawee’s methods, the rabbit tobacco, the pleurisy root, that helped you turn the corner.”

  Roots? Tobacco? How could he even begin to understand that? He frowned. “Preposterous.”

  “Yet as you’ve said, you live.” She leaned toward him. “Think on that.”

  He sank farther into the pillow. Had he been wrong? Was there more to healing than the sterile procedures of academia? Maybe knowledge and all he held most dear were not to be found in the East, but rather here, in the middle of a wilderness he’d scorned not long ago.

  He fastened on her clear blue gaze a moment more before closing his eyes. “I believe there is much I should think on.”

  Chapter Nine

  With a last shudder, winter turned its back on March and shuffled off, taking along with it the icy chill and the worst of the measles and smallpox outbreaks. By April, spring ran wild with flowers and green and promise, reviving the dead, and spurring Emmy into a sprint down the path from the encampment.

  “Hold up,” James called from behind.

  She waited, content to simply watch him as he strode toward her, his long legs eating up the gr
ound. After having witnessed him near death, she’d never tire of seeing the flush of health on his cheeks or the bounce in his step. The past few months had flown by, working at his side, living for his smile, but mostly drinking in his companionship like cool water from a stream.

  “I’ve got something for you. Hold still.” He produced a spray of tiny flowers, each petal brushed with a faint swath of violet. His strong fingers could crush them without trying, but he used his surgeon’s skill to work them into her hair like a crown. She’d wished to be a princess once—and now she was.

  It took every bit of willpower she owned not to wrap her arms around him and nestle her head against his shirt. Though they never spoke of it, that kiss on a wintry evening had changed everything.

  He crooked his finger and lifted her chin. “Beautiful flowers for a beautiful lady.”

  Her lips ached, her whole body yearned to rise up on her tiptoes, lean a little closer, and—what was she thinking?

  Judging by the gleam in his eye and the way he bent just a breath away, he thought the same.

  She smiled up into his face. “Do you like nature, James?”

  “I do.”

  She ran her hands up his arms and lightly rested them on his chest. His heart beat strong against her fingers.

  “Would you like to be closer to it?” she whispered.

  “I would.” He leaned in.

  Laughing, she shoved him backward, so that he stumbled into a tangle of sumac.

  “Pixie!” he roared.

  She giggled and fled down the path toward the road—then pulled up short before running headlong into an oncoming carriage.

  “Whoa!” A familiar voice, wooly and gruff, rumbled from the driver’s seat.

  “Jubal? Aunt Rosamund?” Skirting the prancing horses, Emmy strode to the window of Aunt’s lacquered carriage.

  “Emmaline?” A gunmetal-gray head peeked out the window, a single peacock feather wagging from her sateen bonnet.

  Emmy choked back a sob. The Nelson family high cheekbones and long nose reminded her of her father. “Oh, Aunt! How lovely to see you.”

  “This is exactly what I feared.” Aunt’s lips pinched, as did her tone. “Look at you! Running about in the wild. What would your father have to say?”