Susannah closed her eyes for a moment, then looked down at the wedding ring Tanner had put on her finger last summer. “That old man gave me a lot of trouble over the years, and he hired someone to kill my husband. I can’t forgive that. I’m not even sure he did it for Riley—I think he just wanted to run everybody’s life and have his own way. He tried to ride roughshod over all of us, and he’d get furious when we reminded him that we’re adults and don’t want to be ordered around. I won’t miss him.”
Just then, the front door opened yet again. “Now what?” Susannah said. “This office is getting to be like Grand Central Station.”
Jess hoisted herself off the sofa and looked down the hall. “Oh, my God.”
Susannah flew off the sofa as well and peered over Jess’s shoulder.
Whit Gannon had returned with Riley and a woman neither Jessica nor Susannah had ever seen before. She had long red hair, wore only a thin housedress and a flimsy coat, and was not dressed well enough for the weather. Worse, she was streaked with blood.
Riley looked pale and exhausted.
Whit stepped forward. “Doc Jessica, Miss Susannah, this is Emmaline Bauer. She’s a very good friend of mine.” She looked self-conscious and uncomfortable as the introductions and greetings were exchanged.
Suddenly, Jessica grinned and said, “I owe you a debt of gratitude! You’re the one who acted as silent witness for me a couple of years ago when Adam Jacobsen wanted to run me out of town on a rail. I’d refused his proposal and he saw me kissing Cole on the porch here. Whit testified that he’d caught Adam Jacobsen with you, posing as a tractor salesman instead of a minister. I’ve always wanted to thank you.” She added, “And you too, Whit, of course.”
Em lowered her chin and smiled. “I’m glad it worked out for you.”
“What brings you here tonight? It’s been busy around here, that’s for sure, especially considering the weather.”
“Well, I, uh—”
Whit stepped in. “Show her your hand, honey.”
Em held out her left hand, palm up. It was red and blistered.
“Oh, yes, that looks painful.”
“I scalded it toting a pitcher of boiling water.”
“Are you hurt anywhere else—this blood, is it yours?” Em wouldn’t look at Jessica. The big bruise on her face was obvious, though.
She glanced down at the stains and shook her head, as if not trusting her own voice. Tears welled in her eyes.
Jess turned. “All right. Could you get Mrs. Bauer settled at the work table, Susannah? I want to chat with Whit and Riley for a minute.”
“Of course. Come back here,” Susannah said gently. “Would you like some hot coffee or tea?”
Em murmured some response that Jessica didn’t catch. She gave Whit and Riley her attention and lowered her voice. “Okay, what on earth happened?”
At that moment, Cole opened the door and stamped the snow off his boots before walking in. His face wore the same pallid, worn-out expression as Riley’s. “What’s going on?”
Jess said, “I asked first. Cole, I’m glad you’re here. Now I won’t have to repeat the story.”
“After I left here,” Whit began, and he went on, telling them everything that had happened in the past few hours.
Jessica listened with her mouth partly open, barely able to grasp the horrible outcome of the machination that Shaw had set into motion. Occasionally, she traded gazes with both Cole and Riley. At last she said, “Two people are dead, one was threatened, and another barely escaped with his life. This is incredible.”
“Wait until the news spreads—and it will,” Cole observed with some gloom. “This is a small town.”
Before she could stop herself, Jess replied, “At least it won’t be Shaw carrying the tale to Tilly’s.” Then she added, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound heartless. I’d better see to Mrs. Bauer. Cole, I hate to ask, but could you run over and get Granny Mae? Things are getting backed up in here.”
Cole nodded and then said, “There’s some apple pie and sandwiches upstairs, if anyone is hungry. Riley? Whit?”
Riley nodded and headed toward the steps.
Whit sat down in one of the waiting room chairs. “I believe I’ll just wait here until Em gets fixed up.”
Cole smiled and walked out to get Mae.
After Jessica took over Emmaline’s care, Susannah sought out Riley and found him alone, sitting on the stairs. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to him all day, and she knew he’d been through a lot. He certainly must know that she’d spent the night with Tanner.
She climbed up and sat beside him. “How are you, Riley?”
He looked at her and then at the steps. “What do you care?”
She frowned and gathered her skirt to stand. “Well, if you’re going to talk to me as if you were twelve years old, I guess there’s no—”
“Wait. Don’t go. I’m sorry.”
She sat again. “I want to thank you for helping Whit. I’ll bet Emmaline does too, but she’s with Jess.”
“She already thanked me. I’m sorry about last night, too. I really did have a bad dream. When I came into your room and saw you there, I guess one thing led to another. I thought about Cole and Jessica expecting a baby. We’d been married but never had any of our own—it all kind of snowballed.” His voice was low and as empty as an echo. “I’ve just been lonely since I came here. I feel as if I got my memory back but none of the things I remember are the same or mine anymore. I’m like an extra leg on a calf, not useful for anything.” He didn’t ask for sympathy but spoke simply, telling her how things were for him.
“It won’t always be that way, Riley. It’s only been a few months. And now, well forgive me, but now that Shaw is gone, it will be just you and Cole running the place. I know he was your father but I think he just added more stress to an already difficult situation. You won’t have that from now on.”
“I’m not good for that either, Susannah. Not anymore.” Finally he said what she’d been thinking all this time. “I’m just not the same man I was before I left. I still love the horses, but I don’t care about running a business or being a leader. I’m thirty-three, I’ve been through a war, and I’m tired.”
This was as frank and honest as he’d been with her since he got back last fall.
“But everyone needs something to do,” she said. “It’s not a matter of earning your keep or anything like that. People need a reason to get up every day. A purpose. We just don’t know what yours is yet. If you don’t find that you could end up like a younger version of Shaw. That would be such a waste.”
Just then, Granny Mae came in, dressed in galoshes and a big, warm coat. She carried a basket of what were probably potions, Susannah guessed. She looked at the two of them and Susannah could see that she’d been crying. There must have been something about that old goat Shaw that she’d found more endearing than the rest of them had. Granny Mae continued to the back, where her patient was waiting for her.
“That man you had to shoot—is that going to haunt you?” Susannah had worried that he’d have some kind of relapse because of it.
“He was another canker sore on society. Whit told me about both of them, including Emmaline’s ex-husband and all the trouble he’s given her over the years. It’s never easy to kill someone, but this makes more sense than killing a man I didn’t know who was only guilty of wearing a uniform different from mine. Rush used Em as a shield—I couldn’t get over something so cowardly and sniveling. He would have killed her or Whit or me. I had the chance to make the shot so I did.”
“You did what you had to do. Think of the lives you saved, Riley. For all the years I’ve known you, I can’t remember a time when you didn’t make the right choice or do the best you could.”
He turned a rueful gaze on her. “Well, maybe the other night…”
“I’m not going to hold that against you. We’ve all been stopped in our tracks by the last few months. You’re still a good, decent man a
nd an honorable one.”
“You spent the night with Tanner, didn’t you?”
Susannah drew a deep breath. “Riley, I’m sorry you found out that way. He’s my husband and I love him. We had a wonderful life together, you and I. But it’s part of the past.” She smoothed her skirt over her knees. “I loved you with all the passion and tenderness a young woman had to give. And you were my first love—that’s an important and cherished memory. Things changed, though. I guess no one knows that better than you do.” She turned so that he had to look her in the face. “Riley, I’ll always love you. Always. But Tanner is my husband now. He has my heart and soul, and my loyalty.”
He nodded. “I guess I figured that out a while back. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “I want you to be happy, to find whatever it takes to fill that emptiness I sense in you.”
His shoulders rose with his deep sigh, the gesture giving him a defeated look that roused her pity, but did not cause her to question her own decisions.
She patted him on the arm and grabbed the bannister to stand. “There’s food upstairs if you’re hungry. The kids are asleep up there, but you know children. They can sleep through just about anything.”
“Lucky them. I wonder what that would be like.”
• • •
With great care, Jessica held Emmaline’s hand in her own and bathed it in cool water with carbolic soap. Her wrists were raw and red from where she’d been tied to a chair, so Jess washed them as well.
“I’m sorry, I know this is tender. I just want to avoid infection.”
Em was stoic. “It’s all right. I’ve known worse. Anyway, throwing boiling water in that stupid Lambert’s face was worth this burn.”
“Was that how this happened? Good for you—I like women who can stand up for themselves. God knows I’ve had to, with this job. I had a few dealings with Bert Bauer myself during the influenza epidemic. I despised him from the moment I met him.”
Em nodded. “He had that effect on people. If they weren’t already mad at him when they first laid eyes on him, he could turn that around pretty quick.”
Jessica finished dressing her burned hand and then looked at her bruised face. “Did Bauer do this too?”
“No, it was the skunk he fell in with to kill Tanner. Lambert broke that cheekbone once, though, years back.”
Carefully, Jess palpated the bruise, feeling for any bones that might be broken again. “I think this is all right. Like any break, I suppose it aches sometimes, even without a new injury.”
Em nodded. “Yeah, well…we learn to survive.”
“They didn’t hurt you any other way, did they?” Jess inquired, trying to be tactful.
“You mean rape me? No.” She met Jessica’s eyes then, and Jess saw kindness and a determined hope that surprised her. It pained her that circumstances had pushed Em into a hard life. “But thank you for asking. Some people don’t think a woman with my—job can be raped. But that’s not true for me any more than it is for another woman.”
Jess nodded and patted her on the shoulder. “Your hand should heal well. Try to keep it dry. Most of us are stuck here tonight because of the weather, and I’ve got Tanner to look after. But we have the room if you’d like to stay. I don’t how you’d get back home tonight, anyway.”
Just then, there was a knock on the examination room door. Jess opened it and saw Whit standing there.
“I thought I’d check and see how things are.”
Jess caught Em’s tucked-down chin and bashful smile, and suddenly she realized that Whit Gannon was Em’s hero in more ways than one. “She’ll be fine. I’ve invited Emmaline to stay here tonight if she’d like.”
The tall, rawboned lawman took a couple of steps into the room, torturing his hat in his hands as he did. “I think that would be a good idea, Em. I want to round up a couple of men to take care of, well, your front yard before you go back home. You don’t want to see that when you look out your windows.”
“I’ll let you two sort that out. I need to see to Tanner.” She left them alone and walked to the back where her other patient was resting behind the hospital screen.
Fatigue dragged at Jessica’s limbs. This was almost as bad as one of her days during the epidemic, except she hadn’t been pregnant then. Now her body demanded naps at the most inconvenient times. Unless Tanner was in an urgent state, she’d check on him and then sneak away to rest.
Peeking around the screen, she saw both Susannah and Granny Mae attending him. His bandage was off again and now Mae was smearing some other disgusting-looking thing on Tanner. “How’s he doing?” she asked.
“We’re still putting snow on his head—the weather has been obliging,” Mae said. “I brought a moldy bread poultice. This infection might call for a more powerful remedy.”
Jessica nodded. This was a reasonable treatment, and an old one. “Temperature?”
“About the same,” Susannah replied. She looked as tired as Jess felt.
“We’ve got a full house here tonight, lots of people staying. Emmaline, the boys, Cole and me, Susannah, Riley, I assume…”
“If you want to wake up the boys, I can take them over to my place with me. It would free up a bed, and they know me well enough so they wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. Plus I can feed them.”
“That’s an idea. Susannah?”
“I’d appreciate it, Mae.”
“Well, girls, you both look stove in. Jess, that baby is going to wear you out faster than you’re used to. Speaking of which, who’s going to deliver your new addition?” she asked, nodding at Jessica’s growing bulge.
Jess couldn’t help but laugh. “You, I imagine.”
“Hmph! Damn right, I am.”
• • •
“Emmaline, I think you know how I feel about you.” Whit held her uninjured hand. He’d closed the door to the examination room.
She sat on the bed, her feet dangling, and he’d pulled up a chair. “Yes, I have an idea, but I’d like to hear it from you. I wouldn’t want to assume something and find out I’m wrong.”
She watched as he summoned his courage. Setting aside his hat before he destroyed it completely, he took a deep breath. “Girl, I’ve been in love with you for years. You must know that by now. I tried to tell you a few months ago, but you wouldn’t have any of it.”
“And I’ve regretted that lots of times since, but especially today. If I had listened to you, I wouldn’t have been there for those two bastards to bother. I’m sorry, Whit.”
His white brows rose. “Sorry! For what?”
“I’m sorry that when you came to see me that day, I hurt you enough to make you leave and not come back. I’m grateful that you figured out I was in trouble and came to save me.” She gave him that shy smile. “I’ve been in love with you too, for a long time. But I was scared. Lambert left a big dent on my life.”
“Honey, he can’t do that anymore. Life is for living, and we haven’t been doing much of that. What do you say…will you be my wife? Will you become Mrs. Emmaline Gannon?”
Em never thought that any decent man would ever want her. The closest she came was when Tanner had offered her and the kids his protection so long ago.
“Yes.” She nodded. “Yes, I will!”
He leaned forward and kissed her, the first time ever, and his mustache tickled. Then he kissed her again, and it was as if she were just a girl again with her first beau. All the years of disappointment and the brittle shell around her heart dropped away with the feel of his lips on hers. She looped her arms around his neck and inhaled the arousing scent of him, things she’d not done in years with any customer. None of them had ever touched her heart and soul the way that Whit did. She would not have permitted it.
He drew back. “Do you have anything in that place up there that you want?”
“I don’t have anything to wear,” she gestured at her ratty outfit.
He waved that off. “We can fix that.�
��
“And I have some money put by under the loose floorboard next to the sink.”
“I’ll get it.”
“Then really, I guess there’s nothing else. Everything I own is old and worn. It was secondhand to begin with.”
“You don’t have to go back. We’ll get you outfitted here in town, and if you want a place to stay until the wedding, you’ll have a room at the hotel where you can enjoy some peace for a change. I’ll board up the windows when I go up there. That will pretty much spread the message that you’re out of business.”
“Oh, Whit,” she said, her voice trembling. “That would be wonderful.”
“This is what I’ve wanted for you. And for me.”
“Can we wait until the bruise on my face heals up?” She touched it with cautious fingertips. “I—I’d like to look nice for the wedding, even if it’s just at the mayor’s office or some such.”
Whit bit his upper lip, taking part of his mustache with it. Then he cleared his throat and glanced at the floor for a moment. He looked up again. “Of course, honey. We’ll do exactly what you want.”
“What about my boys?”
“You should know I expect you to bring them with us, if you want to.”
“I hope Tanner and Susannah don’t take it too hard, but I thought I’d never get them back. This is a dream come true for me. Are you sure you’re ready for a full-time family after all these years of being a bachelor?” Her heart was nearly bursting with joy—a significant change from earlier in the day when she wasn’t sure if she’d see the sun come up again.
“Hell, yes! At least I got to skip that dirty diaper stuff.”
Em actually laughed, her smile as broad as her injured face would let her stretch it.
• • •
At around six o’clock the next morning, Susannah woke up in the chair beside Tanner’s bed, the one she’d occupied for so many hours. She’d been leaning against the wall with a blanket wrapped around her. Now she opened dry, sleep-starved eyes and sat forward to look at her husband. He still slept, but he looked better somehow. She put a hand to his forehead and she swore he was cooler. At her touch, his eyes opened.
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