Chasing the Sunset

chapter TEN



“Maggie, wake up!”

The hand that shook her was insistent. Maggie rolled over and buried her face in the pillow, trying to get away from the persistent person who was shaking her shoulder. She had a hard time going to sleep last night-- that is, after Joanne and Ronald had finally allowed her to stumble up to her room, yawning and rubbing her eyes. Perversely, once in bed, the longed for slumber had not come to her immediately. She felt as if she had just now dropped off to sleep, and she definitely did not want to get up yet.

“Go away,” she mumbled. “It is not morning yet.”

The hand did not go away, and Maggie reluctantly opened her eyes. Light was spilling in from the hallway, and Nick was leaning over her bed, his hair flopping in his eyes in the way that she found so utterly endearing. She smiled sleepily, lovingly, and reached up to push it off his forehead. The texture of it against her fingers, so slippery-smooth and warm, made her shiver. She let her arm fall back down, her fingers sliding down his beloved face, and shut her eyes again, hugging her pillow.

"I am much too tired to get up now, Nick, " she said sleepily. "Come back later."

Nick shook her again, roughly this time.

“Maggie, I mean it, wake up.” His voice was intense, and something in his tone had Maggie rushing to wakefulness in a hurry. She sat up and scrubbed her hand across her face, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

“Nick? What is it?” she asked sleepily. “What is wrong?”

“Ned has been shot,” he said. “Tommy is on the way to let the doctor know we are coming, but we have got to get him to the surgery, and I am going to need your help.”

The words acted like a bolt of lightning straight to her heart. Maggie cried out and threw her covers off, scrambling wildly to get out of the bed, her whole body shaking terribly. She succeeded only in tangling herself in the bedclothes. Nick grabbed her, holding her tightly by the elbows. His eyes looked directly into hers as he forced her to be still, to compose herself.

“Listen to me, Maggie,” he said firmly. “We will not do Ned any good by panicking. He needs you to be calm, his life depends on it. Do you understand? Maggie?”

“Yes,” she whispered, her eyes darting everywhere, then settling back on his face. “Yes, I am calm now. Let me get dressed and go to him.”

Nick politely looked the other way while she dressed. He crossed his arms on his chest and tried not think of how she looked naked. God, now was definitely not the time, but he could not keep his mind off of her. He leaned his forehead against the frost-tinted window and banged it lightly, just once, hoping that it would cool his raging blood.

“It is cold out there, so dress warmly,” he said, and his voice gave no hint to the turmoil raging inside. She pulled on her warmest dress, wool stockings and boots, topping the whole ensemble with a heavy woolen cloak and the hand-knitted gloves, scarf and hat that Lanny Donaldson had made and sent over with Kathleen.

Maggie assured him that she was, indeed, dressing warmly, her voice quivering, and Nick’s heart broke at the pain contained in it. He grasped her hand tightly in his when she came to his side.

“What happened?” she asked as they clattered down the stairs to where Ronald and Joanne waited in the wagon with Ned.

“I do not know exactly,” Nick said grimly. “I could not sleep, so I went down to check on

Jet. He had a swollen hock this afternoon and I wanted to change his poultice and see if the swelling had gone down. When I opened the front door, I could hear Sadie howling. I ran down where she was because it sounded as if something were wrong with her and I thought she was hurt. She met me in the doorway and took me right to Ned. I found a blood trail leading away from the stables, and there was blood on her muzzle, so Sadie got a piece of whoever did this, that’s for sure. I found Ned lying face down beside Jet’s stall. He had been shot through the shoulder. He was freezing, so cold he was blue with it, but the cold might have actually done him a favor. I think it slowed his blood loss enough so that he will be all right. If we get him there on time.”

He did not tell her that the reason he could not sleep was that he missed her in his arms. He did not tell her that all night he kept imagining the way she looked naked, all rosy limbs and soft curves, and that his mind had driven him crazy until he had been compelled by desperation to do something, anything to get her off of his mind. Nick thought that Ned was lucky that his employer was so obsessed with his niece, or he might very well have died there on the cold floor of the stables, all alone.

Maggie caught her breath when she saw her uncle. She was stunned at how still Ned was, at how old and thin he looked. Without his usual animation, he seemed so frail and elderly, and Maggie had never thought of him that way at all. With a pang, she realized that Ned was sixty-one. Sixty-one! If he survived this, he did not have that many years left, and her face twisted with fear. Please, let him be all right, she prayed silently. Let him have all of the years that he has coming to him. Let him live so that I can tell him that I love him once more.

Joanne looked up from her place beside Ned in the back of the wagon, and smiled reassuringly. Ronald squeezed her shoulder and tossed a blanket around her. They all huddled around Ned, sharing their body heat with him. He was cold, so cold to her touch. His head was in Joanne’s lap, and he was covered with what seemed like every blanket that Nick owned. Joanne’s arms were underneath the blankets, and she looked up at Maggie now and told her what she was doing.

“I am holding a compress on his shoulder, but it is hardly bleeding right now. I am afraid that once he warms up it will start again, so one of us needs to continue holding pressure on this bandage until we get him there.”

“Go, Nick,” Ronald said urgently. “We are all settled back here. Get us there, quickly.”

Nick took them on the ride of a lifetime. At any other time, Maggie would have enjoyed it, would have loved the sharp wind that glazed her flesh with numbness, would have loved the way they flew down the poorly kept up road, the wagon careening on two wheels at times, bouncing and rocking back and forth. Now, she was just stricken with fear for Ned, unable to enjoy anything. She tucked the blankets more securely around Ned, taking over the pressure on his wound from Joanne, staring intently into her uncle’s still face and looking for some sign of life and shivering when she found none. She laid her fingers aside the pulse in his neck and was relieved to feel it thump under her fingertips, thready but there.

“Did he say anything?” she asked. “Does anyone know what happened?”

“He has never regained consciousness after Nick found him,” Ronald said gently. “When Nick woke me after carrying Ned into the sitting room, I stayed with him the whole time, only leaving when Joanne took over for me while I got blankets and cloaks. He has said nothing.”

The trip to the surgery seemed to take a lifetime. Tommy paced back and forth in front of the small building, waiting for them, and then Duncan and Doctor Fell were there with a stretcher. They transferred Ned gently, then all but ran him into the building, talking swiftly in language that was incomprehensible to her.

She paced the waiting room, not feeling the cold, staring unseeingly out the small window. Nick pressed a warm cup of coffee into her cold fingers.

“Drink,” he said. “I put some whiskey in it. You need it,” he said sternly. “Come and sit beside me and drink it all down.”

Numbly, Maggie went with him. She sat down and drained the cup without comment, letting it dangle empty from her fingers as she contemplated her toes. It was an eternity before Duncan came back into the room, still wearing a bloody apron. Maggie could not ask the question that trembled on her lips. She opened her trembling mouth, and then shut it again without saying a word. She was afraid of the answer, and for the first time since Nick had awakened her, tears came to her eyes and ran down her frozen cheeks. She stared at Duncan, mute and prayerful, too focused on what he had to say to even wipe them away.

“He is going to be all right,” he said wearily. “We pulled two bullets out of his shoulder, and I do not think they did any major damage there. He was lucky. It should heal up as good as new. The worst thing is all the blood that he has lost, and the fact that he lay there for a while before anyone found him. He has some mild frostbite on his chin and the top of one ear, but that is all; I suspect from all the red dog hair on his collar that Sadie was curled around his head, and that kept it from being worse. He is in bad shape right now, but overall Ned is healthy and in good physical condition for his age, and with good care and a little luck, he should do all right. I want to keep him here for at least a week with around the clock care, where we can keep an eye on him. It is all a matter of prayer now.”

Duncan looked over at Nick. Maggie sat down heavily and began wailing tears of relief, and Nick hugged her to him with one arm.

"It will be all right, Maggie," he said softly. "I promise you, it will be."

“I want to see him,” Maggie said, her face white. “I want to sit beside him for a while.”

Duncan escorted her to Ned’s bedside where she grasped his still hand in hers and brought it to her face. He found himself blinking back tears at the poignant sight.

“I am here, Uncle Ned,” she whispered softly. “I will not leave you.”

Duncan pulled her up a chair beside Ned’s bed and settled her in it before pulling Nick out into the hallway and closing the door behind them. He made sure that they were several feet away from the door before he spoke, to reduce the chances of Maggie hearing them.

“Any ideas what happened?” he asked, rubbing his face, fatigued both from the rude awakening Tommy had given him, and from the surgery. Damn, but he hated taking bullets out of a man; especially old Ned, who he was very fond of.

“None,” said Nick grimly. “The best guess I can make is that he surprised someone in the stables, maybe a horse thief . . . only there are no horses missing. Maybe he scared them off, I do not know. It is very strange. I am going to speak to Sheriff Vanderiest now and see what he thinks.”

“I pulled two bullets out of his shoulder,” Duncan said. “If one of them had gone just a fraction down and to the left, he would be dead. Nick, if they were there to steal horses . . . I do not know why a thief would shoot him twice.”

Nick told him about the suspected dog bite and asked him to keep an eye out for any such injury, and to let the sheriff know if he came across any. Then he forced himself out into the bitter cold, telling his cousins to wait there in the surgery, and that he would come back for them.

The sun had been up for only a little less than an hour, and it was a clear, beautiful day already in the way that only cold days can be, as if somehow the cold makes the light from the sun glow brighter. Nick squinted against the blinding rays and hunched his shoulders against the chill.

The sheriff was not very much help; he scratched his balding head and spit tobacco at the urn by the door, and Nick winced when he missed by nearly a foot. That was a common occurrence, judging by the state of the floor around the spittoon. But however terrible his manners were, and however much the sheriff tried to look like an ignorant hillbilly, the illusion was ultimately doomed to failure. The sheriff was not polished, it was true, and he had absolutely no refinement, but no one spending more than five minutes in the man’s company could mistake him for anything but what he was—a highly intelligent, tenacious bulldog of a man. Nick had dealt with him before, and he liked him quite a lot. The man had integrity. If the sheriff told you that it was so, then it was most certainly so.

“Wall, Nick,” he said now. “I cannot figger why anyone would shoot Ned? You say there was no robbery, and no horses missin’?”

When Nick affirmed this, the sheriff agreed with Nick’s assessment of the situation; Ned must have surprised someone in the act as they intended to take a horse. Until Ned woke up, guess was all that they could do. The sheriff sent a deputy out to study the scene at the stable, and Nick told him about the dog bite he suspected the would-be thief had taken. The sheriff laughed heartily at the idea of three-legged, gentle Sadie taking a bite out of anyone; he owned three of her pups himself, and while they were all good trackers, like their mother they had not more than an ounce of aggression in their whole bodies.

“Just keep an eye out,” said the sheriff, shaking the hand that Nick proffered. “Put a guard on the stables in case whoever it was comes back.”

Nick was walking back to the surgery when he realized they had not left word for Kathleen, and that she was going to beat them there, to an empty house and a bloodstained parlor. The deputy was on his way, but Kathleen was bound to be ready to murder him when she saw him next. He took off at a fast run for the building where Duncan and Doctor Fell kept their offices and small surgery.

Maggie could barely be pried away from Ned’s bedside where she still sat holding one of his hands. The only thing that coaxed her into going back to the farm was hearing from Duncan that Ned would probably not wake up for three or four more hours due to the medicine he had given him. Nick promised to bring her right back, after she changed clothes, ate something and rested for at least an hour. This last was said sternly, with one eyebrow raised imperiously, and Maggie reluctantly agreed. She knew if she did not do as he asked he was quite capable of throwing her over his shoulder and making her leave, and Duncan would probably help him.

Nick borrowed a closed carriage from Doctor Fell. No sense in all of us suffering, he told

them. He had the Doctor keep the horse Tommy had ridden into town on, too. He would send someone for the horse and wagon, and to return the carriage, he said.

“Glad to do it,” Doctor Fell said gruffly. “I do not want to have the rest of you back as patients tomorrow, and that might happen if you do not stay out of the wind.” He threw Nick a sympathetic look. “I have got a coachman’s coat around somewhere. It was left here last winter, and I never got around to throwing it out. Good thing for you, too.”

As they stepped out the door, it began to snow. Maggie put her face up to sky, feeling the biting kiss of the weather on her warm cheeks. She smiled, and stuck out her tongue to taste the snowflakes. The cold, wet flakes felt good in her dry mouth, and she realized with a sense of astonishment that she was quite thirsty, and hungry, too. She wondered how she could still feel these mundane things while her uncle lay near death in the building behind her.

“I will have you home soon, and you can get some coffee and hot food inside you,” Nick said from behind her almost as if he had heard her thoughts. Maggie turned to look at him, swathed in the many-layered coat, and she felt a rush of love for him that had her swaying dizzily. “No sense in you getting sick. Ned would not care for that, matter of fact he would be downright angry with you if you did not take care of yourself while he was down.”

Maggie leaned on his strong arm briefly when he handed her up into the coach. His arms closed around her for much too short of a time in a hard hug, then he released her gently, pushing her into the seat beside Joanne. Ronald and Tommy huddled on the other side.

“Sit close together,” he ordered. “Cover up with this blanket and share your heat. It is better that way.”

Maggie’s brows drew together. Nick would be out in the weather all the way home, with no one to relieve him, and he was worried about them.

“We will be warm enough in here,” she said. “What about you?”

“I will help drive the team,” Tommy said. “I do not want you to be out there alone.”

“No, you will not. You near got frostbite on the way here and there is no sense in both of us freezing. Stay in the carriage. This coat is made of wool and lined with fur, and it is so heavy I can barely walk. It will keep me warm enough. If I needed help, I would say so, but I will be all right.” Nick pushed Tommy firmly back onto the seat and gave him a quelling look that had him subsiding even as the boy started his argument back up again. “I will be fine. Don’t you worry,” he said. “I am going to race for home like my tail was on fire. I do not want to spend a minute more up on this box than I have to. If I think the cold is getting to me, I will stop and let you drive for a little while, and I will get warm inside the carriage before I go back on top.”

Guilty as she felt about him stuck out in the cold, Maggie’s eyes still drifted shut and her cheek sought the warmth of Joanne’s shoulder. Asleep in less than two minutes in the rocking of the carriage, she never felt the hand that smoothed down her hair and made room to lie her down on the leather. Exhausted from very little sleep the night before and from the emotional upset that had drained so much of her energy, she slept right through the whole ride, not waking up until Nick pulled her from the vehicle to carry her indoors.

Arms curled around his neck, she pressed her face to his neck, then pulled back with a cry of shock. He was freezing cold, so cold that his skin had almost seemed to burn her lips when she had went to him seeking warmth.

“My goodness, Nick,” she said. “You need to get into the house and sit in front of a fire and drink something hot. Put me down,” she commanded. “I need to get in there and tell Kathleen to put some water on for coffee. I think I will put something a little stronger in it, too.”

Nick smiled down into her face. “You went from sound asleep to wide awake in less than

two seconds. I have never seen that happen before,” he said dryly as he put her on her feet, unaware that Joanne was standing very close to him and gave him an assessing glance as he spoke. A smile lit her features after a moment, and she shared a conspiratorial look with her brother.

“It is the cold,” Maggie said briskly. “Shocked the sleep right out of me.”

At that very moment, the front door flew open and Kathleen bellowed down at them:

“Get in here, you idiots! Nicholas Revelle, you are a dead man! I have already sent Roger down to take care of the horses, and he can just come back up here and take care of these, too. Tommy, you run down and get him and tell him to hurry it up. I had to kick him out of my nice warm kitchen where he has been lazing about all morning, but he went. I have got brownies and hot chocolate and coffee,” she said as she practically shoved them all in the door. She pulled Nick down to eye level by the collar of his borrowed coat, getting him nose to nose with her. “Next time you leave me to wonder if you are all dead for an hour before someone shows up to tell me what happened, I will personally stab you through the heart myself. The front door was standing wide open and I nearly went mad until the deputy showed up to tell me what was going on.”

“I was not thinking much about letter writing at that moment, Kathleen,” he said wryly as she divested him of his coat and shoved him into a chair. A brownie the size of a saucer followed next, along with hot chocolate topped with a heaping spoonful of whipped cream and sprinkled cinnamon.

She demanded news of Ned, and put a hand to her mouth when they gave it to her. Then she began to chew on Nick’s hide once again. Tommy crept in quietly, and the rest of them wisely kept silent as Kathleen ranted and raved and put enough desserts and sweets on the table for a small army, slamming cups and saucers around and walking swiftly back and forth. They all studied the bounteous offering, and each knew immediately what she had been doing to stave off her worry. They would be eating these for a week or better. Nick knew that berating him was just her way of blowing off steam, and he stood it in silence, then waited until she dashed by once more and snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her close.

“I love you, too, Kathleen,” he said. “I am sorry I worried you.”

She put her head on his shoulder and bawled out every minute of excruciating anxiety that she’d had that morning. She cried out every last tear she had in her body onto his shoulder, her arms pressing him tight. Nick held her in his lap and rocked her, laying his cheek against her bright head of hair.

Maggie was struck in the heart by the amused, tender expression on his face. He patted Kathleen, and murmured, and Maggie felt weak tears rise in her eyes at the sight. He was so compassionate and caring. It was no wonder that she loved him.

Kathleen raised her wet face from his shoulder with a hiccup, wiping tears away from her reddened eyes. Her nose was nearly as bright as the three cherry pies she had baked, and Nick told her so.

“Three?” Kathleen laughed shakily. “There are three more in the pantry, and I have not even mentioned the berry cobbler and the two cakes I have hidden behind them.”

Maggie burst out laughing, and Kathleen threw her hands up in the air.

“Let me go, Nick,” she demanded. “I have got to get everything ready to go. I know Maggie is going to want to go back to Geddes, and I am going with her when she does. You can just send someone over to the farm to tell my parents,” she said firmly, before Nick could even get his mouth open. “I am not letting her go alone. You can come out later when you get things squared away. Maggie and I will be staying with my Aunt Agnes for the next few days.”

She hauled Maggie to her feet. “You do not have all that much time, Maggie. Pack a bag with whatever you think you will need for three or four days. I will have Roger hitch a fresh team to that carriage and tell Charlie to drive us into town.” She stopped, having already pushed Maggie out the door and towards the stairs, and pointed to Tommy. “No, you go tell Roger and Charlie. I can put together a basket of food and a couple of flasks of hot drinks while I wait for Maggie.”

“Yes ma’am,” Tommy said, and scooted for the door. Kathleen’s yell brought him back.

“Your coat!” she scolded. “Put a coat on, it is freezing out there.”

The three left at the table exchanged looks that spoke volumes. Lanny Donaldson’s legacy to her daughter was an iron will and an ability to give orders like a small general. And like her mother, she expected her orders to be carried out now. Kathleen had her hands on her hips, scowling at Nick before he noticed.

“What are you grinning about?” she said.

“Nothing,” he said innocently. He stooped and pressed a kiss to her cheek, and she flushed in surprise.

“Pack some of those desserts up,” he teased. “Then Doctor Murdoch will finally be able to tell what your cooking is like, instead of your mother’s.”

He laughed when she took a swat at him, and dodged on out the door. He took the steps two at a time and met Maggie just as she shut her bedroom door.

“Do not worry,” he told her quietly, and took her carpet bag from her to carry out to the carriage. “Ned will be all right. He has got good doctors, and you and Kathleen will be right there.” He grinned at her. “And if I know Kathleen, and I do, she will nag Ned until he hurries up and gets well enough to go back to work, just to get away from her.”

“I heard that, Nick Revelle!” floated a voice up the stairs. “Charlie has got the carriage out

front. Tell Maggie to hurry up. I am ready to go.”

He captured Maggie’s hand when she started down the stairs. “Wait.” She looked inquiringly at him, and he brought her cold hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to her frigid fingers. “I will see you tomorrow. Aunt Agnes is a sweet old lady, and you do not have to worry about her wanting you there. She will be glad of the company, and she will probably cosset you both to death.” He hesitated. “Give me a kiss before you go, darling,” he murmured. “I do not think I can get through today if you do not.”

Maggie felt her heart’s barriers crumble, and she pressed her lips to his face, then to his mouth in a series of small kisses that spoke tellingly of the love and need that she felt for him. He had shaved and changed clothing, but he had not lost the fatigue that had been in his eyes. She pressed her soft body against his rock hard length to comfort him, and felt her pulse leap. Heat swept up her body.

“I will miss you,” he whispered intensely against her lips. His warm breath gusted out when he sighed, and Maggie could feel its warmth on her face. “Miss me, too. Miss me, Maggie.”

And Maggie showed him with her kiss that she would indeed miss him–she put all her heart and soul into the kiss, and he was breathing harshly when he drew away. His hands cupped her cheeks and he laid his forehead atop hers.

“Kathleen will be up here to get you any second,” he whispered. “If you do not go now, I am going to have you against the wall with your skirts hiked up when she gets here.”

“How can I even want this now?” Maggie asked him, her voice small, hanging her head. “With Uncle Ned ... “

”It is just life,” Nick said softly, lifting her chin and forcing her to look into his eyes. “It is your body saying, sickness happens, accidents and tragedies are numerous, but look at me, I am alive right now, and I can still feel pleasure. It is only natural, Maggie. Do not feel guilty for being normal.”

Maggie gave him one last, lingering look, then tripped lightly down the stairs to join the impatient Kathleen, who stood by the door holding the coat, hat and gloves she had sent Joanne to fetch for Maggie, an overflowing basket of food at her feet.



Aunt Agnes was indeed kind, a petite lady of indeterminate age who, judging by her appearance, was obviously Lanny Donaldson’s sister. She greeted them with a cry of delight that soon turned to tongue-clicking commiseration.

“Oh, dear,” she said, her towering coil of white hair wobbling precariously on top of her head as she shook it back and forth. “Oh, my, poor, poor Ned. Of course you must stay with me. At least he has got adequate medical care. I remember the terrible man we had here before. Dreadful, uneducated, coarse fellow. I was glad when young Doctor Fell took his place.”

“Young Doctor Fell has been practicing here for forty years,” Kathleen whispered to Maggie when Aunt Agnes left the room to see her housekeeper about readying two rooms for ‘her girls’. “Aunt Agnes is years older than my mother, who is her baby sister. Trust me, she is much older than she looks, and she sometimes lives in the past, but she is sweet as sugar and nothing bothers her. She will not be angry if we run in and out at all hours of the day and night, and she will do anything she can to help. Do not worry.”

Maggie squeezed Kathleen’s hand. “Let’s get over there as soon as possible, all right? I want to be there when Ned wakes up.”

Agnes willingly loaned them her coach and driver, and they were at Ned’s bedside twenty minutes later. Duncan smiled at Maggie encouragingly as he listened to Ned’s heart and breathing and checked his bandage for bleeding.

Doctor Fell was out for the rest of the day; he had gone to the Booker house, where Mrs. Booker was in the process of delivering twins–a fact that been a surprise Duncan himself had sprung on the unsuspecting Bookers on his last visit. The couple had been childless for ten years, and Mr. Booker was so nervous he had nearly fainted when given the news. Duncan did not envy Doctor Fell his task, and he was glad that Mr. Booker had requested the older doctor for the delivery. It had not hurt his feelings a bit. He had rather stay here with Ned any day than deal with a first delivery and a nervous father.

“He is doing fine,” he told Maggie now. “He is just beginning to stir, and I want him to wake up all the way before I give him anything else for the pain.”

Kathleen stared down at Ned, laying her hand beside his cheek. “I do not think about how old he is,” she said in a shaken manner, her voice quivering. “I never notice. He is so vital, and alive, and he bounces around and crows like a little banty rooster. But now . . . he just looks so fragile.”

“Appearances can be deceiving,” Duncan said. “He is very strong and healthy. He just needs to have time to heal, and he will have it here.”

“Let’s leave Maggie alone for a moment,” she said abruptly. “I need to talk to you.”

Duncan raised one dark, slashing eyebrow. “Indeed?” he asked coolly. “I would have thought that we said everything that we had to say last night.” His voice turned sardonic. “But anything to oblige a lady. Perhaps you would like to join me in my office, Miss Donaldson.” He held the door open. “After you.” His voice changed when he talked to Maggie, turning warm and sweet as molasses. “Call me if anything changes, Maggie. If he wakes up, or if he seems hot . . .

I am right in here.”

Kathleen swept grandly through the door with her nose turned high up in the air as she

preceded him into the cluttered space. Maggie barely noticed them go, all her attention focused on the man in front of her now, the one who seemed so deceptively frail. She clutched his hand and sat down, stroking a finger lightly down the side of his face. He slept on, and she stayed, content for the moment to be where she was at, at her uncle’s side.

When Kathleen burst out of the office with a furious Duncan right behind her, that is where they found her, curled up in the chair beside his bed and sound asleep, Ned’s hand still cradled between hers as they rested beneath the cheek nestled close to his head. Kathleen smiled, and made motions for Duncan to follow her out into the little anteroom.

“I will stay out here for a while, and let her sleep,” she said, and then her tone turned tart again. “Do not think that all this food I brought you means I am falling in with my mother’s wishes. I always bake when I am nervous.” She crossed her arms over her chest and dared him to say a word.

“Of course, Kathleen,” he said smoothly. “I would never misunderstand your motives. I am happy, also, to eat any donations you make to this bachelor establishment.”

Kathleen looked at him suspiciously, wondering if he made fun of her, but his face was appropriately serious.

Not that I can tell anything about old stone-face, if he ever once smiled at me I think his face might crack. Does not seem to have any trouble being nice to everyone else, though, she thought. Hateful man.

Kathleen had brought her knitting needles and yarn along, and she was halfway through a scarf when she heard a noise in the next room. She had been peeping through the door periodically, and it had seemed to her as if Ned’s sleep was lighter than before. He was beginning to roll around. She knocked briskly on Duncan’s door.

When they entered the room, Ned was muddled but awake. Maggie was sitting up with tears rolling down her face while he tried awkwardly to soothe her.

“Now, now, girl,” he croaked in a hoarse voice. “None o’ that. I am fine.”

Duncan’s hands came down firmly on Maggie’s shoulders and moved her away from the bed and into Kathleen’s waiting clasp. He checked on the older man quickly and efficiently, and Kathleen grudgingly admitted to herself that he was a good doctor with a good bedside manner. He offered Ned a sip of water, propping the older man up on pillows.

“I am going to give you some laudanum for the pain,” he said. “I want you to keep your lungs as cleared as possible–that means cough a lot, no matter how badly it hurts. I am instructing Maggie and Kathleen to give you as much water and broth as you can keep down, because you need the fluids.”

“Well, if Kathleen is staying then you might as well consider it done,” Ned sighed, hangdog in face and manner. “She will bully me mercilessly, she will, until I just give in and do it. And if I have the temerity to actually die, I have no doubt she will follow me down to hell to harangue me there as well.”

Duncan laughed silently, his massive chest shaking, and Kathleen glared at him. Maggie hid a smile behind her hand.

"That is right," Kathleen said sharply, hands on hips. "Even the devil himself cannot keep me from my duties. And if you ever once doubt that I could do it, just take a look at what spawned me. So there will be nothing but getting well around here, is that understood?"

"Aye, Kathleen," Ned whispered shakily, a slight smile creasing his face. Kathleen smiled tenderly back, and Maggie felt more tears mist her eyes as Kathleen put out a trembling hand to stroke Ned’s face.

“Ahem . . . Regardless,” Duncan said. “This is what you need to do until you are well. I will keep evaluating your wound, and I want you kept here at least until the end of the week.” He pulled up a chair and sat down beside Ned’s bed. “Do you remember what happened? I dug two bullets out of your shoulder, Ned. Who attacked you?”

“Well, I do not rightly know,” he said, a frown wrinkling his forehead. “I remember I went to go check on Jet, and Sadie growling . . . and then I felt like someone punched a knife

through my shoulder. I fell down, and somebody kicked me in the head. He said he was going to kill me, then Sadie jumped on him and the gun went off again. I do not remember anything past that until I woke up here with m’ niece blubbering all over me.”

“I will tell the sheriff,” Duncan said. “I was hoping for more, but at least I know now where you got that goose egg on the back of your head. Take this laudanum now,” he commanded, stirring the liquid into a small glass of water. “If you take care of the pain while it is small instead of waiting until it is excruciating, it goes away much more quickly and with less medication. I am not like some doctors: I do not believe that it is good for the healing process if the patient suffers. I want you as comfortable as possible, and I want you to tell someone right away if the pain gets severe.” He cast a stern look on the older man. “It is not manlier to suffer, and I do not want to hear of you acting in such a ridiculous manner. I will sic Kathleen on you if you do not listen to me in this,” he said gravely, a slight smile twitching the corners of his mouth.

Kathleen shot him a foul look, and Ned chuckled and agreed sleepily, the laudanum already taking effect, and Duncan left his bedside.

“He will sleep for hours,” he told Maggie gently. “You and Kathleen get something to eat, one at a time if you do not wish to leave him alone. There is a restaurant in the hotel that serves a decent steak.”

Maggie told Kathleen to go on first, and Duncan offered to escort her. Kathleen did not seem too pleased with the suggestion, but could not get out of it without seeming rude. She gave Duncan her arm reluctantly. Maggie thought that there was something going on between them, despite all Kathleen’s protests. She had seen pure male appreciation light up Duncan’s eyes more than once as he watched Kathleen covertly.

Maggie wrapped herself in a shawl and watched Ned sleep peacefully, the lines on his face and forehead relaxed. He hardly stirred, and Maggie nearly put herself in a trance watching the

slow rhythm of his breaths. She began to match her breathing to his, unconsciously, and her body relaxed, too, the last of the tension draining away.

Duncan and Kathleen were back in what seemed like only minutes. When Maggie questioned them about it, she was surprised to find they had been gone an hour. She waved off Duncan’s offer of an escort to the hotel. It was only three buildings away, after all. No one would hurt her here.

After bundling up and wrapping around her head the scarf that Kathleen insisted she take, Maggie stepped out into the frigid weather, looking around in awe. A couple of inches of snow had already fallen and it was as yet largely undisturbed, so a blanket of white lay everywhere she looked. It was starting to get dark already, and the light from the moon made the unsullied snow gleam. It was beautiful and pure, and Maggie blew out a long plume of breath in admiration.

Smiling, she stepped off the walkway to cross the alley, into a pile of snow. She lifted her boots and shook them off. The cold seeped right through to her feet and she thought absently that she needed a sturdier pair of shoes.

She heard the sound of running feet and turned to look inquiringly down the alley just as a hard fist smashed into the side of her face. She dropped like a rock into the drifted snow, stunned and bleeding. Uncaring hands dragged her deeper into the alley. Maggie moaned.

“Bitch,” a voice said malevolently. “I am going to hurt you much more than that puny little blow ever did. I am going to make you pay.”

Maggie turned her head fitfully, her jaw throbbing and her head whirling. She tried to

force herself to open her eyes and confront the man who bent over her now, though nausea threatened and her head ached abominably.

“Open your eyes, and look at me,” sneered the man, and Maggie knew that voice, she did, it was a voice right out of her bad dreams . . .

She made a valiant effort and opened her eyes . . . and looked straight into the feral eyes of her dead husband. Maggie tried to scream, but her vocal cords would not cooperate and she could only stare in silent horror at the face of the man that she thought she had killed. She lost her battle with consciousness and slid down, down, down into the welcoming darkness.