Mal jerked his arm away before the familiar voice registered in his brain.
“Leave him be, Henry. He’s worried about our girl. As he should be.” Bertie moved directly into his path, her admonishment changing to reassurance as she turned from her sister to him.
He loved the aunts. He really did. But if Bertie didn’t get her sweet, motherly self out of his way, he was going to pick her up and move her.
“It’s all right, Malachi,” she said, eyes soft. “Helen managed to get the creature off of Emma before any real damage was done.”
Rage, hot and searing, blazed through Malachi. He grabbed Bertie’s shoulders and gave her a little shake. “She was attacked?”
Horrible visions flashed like lightning through his brain. A masked outlaw chasing Emma. Her running. Screaming. The outlaw being too fast. Too strong. Dragging her down. Pinning her beneath him. A desperate Helen fending him off from behind.
Mal steered Bertie aside. He had to get to Emma. Had to see for himself that she truly was all right.
“ . . . didn’t want to let go.” Bertie continued yapping, shadowing him like an overeager pup. Her words faded in and out through the haze of his anger. “Strong bugger . . . They finally got Emma free . . . She stepped on his neck, and Helen chopped his head off with her garden trowel.”
“Wait. What?” Mal jerked to a halt and spun to his left to face Bertie. “Helen took off his head? With a garden trowel?” Impossible. No way under heaven could shy, slender Helen take off a man’s head with a tiny handheld spade. A Roman gladiator couldn’t accomplish that feat with such a weapon.
Bertie raised an exasperated brow. “Really, Malachi. It’s insulting for you to look so shocked. We’re not helpless, you know. We might need a man’s assistance to fight off another man bent on trouble, but any female who works on a farm, like Helen does, knows how to deal with a rat snake.”
A rat snake?
Mal’s knees quivered. He braced a hand against the wall, pretty sure his legs were about to buckle.
A rat snake. He shook his head and swallowed the laughter bubbling up his throat. To think he’d thought . . . Well, never mind what he’d thought. That mental picture would only ignite his rage again. Because it could have happened. Thank God it hadn’t.
With his knees regaining a bit of fortitude, Mal pushed away from the wall and smiled down at Bertie. “I’m glad Helen was with her. She’s a strong woman.” He tipped his hat up to the top of his forehead as his pulse regulated. “Now. Can I go in and check on Emma?”
Henry came up behind her sister. “You got your head on straight? She don’t need you going off half-cocked once you get in there. The girl’s been through enough already today.” The look she gave him had him fighting the urge to squirm. Something told him she was talking about more than the snake.
“I’ll not upset her, Aunt Henry. I promise.”
She examined him from stem to stern, gave him one more good glare, and dipped her head in a sharp nod.
Mal reached for the knob and pulled open the door, his ears registering Henry mumbling something about Emma ruining a perfectly good skillet of gravy thanks to his thoughtlessness. Having no idea what she meant by that statement and no desire to figure it out, he left the waiting room behind and stepped through the doorway into the clinic office.
Claire Nevin stepped around a white curtain that divided the room in half and smiled at him. “She’s in here, Mr. Shaw. Helen’s sitting with her.”
The gal turned and disappeared again behind the curtain. Mal tugged off his hat and followed. Emma sat propped up in a narrow bed, her head turned toward a second woman sitting in a chair on the far side.
Helen sprang up from her seat the instant he rounded the curtain edge, her eyes wide, her mouth pinched. “I better be getting back to the farm.” She glanced at Emma. “I’ll fill in for you during the watch tonight.”
“You don’t have to. I—” Emma protested before Helen cut her off with a shake of her head.
“Maybelle said to rest. You heard her same as me. I’m not due for another shift until Thursday. I’m taking your turn.”
“All right.” Emma nodded. “Thank you.”
Helen offered a tight smile, then strode toward the end of the bed. She slowed when she neared Mal’s position, her gaze growing wary. Mal sidestepped between the bed and the curtain to get out of her way, then watched her skedaddle like a mouse that had just found a clear path around a barn cat. Claire discreetly followed her out.
Once the other ladies were gone, Mal circled around to the opposite side and took up the chair Helen had vacated. That was when he noticed Emma’s arm.
The sleeve of her blouse had been rolled up past her elbow. Her palm and wrist were wrapped in a bandage. The beginning signs of bruising darkened the skin in a spiral pattern along her forearm up to her elbow.