Pistols and Petticoats (A Historical Western Romance Anthology) Page 7

  Violet stitched the wound carefully, one small prick at a time, but she tried to work quickly. "You're right about that. Men have the advantage in this world. I wonder if we'll even get the right to vote in our lifetime."

  "Oh, we women vote alright. Just not in the ballot boxes. Why, I reckon we could even elect whatever president we wanted if we all put our minds to the task."

  Violet knotted her stitch and tipped a look up at Aubrey through her lashes. "How do you mean?"

  "It's been goin' on forever, Mrs. Walker, women gettin' men to do what we want."

  Violet shook her head, focusing on the needle. "I'm beginning to think I'll never understand what men want."

  Aubrey exhaled a laugh. "Men think they're so smart. But when it comes to us, they think with another part of their anatomy, if you catch my meaning. But the secret ain't figurin' out what a man wants. That's the easy part. Ever' man wants the same thing, more or less. No, it's figuring out what they need. And most times, they got no idea what that is. And that part ain't never found 'tween the covers." She winked. "Find that, an' they're all yours. It's like findin' the gold vein."

  Violet stared at her. Wise words, no doubt, coming from a woman who knew men in a context most women didn't. Violet had seen in the meadow what Ethan wanted, but what was it he needed?

  More to the point, besides mothering Ella, did he need anything at all from her?

  Aubrey blushed deeply. "Forgive me for talking that a'way in front of a lady like yerself."

  "No, no, thank you, Aubrey. You're a very wise woman. I appreciate our little talk."

  She laughed again. "Oh, now, you go on. Hey, that didn't hurt so bad."

  Violet grinned as she wrapped the other woman's hand in a bandage and tied off the gauze. "I'll make sure to have Dr. Walker come by tomorrow and check those stitches. All right?"

  "Thank you kindly, Mrs. Walker. And..." She hesitated, dropping a coin in her hand. "I appreciate your not treatin' me like a... like a whore. I mean," she said, with a self-deprecating laugh, "I am one, but nobody likes to be treated that'a way."

  "No. Of course not." Violet swallowed hard and touched Aubrey's arm before she could go. "Aubrey, can I ask you something?"

  "Sure. Anything."

  "Is... is my husband coming to Ike's?"

  Now she did blush, all the way up to her roots. "Oh, ma'am. We're not supposed to talk about our clientele. Bad for business, you know."

  "Aubrey, just between us. Is he?"

  The other woman sighed. "No, ma'am. I mean, well—and I'm only sayin' this 'cause you been so kind to me—he did once, to be honest, but Little Tina tol' me he left without—you know. Nothin' happened. And he ain't been back since."

  Surprise sifted through her. "Are you sure?"

  "I'm there all the time. And the girls talk, you know."

  Violet pressed her hand on top of Aubrey's. "Thank you."

  "Goodbye, Mrs. Walker."

  Closing the door behind the woman, Violet leaned her back against it. Relief flooded through her, and gratefulness, but where was he going and why was he staying away? They couldn't fix anything if they couldn't talk.

  Aubrey's words came back to her. "It's figuring out what they need. And most times, they got no idea what that is..."

  What did Ethan need? Distance? Closeness? Should she leave him alone or invade his precious aloneness? Talk more, talk less? Be pretty, not pretty?

  She released a growl of frustration and began gathering up the supplies she'd used.

  No. The problem wasn't her. She couldn't mold herself into something she was not to please him.

  It was just as her mother had said. She couldn't fix him or change him if he didn't want to change. If he didn't want to love her, he wouldn't. But if there was still hope for them, if Aubrey was right, the truth would come from honesty between them. It was their only hope.

  There was only one thing left to do. And then, she'd know.

  * * *

  The next midday, Ella and Violet were practicing spooning flour into measuring cups. Violet scooped a spoonful into hers. "One for Mama"—and a second—"and one for Ella. Mama, Ella. Mama, Ella."

  Ella took over the task for herself. "Ella, Mama. Mama, Ella."

  That word sang through her.

  "That's right, darling. We share. You're such a good helper. What should we make today?"

  Ella smiled up at Violet with wide-eyed expectancy and gave her standard answer. "Cookies!"

  "Cookies?" Violet clucked her tongue. "Really? Are you sure you don't want cabbage?"

  Ella shook her head. "No!"

  "Spinach, then."

  She loved this game and shook her head violently. "Nooo!"

  "Porcupine stew?"

  Now she giggled. "Nooooo! Cookies!"

  An insistent banging on the apartment door made Violet drop the measuring cup. Flour spilled on the counter and Ella stared up at her, looking alarmed. Violet slipped off her apron, brushed the flour from her hands and went to see who was banging.

  On the landing stood a man, half-covered in blood. He was out of breath and panting. Violet had seen enough blood during the war that she didn't gasp, but she moved to block Ella's view of him and partially closed the door behind her.

  "Forgive me, Mrs. Walker. Your husband sent me for you. Can ya come downstairs right away? He needs you."

  Ice poured through her. "Is it Ethan? Is he hurt?"

  "No, ma'am. It's my brother Will's blood on me. Wheel broke on the wagon an' fell on top of him and his leg's hurt awful bad. Please come right away."

  Violet scooped up Ella, not at all sure she wanted the child anywhere near whatever was happening downstairs. But she had no choice, it seemed.

  There was a crowd gathered near the door, mostly miners from the look of them, covered in the muddy grime of Clear Creek. Their expressions betrayed the seriousness of the accident.

  She spotted Maeve Tucker in the crowd, who hurried over to Violet with her arms outstretched. "Give her t' me, Violet. I'll watch her down at the store. You go on in."

  "Mama!" Ella cried.

  "Thank you, Maeve." She handed her over and kissed Ella on the crown of her head. "You go with Maeve, just for a little while, Ella. Then we'll make cookies." She hoped.

  The crowd parted almost reverently to allow Violet in.

  Her heart fluttered like a bird's wing against her ribs.

  Inside, Ethan and Charlie Harris were leaning over the examination table in the back room, holding down a bloody man who was thrashing and moaning. A bone poked through the leg of his trousers. It was the sort of injury she'd seen many times in the war, and the only outcome was amputation. Ethan was already covered in the man's blood.

  "You're not helping yourself," Ethan told the man, unable to stop his thrashing. "Lie still."

  The man was nearly out of his head with pain and panic. Ethan instructed Charlie to pin down Will's thighs with his weight.

  A wave of nausea came over her, but she bit it back.

  Ethan looked up, and in the instant before he put his scowl in place, she saw a flash of relief in his gaze as he saw her coming. "I need your help," he said. "You have helped in surgery before, haven't you?"

  She nodded.

  Ethan dropped his head down below his shoulders and closed his eyes as sweat trickled down his cheek. "I'm going to try to save his leg, but I need you to prepare my instruments for me. Help me with the chloroform. You won't faint, will you?"

  She shook her head. "I told you, I don't. Tell me what you want me to do."

  "Good." He gave her instructions and she scrambled to gather all the instruments he asked for. She brought one of the two pans of heated water over to the operating table.

  It all came back to her as if she'd done it just yesterday instead of more than two years ago. When she'd found everything he needed, she moved to stand near the patient's head. Will looked up at her with frantic eyes.

  She rested her palm against his forehead and smoothed his
hair back. "Your name's Will?" she asked quietly.

  "Will Bartlett," he managed through gritted teeth. "It hurts somethin' terrible—"

  "Yes," she agreed, her fingers sifting through his hair. "But if you thrash about you'll hurt yourself more. We're going to help you. You're in good hands with Dr. Walker."

  "Don't let him cut off my leg, for God's sake," he begged. "I can't live with only one leg. Please..."

  "Hold him," Ethan told Charlie. "I've got to wash my hands. Violet, get that chloroform going. Six drops. No more to start."

  She nodded, picking up a clean cloth and dripping the chloroform onto it. Bartlett thrashed again and screamed in pain.

  "Mr. Bartlett, I'm going to help you sleep now, do you hear me? In a moment, all that pain will be gone. Shhhh. Try to be still now."

  Bartlett did quiet down then and stared up at her as if he was drowning and only she could save him. "Am I gonna die?"

  She caught Ethan's eye for a moment then. He looked grim, almost detached. She looked back at Bartlett.

  "No. We won't let you die. I promise. Are you ready?"

  He hesitated before nodding and squeezing his eyes shut.

  Violet had done this a hundred times before, and the sickeningly sweet smell of the chloroform brought back an angry rush of memories of the brutality of those army tents, the desperation and the blood.

  She looked up at Ethan, who was carefully wiping his hands on a clean towel. How many men's legs had he been forced to amputate in the war? she wondered. There was no doubt in her mind that if Will was in one of those tents right now, he would lose his leg.

  After cleaning the wound, Ethan and Charlie worked together to reset Bartlett's leg, a two-man operation. It was a painstaking process that took brute force, and she thanked God the man felt nothing. She watched Ethan clean the wound again with alcohol and carefully stitch him up with a finer needle than she'd ever seen used.

  During her time in the war, she'd worked with many surgeons, and doctors who called themselves surgeons. Many of them were no better than butchers. But Ethan's work was fine and careful. If infection didn't take his leg—or worse, his life—Will Bartlett had a good chance to heal. Maybe he'd even walk normally again.

  Ethan set the leg with a pair of narrow boards wrapped with muslin, and, when he woke, dosed him heavily with laudanum.

  To the relief of the men gathered outside, Ethan carefully explained what he'd done before they carried the sleeping man on a pallet, back to his home. Bartlett was, apparently, quite popular among the miners, and his brother gave Ethan an almost violent handshake.

  "Will he walk again, Doc?" he asked.

  "Time will tell, Gerald," Ethan said curtly. "I've done my best by him. I'll be over to check on him later tonight."

  Gerald Bartlett wiped his sleeve under his nose. "Thank ya, sir. Much obliged. And to you, too, ma'am."

  Violet nodded, but slipped quietly back inside. She understood why Ethan was revered in this town. His was a rare skill. Without him, Will might surely have bled to death. Forget about ever walking again.

  A few minutes later, Ethan joined her in the office and sat down opposite her. He looked exhausted. His hands and shirt were still covered with blood and smudges of it flecked his face and throat.

  "You did well," he said, picking up a towel and wiping his hands on it. "I wonder if it's a good idea, though, to make a man in his condition unrealistic promises."

  "It comforted him," she said, simply.

  "He has a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the infection that's bound to come."

  "I promised we wouldn't kill him. That was true. If he had died, it wouldn't be our doing in that surgery. Besides, I find a positive outlook can sometimes heal the most terrible of wounds. You saved his life," she said. "Do you think he'll walk again?"

  "Probably not. He'll probably lose that leg, or his life."

  She frowned. "Then why didn't you just amputate?"

  He rubbed a palm across his forehead. "Because there's a slim chance he'll heal and walk again. And I'll take that chance. I crippled too many men during the war."

  "You mean the war crippled them. Bullets and shrapnel crippled them."

  Ethan stood and moved to the table where his instruments lay. "Right. Where's Ella?"

  "With Maeve. She's fine." She studied him. "You need rest."

  "Later," he said, but glancing down at his bloody shirt, he began to unbutton it.

  His left hand, she saw, was shaking and he couldn't manage the buttons.

  Violet walked to him and moved his hands away. "Here. Let me." It wasn't a request, but an order.

  "You don't have to—"

  "I know," she said. "Let me."

  Reluctantly, Ethan dropped his hands to his sides, allowing it. It wasn't merely fatigue that had his hands shaking. It was Will's particular wound. It brought back the war and the blood-covered grounds of the surgical tents, and the helplessness that had invaded his soul.

  And his damned hand wouldn't stop shaking.

  She eased the shirt off of him and dropped it on the floor. Then she started to do the same for the tops of his long johns, but he stopped her with his hand.

  "You won't like what you see," he warned her.

  A flush lit her cheeks and she searched his eyes. "You forget what I have already seen in those tents, Dr. Walker." Pushing his hand aside, she undid the placket of his long johns and laid bare his torso.

  The puckered scar and hand-sized swath of scar tissue from the burns of the shrapnel that had nearly taken his arm distorted the skin of his left shoulder just below his collarbone.

  Ethan waited for her reaction. Disgust. Horror. He remembered Suzanne's expression when she'd seen it. She had nearly retched.

  But he could find none of that disgust in Violet's expression when she asked, "The war?"

  He nodded. "I was a surgeon there, but this was how it ended."

  She nodded in return without so much as a flinch. Instead, she took him by the shoulders and guided him to the chair.

  "Sit," she told him. "Wait right there." She found a clean cloth and soaked it in the fresh, still-warm water in the second pan.

  It was merely relief he felt, wasn't it, that she hadn't cringed at his scar? Whatever it was, it did nothing to allay the kick of heat her touch inspired.

  Hell.

  He'd done his best to stay away from her this week. As far as he could get, but it hadn't eased the ache inside him when he thought of her. He'd hoped maybe hard work might sweat it out of him, but that hadn't helped either.

  He'd sworn to himself he'd never allow those feelings in again, the ones that had nearly broken him before. Could he risk going there again? Did he dare? A man with any damned sense should learn from his mistakes, shouldn't he?

  Now, after a very long and sleepless week, he was at the end of his rope with this whole business.

  You could never know what a woman was thinking, he reminded himself. He'd thought he knew Suzanne, but he'd been dead wrong about her.

  Ethan stayed Violet's hand with his. "I can do that."

  "I know," she said, and proceeded to wash the blood from his face, his hands, his chest.

  He allowed it. Clenching his teeth, he held his arm out for her and closed his eyes, trying to remember the last time a woman had come near him with anything close to tenderness. But tender turned sensual as she ran the soapy cloth up and down his arms, along his wrists and between his fingers. He went rock hard and there was nothing for it as she rinsed the soap off with a wrung-out cloth.

  He supposed she'd done this to a hundred men in the war, but no one had ever done it for him. His heart clapped against the wall of his chest like cannonade.

  He opened his eyes and as she lifted her head, she was inches away from him. His gaze fell to her mouth.

  "There. That's better," she pronounced, but she didn't move away. Instead, she looked deep into his eyes as if trying to see inside him. "There's nothing wrong with letting someone help y
ou, Ethan."

  And there was nothing for it but to take her face in his hands and kiss her.

  Chapter 8

  It was nothing like the closed-mouth kiss they'd shared on the day of their wedding, or even the awkward one in the meadow, but an intimate falling into one another. A hungry exchange of breath and sighs. Her lips were soft and lush and she parted them as he asked for more.

  With her eyes shut, she slanted the kiss deeper, her mouth sliding against his while her tongue danced with his.

  She tasted sweet, he thought, like honey. Why did she taste so damned sweet?

  Getting to his feet, he pulled her against his bare chest, feeling her inhale sharply. Her arms slid around him, warm and damp from the water. As tall as she was, she felt slight in his arms and he realized suddenly that she was trembling.

  He broke the kiss, reluctantly, and leaned his forehead against hers.

  "You should go find Ella," he told her.

  "Yes," she agreed, slightly breathless. "Should I?"

  "If you know what's good for you." His fingers trailed down the sides of her waist, where his thumbs found a spot beneath her breasts and slid back and forth.

  "Maybe neither one of us knows what's good for the other."

  He pulled her against him and held her, allowing her to feel exactly what he meant. "I want you, Violet. Make no mistake."

  She pressed her lips against the damp skin of his chest. "What are you afraid of? That you'll feel something for me? Are we to not touch each other for the rest of our lives, for fear of that?"

  Hell if he would.

  She gasped as he lifted her up on her toes and took her mouth with his again in a plundering kiss. She gripped the sides of his waist with her hands to steady herself.

  Ethan kissed her neck again and slid his mouth along her throat until his tongue dipped into the hollow between her collarbones. "You don't know me."

  Violet tipped her head back to give him better access as he rose to explore her ear. "You could let me know you," she whispered.