Page 10 of A Forgotten Heart (Wind River Mail-Order Brides #5)

T he fire burning in Nick’s shoulder roused him from a restless sleep. He came to wakefulness slowly, head pounding.

He strained his ears before he opened his eyes. Snow lashed the outer wall, the storm still raging. Daylight leaked into the windowless room from the hall door, so it must be morning.

Clenching his jaw against the pain, he stretched his hand across the blankets for Elsie, looking to pull her close again, but the space was empty.

A chill ran through him as he realized she was gone. Where was she?

He pushed himself to a sitting position. Pain a little less, but head still throbbing. What he wouldn’t give for one of Ma’s medicinal teas.

Relief washed through him when he found Elsie standing at the potbelly stove, her back to him. She must’ve heard him, because she said, “You shouldn’t be up,” without looking his way.

Nick wanted to lie back down, but the pain lancing his shoulder kept him rigid for the time being. “I didn’t know where you’d gone.”

She bustled over and propped his pillow against the wall behind him, still not meeting his eyes. “If you want the coffee I made you, you’d better sit back, or you’ll scald yourself.”

He watched as she poured his coffee. Calm and quiet as if the middle-of-the-night conversation hadn’t happened. Had he dreamed it? No.

He accepted the cup of coffee she held out to him. “How’d you sleep?”

Her hands flitted to a towel hanging on a chair, her gaze averted. “Fine.”

Fine. The word sounded crisp on her lips, as if cutting off any other conversation.

The corner of Nick’s mouth dipped. After last night, he’d thought for sure the invisible barrier between them had started to crumble. But she acted as if she didn’t even remember their conversation.

The coffee turned bitter in his mouth.

“Do you want a biscuit?” Elsie asked from the stove.

He glanced up, but as he did, a leather case leaning against a chair snagged his attention. Several official-looking papers stuck out from the opening.

“Is that mine?” It looked like the satchel he used to carry books when he left for normal school, but it was so worn.

“It is.” Before he even had to ask, she brought it to his side.

He scooted himself higher against the pillow, hiding a wince at the fire in his shoulder, and opened the flap.

Inside there were two books. Around the World in Eighty Days, his favorite, and American Cattle: Their History, Breeding, and Management . An odd choice. One he never would’ve chosen for himself. The book must be for a student or another family.

He set the books aside and pulled out the papers.

He unfolded them, his eyes scanning the text.

Deed papers?

They hadn’t been filed, but it looked like a land purchase. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled as he read the location. If he was right, it was a plot of land adjacent to his family’s homestead.

Pain surged into his head, and he closed his eyes.

Why would he be carrying land papers? Was Drew planning to expand the ranch?

Elsie hovered over him. He hadn’t even heard her approach. She held out a biscuit, and he took it absently.

He lifted the papers toward Elsie. “El, do you know what this is? Why I’ve got?—”

A loud knock hammered the front door. Elsie jumped.

He watched her eyes dart to the front hall, consider the back door, which was nearer.

“Isn’t it still snowing?” Nick demanded quietly. He couldn’t forget how jumpy she’d been all day yesterday. Startling at the faintest noise. Someone had shot him. Had they figured out that he’d survived? Come to finish the job?

Elsie stared at the hallway, her cheeks a little pale. “Yes. Still snowing.”

Then who was out there? At the door in a whiteout?

Nick wasn’t going to let anything happen to Elsie.

He pulled himself to his feet, but dizziness wrapped around him, and he braced one hand against the wall.

Whoever it was banged again.

“Don’t answer, El,” he whispered. “Maybe they’ll think no one is here and go away.”

She stood in the middle of the room, indecision written on her expression. “But what if someone needs help?”

Another knock rattled the door against its hinges. “Doctor!” a muffled voice called. “I need a doctor!”

Elsie moved toward the hallway. “We can’t ignore someone who needs help.” Still, she hesitated.

Nick shoved away from the wall but had to brace his hand again to keep from toppling over. “You aren’t going without me.”

He trailed her down the hall, ashamed at how weak he was. He was still several steps behind her when she opened the door.

A kid no more than sixteen or seventeen tumbled inside, cradling his right hand wrapped in a rag, eyes wild. “Where’s the doctor?”

Elsie stared at the blood staining the kid’s towel, brow pinched. “He hasn’t returned from delivering a baby.”

“I need stitching.” The kid looked from Nick to Elsie expectantly. Elsie shook her head, eyes still locked on that bloody bandage.

Nick studied the kid. He didn’t look dangerous. “Can’t your ma sew you up?”

The boy’s eyes roved over the bandage wrapped around Nick’s head and down to where Nick’s shoulder slumped against the wall. “You don’t look so good, mister.”

Nick could say the same about the kid. His face was drawn and pale with dark circles under his eyes. Like he’d been up all night. A stab of concern over the kid’s situation pricked Nick’s stomach.

Elsie must’ve felt the same. “Come into the exam room.”

Inside, Elsie unwrapped the towel from the boy’s hand and grimaced, a greenish hue dropping over her features.

Nick shuffled in behind them in time to see the cut was deep. Almost to the bone. The kid really did need stitches.

Elsie covered the wound back up with a fortifying breath. “Take a seat. I’m not a doctor, but I know how to sew.”

Of course her compassion would overrule her squeamishness. The kid plopped into a chair as she left the room to gather supplies.

The kid swallowed. “I wouldn’t have come ’cept Mr. Quade said I should get stitches.”

At Quade’s name, a warning shot through Nick’s gut. “Quade?”

The kid shrugged. “Sure, he’s been there at the saloon since the snow started.”

Everything in Nick chilled as if ice traveled through his veins.

An image floated through Nick’s mind—an expensive Thoroughbred hitched outside the saloon. Quade’s horse. Snow swirling all around.

He tried to focus on the images, but they slipped away, spiraling back into the darkness like a snowflake on the wind.

Was that a true memory? Or his imagination?

“Why were you at the saloon, kid?” Nick asked.

The kid leaned his head back against the chair, as if unaware that his mention of Quade had hit Nick square in the chest. “I work in the kitchen. Mostly washing cups and plates. Mr. Roland let a bunch of cowboys wait out the storm in his place for a price. Mr. Quade was there too. Mr. Roland offered me a week’s extra pay if I stayed to keep working.

Then a brawl broke out. That’s how I sliced my hand. ”

Nick ground his teeth. So, Quade was waiting out the storm in the saloon with a bunch of drunk cowboys. That couldn’t be good.

Elsie hurried back into the room and started to lay the supplies out on the table. She still looked a little green.

She hovered the needle over the kid’s hand. Swallowed hard.

Nick leaned away from the wall so he could stand upright. “You can do this, El-Belle.”

Something passed over her face. Her gaze darted to his.

Nick didn’t care that it was the kid needing help who’d prompted her to look at him again.

She was finally meeting his eyes, and he tried to use everything inside him to show her the steady belief he had in her.

He nodded, and fresh determination settled on her face. As if he’d given her courage.

When she bent over the kid’s hand, Nick slumped into a nearby chair where he had a good view of her procedure.

He watched her pinch her lips in determination as she worked, head bowed over the kid’s hand. Her fingers were deft and nimble, and she kept stitching with the needle even as the kid whimpered, looking away from where she worked.

As Nick watched her, something niggled in the back of his mind. It wasn’t until she snipped the loose thread that he realized her left hand was bare.

His mother’s wedding band wasn’t on her ring finger. Why wouldn’t his wife be wearing his ring?

Nick’s head started to throb as Elsie tucked the needle and thread away on the counter across the room. She was saying something to the kid, but her words were muffled as Nick fought off the pain piercing behind his eyes.

He had been up for too long.

There was movement in the room. Elsie bandaging the kid up, maybe? It was all Nick could do to focus on staying upright, one shoulder leaned into the wall.

He did notice when Elsie ushered the kid down the hallway to the front door, using her body to block the view to the back room where they’d slept last night. Why?

Moments passed, maybe longer, before she came back into the room. Her brow creased as she studied him. “Nick? Are you okay?”

He wasn’t all right. A wave of fatigue hit, and he let her help him back to his pallet. He slipped off to sleep wondering, where was his mother’s ring?

And why couldn’t he remember?

The afternoon wore on. No one else sought out the doctor. All Elsie could feel was relief that Nick slept.

You are anything but forgettable .

The words Nick had spoken last night kept haunting her thoughts. Over and over again.

She couldn’t keep doing this. Everything inside her wanted to curl into Nick’s side. Let his arm come around her shoulders. Press her cheek against his chest. Accept the warmth and comfort he was offering her.

Only, this thing between them wasn’t real. His feelings weren’t real. And hers were a total mess.

Elsie crossed her arms over her middle, leaned against the doorframe of the exam room, staring out the window.

Still snowing. Snowing hard.

Gusts of wind rattled the window within its pane, and a chill prickled her arms.