Page 12 of A Forgotten Heart (Wind River Mail-Order Brides #5)

E lsie didn’t want to open her eyes. Morning light seeped in from the hallway, but she didn’t move. If she was awake, it meant she should separate herself from the steady rise and fall of Nick’s chest beside her.

Last night, she’d been completely muddled by Nick’s kiss before she’d gone for firewood. She knew she should have pushed him away. Refused the kiss. But there was a part of her that wanted to relive the kiss. Cherish it.

It’d been so much sweeter than what she remembered from their time at normal school. It made her want to laugh and cry all at once.

All too soon, she’d found the firewood stockpiled along the wall at the side of the doctor’s office. She didn’t have a choice but to go back inside.

Nick stood by the window, coat still on, waiting for her.

It had been a very long time since someone had cared enough to check on her. Wait for her.

He’d offered a boyish smile. “Welcome home.”

At his words, something shifted deep inside her.

And she was so tired of resisting.

Next to her, Nick moved, bringing her back to the present. He tugged her closer.

Was this what it would’ve been like had they never had their fight? This loving, protective Nick, hers forever?

After experiencing what might’ve been, she didn’t know how to put her walls back up.

She opened her eyes. The room seemed brighter. The sun shone in from the front room and carried down the hall to their storeroom.

Outside, a muffled voice called. Someone answered. The sound slithered a cold realization down her back.

The storm was over. The townspeople were out and about.

Feeling suddenly exposed, she forced herself to stand and move down the hall to the exam room, a blanket tightly wrapped around her shoulders.

Out the window, sunlight glistened brightly against the pure white snow. Despite the drifts a couple feet high still blocking most doorways, a smattering of people were out shoveling doorways, sweeping snow into the street.

What if someone needed the doctor and came looking at the clinic? She and Nick would be discovered. Her reputation would be shattered.

She’d known the storm would end, and yet she wasn’t ready.

She quickly returned to the back room and bent down next to Nick.

Her hand hovered above his shoulder, ready to wake him, but first she studied his features. This was the Nick she wanted to remember.

It was unfair. Lord, why have You given me a glimpse of what might have been?

She swallowed against the lump in her throat and shook his shoulder. “Nick. Wake up. The storm’s over.”

His eyelids fluttered open, followed by a warm smile. “Morning, beautiful. What time is it?”

She went to the counter and began to quickly clean up the mess she’d made baking biscuits. Her hands shook. “I’m not sure, but people are milling about.”

He grunted as he pushed to a sitting position. “We’ll need to visit the ranch. My brothers will be looking for me.”

She was afraid of that. Nick had three brothers. They would surely be worried about him. Wondering where he’d been. And who he’d been with.

She left the last of the crumbs and grabbed a blanket to fold. “We should pick up. The doctor can’t return to this mess.” Nor could anyone see their sleeping arrangement. But she didn’t voice that.

Nick was slow to stand. “Just give me a moment.”

Worried, she set the folded blanket on the floor and went to him.

Careful to not rip open his scabs, she peeled back his bandage. The wound flared red, but no signs of fresh blood. Relief pushed through her.

He was in no condition to ride anywhere. He must’ve overdone it yesterday. He wasn’t going to make it back to the ranch.

He wouldn’t thank her to say so.

“There are huge snowdrifts everywhere,” she said instead. “You’ll want to stay in town a day or two.”

He smiled at her with such warmth that her stomach tumbled. “We would sleep a lot more comfortably at the hotel, huh?”

His words hit like a blow, though he didn’t realize it. They absolutely couldn’t.

Elsie replaced his bandage with shaking hands. “We should go to Merritt and Jack’s place.”

Merritt would know what to do.

“Merritt and who?”

“Jack. Merritt’s husband.”

She saw his confusion and consternation in the way his brows drew together. “Merritt isn’t married.”

“She is married. Since last February.” That was why Elsie had come to teach in Calvin—Merritt had given up her post after she’d married.

That knowledge pressed against her chest, but she swallowed the words to tell him. She couldn’t admit she was teaching in Calvin without telling him everything.

“We need to go,” she reminded him gently. She grabbed his hand and tugged. But he didn’t budge.

Instead, he turned her hand over in his and smoothed his thumb over her ring finger. “El, I’ve wanted to ask, why aren’t you wearing my ring?”

He had to have felt her hand tremble, but he didn’t let go.

When she couldn’t find an answer, he went on. “Drew gave me my mother’s ring after she died. I know I gave it to you to wear.”

Except they weren’t married. And she couldn’t bear to lie to him.

She tugged her hand free. “We need to go.”

He followed her into the front room, where movement outside the window caught her attention.

She froze.

Outside, a tall man in a cowboy hat crossed the street in their direction. But it was the dog at the man’s side that raised her pulse.

Nick’s dog.

And they were headed for the doctor’s office.

“Nick, someone’s coming,” Elsie called out.

Nick shuffled into the front room, not sure whether the nauseated feeling churning in his gut was from walking or from the tense tone in her voice.

Maybe he shouldn’t have kissed her last night, but she’d responded with such hunger, as if starved for his touch, that he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.

And as she’d drifted off to sleep, the way she’d nestled into him had been tinged with desperation.

But this morning, she was acting as nervous as a barn cat brought inside the house.

As he walked into the room, Elsie glanced over her shoulder, her eyes wide when she registered his shirt was still unbuttoned. “Can you button up, please?”

Someone pounded on the door.

Elsie flinched.

He grasped her elbow, not sure yet whether to push her behind him or make a run for it.

The visitor didn’t knock a second time. The door flung open, and a familiar figure stomped in.

“Ed!”

Relief flooded Ed’s face as his eyes flicked from Nick to Elsie and back. He took a longer look at Nick, and his expression shifted to concern.

“What happened?” Ed demanded.

Elsie shrank back, but Ed didn’t seem to notice as his gaze zeroed in on Nick. He strode forward, flipping the side of Nick’s shirt open. “You hurt?”

“Bullet grazed me.”

“It more than grazed you,” Elsie said quietly.

Ed’s attention snapped to her, and his eyes narrowed.

But Nick’s focus returned to the door that Ed hadn’t closed all the way. The crack in the door widened as a furry snout pushed inside even before the door swung fully open.

A dog with a grayish coat and a spot over one eye trounced to Nick with a whimper, leaving a trail of snow clumps falling from its fur.

Ed leaned in for a closer look at the bandage wrapped around Nick’s head. “Merritt was worried when you didn’t stop by her house to say goodbye. She got Rebekah all riled up. Then, when Patch showed up…Who shot at you?”

Ed’s rapid-fire questions made Nick’s head hurt, and he brushed past his brother to scratch the dog’s ears. It nuzzled into Nick’s hand, tail swishing.

“Rebecca who?” he asked absently.

Ed seemed frustrated when he turned on his heel toward Elsie. “Who shot at him?”

Nick scrutinized the dog. It seemed so familiar…He froze. “Patch. You’re Patch.” Images of this dog, his dog, flashed across his mind.

Something wiggled loose inside his head, and memories—of teaching Patch to dance on his hind legs, of cuddling the puppy inside his coat on a cold day, of Patch curled on the end of his cot in the bunkhouse—all filtered through Nick’s mind.

Followed immediately by a penetrating pain behind his right eye.

He must’ve gasped, because both Ed and Elsie were right there, each with a hand under his elbow, helping him to stand.

It might’ve been humorous, the way they stared at each other from either side of him. If his head didn’t hurt so much. He pressed one palm into his forehead.

“Start talking.” His usually mild-mannered brother must be upset if he was taking that tone. “Who shot at you?”

Nick started to shake his head, then thought better of it. “I don’t know. And you were mentioning someone named Rebekah. Rebekah who?”

Ed frowned. “What do you mean ‘Rebecca who?’ My wife.”

Nick’s knees weakened, and he slumped against the wall. Wife? His brother was married? “Not Rebecca Edwards. You hate her!”

Ed sent him a slanted look, both angry and worried. “What’s wrong with you?”

The memories with Patch still tumbled in his brain, and he couldn’t process this new information.

Ed married. To Rebekah Edwards.

Elsie was biting her lip. “You mean the lady who runs the newspaper is your wife?” she asked quietly.

“Yes…” Ed drew out, a frown deepening across his features.

Elsie turned her face away. Ed watched her like he was trying to figure out who she was. What was going on?

Nick fumbled for the buttons on his shirt when his fingers wouldn’t work right. Ed stood close and buttoned for him. “I knew something was wrong when Patch showed up at the newspaper office.”

Elsie was moving around. Picking up again? He couldn’t pry his eyes open to see.

“When he was shot, he fell and hit his head.” He heard Elsie’s voice as if it echoed around an empty chamber. “He’s lost some memories.”

“Where was he when he was shot?” Ed sounded gruffer than usual.

More rustling from Elsie. “Right when the storm started to pick up, Nick and I were having, well, a discussion on the boardwalk, then someone started shooting at us.”

“Who?” Ed barked. He patted Nick’s chest when he was finished with the buttons.

“We don’t know.” Elsie sounded uncertain.

“First, you’re missing in a blizzard, then I find out someone was shooting at you.” Ed was really riled up.

Nick’s eyesight blurred. “Hey, ease up, will ya?”

When he forced his eyes open, Elsie was standing half in and half out of the doorway to the hall.

Nick remembered her urgency last night. She’d wanted to leave to get help.

This morning, she’d been ready to leave from the moment he’d woken up.

He had a sudden fear that if she left, he would never see her again.

Ed didn’t notice. He was staring at the front window. “Quade. It had to be. Him or one of his hired guns.”

Nick pushed off the wall, more concerned about Elsie, who’d gone pale at Ed’s words. “Quade holed up at the saloon during the storm.”

Ed strode to the window and peeked out. “You sure?”

“That’s what the kid told us.” Hadn’t he? Nick’s head hurt worse.

Elsie knew. She was watching him. Still poised for flight. “He did.”

Ed glanced over his shoulder at her. “What kid? And who are you?”

An expression Nick couldn’t identify flitted across Elsie’s face. He shuffled toward her, one slow step at a time. “Ed, you know Elsie. My wife.”

Ed moved toward Nick, bristling with protectiveness. “Nick, you aren’t married.”

As if in slow motion, something settled into place in Nick’s brain. Elsie was staring back, tears brimming in her eyes.

A muscle ticked in Ed’s jaw. “I thought you were the nurse?—”

Nick saw Ed’s protective, angry words hit as Elsie flinched. He held out one hand to stop his brother. His thoughts whirled, but there was still too much missing.

Ed didn’t know Elsie? How could that be?

“The doctor said his memories will likely return. Said to keep him calm so he wouldn’t injure himself.” The words spilled out of Elsie in a rush.

“So you lied and told him you were married?”

“She didn’t,” Nick blurted as the realization dawned on him. From the moment he’d come to on that exam table, she’d done her level best to keep him at arm’s length. Until that kiss.

Determination rose. Just because they weren’t married didn’t mean that they didn’t love each other. He couldn’t have mistaken that. It was there in her touch. In her kiss last night.

He felt it bone deep.

“Leave it,” he told Ed.

He still couldn’t fathom why Ed didn’t know Elsie, but that was a problem for later.

Ed leveled a look on him that said this conversation wasn’t over and went back to staring out the window. “I don’t like you being so exposed if Quade was the one who shot you. We need to get out of here.”

“There are a lot of people out and about. Surely no one would try to attack in broad daylight.” But Elsie’s argument was more uncertain than anything else.

“You don’t know Quade,” Ed muttered.

The rancher had been a thorn in their family’s side for more than a decade now. Had things gotten so bad he’d taken to outright murder?

Thinking about how close those bullets must have come to Elsie made Nick shiver.

“I can’t move fast,” he warned his brother. “And we’ll be an easy target in a wagon if there’s a lot of drifts.”

“He can barely walk,” Elsie said quietly.

Ed flicked a glance at her and then Nick. “We’ll go to the newspaper office for now. We should be safe there until we figure out a way to get to the ranch.” He spoke to Elsie as he drew his revolver. “I’ll play lookout. Can you help him walk?”

Ed must’ve somehow known Nick wasn’t going anywhere without Elsie. Nick was grateful for that. But Elsie looked like she wanted to protest.

Nick took the last two steps to reach her. “Come with us, El-Belle. You might be a target too. I want to keep you safe.”

He saw the flare of her nostrils, the tremble of her lips. This was still the Elsie who’d clung to him last night.

“I’ll get your satchel and coat,” she murmured, then moved down the hall.

That wasn’t an answer. Would she sneak out the back door?

He glanced at Ed, who watched him with a furrowed brow. “What?”

Ed shook his head. “Nothing.”

Elsie returned, Nick’s satchel looped over her shoulder. Without saying a word, she helped Nick into his blood-stained coat, then slid her arm around his torso. She didn’t look at him, but that was all right.

They followed Ed out the front door.

This wasn’t over. He and Elsie needed to sit down and talk. But first, they needed to get to safety.