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

“ Q uick. Grab his feet and help me carry him inside.”

The doctor’s voice pierced something inside Elsie and gave her fresh stamina. As she followed instructions, she couldn’t stop her gaze from straying to Nick’s pale face. There was so much blood pooling beneath him.

Please, God, don’t let it be too late.

Together, they carried Nick through the clinic door.

Inside, warmth wrapped around her like an embrace.

The small entryway held two ladder-back chairs. There were two doors, one on each side of the hallway. The walls displayed various certificates and diplomas.

She barely held on to her composure as the doctor led them to an exam room. “You’re lucky I heard you. I was just heading out the back to help deliver a baby.”

A chill passed down Elsie’s spine at how close she’d come to missing the doctor completely.

The rugless room echoed as they hoisted Nick’s limp form onto the exam table. She dropped his satchel by the door.

“Put pressure on his shoulder.”

She leaned into the rag the doctor had provided to cover the wound and stared at Nick’s chest, watching for the rise and fall of his lungs. She found herself breathing with him.

The doctor’s mouth pulled tight as he cleaned the wound at Nick’s hairline. “How did this happen?”

Elsie swallowed. “He fell from the boardwalk and hit his head on the step.”

Something in the doctor’s expression kindled dread deep in Elsie’s stomach. “He’s unconscious because of the blow to his head, not the loss of blood.”

But it seemed like so much blood. How bad had the blow been if it was worse?

She drew in a ragged breath. “Will he wake up?”

The doctor didn’t answer. Instead, he handed her a pair of scissors. “Here, cut away his shirt. I need to see his shoulder.”

As she did, the doctor wrapped Nick’s head. The white bandage against his skin gave him a gray pallor.

Grinding her teeth, she refocused on her task, hands shaking. She couldn’t injure him further.

The doctor moved to Nick’s shoulder, working swiftly.

The vapors from whatever antiseptic the doctor had poured into a rag burned her eyes. She blinked away the blurriness.

The doctor dabbed the wound. “Tell me what happened.”

Images of wood splintering just in front of her face, of the look of shock on Nick’s face when he’d been struck, of spilled blood turning the white snow pink—they all replayed in front of her mind, raising her pulse.

The doctor didn’t stop working, but he raised an eyebrow, waiting for her explanation.

“We were on the boardwalk, just…talking.” Arguing. Saying things she’d never say to another living soul. “Then someone shot at us.”

The doctor glanced up. “Who?”

Her throat clenched tight. “I don’t know. A ghost? I never saw him.”

The doctor jerked his head toward a nearby table. “Hand me those forceps.” As she did, the doctor’s face became thoughtful. “You didn’t see anyone?”

“No. It was as if they shot from the sky.”

The doctor’s mouth tightened. “Or a rooftop.” He met her gaze.

A shiver feathered over her skin as the realization hit. It hadn’t really sunk in until now.

The streets had been deserted. Someone had to have been aiming for her and Nick.

Elsie gripped the edge of the exam table as her knees went weak.

“You best be speaking with Marshal O’Grady as soon as possible,” the doctor mumbled.

Why would anyone want to hurt her? Want to hurt Nick? The violence of it shook her.

Elsie studied Nick’s face. Did he have any enemies? It seemed laughable. He’d always gotten along with everyone. Reached out a helping hand.

He’d been a good man.

The doctor probed deeper into his shoulder, but Nick didn’t even twitch.

No, she didn’t want him to be in pain, but she wanted to see him flinch. Grimace. Anything to prove he was alive. But he lay motionless.

“Got it.” The bullet pinged into a metal tray. “After I stitch him up, I’ve done all I can.”

Then what? Just wait for Nick to wake up?

“I have to go deliver that baby.”

Elsie’s eyes jerked to the doctor. “What?”

The doctor stayed focused on stitching Nick’s wound. “I told you I had a baby to deliver. If I don’t leave now, I might not make it.”

He couldn’t leave. Nick was unconscious. What if he didn’t wake up?

The doctor snipped away the thread, finished. “The bump on his head is significant. Don’t be surprised if he’s confused. You’ll need to keep him calm. He may wake disoriented.”

Shivers nipped at her spine. “But he doesn’t even…” Like her. Probably outright hated her. “I need to go home.”

The doctor pinned her with an intense look. “He has no one but you.”

The weight of his words settled.

Nick needed her.

It was so ironic she might’ve laughed if her insides didn’t feel like jelly. “What am I supposed to do?”

The doctor spoke over his shoulder as he bustled out of the room. “Keep the wound clean. Keep him calm. Don’t let him wander into the storm.”

The walls echoed with silence.

She hovered at Nick’s side. In sleep, with the angry lines around his mouth relaxed, he almost looked like the man she had known five years ago.

Where had the old Nick gone?

With a trembling hand, she lifted a lock of his hair trapped beneath his bandage. “Oh, Nick.”

His eyes fluttered open.

With a pinched brow, as if even the dim light hurt, he moved his gaze around the room. Then it landed on her.

She waited for his scowl—the one she’d seen only minutes ago on the boardwalk. But instead, his face softened into a half smile.

Confused, she let her hand drop to her side.

“Elsie. You’re here.”

Instead of contempt, there was a gruff tenderness that brought back too many painful memories.

She swallowed hard.

He started to sit up but groaned and fell back against the table.

Elsie put her hand on his chest. “You can’t get up.”

For a second, he looked like he would argue. His eyes closed, then reopened. “I love you.”

The words were like a blow to the chest, stealing her breath.

He closed his eyes again, completely out.

He loved her? It wasn’t true, she knew it, but that didn’t keep her heart from pounding. She’d believed him once, too long ago.

The doctor bustled into the room and handed her a spare shirt for Nick, which he must’ve had stashed someplace within the clinic. “Heard voices. Was he awake?”

Her hands trembled as she accepted the shirt. “Just for a minute.” She swallowed against the ache in her throat. “He wasn’t himself.”

The doctor put two fingers at Nick’s neck. “What do you mean?”

She couldn’t form the words to repeat what Nick had said . “He didn’t seem to remember we’d just had a fight. A—a horrible row.”

“I’ve seen tricky head wounds before. Memories can be lost for a period of time. It means there’s swelling inside the skull…”

The serious look the doctor cast toward her knotted her stomach.

“Will he—will he be all right?”

“It’s important he doesn’t move around, jar his head again. If he thinks you’re on friendly terms, you should be on friendly terms. Keep him still.”

She wanted to call after the doctor as he moved toward the door. He made Nick’s head wound sound dangerous.

On the threshold, the doctor looked back, black bag in hand and hat pulled low over his eyes. “Whatever you do, don’t let him get up and walk around.”

And then the door closed behind him.

Elsie wanted to run after him. Instead, she hurried to the window and scanned the barren street, the spare shirt still clutched in her hands.

The storm had thickened. Of course no one would be out and about. If only someone else could take charge and keep Nick safe. Someone more qualified than her.

But there was no one.

The whitewashed walls shrank in around her, swirling and combining with the white outside.

Friendly terms. She and Nick hadn’t been on friendly terms in years.

But they were stranded. Nowhere to go. No help to turn to. Nick’s well-being rested solely in her hands.

Oh, what was she going to do?

“Nick. Wake up.”

Elsie’s dulcet tone reached deep beneath the murky depths of his consciousness and beckoned him toward the surface. But each time he rose closer to where she was, a sharp pain pierced his head, and he relented to the heaviness.

He didn’t know the darkness, but he knew Elsie. Sensed she was nearby.

Some time must’ve passed.

“Nick?”

Nick struggled to emerge from the suffocating darkness. Elsie was calling for him.

But the closer to the surface he came, the greater the pain.

A hand rested on his forearm, warmth against his bare skin. Somehow it soothed the throb in his head.

A faint whiff of lilac met his nose, reminding him of spring and new beginnings.

His lids fluttered open. Even the dim light pierced his temple, and he bit back a groan.

Next to him sat the unfocused image of a woman, dabbing his forehead with a damp cloth. Her lips moved silently. Was she praying? Crying?

Elsie.

His pulse steadied. Her presence flooded a sense of safety over him, and he allowed himself to sink back into oblivion.

Little by little, the pain in his head returned as he awoke again.

Where was Elsie? She was the one thing that had anchored him over the past hours…days?

He pried his eyes open, feeling like someone was taking a pickax to the inside of his skull.

The room contained a table next to where he lay, a large cabinet with glass doors adjacent to it. The cabinet contained various surgical instruments and medical beakers. Doctor’s office?

Next to him sat a simple wooden chair, but it was empty.

As much as his stiff neck allowed, he scanned the room, but the action triggered his head to spasm.

He cringed. Had he only imagined Elsie earlier?

The low light flickered, making everything blurry.

Then he saw her, standing by the window.

The lantern cast an amber glow over her hair falling in blond tendrils around her fair face. In the window pane, he saw her reflection looking into the darkness beyond. She nibbled her bottom lip, like she always did when worried.

Something weighed heavily upon her to make her shoulders droop so.