Love on the Range (Brothers in Arms #3)
Mary Connealy
One
SEPTEMBER 1870
BEAR CLAW PASS, WYOMING
Molly Garner bent over Wyatt Hunt, bathing his fevered brow. How many gunshots did a woman have to tend in one lifetime?
This was her third in the last month. It might happen more if you were a doctor or fighting a war, but she thought she’d done more than her share, and she’d had several pointed conversations with God about why this kept happening to her.
Of course, she wasn’t the one who had been shot. So she admitted, as much as she’d been called on to doctor people, she was better off than the wounded. And they weren’t yet sure they’d caught whoever had shot Wyatt, so that danger remained until they got a confession out of one of the outlaws.
Yes, in calmer moments she admitted that tending gunshots wasn’t as bad as being shot. So she wasn’t the only one who’d had it hard.
God’s answer was to make Wyatt’s fever come back up, so Molly tried to quit feeling sorry for herself and just pray for her patient, tend him, worry, and pray some more. His fever had been up and down several times.
The work didn’t occupy her mind. It occupied endless hours with no sleep and precious little help, but soothing his fevered brow with ice-cold water and pouring willow bark tea and a few other concoctions she’d contrived didn’t take much thinking. While she cared for Wyatt, she considered how much her life had changed in just a month’s time.
One big change: Kansas.
She most certainly wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
She had been born and raised there. Now she was long gone, living at a ranch in Wyoming. It was only two states away from Kansas, but they were big states. She thought of what she’d left behind in Kansas and fervently hoped they were big enough.
Another change: Kevin, her brother, got married. His bride, Winona Hawkins Hunt, seemed decent enough. She worked in the kitchen to keep the broth and tea brewing for Wyatt. She’d started talking to Molly a few times, as had Kevin, but it seemed they both had a talent for wanting to talk right when Wyatt started burning with fever.
A second wedding was joining Wyatt’s big sister, Cheyenne, and his big brother Falcon. Molly would have enjoyed watching them explain that to the parson.
Andy, her little brother, was turning into some kind of cowboy.
And of course, Molly—her own life had changed.
Somehow she’d become the cook, housekeeper, and doctor for a crowd of strangers. What did they call it? She remembered something . . . oh yes, chief cook and bottle washer. Or maybe jack-of-all-trades, master of none.
Or just the dupe who’d found it her lot in life to care for a herd of thankless strangers who kept getting themselves shot.
She caught herself. Breathed in and out. Bathed Wyatt’s fevered brow and calmed down, counting her blessings. Then she thought of Kevin getting shot and forgot about calm. He was no stranger. And he was mostly well by the time he got home, so he required no doctoring. And neither Kevin nor Andy was thankless, but they weren’t around all that much.
And maybe worst of all, Kevin, her big brother, her closest confidant, the man she trusted most in the world, a man who had once saved her—he’d betrayed her.
And she couldn’t wait to get shut of all of them.
She’d do it as soon as Wyatt got over this most recent gunshot.
She’d thought Kansas—before, during, and after the Civil War—had been dangerous. They’d called it Bleeding Kansas, after all. A state acting out the Civil War before the real one got started, with people deciding elections by shooting the opposition to stop them from voting. There was a half-witted way to run a state.
But Wyoming was no Sunday picnic party, either.
“Chey!” Wyatt tossed his head. His fever had come back up. He was calling for his sister, Cheyenne, whom he called Chey. It sounded like shy, and no woman Molly had ever met was less likely to be called shy.
But tough, dangerous, not-shy Cheyenne wasn’t here to help with her brother. Her real brother—not the connected-but-not-by-blood brother she was marrying. And her absence upset Molly’s patient. And that made Molly want to punch Cheyenne right in the face.
Of course, if she did, Cheyenne would probably beat her to a lump on the ground and shoot her, so Molly would just daydream about swinging a fist while doing all the work and taking care of everyone.
Something that, in all honesty, she felt like she’d been doing all her life.
She caught herself again. Breathed in and out. Bathed Wyatt’s fevered brow and calmed down, counting her blessings.
“Chey. Chey.” Wyatt tried to throw the covers back. He couldn’t. Molly had a firm hold of his right hand, and his left arm was strapped tight to his body because, in Molly’s doctorly opinion, he’d broken his collarbone. It wouldn’t heal if it wasn’t kept still.
Cheyenne should be here helping with this.
Yes, they’d gotten home late last night. Yes, they’d captured four gun-slinging outlaws. Yes, they’d found and rescued Amelia Bishop, who’d been kidnapped, and yes, they needed to go with the Pinkerton agent, Rachel Hobart, to talk to the sheriff today about the crimes committed by people far and wide. The wedding was going to be in there somewhere, so yes, they had a lot to do.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Fine!