but he heard only a rasp in his dry throat. His heart kept an even rhythm, another good sign.
Judging by the pain, he’d been hit high in the shoulder. Silently Josh thanked God the woman had owned a Derringer and not a Colt .45. He’d live as long as she didn’t panic and shoot him in the head.
He heard footsteps in the kitchen and opened his eyes. Bare toes and the hems of robes filled his vision.
“You shot him!” said a new female voice.
“What happened?” demanded another.
Could one of the women be Emily? The voices hadn’t matched hers—one sounded Southern and the other was too high pitched—but he’d seen four pairs of feet. Josh wanted to look but realized it would be fruitless. He’d become thin and ragged, but Emily would have recognized him. He closed his eyes in despair.
In a breath of silence, he heard the hopeful cooing of a baby and looked up. The fourth woman had an infant in her arms. The goat’s milk, he realized, was for the child. Expecting to be fed, it had settled into its mother’s arms but was growing impatient with the delay. The cooing turned to a complaint, then a wail that dwarfed everything in the room, including Josh’s pain.
“The baby’s hungry,” he said.
“Quiet,” ordered the woman with the gun.
Josh could barely breathe for the pain. “Please. Feed it.”
No one moved.
He raised his voice. “I said feed the baby.”
He flashed on the night he’d clashed with Emily. Three times he’d told her to leave, betraying her love as surely as Peter had betrayed his Lord. Like the fisherman, Josh felt lower than dirt.
The wailing grew worse. The woman with the gun called to one of the others. “Get the milk, Pearl. I’ll keep watch.”
Emily had loved their mother’s pearls, a strand so long it reached to her waist. Was she using an alias to avoid him? Maybe she hadn’t recognized him. He’d changed in the past year. Even more worrisome, maybe she’d seen him take a bullet and wished him dead.
Bare feet, slender and white, padded across the wood floor. Josh tried to call Emily’s name, but his belly hurt and the words slurred to a groan. He watched the woman’s feet as she retrieved the pitcher of goat’s milk, filled a bottle and warmed it in a pan of water on the stove. The baby, smelling food, shrieked even louder. Wise or not, Josh raised his head. The baby’s mother wore a yellow robe, his sister’s favorite color, but she had white-blond hair. Emily’s hair was dark and wavy like his. He hadn’t found his sister after all, but neither was this woman the baby’s mother. Her belly promised new life and promised it soon. Closing his eyes, Josh prayed for the mother and child, wishing he’d done the same for Emily instead of driving her away with his foolish pride.
Adie heard a gunshot, dropped the unopened saddlebag and ran for the house. Mary, a former saloon girl, kept a pistol in her nightstand and wouldn’t hesitate to use it.
Had Joshua Blue betrayed Adie’s trust? She didn’t think so. The man could barely walk. It seemed more likely that Stephen had awoken early and Mr. Blue had lingered over the glass of milk. Whoever went for Stephen, probably Mary, had seen Adie’s empty bed. Maybe she’d heard the thump on the door and jumped to ominous conclusions.
She ran up the back steps and flung open the door.
“Adie!” The cry came from Pearl. “We thought—”
“I know what you thought.” She dropped to her knees at the man’s side. “He’s hurt. We’ll have to call the doctor.”
Stephen shrieked. He needed to be fed in the worst way, but Adie feared for the wounded man’s life.
Groaning, he rolled to his back, revealing the bullet hole in his duster. When she opened his coat, she saw a red stain blooming on his white shirt. With each breath he took, the blood spread in a widening circle.
Looking at her face, he mumbled something unintelligible.
She hunched forward. “I couldn’t hear you.”
“I said…feed the baby.”
Joshua Blue was lying on her floor with a bullet in his shoulder, bleeding inside and out, and he was thinking of her son. What kind of man put a baby before his own life? Using the hem of her nightgown, Adie wiped his brow. “Be still. We’ll get the doctor.”
“No.” His voice sounded stronger. “No doctors.”
“But you need help.”
Someone lit a lamp. As it flared to life, Mary stepped closer. Adie smelled the residue of gunpowder and looked up. “Maybe Caroline can go for Doc Nichols.”
The man lifted his head. “I said no.”
His refusal made Adie wonder if he was on the run. It wouldn’t have surprised her. Everyone at Swan’s Nest had run from something, including herself.
Mary scowled down at her. “Who is he?”
“I rented him a room.”
“But you don’t rent to men. You promised—”
“This isn’t the time,” Adie said.
She looked past Mary and saw Pearl at the stove. With her back to the rest of the kitchen, she lifted the bottle out of the pot of water and whisked Stephen into the front room where she could feed him in peace. Adie looked at Caroline. “Where’s Bessie?”
“She went to get her nursing kit.”
Mary finally lowered the gun. “Maybe she can take out the bullet.”
Adie studied the man on her floor. His color had come back and his breathing seemed steady. Maybe they could avoid Dr. Nichols after all. Bessie hurried into the kitchen and dropped down next to Adie. She looked at the wound, checked the man’s back for an exit hole, then lowered him gently to the floor. “The bullet’s still in you, sir. It’ll have to come out.”
“Can you do it?”
“I can try,” Bessie said. “I’m a trained nurse, but it will hurt.”
“Go ahead,” he said.
Bessie looked at Adie. “Get that pint of whiskey.”
Adie kept it with the smelling salts for medicinal purposes only. Before she could stand to fetch it, the stranger clutched her hand. “I don’t want it.”
Why would he deny himself a painkiller? Adie was about to argue with him when Bessie interrupted. “It’s not for your belly, sir. It’s to clean the wound.”
He relaxed but didn’t release Adie’s hand. She felt awkward comforting him, but they were both aware of the coming pain. When Adie didn’t move, Caroline went to the cupboard for the whiskey. She gave the bottle to Bessie, then lifted the instruments from the nursing bag, put them in the boiling water and set out clean rags for blotting the blood. Bessie had
