with cold, but she refused to be cowed by the discomfort. As a physician, she knew that time was of the essence.
Help me, Dear Lord. Please.
Burrowing like a mole, she finally managed to maneuver her hand up to the gap above her. Biting her lip, she wedged the toe of her boot into the twisted iron railing and clawed at the ice, gradually making the aperture large enough for her head, her shoulders. Then, as she reached up, something snagged her wrist.
A squeak of surprise burst from her lips before she realized that it was another hand that gripped her. A very strong, masculine hand crisscrossed with faint scars.
She thought that a low voice called out, “Over here, boys!”
Relief swept through her. “Help is already here, everyone. Just hold on!” she called out to the gloom behind her.
A deep voice came from above. “Can you grab me with your other hand?”
“I—I think so.”
She wrapped her fingers around the broad, tanned wrist.
“I’m going to try to yank you out. Don’t let go.”
“Yes. O-okay.”
“You ready?”
“Yes, I’m—”
Sumner didn’t have a chance to finish her sentence before she was wrenched from her nest of ice. For a moment, her body seemed weightless, flying through the air, before she felt herself falling, landing over the body of her rescuer.
Sputtering, she struggled to catch her breath. Then her gaze latched on to a masculine face, dark wavy hair, a beard touched with threads of gray and eyes the same mix of brown, green and blue as the river that wound through the canyon gorge.
He regarded her with an equal measure of surprise before it became quite clear to her that he’d just figured out that she was a woman in a camp famed for its lack of females.
Sumner’s cheeks grew heated and she scrambled to stand up. But with the tangle of her skirts and the slipperiness of the ice, she wedged herself more tightly into the stranger’s embrace.
She could feel her cheeks growing hot, but every time she put a hand down to brace herself, she touched his arm, his shoulder, until—finally—two sets of fists grabbed her and pulled her upright.
She wavered for a moment, a swirl of dizziness nearly pitching her onto the ground again. In an effort to appear calm and collected, she planted her heels more firmly in the ice and stood with as much dignity as she could summon.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” she murmured.
The miners on either side gaped at Sumner like a pair of landed fish.
At her feet, the stranger winced and pushed himself to a sitting position. He grabbed for a hat that had fallen into the snow, settled it over his brow, then gingerly rose to his feet.
Had she hurt him that badly?
Self-conscious, Sumner reached to smooth her hair—only to discover that the careful swirl of braids and curls had come completely unmoored. Even worse, as she tugged at her bodice, she discovered one sleeve had torn free and she’d lost a pair of buttons in a most inopportune spot. Nevertheless, other than the bump on her head, and some scratches on her hands, she appeared to be unscathed.
At least, that was what she presumed, until she looked up to find that nearly thirty men stood amid the wreckage of the train. Every single one of them was staring at her. Even the mules in the distance seemed to be giving her the eye.
“Hel-lo?” she offered hesitantly.
Except for a half-hearted bray from one of the animals, there was no response. It grew so quiet that she swore she could hear the snow crystalize beneath their feet. Her cheeks grew hotter.
She cleared her throat, gesturing to the wreckage around her. “We’ve had an accident...”
Honestly, Sumner. They already know that.
“An avalanche...”
They know that, too.
“There are more people in the various cars. I’d say about a half-dozen crew members, a couple of families with small children. Some more women. All totaled, I’d say...fifty or sixty of them.”
Obviously, the men hadn’t known that piece of information, because their impromptu game of freeze tag came to a halt and they moved, swarming toward the exposed corners of the passenger cars, shouting out orders.
Sumner hurried to help them, but a hand snagged her elbow, pulling her away from the railway carriage she’d just abandoned.
“I need to show them where to dig!” she retorted, realizing that the gentleman who held her at bay was the same one who had pulled her from the smashed railway car.
“They know what to do.”
“But—”
“You’ll only be in the way.”
Cuz you’re a girl.
The hard set of the stranger’s jaw and the crease between his brow told her plainly enough that, even though the man wouldn’t offer the words aloud, he was thinking them. Once again, she’d been summed up in a single glance and pigeonholed as useless, simply by virtue of her sex. And that brought a starch to her spine that the avalanche had nearly knocked from her system.
She refused to let one more man tell her what to do.
“I assure you, I won’t be in the way. I’m a doctor.” She flung an accusatory finger in the direction of the hole from which she’d been tugged as unceremoniously as a turnip. “There are injured women inside.”
His eyes narrowed. “A doctor?” he murmured in disbelief.
Sumner shook herself free of his grip and pulled herself to full height. Unfortunately, she still barely reached his shoulder, but she wasn’t about to let that fact deter her. “Yes. I’m Sumner Havisham. The mining camp is expecting me. I’ve been hired to serve as their company doctor for the next five years.”
His brows rose, nearly disappearing beneath the brim of his hat.
“You’re... Sumner Havisham.”
“Yes, of course. I have a copy of the signed contract...” She automatically felt for her reticule, then sighed, resisting the urge to stomp her foot in frustration. “It’s with my things.” She waved in the direction of the train.
The stranger sighed and stared at the ground as if pained, the pad of his thumb rubbing at the crease that appeared between his brows. Then he muttered, “Give me strength,” before gesturing to a wooden sledge a few yards away. “Why don’t you wait over there, miss—”
“Dr. Havisham.”
“Dr. Havisham. As the passengers are pulled free, we’ll bring them to you.”
When
