Emmy shoved aside her plate of cold beans on the dispensary counter, having managed only a few more bites of leftover dinner. Her appetite was gone, taking with it the remnants of her optimism. How much longer could James hold on?
The front door opened on a whoosh of cold air. Major Clem entered with a tug at his hat, a dusting of snow stark against his blue overcoat. “Afternoon, Miss Nelson. On my way to file a report with the colonel and thought I’d check in on the doctor. How’s he doing?”
The question slapped her hard. She’d been trying all day not to answer it, to ignore the symptoms, the way his life was packing its bags for a long, long journey—one from which he wouldn’t return.
“Not good.” The words tasted like milk gone bad, sour and rancid.
“Sorry to hear that.” He rubbed the back of his neck, sending a sprinkling of white falling from his coat. “But if anyone can pull him through, it’d be you.”
She snorted, and though vulgar, it could not be helped. “Your confidence, while appreciated, is misplaced, Major. I fear I’ve done all I can.”
His boots thudded on the wooden planks. He stopped in front of her like a bulwark, immovable and stony. “I don’t know much about medicine and such, but here’s what I’ve learned of war. Find out where your enemy is then strike hard as you can, and for God’s sake, keep on moving. To stop is to die.”
She wanted to grasp on to the strength he offered, but her hope hung as lifeless as her limp hands at her sides. A simple “Thank you” was the best she could manage.
“I trust you’re taking great care of the doctor, but give a thought to yourself as well.” He nodded at her half-eaten beans before he wheeled about and strode from the dispensary, out into January’s brittle arms.
The last light of day colored the room in a lifeless pallor. She shivered and lit the oil lamp. Taking the major’s words to heart, she once again hauled out the fat medical book she’d taken from James’s shelf. It flopped open from the crease she’d made in the binding, having pored over the same section one too many times.
Rubbing her heavy eyes, she tried to focus on the words. Ink blurred into fuzzy lines. No need though, really, for she could recite the diagnosis and procedures in this chapter without error. The measles had hit James hard, and his body had fought valiantly. But once pneumonia set in, what little strength he’d rallied bled out in rib-breaking coughs that produced nothing other than thick green mucus and weakness.
She slammed the book shut, the noise of it a satisfying thwack. This wasn’t fair. None of it. She’d tried it all. Papa’s treatments. Medical journal advice. Textbook treatises on the proper care of lung inflammations. She’d tended patients like this before, but none of them drained her of every possible cure—or wrenched her heart in quite the same way.
Fatigue pressed in on her, sagging her shoulders. Despite the major’s admonition, she considered giving up. Simply march right into James’s chambers, lie down by his side, and close her eyes to life along with him.
Wretched hacking hurtled out from his room down the corridor. She jerked up her head, listening with her whole body. This was new. Gurgly. Choking.
Ugly.
She raced from the dispensary and flew into his chamber. “James!”
He writhed on the bed, chest heaving—and a small trickle of blood leaked out the side of his blue lips. Sweat darkened the chest and armpits of his nightshirt. The doctor who’d saved so many lives now fought for his own.
Snatching a cloth from a basin on the stand, she knelt next to him. “Shh. Be at peace, love,” she cooed as she wiped his face. “Be at peace.”
He stilled.
So did she. Not that she hadn’t known the truth for weeks now, but speaking the words aloud made it real. She loved him—the man who at any moment might stop breathing altogether.
Tears burned down her cheeks and hit her lips, tasting like loss. She brushed back his hair, wishing, praying his green eyes would open, that he’d berate her manner of healing…and tell her what to do.
“Don’t leave me. Do not!” Her cry circled the room, but James neither woke nor stirred.
Defeated, she rested her cheek against his chest, now fluttering with quick breaths. At least the thrashing had stopped. “Oh, God.” Her voice soaked into his nightshirt along with her tears. “Please don’t take him, not yet. Not now. Show me what to do.”
All the anguish of the past three weeks closed her eyes. How long she lay there, she couldn’t say, long enough, though, that when she lifted her head, darkness crept into the room from every corner.
James’s breaths still wheezed on the inhale, rattled around, and gurgled back out. Nothing had changed. Nothing.
Or had it?
She shot to her feet, listening beyond his labored breathing. In the distance, a steady beat pounded on the night air. Drums.
Of course! Why had she not thought of this before?
Darting from the room, she raced to her chamber and grabbed her woolen cloak then snatched the lantern off the counter. She flung open the dispensary door as easily as she flung aside any care for her own safety or caution. What did it matter anymore?
She took off at a run toward the gate, already shut for the night. She might have exhausted every resource known to white man, but Makawee was a master of the “old medicine.”
Scorching heat. Frigid cold. James swam from one extreme to the other, all the while gasping for breath beneath the dark waters of pain. He’d give anything to emerge from this ocean of hurt—even his own life.
Occasionally blessed relief allowed him to float…a gentle touch on his brow or water pressed against his lips. But those were not enough to pull him out of the deeps.
And so he sank.
Until the whisper came. No, something stronger. He strained to listen. A mourning dove cooed. The haunting sound reached out like a rope, tethering him to a faraway edge of land.
“Be at peace, love. Be at peace.”
He clung to those words, holding fast when his chest burned and his ribs crashed and air was nearly a memory.
Peace.
Love.
His eyes shot open. Maybe not. Hard to tell. So he stared, waiting for shapes to form out of the darkness. Was God’s face the next thing he would see?
He blinked. Slowly, his gaze traced silhouettes. Color, though muted, seeped in and spread. Smoky sweetness wafted overhead, altogether foreign and pleasing.
“James?” Fabric swished. Troubled blue eyes bent near to his. “James!”
Ahh, dear one. His heart beat loud in his ears. Could Emmy hear it, too?
He struggled to lift his hand, wipe the single tear marring her sweet cheek, erase the fear shadowing the hollows beneath her eyes.
But it took all he had in him to simply open his mouth. “Emmy.”
The effort cost more than he could spare. Blackness covered him like a blanket pulled over his head.
When his eyes opened again, morning light streamed in, kissing the top of Emmy’s blond hair. She sat in a chair next to his bed, her face bowed over the pages of a book.
“Em—” he croaked. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Emmy?”
The book hit the floor.
“James?” She slid from the chair and knelt, face-to-face. “Stay with me this time.”
“I’d…like…to.” He inhaled strength, or was it her trembling smile that bolstered him so? “Water? So thirsty.”
She retrieved a mug from the nightstand then propped him up with her arm behind his shoulders. More liquid than not trickled down his chin, but it was enough to simply have her embrace sustain him—so satisfying that he drifted away once again.
Next time he woke, the room was empty, save for the ticking of the New Haven clock he’d brought with him from Cambridge. The last light of day peeked into his chamber window—but which day? How long had he lain on this bed?
He pushed himself up, propping the pillow behind his back. The room spun, but his lungs didn’t burn, nor did he feel the need to hack until his ribs fractured.
“Well!” Emmy swished into the room with a smile that would shame a summer day. “Good to see you are on the mend, Dr. Clark.”
“Oh? It’s back to that now?” His voice, while raspy, at least worked this time. “I rather liked it when you called me James.”
Fire blazed across her cheeks. She turned from him and poured liquid into a mug. “Yes, well, I tried anything and everything to pull you through.”
“Whatever you did apparently worked.”
She held the cup to his mouth, and as water dampened his lips, his thirst roared. He grabbed the mug from her and—though she warned against it—drained it. His stomach revolted, and he pressed the back of his hand to his lips.
“When will you listen to me?” She removed the mug then settled the chair so that she faced him.
Slowly, the nausea passed, and he lowered his hand. “I did listen—especially when you called me James.”
She smirked. “I see your wit is quite recovered as well. Tell me”—she leaned closer, her worried gaze searching his—“how are you feeling?”
He studied her for a moment. Her cheekbones stood out. Her dress hung loose at the shoulders—and the brooch he’d given her for Christmas was pinned at the top of her bodice. Dare he hope she entertained a place in her heart for him? And if she did, then what? How could a wife fit into his life at a time when he needed to focus on scholarship?
He sank into the pillow. The questions exhausted him. He’d think on them later. For now, better to get her to do the talking. “I might ask the same of you. How do you fare?”
She nibbled her lower lip, one of her stalling tactics. Her chest rose and fell with a deep breath. “I am better, now that I know you are well. You gave me quite a scare, you know. I thought I’d lost you. I tried everything, but nothing worked.”
He scrubbed a hand over his chin, where whiskers scratched. He could only imagine the days—weeks maybe—of hard work she’d endured for him. She should be attending dinners and dances, not slogging away in a sick man’s chamber. How many other women would willingly suffer through such?
“Yet I live, thanks be to you.” His words came out more husky than he intended.
She laughed. “More like thanks be to God and to Makawee.”
“What do you mean?”
“I employed every manner of care I knew for pneumonia. I read through all your books and applied those treatments also. But I believe it was Makawee’s methods, the rabbit tobacco, the pleurisy root, that helped you turn the corner.”
Roots? Tobacco? How could he even begin to understand that? He frowned. “Preposterous.”
“Yet as you’ve said, you live.” She leaned toward him. “Think on that.”
He sank farther into the pillow. Had he been wrong? Was there more to healing than the sterile procedures of academia? Maybe knowledge and all he held most dear were not to be found in the East, but rather here, in the middle of a wilderness he’d scorned not long ago.
He fastened on her clear blue gaze a moment more before closing his eyes. “I believe there is much I should think on.”