Mae was not enjoying herself.
The ride had been long and jolting, and she’d been too embarrassed to ask them to stop for her along the way. And then there had been that moment with the coyote, although she still wasn’t entirely convinced it wasn’t a wolf. She’d been more than a little uncomfortable when they finally arrived, her spine and bladder protesting as she’d climbed down from the wagon.
The lake itself was pretty enough—tranquil, ringed with gray granite peaks and tall green trees. The birds called lazily to one another and even their paths through the air seemed slower, more meditative here.
Yet she wasn’t exactly easy. Sleeping so far away from civilization with only the sky for cover made anxiety crawl across her skin. And she’d have to do it with two strange men. Perhaps not complete strangers—but still strange.
She’d known Mr. Obregon since he’d arrived a year ago, but he was a patient and therefore not exactly familiar. Shiney was a newer orderly and didn’t talk much. He seemed to prefer scowling to words.
It’s only one week, she repeated to herself as she helped unload the wagon. Soon enough she would be back in her cozy little room, Mr. Obregon would return to being just another patient, and Shiney would scowl at her in the corridors rather than from a wagon seat. Everything would be back as it should be.
But there were still six more days to get through.
Mr. Obregon had gone down to the lake’s edge, leaving her to oversee Shiney as he set up the tents, one for her and one for him and Mr. Obregon. She turned at a crackling in the bushes behind her but saw nothing, no matter how hard she peered.
“Do you think there are snakes here?” she called back to Shiney. Perhaps they ought to move the camp if there might be a nest of the creatures here.
Shiney didn’t answer, more intent on setting up the tent than whatever might be about to attack them. The crackling grew into a loud rustling. But still, nothing.
The rapid tattoo of her heart convinced her there must be something.
The rustling ceased.
A wave of chill flowed across her skin. She looked behind her at Shiney, who’d finished setting up the tents and was now sitting on a fallen log, worrying at his nails with a penknife. She looked back at the brush, which remained ominously silent. But no matter how intent her stare, how deep her chills… nothing happened.
She took a shaky breath. It was either stare at the bush until the thing appeared or sit with the orderly as he dug the dirt from beneath his nails.
Or there was Mr. Obregon…
She made her way over to the forlorn figure by the lake, tossing the brush one last glance, in case the thing had decided to follow her.
Mr. Obregon’s head was bent, his shoulders hunched, and his fist was hard against his left thigh. He looked to be enjoying this trip about as much as she was.
At least from the back. When she came close enough to see his face, he wore an expression of tranquil pensiveness, as calm and collected as the surface of the lake.
“Would you like to sit?” she asked. For all that he gave the appearance of serenity, he might be hiding some pain. Not that he usually took the trouble to do so.
He shook his head. “I’ve been sitting too long.”
With her right hand, she reached for his wrist, unhooking the watch pinned to her shirtwaist with her left. After finding the tick of his pulse there, she began to count off.
“Normal?” he asked when she was done, his voice dark with sarcasm.
“Mmm.” She looked up at him. She was about a foot shorter than he; the distance between their gazes somehow seemed even farther. Yet even with the distance, she noticed for the first time that his eyes were patterned with tiny flecks of gold. And then there was the pulse of his heartbeat just beneath her fingertips, jumping as if it were trying to get closer to her.
She’d found him handsome from the very first. That was nothing new. But this was the first time she wanted to find him handsome.
She dropped his wrist. He was a patient. She was a nurse. Touching him was part of her duties. Wanting to find him attractive was not.
“Any pain?” she asked.
“No more so than usual.”
A scream from the sky had her head snapping up to see what it was. An enormous hawk circled overhead. It looked almost big enough to carry her off.
“If you dislike the outdoors so intensely, why are you working here in Pine Ridge?”
The set of his mouth was either amused or annoyed—she couldn’t tell which. Perhaps he was both. She considered telling him her reasons were none of his concern, but she thought better of it. This trip was unusual enough that she could be more snappish than usual, but not too much more.
“I wanted to work at a hospital when I arrived in California,” she explained, “but I hadn’t enough experience. If I perform my duties here diligently enough and prove myself capable, I hope to one day.”
And to win that position, all she had to do was bring this stubborn man back to the sanatorium in one piece in a week’s time. Easy enough.
His handsome face closed off. “You’re ambitious then.”
She didn’t bother to hold back her tart response. “A cardinal sin for a woman in your eyes, no doubt.” Men like him had such foolish notions about women and their work, as if it were nobler to starve to death than to take up a trade.
“No,” he said as he turned back to the lake. “I actually admire ambitious women.”
She could only blink at his back since he most certainly did not sound as if he admired them. “If you’re all right, I’ll just go record this in your chart.”
He didn’t answer. She wondered if he even remembered she was there. Or if he cared. Let him sulk.
She walked to the tents, intending to dig out Mr. Obregon’s chart. Shiney didn’t look up from his nails as she passed by.
She told herself she didn’t care. She wasn’t here to entertain either of them. And Joaquin Obregon was only another patient—certainly not her puzzle to solve.
When Mae awoke the next morning, it was from the worst night’s sleep she’d ever had.
She’d never slept so poorly, not even in her childhood when she’d gone to bed hungry and cold more often than not. Every bump and lump under her blankets had left bruises, and the woods had been loud enough to keep her awake half the night.
She slowly pushed up to a sitting position, feeling every pull in her aching muscles. But then she looked around the little tent and had to smile.
It was morning. She’d made it through one night in the woods. Only five more to go.
She worked her feet into her boots, having slept in her clothes on the off chance she might have to run from a cougar or a bear. She’d have kept on her boots as well, but they’d been too uncomfortable.
Neither Mr. Obregon nor Shiney were sitting at the fire, but a pot of coffee was already warming over it, the dark scent making her mouth water. She frowned at the pot, wondering where the two men could have gone off to. There was only the call of the birds in the chilled air and the soft laps of the lake against the shore—no sound of anything human.
The tramp of boots coming up the path to the lake caught her attention. Mr. Obregon came into sight, looking rumpled from his night in the tent. The hitch in his left side as he walked caught at her—he must have been even more uncomfortable than she sleeping on the hard ground.
“Shiney’s gone,” he announced without so much as a good morning.
“Gone where?” The man couldn’t possibly have gone that far.
Mr. Obregon sent her an exasperated look. “That’s where I went. To try to find him. I don’t see any sign of him. And he took a horse.”
Her stomach slid toward her knees. “He left? And took a horse?”
“That’s what I said. While you were snoring, I spent most of an hour looking for him, but it looks like he’s long gone.”
She ignored that lie about her snoring. “Aren’t you a lawman? Shouldn’t you be able to track him?”
“Former lawman,” he bit out. “And my tracking skills are rusty.”
“This is disastrous. We’re trapped here.” This could not be happening. She could not be lost in the woods with this man. The Lord wouldn’t be that cruel.
“Trapped? Don’t be ridiculous. We’ll just start walking back. Should only take us a day or two.”
A day? Or two? The man was deranged.
“Walk?” she demanded. “You said he only took one horse. We can just hitch the other one up to the wagon.” She pointed it out to him in case he’d forgotten what that was.
His exhale was the essence of exasperation. “No, we can’t. One horse can’t pull that wagon.”
“Well, you ride back and bring help. I’ll wait here.” Her face went cold when she realized she’d have to remain here alone. Had Shiney taken the rifle as well? Not that she wanted to have to use it.
“Can you ride?” He asked it as if he already knew the answer would be no.
“Of course I can’t,” she snapped.
“And neither can I,” he snapped back. “So that horse doesn’t help a bit.”
“What do you mean, you can’t ride? You… oh.” Her face was aflame as she realized her mistake. Of course he couldn’t ride, not with his injury.
“Don’t fret,” he said, as if to a particularly annoying child. “No doubt we’ll meet someone else on the road and we can ride with them.”
No horse, no gun, and only Mr. Obregon for company—if she let it, the chill building within her might shake her to pieces.
“You keep claiming this place is crawling with people,” she accused, “but I haven’t caught sight of any of them.”
“Now calm down”—he lifted his palms—“it’s—”
“And why would Shiney leave? Did he know something we didn’t?” She spun around, looking for whatever danger might have scared the man away.
“I don’t know why he left, but we’re not in any danger. Although you might give yourself an apoplexy if you don’t relax.”
“Don’t tell me about apoplexy,” she snarled. “Dear God, I’m lost in the woods, all alone, with no one but a—” She shut her mouth hard enough to clack her teeth together.
“A what?” he challenged. “Go on. A cripple. A useless cripple was what you were about to say, wasn’t it?”
She clenched her jaw. She’d been about to say a mean bastard, but that would be about as well received as useless cripple. If he ever told Dr. Robinson she’d said such a thing, she could lose her job. She’d certainly never be head of a ward.
She stared hard at him. “They aren’t expecting us back for a week,” she said as evenly as she could, panic tightening her chest. “I will not remain alone here with you for all that time.”
His throat worked. “Your virtue”—he laid mocking emphasis on the word—“is more than safe with me.”
Hateful man. He likely thought a woman with her background had no virtue. “I wasn’t worried about that.” She dosed her smile with enough politeness to go from cure to poison. “I’m only a nurse to you. Just as you’re only a patient to me. But I can’t care for you on my own for an entire week.”
His breath came in a shaky rush, and his fist went tight against his thigh.
For a moment, with him limned in tension like that, she thought she might have gone too far, let her tongue be too tart. But before she could apologize, he turned away and surveyed the camp. “Start packing what we’ll need for the trip.” His voice vibrated with anger. “If you aren’t sure, ask me and I’ll tell you. Let me see your pack before we leave to ensure you have the right things.”
She swallowed hard. Perhaps she shouldn’t have implied he couldn’t take care of himself, that he was too large a burden for her. Perhaps they weren’t in such dire straits as she might have thought.
He turned back. The tight line of his jaw and the determined set of his eyes somehow made her feel better about being lost in the woods with him.
“Get to it,” he ordered.
So she did.