Page 52 of A Rugged Beauty
Urgency pressed, but it was Maddie coming in just behind Doc's elbow that discombobulated everything. She touched Alex’s shoulder, gently pried the bag from his fingers. "Can you add wood to the fire? We need some hot water."
The boy took a deep breath under her gentle command and nodded, steadying himself, rushing to do what she'd asked.
Jenny was still wailing and screaming.
Maddie pressed the bag into Doc’s stomach with more force than was necessary. Her eyes flashed at him, devoid of the compassion she'd just shared with the boy.
"Perhaps you'd have more patients if your bedside manner improved," she whispered fiercely.
By the time she'd turned back to the preteen and his young sister, she was all smiles.
"That was scary, wasn't it?" she cooed. She brushed damp hair back from the baby's forehead, her fingers quick and gentle.
She glanced over her shoulder, asking him whether he'd seen the start of a jagged cut near the little one's eyebrow. The rest of the gash was covered over with the older boy's hand.
"Did someone fetch your mother?" This time Maddie's gentle touch went to Paul’s shoulder.
He took a shuddering breath, and then Doc saw him visibly calm.
In the span of several heartbeats, she'd calmed all three children. The girl was still crying, but her wailing and screaming had stopped.
"Do you want to come to me?" Maddie asked. With one hand on the girl's back, she reached out her other arm.
The girl went easily into her arms.
Doc inhaled, ready to argue why he should be the one to tend to her wound, but Maddie had already turned in his direction, gently brushing more of the girl's hair out of her face.
"I'm going to sit," she murmured, and then perched on a crate only steps away before waving him over. He joined them, on his knees in front of the little girl, who turned her face into Maddie's neck.
Blood streaked Maddie's jaw and beneath her ear, but she didn't flinch.
"What's her name?" he murmured.
"Jenny," Maddie reminded him gently. "Jenny, this is Doc Jason. He's the one who fixed up Tommy, remember?"
Doc Jason.
He didn’t have time for her use of his name to pinch. But he still felt it.
The girl peeked at him with one eye.
In a matter of moments, Maddie had distracted her by helping her clean off a small scrape on her knee. Doc wiped clean the cut that began at her eyebrow and extended down to her cheek. The brothers brought clean rags and hot water and soon enough Doc was ready to start putting in the stitches.
He didn't have to tell Maddie to keep Jenny still. She was singing a song, the brogue in her voice stronger. She gently clasped the girl's wrists in one hand while her other arm banded around Jenny's middle.
He tried not to notice, tried to keep his focus entirely on the small, neat stitches. But he couldn't help seeing Maddie lay her cheek gently against Jenny's hair. How the soft brushes of her fingertips over the girl's skin soothed her. Maddie’s voice echoed through his head.
Jenny's mother rushed into camp as he sewed the last stitch, her hair hung wet down her back, eyes frantic.
The woman immediately calmed when she saw Maddie had her daughter. The two boys circled around their ma, talking as fast as possible.
Doc moved away from Maddie and Jenny, using the moment to look for a bandage at the bottom of his bag.
He couldn't help the glance that snuck back toward her.
She was smiling, playing a version of one-handed pat-a-cake with the girl.
She would make a good mother.
