Page 28 of A Forgotten Heart
A loud knock hammered the front door. Elsie jumped.
He watched her eyes dart to the front hall, consider the back door, which was nearer.
“Isn’t it still snowing?” Nick demanded quietly. He couldn’t forget how jumpy she’d been all day yesterday. Startling at the faintest noise. Someone had shot him. Had they figured out that he’d survived? Come to finish the job?
Elsie stared at the hallway, her cheeks a little pale. “Yes. Still snowing.”
Then who was out there? At the door in a whiteout?
Nick wasn’t going to let anything happen to Elsie.
He pulled himself to his feet, but dizziness wrapped around him, and he braced one hand against the wall.
Whoever it was banged again.
“Don’t answer, El,” he whispered. “Maybe they’ll think no one is here and go away.”
She stood in the middle of the room, indecision written on her expression. “But what if someone needs help?”
Another knock rattled the door against its hinges. “Doctor!” a muffled voice called. “I need a doctor!”
Elsie moved toward the hallway. “We can’t ignore someone who needs help.” Still, she hesitated.
Nick shoved away from the wall but had to brace his hand again to keep from toppling over. “You aren’t going without me.”
He trailed her down the hall, ashamed at how weak he was. He was still several steps behind her when she opened the door.
A kid no more than sixteen or seventeen tumbled inside, cradling his right hand wrapped in a rag, eyes wild. “Where’s the doctor?”
Elsie stared at the blood staining the kid’s towel, brow pinched. “He hasn’t returned from delivering a baby.”
“I need stitching.” The kid looked from Nick to Elsie expectantly. Elsie shook her head, eyes still locked on that bloody bandage.
Nick studied the kid. He didn’t look dangerous. “Can’t your ma sew you up?”
The boy’s eyes roved over the bandage wrapped around Nick’s head and down to where Nick’s shoulder slumped against the wall. “You don’t look so good, mister.”
Nick could say the same about the kid. His face was drawn and pale with dark circles under his eyes. Like he’d been up all night. A stab of concern over the kid’s situation pricked Nick’s stomach.
Elsie must’ve felt the same. “Come into the exam room.”
Inside, Elsie unwrapped the towel from the boy’s hand and grimaced, a greenish hue dropping over her features.
Nick shuffled in behind them in time to see the cut was deep. Almost to the bone. The kid really did need stitches.
Elsie covered the wound back up with a fortifying breath. “Take a seat. I’m not a doctor, but I know how to sew.”
Of course her compassion would overrule her squeamishness. The kid plopped into a chair as she left the room to gather supplies.
The kid swallowed. “I wouldn’t have come ’cept Mr. Quade said I should get stitches.”
At Quade’s name, a warning shot through Nick’s gut. “Quade?”
The kid shrugged. “Sure, he’s been there at the saloon since the snow started.”
Everything in Nick chilled as if ice traveled through his veins.
An image floated through Nick’s mind—an expensive Thoroughbred hitched outside the saloon. Quade’s horse. Snow swirling all around.
