Page 29 of A Forgotten Heart
He tried to focus on the images, but they slipped away, spiraling back into the darkness like a snowflake on the wind.
Was that a true memory? Or his imagination?
“Why were you at the saloon, kid?” Nick asked.
The kid leaned his head back against the chair, as if unaware that his mention of Quade had hit Nick square in the chest. “I work in the kitchen. Mostly washing cups and plates. Mr. Roland let a bunch of cowboys wait out the storm in his place for a price. Mr. Quade was there too. Mr. Roland offered me a week’s extra pay if I stayed to keep working. Then a brawl broke out. That’s how I sliced my hand.”
Nick ground his teeth. So, Quade was waiting out the storm in the saloon with a bunch of drunk cowboys. That couldn’t be good.
Elsie hurried back into the room and started to lay the supplies out on the table. She still looked a little green.
She hovered the needle over the kid’s hand. Swallowed hard.
Nick leaned away from the wall so he could stand upright. “You can do this, El-Belle.”
Something passed over her face. Her gaze darted to his. Nick didn’t care that it was the kid needing help who’d prompted her to look at him again. She was finally meeting his eyes, and he tried to use everything inside him to show her the steady beliefhe had in her. He nodded, and fresh determination settled on her face. As if he’d given her courage.
When she bent over the kid’s hand, Nick slumped into a nearby chair where he had a good view of her procedure.
He watched her pinch her lips in determination as she worked, head bowed over the kid’s hand. Her fingers were deft and nimble, and she kept stitching with the needle even as the kid whimpered, looking away from where she worked.
As Nick watched her, something niggled in the back of his mind. It wasn’t until she snipped the loose thread that he realized her left hand was bare.
His mother’s wedding band wasn’t on her ring finger. Why wouldn’t his wife be wearing his ring?
Nick’s head started to throb as Elsie tucked the needle and thread away on the counter across the room. She was saying something to the kid, but her words were muffled as Nick fought off the pain piercing behind his eyes.
He had been up for too long.
There was movement in the room. Elsie bandaging the kid up, maybe? It was all Nick could do to focus on staying upright, one shoulder leaned into the wall.
He did notice when Elsie ushered the kid down the hallway to the front door, using her body to block the view to the back room where they’d slept last night. Why?
Moments passed, maybe longer, before she came back into the room. Her brow creased as she studied him. “Nick? Are you okay?”
He wasn’t all right. A wave of fatigue hit, and he let her help him back to his pallet. He slipped off to sleep wondering, where was his mother’s ring?
And why couldn’t he remember?
The afternoon wore on. No one else sought out the doctor. All Elsie could feel was relief that Nick slept.
You are anything but forgettable.
The words Nick had spoken last night kept haunting her thoughts. Over and over again.
She couldn’t keep doing this. Everything inside her wanted to curl into Nick’s side. Let his arm come around her shoulders. Press her cheek against his chest. Accept the warmth and comfort he was offering her.
Only, this thing between them wasn’t real. His feelings weren’t real. And hers were a total mess.
Elsie crossed her arms over her middle, leaned against the doorframe of the exam room, staring out the window.
Still snowing. Snowing hard.
Gusts of wind rattled the window within its pane, and a chill prickled her arms.
That boy from the saloon had made it here. Maybe Elsie could find her way to Merritt’s. She tried to map out the streets she’d walk. The blowing snow meant there was virtually no visibility. Could she walk all that way as if blindfolded, playing a game she might with her schoolchildren?
Another night in the clinic wasn’t an option. She couldn’t repeat the closeness she’d shared with Nick last night.
