A Nurse to Heal the Rancher’s Heart (Preview)

Chapter One

“You really should consider marrying, you know.”

Nellie Sutherland stifled the sharp urge to retort, focusing her attention on her task instead. Her employer and mentor, Dr. Eli Hale, appeared obsessed with the subject of her marriage. Unable to understand why her marital status was so important to him, she simply shrugged it off as his eccentricity.

Except lately, Eli brought the subject up more and more.

“Are you ignoring me?” he asked, his tone edged with sarcasm.

“Of course not.” Nellie half turned toward him, the supply list she’d been preparing dangling from her hand. “Why are you bringing that up again?”

Eli, a plain faced man in his early thirties, removed his spectacles to polish them with a handkerchief. He eyed her with a mixture of annoyance and amusement, as though she was a child who’d persisted in asking the question “why” for the tenth time.

“I worry about you,” he replied. “And your reputation.”

Startled, Nellie frowned. “My reputation?”

“Certainly your reputation.” With impatient movements, he replaced his spectacles on his nose and shoved the handkerchief back into his trousers’ pocket. “You’re what? Twenty-two now? If you don’t marry soon, you’ll be considered a spinster.”

“I don’t see how that’s a terrible thing.” Nellie returned to her work, writing down the names of the medicines she would order through the general store.

“Indeed it is. People in town are already beginning to talk about you.”

Chuckling, Nellie shook her head. “Greer Halladay is my age and not married. Do they talk about her as well?”

“Not that I’ve heard.” Eli paced into Nellie’s view; his normally mild and pleasant demeanor now tense with what seemed to be frustration. “But she’s not nearly as pretty as you.”

“Beauty has nothing to do with marriage, Eli. You know that. All I want is to be a nurse, to help people.” She checked the cabinet for laudanum, found several bottles, then inspected the piles of bandages.

“People will accept you caring for them better if you were a married woman.”

“There’s no one in town I’d consider marrying.”

When Eli said nothing more, Nellie hoped the subject was dropped, then forgot about it.

With her tasks completed, and no patients to immediately care for, Nellie stepped out from Eli’s office into the fierce West Texas heat. Sweat sprang to her brow almost immediately as she sat on the bench, gazing down the dusty main street. It ran through the small ranching town of Prairie Hills, oddly named as the region surrounding the town was flat and almost featureless.

The town itself, like the countryside, held little beauty. Clapboard structures lined the wide dirt street. The bank, the sheriff’s office, the single hotel, and a lawyer’s office stood on both sides. Three gambling halls, the town’s main source of entertainment for the dozens of wranglers who came to town every Saturday night, mingled with the more sober establishments.

Riders on horseback trotted their mounts past her in both directions. Buckboard wagons drawn by mules kicked up the dust which hung, almost motionless in the breathless heat, until finally settling down to the ground.

Nellie observed Mrs. Carmody approaching along the sidewalk and stood up to greet her. “Good afternoon, ma’am. Are you here for the cough syrup?”

Mrs. Carmody, a stout woman in her sixties, nodded while reaching for Nellie’s support. She was sweating, breathing hard, and trickles of moisture crept down from under her sunbonnet. Alarmed, Nellie urged the woman into the cooler interior of the office.

“Sit, please,” she said, grabbing a newspaper from Eli’s cluttered desk. She began to fan Mrs. Carmody briskly, sending wafts of air across the older woman’s face.

“Oh, my dear, thank you.” Mrs. Carmody drew in several deep breaths, her reddened skin returning to a more normal shade. “I declare, I’ve never seen a summer so hot.”

“You shouldn’t walk in it,” Nellie said, fetching a glass of water from the pump. “Drink.”

Mrs. Carmody drank the glass to its dregs. “I’m much better, my dear.”

“How is Mr. Carmody?”

“The same, dear, unfortunately. This dust has made his cough so much worse.”

While Nellie had her doubts the dust had anything to do with her husband’s cough, she would never say so. Mr. Carmody suffered from consumption, and almost never went outside. After fetching the woman the needed cough syrup, she collected the payment and dropped the coins into Eli’s desk drawer. He was a stickler for collecting payment for the medications.

Eli was also adamant about maintaining his own accounts, so Nellie simply made a note regarding the sale.

“Stay indoors as much as possible,” Nellie advised the older woman as she escorted her to the door. “Drink plenty of water.”

“Yes, dear, of course.”

The wild jingling of a harness and the hard galloping of hooves made Nellie shade her eyes with her hand, gazing to the south. A buckboard drawn by a team of heavy horses headed up the street straight toward her. Mrs. Carmody also paused to stare, both knowing that drovers ran their beasts in heat like this only in dire emergencies.

Nellie, lifting her skirts, ducked back into the office calling for Eli. “Someone’s coming.”

“All right, all right, no need to get flustered.”

Not the sort to become flustered, Nellie immediately readied the doctor’s table, covering it with a cloth, gathering his surgical instruments. Outside, the drover yelled, “Whoa, whoa,” and reined the team in to a trampling halt just outside the office.

While Eli went outside to assist, Nellie donned her nurse’s apron then ran to the door to hold it open. Three wranglers in Stetson hats, leather vests and sharp toed boots carried in a fourth. Their spurs jangled against the wooden floor as they struggled with their burden.

“Easy there,” Eli barked, “he’s not a calf you can toss around. Set him there… no… on the table! What happened?”

Nellie bent over the injured wrangler to begin assessing his injuries. He had cuts and scrapes over his face; blood caked under a coating of dirt. She ran her knowledgeable hands down his arms and found them whole. Opening his shirt, she searched for wounds but found only swelling and dark bruises.

“His horse tangled with a bull,” one of the wranglers replied, yanking his hat off after noticing her. “He got trampled. His leg’s broke, maybe.”

Eli squinted at the injured man. “He’s from the Double T?”

“Yeah, Doc.”

“All right, I’ll send my bill there. You men can come back for him tomorrow.”

With numerous backward looks, the three shuffled from the office. Nellie helped Eli cut the wrangler’s jeans to the knee, exposing the crooked leg. Long used to such sights, Nellie took the blood and exposed bone in stride.

“Good thing he’s out cold,” Eli commented. “Best to get this done quick.”

After inspecting the man’s broken leg, Eli gestured for Nellie to step to the table’s end. “Get his boot off, girl.”

Nellie carefully worked the wrangler’s boot from his foot, and removed his sock. Eli nodded sharply and motioned again.

“Now hold his ankle, girl. No, put your hand under his foot, yes, right there. When I say pull, you yank that foot toward you.”

With experienced hands, Eli straightened the man’s leg in preparation for setting the bone. Nellie braced herself, ready to assist when Eli gave her the signal. Eli cleaned the blood and dirt from the wound and then held the man’s knee.

“Pull.”

Nellie jerked the foot toward her while Eli twisted the knee. The bone slipped back into place with an ease that both stunned and delighted Nellie. She readied the bandages Eli would need to bind the bone in place until it healed, then held the leg up while he did so.

“He’ll need laudanum when he wakes up,” Eli said briskly, busy wrapping. “I must see to my rounds. I trust you’ll clean the rest of him? Yes?”

“Of course.”

Taking his black bag of medical supplies, Eli slapped his hat atop his head and left the office. Nellie filled a basin of cool water and gently bathed the blood and grime from the wrangler’s face and neck. His scrapes didn’t appear dangerous. As she worked, his eyelids fluttered. He groaned.

“Lie still,” she murmured. “You’re safe now.”

“Oh, lord it hurts,” he cried, trying to sit up. “Where am I?”

“I’m Nellie Sutherland.” Nellie urged him to lie back down. “You’re at Dr. Hale’s office. Your leg was broken, but it’s been set now.”

He lifted his head, grimacing, to look at his bandaged leg. “I can’t take this pain, oh, lord, it hurts.”

Taking down a bottle of laudanum from the cabinet, Nellie poured a small amount into a glass. She added wine, then helped him lift his head.

“Drink this.”

The wrangler drank every drop in desperation, then relaxed with a low cry. “Will it stop? Will the pain stop?”

“Yes, this will help. What’s your name?”

“Ben.”

“Lie still, Ben. Just try to relax. Breathe deeply.”

He obeyed her, his body slowly relaxing as he drew in one breath after another. His eyes drooped.

“It’s a little better,” he muttered thickly.

With the first basin of water now dark with dirt, Nellie refilled it and finished bathing the scrapes on Ben’s hands, his arms, then dabbed an ointment over them to help them heal. Ben watched her with an almost languid detachment.

“You’re pretty,” he muttered.

Nellie, smiling, started to speak, but a commotion outside the office brought her around. Through the window, she recognized the man in the black Stetson, who was hauling another man she’d never seen before, down from a saddle.

It was her brother, Rylan.

Opening the door, she tried to help as Rylan half-carried, half-dragged the unconscious man through the doorway.

“Who’s this?”

“I’ve no idea,” Rylan answered, his broad shoulders under the man’s right arm. “Where do I put him? Where’s Hale?”

“On his rounds.” Nellie hastily created a place on a sofa, then stood out of the way as Rylan carefully placed the stranger on it. “What happened?”

“I found him on the road near Monroe’s Creek,” Rylan answered, removing his hat and gesturing helplessly to the man. “His horse was there, but he was out cold, like he is now. Got a bad gash on his head.”

“I see that.”

Gathering water and cloths, Nellie began to clean the deep cut on the side of the stranger’s head. “I think this is a bullet wound.”

“Me, too.” Rylan slapped his hat restlessly against his thigh. “He’s got a knot on his head. Right there.”

“That’s quite a bump. Maybe when he fell from his horse?”

As she worked, Nellie noticed the stranger’s youthful face, the strong line of his jaw. His skin was deeply tanned, telling her he worked outdoors. Perhaps as a wrangler. His red-blond hair was thick and curled over his brow and hung to his shoulders. She liked long hair on a man.

He’s very good looking, she thought.

“Who’s that over there?”

“Ben,” she answered absently. “Got trampled. He’s from the Double T.”

“Ah.”

Rylan paced and then came to a stop, looming over her shoulder, gazing down at the young stranger. “I bought that colt.”

“That’s terrific.” Nellie swung around with a broad smile. “Is he outside?”

“Yep. Want to have a look?”

“I certainly do. Let me finish here first.”

With the stranger’s gash clean, Nellie covered the wound with a cloth, then set the basin aside. Checking to be sure both patients were settled, she followed Rylan from the office and into the bright sunlight. Three horses stood patiently at the porch railing: Rylan’s sturdy bay gelding, a stout gray, and a tall horse with a bright blaze and a coat colored a brilliantly polished copper.

Nellie sucked in her breath seeing the tall horse. “He’s stunning.”

“Just turned two,” Rylan said proudly. “Calm in temperament and as perfect a stud as you could want.”

“He’s so big for a two-year-old,” Nellie observed. “I want his first foal.”

Rylan laughed. “And so you shall have it, my sweet sister.”

A sharp, agonized cry burst from the office behind them. Nellie spun, dashing back inside with Rylan just behind.

The young stranger, his bright blue eyes wild with fear and pain, thrashed on the couch. He tried to sit up but fell back down with another cry. Ben, his eyes dull from the laudanum, stared at him blankly.

“Calm down,” Nellie ordered, seizing the young man by his shoulders. “You’re safe, you’re safe, no one’s going to hurt you. You must lie still, that’s it. Yes, just be calm.”

The stranger gazed up at her with the most beautiful blue eyes she’d ever seen. “Where am I?”

Chapter Two

She’s an angel. She has to be. I’ve died, and this angel is here to greet me.

Except the throbbing agony in his head informed he wasn’t in fact dead.

If one was dead, one ceased to feel pain–wasn’t that true?

So if he wasn’t dead…?”

“Where am I?” he croaked, his voice hoarse, unsteady.

“My name is Nellie,” the angel said, her voice soft, soothing. “This is my brother, Rylan. He found you and brought you here.”

He rolled his eyes from side to side. Seeing only furniture, a sink with a hand pump, and a man lying on a table with a bandaged leg, he knew he should know where he was. The name was right there, just beyond his reach. But, oh, how it hurt to think. Thinking brought only the pain; the white agony.

He gasped, lifting his hands to his head, thinking it would split open and disgorge vile pus and maggots. “Where am I? What is this place?”

“It’s a doctor’s office,” Rylan said, his voice low. “Nellie here is a nurse. What’s your name, son?”

He blinked, staring up at the two faces looking down at him. Name? Did he have a name? Of course he must have a name. What was it? “I… I don’t know.”

Rylan’s brows quirked. “You don’t know your name?”

“No,” he cried wildly, panicking again. “I don’t know. Who am I? What happened? Why am I here?”

The beautiful woman, Nellie, soothed him again with her hands on his shoulders, talking to him in a soft, quiet voice. Under that soothing spell, he calmed, letting her words flow over and through him. While his pain continued to rage, he could bear it more easily while she spoke to him in that manner.

“You stay calm now,” she murmured, her fingers lightly caressing his brow. “Don’t get upset if you can’t remember, it’s all right. You have a bad wound on your head. It may have affected your memory.”

“No,” he whispered. “I can’t remember. I can’t remember anything.”

“It will come back to you,” she said with a smile. “Give it time. Meanwhile, you need to rest.”

He tried to smile in reply, but he felt sure it didn’t work very well. He lay quietly, watching as she rose from her position crouched beside him. She removed a glass jar from a cabinet, then some white bandages. The other one, her brother, stood by and watched them both with open curiosity.

“This will sting a little,” Nellie murmured, returning to his side. “It’s a curative. It’ll help your wound heal. Then I’ll wrap it in bandages.”

She is so beautiful. She moved with a grace that fascinated him. Her chestnut hair was braided, then coiled at the back of her head. Her green eyes sparkled when she smiled, which entranced him. He could tell her body under her plain gray gown and white apron was slender, yet firm with strong muscle.

And her face. Perfectly oval with skin untouched by the sun. Her tiny chin and full, generous mouth held his gaze long after he should have looked away. When Nellie smoothed the ointment over his head wound, he barely felt the sting she said would come.

“Now to wrap it.”

He lifted his head high enough so she could wrap it in the clean gauze. He breathed in her sweet, feminine scent, and couldn’t remember if ever a woman smelled like that.

“So what do we call you?” she asked, pulling up a chair to sit beside him. “Until you remember your name, that is.”

“Uh, I don’t know.”

“I found you near Monroe Creek,” the brother said cheerfully. “How about Monroe?”

Relief etched through him. It felt good to have a name. “Sure. Monroe is good.”

“I have your horse, at least I think it’s yours. Found him with you. A stout gray?” Rylan went on. “I’ll take him back to the ranch with me. When you’re up and around, I’ll bring him back.”

“All right. Thanks. I think. Guess I can’t remember what my horse looked like either.”

Under Nellie’s ministrations, his pain had seemingly decreased. Perhaps her mere presence eased him enough that he could now ignore the worst of it. “How long will I be here?”

“That’s up to Dr. Hale,” Nellie answered, wiping sweat from his cheeks with a cool cloth. “At least a day or so. Head injuries can be dangerous.”

“I have no money to pay him.”

Panic seized him again. He started to sit up, but the blinding pain dropped him flat on his back. He cried out, holding the sides of his head with his hands, trying to will the agony away, hoping his death would soon remove it .

“Hold still, Monroe,” Nellie ordered, holding him steady as best she could. “Calm down, it’ll work out, don’t worry. Dr. Hale will wait until you remember who you are and where you’re from.”

“Well, it’s nice of you to refuse payment on my behalf.”

Monroe opened his eyes, squinting past the pain and Nellie.

A short man of medium build scowled in his direction. He wore a black Derby, a black frock coat and spectacles, his plain face a mask of disapproval.

“This is Dr. Hale,” Nellie said, standing. “Doctor, this is Monroe. Rylan brought him in with a head wound. I cleaned and cared for it.”

“Monroe, eh?” Dr. Hale hung his hat on a hook, then stalked to where Monroe lay on his couch. “Who is your family? Perhaps they can pay my fee.”

Monroe gaped. “I… I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

“No? What happened to you?”

“I don’t know that either.”

“Amnesia.” Dr. Hale spat the word as though it tasted bad. “Your memory may or may not come back, young man. Let me have a look at you.”

He sat down next to his patient, and closely examined Monroe’s eyes, then listened to his heart.

“You should have waited before bandaging his head,” he grumbled, standing. “I should have liked to have looked at it first.”

“It’s a graze from a gunshot,” Nellie answered calmly. “Deep but not life threatening.”

“Humpf. If he doesn’t remember who he is, how will I be paid?”

“I’ll pay for his care, you miser,” Rylan snapped. “Can he at least stay until he can walk?”

“Yes, yes, of course. Nellie, give him a small dose of laudanum. No more. Sutherland, get those ruddy horses away from my office. They’re stinking up the place.”

Unperturbed by the doctor’s brusque and impatient manner, Nellie sat once more and offered Monroe a spoonful of a brown liquid. He accepted it, grimacing at the foul taste.

“This will help you sleep,” she murmured, her kindness washing over him like a warm blanket. “I’ll look after you.”

“Thank you.”

Monroe tried to stay awake, wanting to watch Nellie for a while longer. However, the laudanum dragged him down into slumber where his pain faded into oblivion.

At least for a while.

***

He blinked his gummy eyelids into cooperation, squinting into the dimness of early morning. The office around him lay in partial darkness, and the silence filled it with a sense of peace. Monroe recalled the doctor’s harsh attitude of the previous day and absently wondered where he was.

“You’re awake.”

Nellie appeared beside him suddenly; a welcome sight. He gazed up at her, amazed at how silently she moved, at her perfect beauty with her hair falling in waves down her shoulders to her waist.

“You didn’t spend the night here?” he asked, his mouth dry. “Did you?”

Nellie laughed lightly. “Almost. When I have patients to care for, I stay with my friend here in town. I looked in on you and Ben both during the night, but you both slept.”

Monroe glanced at the bed across the room to observe Ben still snoring with his mouth open. “You work harder than the doctor does.”

“I’m his apprentice of sorts,” she said. “I’m studying under him to become a nurse.”

“You’ll make a terrific nurse.”

“You need sustenance,” she commented, smiling. “I’ll make you a broth.”

He watched her until she vanished behind a curtain, thinking of her as an angel yet again. She behaved in marked contrast to Dr. Hale, whose crankiness had Monroe disliking the man. He hoped he could leave this place soon and go home.

Wherever home was.

Nellie returned with a steaming bowl and a spoon. Holding both, she sat gracefully down on a chair next to the sofa and held the spoon to his lips. Monroe felt his face heat in a savage blush.

“I, er, can do that.”

“No, let me. You shouldn’t lift your head.”

Embarrassed, Monroe had little choice but to permit Nellie to feed him. The broth tasted wonderful, and its heat spread nicely through his stomach. By the time he’d finished, Ben was awake and complaining of hunger.

Nellie helped Ben to sit up, then also fetched him a bowl of hot broth. Monroe noticed how Ben’s eyes and expression lit up upon seeing Nellie and didn’t like it. If Nellie noticed Ben’s delight in watching her, she made no comment.

“How are my patients doing this morning?”

Hale breezed in on a gust of warm air that would soon turn to scorching heat. He eyed Nellie with faint disapproval as she unwrapped Monroe’s head bandage. He hung his hat up, set his bag down, then all but pushed her out of the way.

“Let’s take a look, shall we?”

Monroe’s dislike for the man, with his ill-concealed arrogance and his rudeness toward Nellie, intensified into open hatred. “She was doing fine.”

“Yes, she does good work. But Nellie isn’t even a nurse yet,” Hale answered with some asperity. “While I am an educated doctor of medicine.”

Hale’s probing of his wound hurt badly. “Easy, man,” Monroe yelled. “Are you trying to shoe a horse?”

“My apologies.” Hale a sked, then straightened. “One more day and you can go home.”

“I’m not so sure I’ll stay here that long.”

Hale shrugged, indifferent. He examined Ben with the same lack of consideration for the man’s pain, and left Ben clenching his fists as though craving to punch Hale in the nose.

“You’ll return to the Double T,” Hale commented. “Stay off that leg for six weeks.”

“How’m I to work?” Ben demanded. “I gotta earn a living.”

Hale ignored him and disappeared behind the curtain. Monroe suspected he lived back there and wondered why Nellie was the one looking in on him and Ben in the night, not the doctor himself.

Nellie sat back down and resumed bandaging Monroe’s head.

“Why do you let him treat you like dirt?” Monroe hissed, wincing in pain.

“Oh, he’s not so bad,” she replied with an airy laugh. “Once you get to know him, he’s a peach.”

“With a hard pit inside,” Monroe muttered, wondering where the hell he was supposed to go when he walked out of this place.

Throughout the day, he dozed on and off, and in between naps enjoyed spending his waking time watching Nellie. She smiled while providing remedies to the townsfolk who walked in, assisted Hale with a crying child who’d fallen into a pile of stinging nettles, and fed him a lunch of bread, cheese and broth.

When she busied herself elsewhere, Monroe lay on the couch and tried to remember. Who was he? Did he have family? How did he end up on a road with a gunshot wound to his skull? He pondered the questions hard, but they only left him exhausted, and with a throbbing head.

Ben hobbled from the office with the aid of a crutch and his fellow wranglers from the Double T ranch. Envious, Monroe watched him depart for his home, and his frustrations that he, Monroe, had no home to go to, rose within his heart. Who shot him? Why? What was his damn name?

No matter how he tried, his memory did not return.

The following morning, Rylan Sutherland arrived to see him. Nellie spoke to her brother just outside the door where Monroe couldn’t hear their words. Still, he noticed both shot him glances through the glass as they conversed.

That puzzled him. And worried him. Why were they talking about him?

Rylan, smiling cheerfully, sat in the chair beside him. “How’re you feeling, son?”

“Cranky,” Monroe replied, “I think I’m about your age. You don’t have to call me ‘son’.”

Rylan laughed, his russet hair only a fraction lighter than Nellie’s, but his smile, his green eyes, were the same as hers. “Sorry. Nellie says you want out of here.”

“I surely do. Why do you let that quack run all over her?”

Rylan’s smile faded. “I don’t. I don’t like how he treats her; I don’t like him. He’s been in Prairie Hills for about three years, I guess. Came from back east. Nellie wants to be a nurse so badly she doesn’t see the—I don’t know what to call it—”

“Hard pit in his soul.”

Rylan snapped his fingers. “That’s it.”

“Is he a good doctor?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Some folks think the sun shines out his backside, others dislike him the same as me.”

“I find no reason to enjoy his company,” Monroe commented.

“That’s why I came. Me and Nellie, and our Pa, want you to stay at the ranch with us.”

Monroe blinked. “You don’t know me.”

“Have another place in mind? I’ll tell you straight up, the hotel has bed bugs.”

Monroe sighed. “Thing is, I have no money. I can’t pay you.”

“I don’t recall asking you for money.” Rylan smiled peaceably. “There’s such a thing as common decency, son. We Sutherlands break out in it sometimes, like a rash. Look, I brought your horse. We’ll take the trip slow and easy.”

Monroe glanced up to discover Nellie had been standing nearby and listening to every word.

“We have plenty of room, Monroe,” she said.

“That’s not the point.”

“It is the point,” she insisted. “You’re not a burden, and you have no place to go. I’ve been asking around town, and nobody seems to know who you are either. So that settles it. You stay with us until your memory comes back.”

“And if it never does?”

Rylan shrugged. “Then you’ll be Monroe Sutherland, our adopted brother. Me and sis always wanted a brother.”

Despite the pain it would cause, Monroe chuckled. “All right. I’ll come with you.”

Chapter Three

“Be careful,” she warned both Rylan and Monroe as they mounted their horses.

As Monroe swung into his saddle with a clear grimace of pain, Nellie rushed to his stirrup. “Maybe you should stay here longer. Another day.”

“With Dr. Doom?’ he asked with a tight grin. “No thanks.”

Rylan reined his bay around. “You’ll come home tonight, Nellie?”

“Yes. I’ll be home in time to fix supper.”

“Good. Pa burned the roast last night.”

“Oh, dear.” Nellie chuckled. “I’m sure the hogs feasted.”

“They sure did. Be careful, Sis.”

“I will.”

As the two men rode away, Nellie heard Monroe clearly ask, “She rides to your ranch all alone?”

Rylan laughed, glancing back over his shoulder. “That lady rides better than a Comanche and if anyone dared accost her, she’d have their guts for hat ribbons.”

Chuckling, Nellie returned to the office and her day’s work. With Eli currently out seeing to house- bound patients, she had little to do. Taking down a medical journal, she sat at the desk and studied. While many of the medical terms were beyond her experience, she learned about plants that could be used for the treatment of colds, fevers, and to calm a nauseous stomach.

She had little idea of how much time had passed when the office door opened. Looking up, Nellie smiled broadly. “Hello, Greer.”

“What are you doing?”

Nellie’s best friend from childhood walked over to see for herself what Nellie was up to. “A journal on plants?”

“Yes. I’m trying to learn as much as I can. Eli hates it when I read his books.”

Greer wrinkled her delicate nose. “He’s hateful. I came to see if you wanted to dine at the hotel with me. It’s lunch time.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. Let me get my bonnet.”

Putting the journal back where she’d found it, Nellie seized her sun bonnet from its hook and joined Greer at the door. Though they’d come from vastly different families, the pair had bonded during their school days. Greer now taught at that very same school despite having inherited a considerable sum of money from her father.

The heat beat down on Nellie’s bonnet as they walked down the wooden sidewalk toward the small restaurant attached to the hotel. As they walked, Nellie chattered excitedly about the young and handsome stranger who would now be staying at their ranch.

“He has no memory of who he is?” Greer asked, frowning. “Isn’t that, well, impossible?”

“No. Temporary amnesia has been documented in medical cases,” Nellie explained. “Always related to head injuries.”

Seated at a table, they ordered beef and cheese sandwiches with cool water then continued their discussion about the mysterious Monroe.

“You say he’s handsome?” Greer asked.

“Very much so,” Nellie gushed. “The most incredible blue eyes you’ve ever seen. Strongly built, too. And his smile, well, it’s kind, and sweet and so very charming.”

“And he’s a pleasant fellow?”

“He is. He doesn’t like how Eli talks to me.”

“Eli Hale should be horsewhipped for the way he talks to you, Nellie. You refuse to see anything but good in that man.”

“He is a good man,” Nellie replied. “He just keeps that part of himself hidden.”

“He’s a greedy scoundrel who wants to marry you and keep you for his own.”

Nellie gasped. “Oh, no, you’re wrong, Greer. He doesn’t want to marry me. He’s just… concerned, for my welfare.”

Greer eyed Nellie with undisguised irritation. “For a smart woman, you can be dumb, Nell. You see what you want to see while the rest of us see what is. I wish you would open your eyes for once.”

Nellie nibbled her sandwich, not knowing what to say. She knew most people disliked Eli, and yet she did like him. Of course, he has a brusque manner to him. He’s busy, he has an entire town and its surrounding ranches to care for. That’s a great deal of pressure for one man. Why can’t people see his good side?

“Nell.” Greer reached across the table to take Nellie’s hand. “You’re such a good person. You wouldn’t see evil if the devil himself popped up and announced his intention to murder people. Just know we all love you.”

Nellie smiled. “That’s why I want to be a nurse. To give back to all the people who have loved me and my family for so long.”

“That and you’re truly an angel at heart. Did you hear that Mr. Willard has gotten himself a mail order bride?”

“A what?”

Greer giggled. “He sent away to ask a woman from back east to come to Texas and marry him. Isn’t that extraordinary?”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“A man places an advertisement in the papers, and the women respond.” Greer laughed again. “I wonder if we ladies can ask a wealthy man from the east to come here and marry us.”

Nellie waved her hand. “I don’t want to marry. Not unless I find a man I can love with all my heart. Certainly not a stranger.”

***

Late that afternoon, with the day’s heat barely abating, Nellie locked up the doctor’s office. She hadn’t seen much of Eli, and figured he’d been busily treating patients in their homes. A small barn stood behind the building which housed Eli’s own horse and his small buggy as well as Nellie’s dark roan gelding.

“Ready to go home, Bart?” She rubbed the horse’s soft nose for a moment, breathing in the sweet aroma of horse. “I sure am. I miss it.”

She saddled the roan, then le d him from the barn. Bart stood still as she swung into her saddle, waiting for her to guide him down the alley and into the street. Due to the summer’s heat and the lateness of the day, there were few other riders or wagons as she rode through the town.

She loved riding. Her father taught her to ride when she was small, and throughout her life she helped breed, train and sell horses. If she hadn’t craved to work as a nurse, she’d have been happy to spend her life among horses.

Keeping Bart to a comfortable walk, she gazed around at the flat prairie, the thin grass that sustained the herds of cattle and horses in this part of Texas. She never thought of the region as ugly, but rather found beauty in the rocky ground, the deer, the rabbits, even the dangerous javelinas.

Bart’s ears suddenly perked up and he lifted his head, causing Nellie to notice the two riders not far ahead of her. They rode in her direction at a walking pace. She felt no fear, as there were many ranches and horsemen that used that road.

One of the strangers lifted his hand in a request for her to stop. Nellie reined Bart in, watching the pair curiously. She’d never seen either of them before, but they were clearly ranchers in their Stetsons, and vests with long rifles in their saddle scabbards. Both tipped their hats to her courteously.

“Hello, Miss,” said the older man who directed her to stop. “Might you know where the Clarkson Ranch is?”

“Certainly.” Nellie pointed back the way she’d come. “Near Prairie Hills, there’s a road heading east. It’s down that way about a mile or so.”

“Much obliged.”

Nellie smiled, waiting for the men to ride on, and cease blocking her path forward. The older man studied her with open curiosity while the other , eyed her with admiration. She didn’t like either of them scrutinizing her in such a fashion.

“Excuse me,” she said politely. “May I ride on?”

“Where’re you bound, Miss?” the older man asked.

“My home.”

“That way is the Sutherland place,” he continued, his eyes narrowing. “You be Cyrus Sutherland’s get?”

Nellie didn’t like how the man spoke of her as though she was a horse or a dog. “Yes, Cyrus is my father. May I ask who you are?”

“I’m Jameson Braddock.” He tipped his hat again. “This is my son, Darius. I’ve had dealings with your father, years back.”

“I’m sorry, but he never mentioned you.”

Braddock smiled, yet it wasn’t a pleasant expression. “Our dealings were never friendly. Are you married, Miss?”

“That’s an impertinent question, sir.”

Braddock jerked his thumb at his son. “You see, my boy is searching for a wife. I have two sons, both needing wives.”

“I’ve heard of ladies willing to head west to marry men,” Nellie said stiffly. “Perhaps they may advertise for one.”

“Not what my boys deserve,” Braddock said. “You’re a might purty gal.”

“Thank you. Now will you stand aside so I may continue?”

“Not just yet,” Braddock answered. “What’s your pa doing these days? Still breeding them nags?”

“My father is a respectable breeder of fine horses,” Nellie answered, her tone icy. “If you wish, you may pay a call on him.”

“Naw. I’m apt to put a bullet in his eye if I saw him. He’s a crook and a thief. His boy ain’t no better.”

“Stand aside. I’ll not listen to you insult my father and my brother.”

“You’re a feisty one.” Braddock looked her up and down as though evaluating a broodmare’s quality. “You got spirit. I like that in a gal. Marry Darius here. Or Cole, my other son. Get away from them no good men of yours.”

“Alright then. I’ll simply ride around you.”

Nellie reined Bart to the right and kicked him into a gallop. Neither of the Braddocks tried to stop her as she cantered past them, then back onto the road. She glanced back, fearing they would chase her, perhaps kidnap her and force her to marry into their family.

But the Braddocks didn’t watch her ride away. Instead, they rode on toward Prairie Hills as though they hadn’t just insulted her family… or demanded her hand in marriage.

“The nerve of them,” Nellie fumed, slowing Bart to a swift trot.