Promising Hearts Read online

  “Thank you, Milton. Let’s get the next one up here on the table.”

  Vance worked on, the sounds of battle growing closer. As the war closed in around them, the air grew thick with smoke and misery. The pain in Vance’s chest returned, skewering her with each breath. She coughed and shook her head, flinging sweat from her thick dark hair in an arc around her. Incongruously, the sun broke through for an instant, and crystal droplets danced on the sunbeams before falling into the blood that pooled around her scuffed black boots.

  “That’s the last one, Doc,” Milton said. “Now we gotta skedaddle.”

  “I believe you’re right, Sergeant,” Vance said, tossing the saw into her kit and rinsing her hands one more time. Reaching for her coat, she glimpsed the look of horror on Milton’s face at the same time as she felt the earth shake. Then the world revolved crazily, and the next moment, she was lying on her back staring at the sky. A few small patches of brilliant blue still peeked through the dense battle fog. She couldn’t hear through the ringing in her ears. She turned her head. Milton lay ten feet away, his neck bent at an unnatural angle, his eyes blank.

  The pain came next, unspeakable waves of agony. Reaching out blindly, Vance felt the iron rim of the barrel that supported the operating table and, gripping the top, pulled herself to her feet. The left side of her body was soaked in blood. Her left arm hung uselessly by her side. Dizzy, she sagged against the table and hoped it wouldn’t topple, struggling to sort out her injury. Bright red blood spurted into the air from somewhere near her elbow, the pulsations keeping time with her heartbeat. Of one thing she was certain—she’d bleed to death in another few minutes. Biting down against the pain and the screams that threatened, she found the leather strap she used as a tourniquet and cinched it down around her upper arm. The bleeding slowed.

  A minnie ball struck the table and kicked splinters into the air. Not much time. She slid down to the ground, her back against the barrel, her damaged arm cradled in her lap. Then she closed her eyes to wait.

  Chapter Two

  Montana Territory

  May 1866

  The pain jerked Vance from her restless sleep, the shadowy images of danger and misery lingering on the edges of her consciousness even as she opened her eyes and blinked in the half-light of the stagecoach’s interior. She met the curious stare of a young brunette seated across from her in the coach and fervently hoped she hadn’t been talking in her sleep or, worse, moaning. She shifted on the hard wooden seat and realized that her legs spanned the short space between them and brushed against the young woman’s traveling dress. Hastily, she sat upright and pulled back her booted feet.

  “Sorry, miss,” Vance murmured quietly, aware that the young woman’s traveling companion, probably her mother, was eyeing her with scornful reproach. She imagined she looked unsavory, in the clothes she been traveling in for weeks. The dark gray woolen trousers, matching coat, and double-breasted shirt she had taken from her brother’s trunk had been new, or nearly so, at the start of her journey. Her favorite ankle-high black boots no longer held a shine, but the fine workmanship was obvious. Still, even were she a man, her appearance would draw attention. Being female and so unconventionally presented always evoked scandalized expressions, even this far from Eastern society where it was slightly more common to see women out on the range or even in town dressed in masculine attire. She knew, however, that it was more than just her manner of dress that drew stares.

  “Are you quite all right?” the young woman asked, knowing no polite way to express her concern that the mysterious woman’s face was dead white and the dark eyes beneath a darker slash of brows appeared fevered. She’d taken her fellow traveler for a man at first glance, when she’d climbed into the coach just before their departure from Denver. But her face, though slightly square-jawed and perhaps too strong to be considered ladylike, had a refinement in the arched cheekbones and a fullness about the mouth that was most decidedly female.

  “Yes, thank you.” Vance was surprised that the young lady, perhaps eighteen years old, would go so far as to speak to her, a stranger and someone of whom her mother clearly disapproved. The brunette’s silk dress, bonnet, and parasol were new and fashionably styled, and spoke of wealth and privilege. Such young high-society women, Vance well knew, were often exceedingly haughty and rarely ventured into circles considered beneath them. Nevertheless, the eyes that studied Vance were direct, part concerned and part inquisitive. “Pardon me for disturbing you.”

  “You didn’t disturb me,” the young woman said, extending a gloved hand. “I’m Rose Mason. And this is my mother, Mrs. Charles Mason.”

  Vance took Rose’s fingers gently in hers and bowed her head politely. “Ladies. I’m Vance Phelps.”

  “Are you a…gambler?” Rose asked with barely suppressed excitement. She had heard of such women, but never thought to meet one.

  “Rose,” her mother said sharply, “your questions are unseemly and your manners even more so.” She turned her steely gaze to Vance. “Please forgive my daughter’s impertinence.”

  “Not at all,” Vance replied smoothly, understanding Rose’s confusion. Some more adventurous women did make their living by frequenting the gambling halls, often donning dapper male garb to enhance their reputations and garner invitations to the high-stakes games. “I’m afraid I have never been good enough at cards to make it a profession.” She hesitated, then added, “I’m a physician.”

  “Oh, my,” Rose breathed. “How exciting.” Her gaze dropped briefly from Vance’s face, skimming down her body and then returning. Once more, to her frustration, she could find no way within the bounds of propriety to ask what she truly wanted to know. “I imagine that’s very…demanding work.”

  “Sometimes.” Weary and hard pressed to keep up polite appearances or conversation, Vance wished she could surreptitiously slide the flask from the inside pocket of her traveling coat. The warmth of the whiskey, no matter how fleeting, would be welcome. Instead, she slipped the watch from her pocket and checked the time. “We should be arriving soon.”

  “New Hope must seem like a very dull place to visit after the excitement of the city,” Rose went on, ignoring the sharp tsk of disapproval from her mother. Her visit to Denver as a birthday gift from her parents had shown her a whole new world that she had never realized existed, one far more thrilling than the plain frontier society in which she had been raised. She was determined not to sit quietly by ever again while life happened all around her. And here was just such an opportunity, for surely this woman had seen much of the world. Rose had never seen a woman dressed this way before or traveling alone. Nor had she ever seen anyone, man or woman, who looked so haunted. “Do you have family there?”

  “No.” Vance’s tone was sharper than she intended, and when she saw Rose’s dark eyes widen in surprise, she smiled to soften the edge of her reply. “No, not family. I’m going there to work.”

  “With Dr. Melbourne?” Rose couldn’t disguise her pleasure. Now, she would have even more of an occasion to associate with this intriguing newcomer and learn more of what went on in the world beyond the boundaries of her tedious existence.

  “Yes.” Vance didn’t care to elaborate. In fact, the coach brought a sense of relief. It seemed that she had lost the skill for courteous social interaction during the last few years. All she wanted was to be alone. Wondering why she had even made this journey when what awaited her held no appeal, she forced herself to say, “I’ll be assisting Dr. Melbourne.”

  “Really? Oh. Well.” Rose smiled brightly. “I shall surely avail myself of your services, then.”

  Vance smiled thinly. “I certainly hope you won’t need them, Miss Mason.”

  *

  Jessie Forbes tossed a feed sack onto the pile in the back of her wagon just as the stagecoach clattered to a stop across the street in front of the hotel. She waved to the bearded, dusty man at the reins. “Afternoon, Ezra.”

  “Howdy, Jessie,” the driver called back as h
e jumped down and secured the team. While the hotel proprietor hurried outside to welcome the new arrivals, Ezra clambered back up to the top of the coach and began handing down luggage to a third man. Jessie paid little attention to the familiar scene, noting absently that the Masons had returned as Charles Mason, the president of New Hope’s only bank, pulled his buggy behind her wagon. “Jessie,” he said as he hurried by on his way to greet his wife and daughter.

  “Charles,” Jessie acknowledged, watching him idly as he crossed the street. Her gaze sharpened as another passenger climbed awkwardly down from the coach. Without considering her reasons or her possible reception, Jessie followed in the banker’s wake toward the stranger for whom she felt a swift and uncanny sense of recognition. Up close, she understood why. The newcomer was the first woman Jessie had ever seen dressed in men’s clothes in public, other than herself. Women out on the range might wear pants when it suited the work or the weather, but never in town. Jessie did because it was all she had ever worn, and it was what she was comfortable in. She had grown up in New Hope. The townspeople knew her and thought nothing of it when she rode astride looking exactly like one of her trail hands in typical cowboy garb—denim pants, cotton shirt, leather vest, boots, and western hat. Nor did anyone think it unusual that she wore a Colt .45 holstered against her thigh and carried a rifle on her saddle. She’d never given much thought to her difference until she realized she wasn’t alone. She stopped in front of the dark-haired woman who was almost exactly her height, if a good deal thinner, and held out her hand. “I’m Jessie Forbes.”

  Vance took in the rangy blond, noting the tan on her face and neck that extended into the opening of her collarless cotton shirt, the wide black leather belt, the holster slung low on her lean hips, the scuffed boots. One quick survey told her this was a woman who worked on the land, but it was the intelligence in her blue eyes and the flicker of curiosity that held Vance’s attention. There was something else in her gaze as well, a look of understanding that was wholly without pity. It was that more than anything else that had her extending her own hand in return. “Vance Phelps.”

  “Staying at the hotel?” Jessie asked.

  “Might be,” Vance replied. “But I’ve got to see about a job first. Maybe you can tell me where I’d find Dr. Melbourne’s office?”

  Jessie half turned and pointed down the main street. The street itself was a double wagon-width wide, with permanent ruts carved into it from the passage of countless wheels and horses’ hooves. The buildings were two-story wood structures with the exception of the bank, which was of a more recent vintage than most of the others and built of brick. Wide board sidewalks bridged the space between doorways and the street and allowed the ladies to keep their shoes and dresses dry when out walking or socializing during inclement weather. “About three doors down on this side of the street.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “You’re a doctor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, welcome to New Hope.” Jessie eyed the heavy valise that Ezra dropped onto the ground next to Vance, then regarded the neatly pinned up, and empty, left sleeve. “I’m going that way, if you’ve got more luggage.”

  “Just the one.” Vance hefted it in her right hand, keeping her expression carefully neutral as the muscles in her left side burned. Ten cramped hours in the coach had tightened the scar tissue over her ribs. Jessie Forbes was a bit taller than she was and probably five years younger. Fit and strong and clear-eyed. Everything Vance no longer was. Oddly, she didn’t resent the careful offer of assistance. On a day when she wasn’t so weary, in so much pain, and wishing for nothing more but drink and a bed, she might have wondered why she wasn’t bothered. As it was, she just nodded and turned in the direction Jessie had indicated. “Thanks again.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Jessie went back to loading supplies, then checked her watch. She had almost an hour before she was due to collect Kate at the Beecher home. Just enough time for a little socializing of her own.

  The saloon was nearly empty at five in the afternoon. Four men played cards at a back table, a bottle of whiskey in the center. A few cowboys stood drinking at the bar that ran along one side of the long, narrow room. An upright piano was pushed against the opposite wall, but the piano player was nowhere in sight. A staircase at the rear led up to a narrow balcony and a hallway beyond. The girls who populated the rooms down that hall wouldn’t make an appearance until after ten that evening, when the cowboys and townsmen would be in the mood for company. One woman stood at the far end of the bar talking quietly to the bartender, and when she saw Jessie, she smiled and waved. Jessie tipped her hat and went to join her. “Hello, Mae.”

  “Why, hello, Montana,” Mae said, using the nickname she had coined when Jessie, just eighteen, had first started coming into the saloon with her ranch hands after taking over the running of the Rising Star Ranch when her father died.

  “How are you?” Jessie regarded with real pleasure the elegantly made-up blond in her signature off-the-shoulder emerald green dress, cut so low in the front as to flout propriety. Still, she carefully kept her gaze above the level of that creamy expanse of skin, looking into Mae’s deep green eyes instead.

  “The week after roundup?” Mae laughed sharply. “About ready to shoot half the men in this town. I can’t wait till they spend their last dollar and ride on out of here for another year.”

  Jessie hid her grin and said seriously, “I surely hope it’s none of my boys giving you any trouble.”

  Mae gave her an arch look, one carefully plucked brow rising. “And I suppose you think because they take orders from you out there on that ranch that they’re different than ordinary men? When they’ve been out on the range for a few months with nothing but their own ornery selves for company, there’s only two things they’re looking for when they got money in their pocket. Liquor and women.”

  “If any one of them causes you or your girls any trou—”

  “No,” Mae said, resting her soft hand on Jessie’s forearm. “The Rising Star boys are usually the best in the bunch. Still, I’ve had my hands full all this week keeping peace down here and making sure that my girls aren’t in the middle when some of these hotheads start in on whose ranch raises the finest horses, who can shoot the farthest, who’s the best card player…” She shook her head. “You name it, men will argue over it.”

  “I can’t see as there’s much to argue about,” Jessie said. “Everyone knows the Rising Star has the best horses and the best hands.”

  Mae threw back her head, her shoulder-length gold ringlets, worn fashionably free that evening, dancing over milky shoulders. “I forget sometimes you’re not all that much different than those men of yours.” Her expression grew tender as she took in the handsome rancher’s sky blue eyes, her sun-kissed hair caught carelessly at the back of her neck with a leather tie, her worn and trail-stained clothes. Everything about her was so much more appealing than any of the cowboys who frequented the bar or her bed. Her smoky voice grew deeper. “Just different in all the ways that count.”

  “Mae.” Jessie laughed. “I’m about as ordinary as they come.”

  Mae forced lightness into her voice, reminding herself that things were different for Jessie now, and anything she might have once dreamed about her would never come to pass. Leaning close, she whispered conspiratorially, “I’d bet that’s not what your young Miss Kate Beecher would say.”

  Blushing, Jessie hooked her thumbs in her front pockets and glanced around, grateful that no one was in earshot. “Uh…well, I—”

  “Oh, Montana,” Mae said, taking pity on her. “You are a wonder. Where is she? With her folks?”

  Jessie nodded. “I had to come into town for supplies, and Kate stopped by for a visit with her mother.”

  “But not you?”

  “I think it’s going to be a spell before the Beechers are real comfortable with me.”

  “Or with Kate living with you.”

  �
��Yes.”

  “Well, never you mind. They’ll come around,” Mae said kindly, though she doubted that Martha Beecher would ever accept what Kate and Jessie shared—what Kate refused to give up or deny. As much as she’d once mistrusted Kate’s motives, Mae had to give her credit for standing up for what she wanted, and for standing by Jessie. “How is Kate after her first week out on the ranch?”

  “She’s fine,” Jessie said with relief. “She still gets a little tired if she overdoes it, which she usually does, but she’s nearly back to her old self.”

  “I think we were lucky that the grippe didn’t take more,” Mae said angrily. “Seems like life out here is hard enough with the weather, and the outlaws, and the troubles between the army and Indians. We don’t need to be dying in droves from the grippe and cholera, too.”

  Mae’s tone was bitter, and Jessie wondered who she had lost in her life. As long as they had been friends, there was far more she didn’t know about Mae than what little she did.

  “Hate to go through anything like that again,” Jessie agreed. “Looks like the doc is going to have some help, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A new doctor came in on the stage today. At least, I guess she’s going to be working with the doc. She was headed in that direction.”

  “She?” Mae’s eyes brightened with curiosity. “I never heard of a woman being a doctor.”

  “I saw something about it in the newspaper not that long ago. There are schools back East especially for women to be doctors.”

  “You don’t say. And now we’ve got us one.” Mae tapped an impatient finger on Jessie’s arm. “Well. What’s she like?”

  “I don’t know. I only talked to her for a minute.” Jessie recalled her encounter with Vance Phelps. She’d seen that look of quiet desperation in men’s eyes before and felt a pang of sympathy. “I have a feeling you’ll be meeting her soon, though.”