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Longren Family Box Set 1 – 3 (Historical Cowboy Romance)
Longren Family Box Set 1 – 3 (Historical Cowboy Romance)
Longren Family Box Set 1 – 3 (Historical Cowboy Romance)
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Longren Family Box Set 1 – 3 (Historical Cowboy Romance)

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Now available as a trilogy bundle box set, all three books in the Longren Family series.
“The Longren Family trilogy box set” presents the romance of the old west – and the people in it.
Silver Heart (Longren Family #1 - Mail Order Bride )
When Maggie Lucas (mail order bride) leaves Boston for Virginia City, Nevada, she's anticipating a marriage of convenience and life in a new home with a man she's never met. That's more than enough change, in her view. What she doesn't expect, is to find that home threatened as both the market for silver and the Comstock Lode mines themselves dry up and her new husband faces foreclosure. She also doesn't expect to fall in love with the new state, the people in it – and her new husband.

Steel Heart (Longren Family #2 – Chloe and Matthew’s story )
Chloe Anders always knew she'd marry Matthew Longren. It just wasn't always obvious that Matthew knew it. But now that the Longren brother whom Chloe's father has described as a scoundrel and a cad has opened The Faro Queen Hotel in Virginia City with his older brother and begun to settle down, it looks like the time has come for Chloe and Matthew to marry.
But not everyone agrees. When The Faro Queen burns in winter 1881, Chloe finds herself trailing the arsonist through a snow storm and cornering him, only to get knocked out and left for dead in a burning building. Only days later someone shoves Chloe in front of a speeding carriage. It's time to find out who's trying to kill her – and time to leave Gold Hill.
Following Matthew's love of trains, the newlyweds move to Reno where Matthew goes to work for the Nevada & Oregon Railway, a new company marked with violence that eventually leads to murder. Matthew moves on to Union Pacific, and Matthew and Chloe pursue their dreams into the heart of a storm and flash flood that threatens to change their lives forever.

Cowboy Heart (Longren Family #3 – Kitty and Luke’s story )
When Kitty Collins runs away from her complicated life in Gold Hill, Nevada, the last thing she's looking for is more complications. But complications are exactly what she finds, in the shape of two attractive cowboy suitors.
There's more at stake than Kitty's heart, though. When Kitty runs to the cattle ranch where her sister Sarah and Sarah's new husband William live, she finds a ranch under siege from lawsuits brought by neighbors, drought, wildfires – and arson.
Robert McLeod is a rugged, bearded and handsome, the type of cowboy who sets Kitty's heart racing. Luke Michaels, clean cut and quiet, shares Kitty's wild spirit and offers her friendship in addition to romance.

A historical western cowboy romance series.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherGold Crown
Release dateDec 16, 2013
ISBN9781311561565
Longren Family Box Set 1 – 3 (Historical Cowboy Romance)
Author

Amelia Rose

Amelia Rose holds a PhD in Literature and Language; she specializes in teaching positive, self-reliant principles to children and adults of all ages.  Dr. Rose lives with her husband and three children in the Hudson Valley, New York area, where she enjoys the outdoors and spending time with her family and friends.   Matthew Maley is an artist with nearly twenty-five years in the fields of Illustration and Design. His work has appeared in publications such as Archie Comics, Marvel, Disney, Nickelodeon, and Children’s Television Workshop. He lives in the Hudson Valley with his wife, daughter, and a variety of animals.

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Longren Family Box Set 1 – 3 (Historical Cowboy Romance) - Amelia Rose

Silver Heart (Longren Family #1 - Mail Order Bride )

Chapter 1

Mr. Longren lost control of the wagon minutes after we left Virginia City behind. Lightning and thunder split the desert sky and a cloudburst opened up on the unpaved roads. The horses were moving fast under the whip. Mr. Longren had thought to get us to his homestead before the storm started in earnest.

The switchback road washed to a sheen of mud in minutes and the horses began to run, then to slip. I clutched the sides of the wagon with both hands, my hat flying off my head, lost somewhere in the sage. I couldn't help screaming.

Beside me, Mr. Longren played the reins, tugging first to one side and then the other for control until the wagon began to cant. He never stopped talking to the horses, but he didn't shout. Nothing worked-the animals were wild, not afraid so much of the storm, it seemed, but of their own speed. They'd startled each other and couldn't stop.

Sage and fern-like trees whipped by on either side. Rocks clattered up under the floorboards of the wagon, which swayed wildly from side to side. We rounded a hairpin turn, careening, and suddenly, all of creation seemed spread out below us, the drop as severe as any the train had skirted bringing me from the valleys up the foothills into the desert.

Lightning split the late afternoon sky, bright against dark clouds. Thunder followed close on its heels, a low rumble dragged out through the valleys. Despite the rain, the ground still smelled summer hot and the sage smelled strong. The wagon jolted and slid in the mud again as the horses plunged.

Mr. Longren didn't waste any more time with words. His teeth were clenched, the muscles in his jaw standing out; his dark hair uncovered and soaked with rain. Still, he held the reins loosely, now pulling gently on both, not yanking the horses back but exerting steady pressure.

I could hear him, then, in the break between the rolls of thunder. As the animals finally started to slow, he was speaking again. His voice soothed, in opposition to the terrible speed, the pounding rain and the slick mud track.

My knuckles were white against the boards of the wagon. The conveyance was very small and open, nothing like a carriage or the street cars in Boston. I'd been afraid I'd fall out of it before the storm started and the horses bolted. Mr. Longren looked like the most stable thing in the wagon; I longed to grab hold of him, but I'd known him for only an hour.

After only one hour, his voice didn't soothe me.

This wasn't how I'd anticipated coming to my new home.

One of the wagon wheels caught on a rock and sent us veering to one side. I screamed hard, although I tried not to, afraid of terrifying the horses further. Hutch Longren didn't speak but, somehow, the crack of the breaking wheel stopped the horses. The wagon began to drag, the forward momentum slowed by the sheer weight they were now trying to pull. And through it all, my future husband spoke slowly, calmly.

I could hear him better then. His words were a mixture of gibberish, just sounds meant to be soothing, and the horses' names and the sort of things people say when being reassuring during an emergency.

It's all right, Sophie, Scamp. It's all right, it's just a storm, you're not hurt.

I thought he could have addressed the same remarks to me. I'd likely have not believed them any better than the horses had minutes before but now, at last, they were slowing, tiring, dragging the damaged wagon and plowing to a stop in the mud.

And then we were still, the rain coming down on the roof of the wagon, a wayward wind blowing it into our faces and inside the small covering. My heart pounded so hard it took my breath, and my hands refused to relinquish their hold on the boards of the wagon.

For just an instant, we both sat still and then Hutch Longren began to laugh. I turned and stared at him and that made him laugh harder, the wind stirring his soaked hair, brushing it back from the clean lines of his cheeks. His blue eyes flashed and I thought he was laughing at me and began to become angry, until he stopped, wiped his mouth on the back of one hand, and nodded at me.

Welcome to Virginia City, Maggie Lucas.

The rain let off not long after we’d stopped. I tried to effect repairs, tucking wisps of straw colored hair up into pins, but my hat was long gone and my hair so wet I couldn't imagine I was doing any good.

My new traveling dress, with the shirt-waist jacket trimmed in velvet, and the close-fitting skirt my sister Elizabeth had said would be more comfortable for the journey were wet and clinging and now the rain had stopped, the air around us was heating up again.

Hutch Longren had seen to the horses the minute he'd ascertained I was alright. Sliding on the mud, he made his way up to them, speaking calmly, rubbing their necks and checking both were unharmed before he made his way back to the wheel. He dragged tools out of the back of the wagon and commenced working on it.

I had no idea what he was doing and there was no way I could help. My father was the only man in our household and he neither mended wagon wheels nor welcomed a woman's help in most of the tasks he considered better left to men. So, I slid from the seat of the wagon into the mud, slipping a little before I found the right way to squelch through it, and then I started up the road with no more plan than seeing what was near me.

There wasn't much to see. The road we were on led from Virginia City to Mr. Longren's home in Gold Hill. It wound through sage brush and rock, through scrub and foothill, and one turn looked much the same as the next. On top of the mountains in front of us, I could see derricks, wooden structures and mining detritus, but every bend in the road simply showed another bend in the road, more sage, more foothills.

I felt utterly lost.

The idea had been for me to come from Boston to Nevada to meet Mr. Hutch Longren, childhood friend of my Uncle Roy's and someone my Mother had kept track of through the years. She'd been 12 years older than Hutch Longren, a sort of second mother to him when he and my uncle ran wild in the Boston streets. Eventually, they'd all grown up and gone their separate ways but they'd stayed in touch by letter, if not by visit.

Which was how it was my mother came to know when Mr. Hutchinson Longren's wife of many years died in 1874 of the cholera, leaving him alone with no offspring and a mine rapidly playing out.

Ellie and Hutch had married for love; we would be married for convenience. I tried to remember that as I watched him work, his shoulder muscles flexing under his soaked shirt. He wore a simple blue work shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the denim trousers the miners were reported to wear. I thought of the men I'd seen on the streets in Boston. The men who courted my sisters and I came dressed in suits, ties and hats, their sleeves long and cuffed, and their shoes shined. I had anticipated the West would be different, but I had not expected to be so hot.

I fanned myself with my hand, wishing I still had possession of my hat. If I were to be honest with myself, Mr. Longren looked quite handsome and capable as he worked the wheel, tanned forearms rippling with strength. If this was the custom in this part of the world, I didn't find myself overly offended by it.

But I was here as helpmate, caretaker of his house. I would remember.

I'd been trying to remember ever since we left the train station.

Five years my senior, at 30, I'd picked Hutch Longren out of the crowd at the railway station quite easily once the steam engine thundered into Virginia City.

Everything this day was magical. My week-long journey across the country was coming to an end and I was sorry. I'd come across territories and new states, through the country still recovering from the recent war. I'd seen Indians and a cattle drive, seen the cities dwindle, becoming smaller and newer. I'd felt my old life become lost.

Even the railway was new. Only in recent years had the railway begun to carry passengers. Built to carry supplies to the miners and shopkeeps along the towns of the Comstock Lode, it still operated primarily to haul goods rather than people. The one passenger car was packed, with two spinster sisters who glared at me every time I observed them because I had the temerity to put down my window and sit turned, watching as the land unfolded around me, from low pines to vistas of sage. My Great Aunt Agnes, who accompanied me as far as Reno, stopped me from sitting twisted and staring out the window. Once she left the train, I was on my own for one or two short, wonderful hours.

I sat with my knees under me, kneeling up and staring out, my gloved hands on the window frame. I wanted to see where the train was taking me. This was to be my home. I was 23 years old and traveling-for the first time and for only a short distance-without a chaperone. It was an unexpected pleasure, such freedom, and I meant to savor every instant.

There was, after all, no telling what awaited me at the end of the steam engine's line. Hutch Longren was my mother's brother's childhood friend. He was a stranger to me.

But finding him was easy. He stood head and shoulders around the men nearest him and his shoulders eclipsed much of the wall behind him. I hoped to have a moment to observe without being observed. My new life had begun across the country one week past. Hutch Longren represented the future. I wanted to know what that future was.

But he'd spotted me moments after I spotted him. Not so difficult, perhaps, as the only other passengers left in the train car by then were the pair of glaring spinsters and an exhausted woman with three small boys who'd worn me out as well. Surely Mr. Longren wouldn't expect me to travel with my own brood of children. I was traveling to meet him for the purpose of marriage, as Mr. Longren had need of a wife and I had need of a position of sorts. Father was growing older, more silent and more tired, and had too many daughters at home whose situations needed sorting out. My two older sisters, Victoria and Elizabeth, had already married, leaving me, Emma and Virginia.

The flutter in my heart wasn't fear. Since losing my mother, I'd felt adrift. Her care had principally fallen to me, the daughter she'd trained as a midwife with her own nursing knowledge and, without her, I'd lost one of my best friends and confidantes, though I'd had little enough to confide.

One look at Hutch Longren and I hoped that last had come to an end. Even across the station, I could see his blue eyes and a scar on one cheek that didn't detract from his looks. It was then, in the station, the minute our eyes locked, that I began to remind myself of my place here. No daydreams of romance. I'd lived 23 years and watched my friends marry at 17 and 18, as I remained in my family home.

Daydreams were for my younger sisters. I was practical. The fact that Mr. Longren was comely was a pleasant enough fact but of no substance.

So I reminded myself, standing in the rain, watching his shoulders and arms as the rain soaked through his shirt.

Mr. Longren fixed the wagon wheel, the rain stopped, the sun came out and the horses were calm. Everything was right in the world, except for me.

I'd spent a week traveling by steam engine in the company of my great aunt, who sniffed her disapproval at my unwedded state, my soon-to-be wedded state, at the loss of my mother, the choice of my husband-to-be, the state of the world in general, the steam engine in particular and every pot of tea delivered at every stop in every city. When she fell ill in Reno and chose to remain there with distant (and not overly pleased) relatives, I was less concerned about the propriety of traveling alone and the fear that, somehow, without ever getting off the train, I'd get lost, and more that she would effect a recovery before I'd be free of the city and on my way.

She hadn't, though the glowering spinsters in the passenger car had taken her place. I'd almost have welcomed their return, if it meant I was going home. The sky above me, with the clouds blown away, was deep, rich blue and spread so far and wide that staring up at it made me dizzy. The scents of sage and dirt were unfamiliar as my own streets of Boston might have been to Hutch Longren after so many years in the Nevada desert. At home, there were theaters and markets, restaurants and streetcars, and here-

There was Hutch Longren, the man I'd come to marry.

Miss Lucas? You'd best get back into the wagon. He stood, holding his hand out to me, this stranger I'd come to marry, and my heart raced and my breath went thin. But his eyes were soft, his hand held out with patience, and I had watched him calm the horses, never swearing, never shouting.

I took his hand and stepped back into the wagon.

Gold Hill was only a few miles outside of Virginia City through the sage and canyons. If not for the storm, we'd likely have seen other people who would soon be my neighbors. The road was well traveled, as Virginia City itself was rowdy, loud and home to the miners, shopkeeps and tavern owners. Gold Hill, tucked under the mines, was home to some 8,000 people.

Gold Hill had its own mining concerns, like Virginia City, which was better known across the nation, even as far as Boston. But the mines were playing out as the years advanced and the end of the War Between the States had seen a drop in silver prices. I knew I shouldn't expect the neat brickwork of my family home.

Neither of us spoke much on that ride. The horses, now calmed, were exhausted, shuffling in the traces as they dragged the wagon. After my initial excitement of arrival and after the events of the afternoon, I felt much the same and the further we drove together, the less I could think to say to the stranger beside me.

I'd almost fallen into reverie-or more honestly, sadness and homesickness-when he said, softly, from beside me, Look up, Miss Lucas. We are almost home.

He'd done well during the silver strike. I knew that, of course, as I knew that most of the money was gone, first to Ellie Longren's illness and then to daily life as the mine he'd owned with his brother produced less and less.

The house, though, was neat and clean, whitewashed and surrounded by a low picket fence that twined with bright blue flowers and sunny sweet pea.

There was a great deal of land, several acres to my untrained eye, and a garden behind the house, because I could see the tops of corn showing their heads. As we approached from one side, I could see the barn out back and the neatly tended and rock-lined dirt path that led back up to the house. More horses stood in the pasture, which was shaded by apple trees.

The day was now hot and windless. The storm had been a brief squall and blown over after blowing us from Virginia City to Gold Hill, an inauspicious welcome if I was looking for a quiet life.

In truth, I wasn't sure what I was looking for. My father would never have pressed this marriage on me, although he wanted his daughters set for life (and possibly out from underfoot). My father's fortunes hadn't favored him since my mother passed. I needed somewhere to go.

I had come without notions of romance, as befit a woman verging on old maid, unmarried at 23 and coming to an untamed land with no dowry. This was to be a marriage of convenience.

I was not willing to admit to myself that upon first sight of Mr. Longren, I'd begun to harbor secret hopes. I wasn't even going to admit it to myself.

He was waiting for me to say something. We still sat on the wagon seat, the reins loose in his hands. His dark hair had dried into a mess of curls and I wanted to reach over and straighten them out, but the thought itself reminded me he was a stranger.

You haven't spoken, he said. This was unfair; neither had he.

It's bigger than I expected, I said and then thought that paltry praise. I hadn't come seeking a fortune. It's beautiful.

My voice came out softer than I expected and I glanced at Mr. Longren and saw a softening in his eyes. I'd pleased him, which pleased me.

Chapter 2

We stepped out of the brilliant day into the sitting room, which looked as if no one used it and likely hadn't since Mr. Longren's wife had passed. It was elegant and though covered in Nevada dust, otherwise starkly clean. His wife's taste had included delicate crystal vases and lace table covers. One delicate china tea pot was displayed on a sofa table. The room unnerved me. I had come into another woman's house to be wife to another woman's husband and could not fathom how I would compare with her memory.

Mr. Longren disappeared down a narrow hallway, my trunk on his shoulder as if it weighed nothing. Briefly, I remembered his muscles outlined by the soaking, clinging shirt as he worked the wagon wheel back on the road between Virginia City and Gold Hill and I shivered, then coughed to cover it and forced myself to step completely into the house, swinging the door shut behind me.

I had no idea what to expect. My life for the last four weeks had revolved around getting to this place and meeting this man who I was to marry. I had sometimes wondered what my life would become once I'd arrived but, with very little to base conjecture on, had mostly considered the journey.

He came back down the hallway. I thought you would follow me.

I blushed. I was acting like a foolish child, but I had spent little time alone with a man. In Boston, propriety meant there were chaperones. Things were different in the West.

I followed him to the room he'd prepared or, more likely, a neighbor had seen to. It was clean and neat, and clearly not his. The dresser gleamed, neatly waxed, and the bed was covered in a lacy spread with pillows heaped high. Canary yellow curtains moved in the afternoon breeze.

It was my room and clearly mine alone in this clean, unknown house. I had no idea how to broach the question of how long it would be mine and only mine, or even when we would wed. I stood at the threshold, thinking only now that he had not carried me into the house, but he had, in fact, preceded me, giving me view of his shoulders and strong back but little in the way of a husband greeting a wife.

I swallowed hard, burying the thought. It wouldn't do to forget my place.

He was watching me, a curious half smile that made me stumble into speech, thanking him and admiring the room. Sure I was nearly out of words when we heard horses racing up to the house, followed by hard, loud voices calling and footsteps across the wooden porch. Someone banged hard on the door, calling Hutch? You there?

The screen door rattled and the inside door banged too. I tried to step back into the hall or farther into the room, either way, just to get out of his way, and Mr. Longren brushed past me in my indecision. One hand brushed my arm as he passed and I shivered, then turned to follow him.

Two men stood just inside the sitting room, filling it to nearly overflowing with their size, with broad shoulders, tan shirts rolled to mid-arm, their shirts wet with sweat. They were dusty and hot and they wore their hats until I entered behind Mr. Longren.

Ma'am, one said, but the other merely passed his eyes over me and said, Hutch, you need to come. He was already turning, hat going to head, hand out to catch the door and shove it open.

John, my husband said. I've just come from retrieving Miss Lucas from the railway. I'd prefer-

-It's bad, Hutch, the other man said. Pale eyes, graying hair, he wore wire rimmed spectacles and still held his hat against his chest.

Mr. Longren looked past the man he'd called John, his tanned face suddenly going pale. Where's Matthew?

At the mine, John said. The screen door banged behind him as he headed for his horse.

Mr. Longren turned his attention to the man he'd called John. Muscles moved in his jaw.

He's alive, Mr. Longren. Shot. You need to come.

Hutch swore, reached for his hat, and he was already in motion when he called back to me, Make yourself at home. Look around. I have to-

I reached for him. Matthew was his little brother, younger by several years, who'd followed Hutch Longren out to the silver strike. My mother had read me letters from Mr. Longren about Matthew, about his temper, his humors and his hard drinking and hard living.

Hutch Longren loved his brother.

I'm coming, I said, fumbling for the hat that had been lost on the road, realizing I needed nothing else and had nothing else. My kit wouldn't arrive for another week at least, sent from Boston to follow me up. I had no instruments but myself and whatever may be at the mine.

That's no place for a lady, ma'am, John said from the porch.

Stay here, Margaret, Hutch said, using my name for the first time and following hard on John's heels, Is the doc there?

Accident at the Chollar mine. He'll come when he can, we need to move Matthew, get him back here or to his house, we…

The screen door slammed behind me. Hutch looked over his shoulder even as he moved fast for the spare horse the two men had brought with them. Go inside. I'll be back.

I'm coming with you, I said and, for a minute, couldn't think how. There were three horses in the front of the house and three men mounting them. I'd ridden, of course, but in Boston, with the modern streetcars and carriages, it wasn't often. I didn't know how to saddle a horse, where to find a saddle, or even how to ride the way they rode out here. And the horses in the corral were strangers as much as Mr. Longren.

Stay. Here. He sounded angry, was already astride a huge, red beast and wheeling away from me to ride. The other men dug their heels into the horses' sides.

I raised my voice, shouting to be heard. He couldn't leave me here. I'm a midwife, I shouted. I can help. I didn't know Matthew, but Mr. Longren's letters had brought him alive … young, impetuous … important, to Hutch.

Just the slightest pause. I saw his shoulders sink from their high defensive hold. He didn't want to take me, but this was for Matthew.

Later, I'd wonder if Hutch Longren had been as nervous as I had been at our initial meeting, nervous enough to almost welcome any excuse to get some time away. Later, I'd wonder how wise I'd been to insist on following and what would have happened if I couldn't have helped Matthew.

But that was later. All I knew was someone was hurt and I had to help.

Longren stopped the horse, turned back to me and held his hand out. It would be the fastest way and I wouldn't have to try to ride. I ran to him, silently cursing the tight skirt that bound my legs. Easier by far, Virginia, for railway and wagon riding, but the horse was another matter.

He pulled me up across his lap and didn't wait any longer. We followed the other two horses, riding hard.

The three men rode hard, galloping out of Gold Hill, heading northeast away from both Gold Hill and Virginia City, toward the mountains and the silver. Wind tangled my hair, covering my face and eyes, getting into my dry mouth. The heat of the day wrapped around me like Mr. Longren's arms. My back brushed against his chest with every jolt of the horse over the rocky ground.

My heart pounded. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to help, afraid of what that would mean for Matthew Longren, and what it would mean for the man I was meant to marry. I'd attended a gunshot only once before, in Boston, when a banker cleaning his pistol had discharged it in an elegant home on Charles Street and the doctors were busy with a breech birth and the hospital was too far away. I'd succeeded then. I had to succeed now.

Despite the situation, I was aware of the strong arms circling me, one hand holding me against him, the other holding the reins. A delicious sense of inappropriate pleasure coursed through me. I tried to deny it, and failed.

We passed a clutch of people on the street. Little girls skipping rope stopped and stared. A woman wearing a bonnet looked up, frankly disapproving. She pulled her parcels closer and stepped off the road. I was making an impression I hadn't intended. I bit my lip and went back to worrying about Matthew Longren.

It took only minutes to ride to the mine-nothing but a rough, wood entrance, the name painted above it: Silver Sky.

The sight of it made me tense. The sky above, anything but silver, was vast blue and open, seeming to go on forever. The land led up to it, wide and rocky, dotted with sage. The pinion pines covered the slopes above the mine. But the mine entrance itself was a midnight black hole, an opening into nothing.

I regretted my impetuous move in joining the men. I wasn't certain I had the courage to go into that black maw, even if I was needed. I didn't want to think about Mr. Longren going daily into that Stygian blackness.

And maybe there was no need for me to descend. Outside the mine, in a small clearing dotted with equipment, machines, wagons and horses, stood a crowd of men, some shirtless, some with rolled up sleeves. They were rough looking and filthy, few with hats. They circled a figure on the ground and looked back over their shoulders as we drew near.

I had a moment's relief-I would not have to go into that dark to tend the charge I'd made my own-and a moment's revulsion at my cowardice.

Then the horses stopped and I slid down before Mr. Longren could assist me. Tucking my skirts out of the way with both hands, I ran across the ground between us without waiting.

Several of the men detached from the crowd, putting up hands to ward me off.

Whoa, miss, you don't want to see this.

Lady, wait.

Stay back!

The last man reached for me, his hands finding purchase on my arms. I batted him away and heard him swear. His fingers tightened for an instant before I heard Hutch Longren shout, Ben, let her go! He released me instantly and I shouldered through the others, no thought of propriety.

Matthew Longren lay in the circle of men, his face stark white with pain, his teeth gritted. He was propped up against what looked like a bedroll and that against a small wood fence, both hands clenched around his thigh, where filthy rags made a tourniquet. His trousers were soaked through and stained dark with blood but the wound had stopped pumping blood.

He was lucky, if anyone having been shot could be called lucky and, given what I'd heard, in letters, of his temper and his tendency to bully the worst choices, I thought lucky was apt. The bullet had caught him in the fleshy part of his thigh, missing bone as far as I could see, and missing the arteries that ran there.

I knelt in the dirt without thinking, without introducing myself or even speaking. I wanted to see the wound, wanted to get my hands on something to clean it with, as my mother had taught me.

I need a knife, I said to the men around me and they shifted and made querulous sounds. Men are never good at suddenly taking orders from a woman. When no knife was forthcoming, I looked up at the roughest of them, an enormous dark haired man with a mustache of absurd size, and said, Sir, your knife. I held out my hand.

On the ground, my patient scrambled backward a bit. Who are you? And then, more to the point, What are you going to do with that knife?

I met his eyes then, about the time a much too large knife slapped into my hand, and I smiled as reassuringly as I could, which likely wasn't very. I'm your sister-in-law, I said and watched bright blue eyes go wide, and I felt something, even in that instant, that I couldn't afford to feel, a twist of the heart I was determined to ignore.

Same hair, same generous mouth as his brother, same dark skin, and strangely similar blue eyes. But younger, closer to my age, and just now, he needed me.

I blinked and looked away from him, forcing myself to my work, which made him scramble again, his leg starting to bleed anew from injudicious movement. The men behind him stopped his retreat

The knife? You're-Maggie? Margaret? What's the knife for?

An absurd need to laugh arose, the response to fear, and to the absurdity of the introductions. Hush, I said, and stop moving. I need to cut the trousers only. I need to see the wound. I looked up the nearest pair of male legs to find that Hutch Longren now stood there. I nodded at him, as if certain he would understand, and he did, leaning down to put his hands on his brother's shoulders.

Easy, Matthew, let her work. She's a trained midwife.

That got a harsh, nervous laugh from the men who still ringed us and, on the wave of the laughter, I used the enormous knife to cut away the cloth surrounding the bloody hole on Matthew's leg, cutting as far as I could and ripping the rest, then nodding to Hutch so he could help me move his brother and I could see the back of his leg. Moving Matthew made him cry out. I worked as fast as I could, wanting to provoke as little pain as possible.

The bullet had gone straight through and the hole was relatively small on both sides. Someone had tied the rags above the wound and the blood had stopped. What was left, then, was to get him something for the pain and to clean the wound. The first he'd like, but the second, not so much, and both could be accomplished at the same time.

Which of you has whisky? I asked and the men around us had the sense not to worry that Mr. Longren was their boss, but simply offered me their flasks.

Drink this, I said, handing one flask to Matthew. His hand brushed mine as he took it. I felt the same shock I had when Hutch had brushed against me in the house and refused to acknowledge it.

The second flask I used to wash out the wound, which made Matthew draw in his breath and then shout. The sound echoed from the maw of the mine. I did not look at the mine, did not meet Matthew's eyes, just waited until the echoes and the patient had stilled, then, still kneeling, looked up to Hutch Longren.

That needs to mend, uncovered, and probably needs to be cleaned another time or two. Does he have someone to care for him at home?

Mr. Longren shook his head. But he lives not a mile away. He sounded grim as he crouched now beside his brother. To his brother, he said, We will discuss this when the bleeding has stopped, in a voice that made me glad I was not Matthew Longren.

I thought Matthew's response, The bleeding has already stopped, brother, was unwise, and my hands tightened just enough on his knee to suggest to him that perhaps discretion was the better part of valor at present.

The bleeding had stopped and, though I might not be the traditional doctor these men were used to, there was a general loosening of tension. The knot of them loosened as well, men stepping back and away, pinches of tobacco being shared, voices rising. I no longer minded being in a circle of strong smelling strangers, or having the room to think what needed to be done next and someone to consider options with.

Hutch remained with me and his brother and the two men who had ridden with us.

We need the wagon to take him back to his home, I said and saw the slighter of the men, the one with the eyeglasses, blink owlishly at me, as if surprised I would continue to give orders or make suggestions now that the emergency was over. I met his eyes and refused to look away until he did. Once he looked back to Matthew, I looked at the man Mr. Longren had called John and then at my intended. Or is there something here we can use? I did not want to be left waiting as Mr. Longren went back for the wagon we had used.

How about the steam donkey? one of the clutch of men called and laughter followed that, though it seemed good natured.

I turned to stare at Hutch Longren and found him grinning. You'd best ignore that lot, he said. Steam donkey's for hauling within the mine.

Very funny, Matthew said. "I

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