Matt resettled Lucy in his arms, then drew her limp little body closer in the sodden sheet. A shiver caught his shoulders. He would be cold with his own clothing getting wet. Maybe in his concern for Lucy he didn’t notice it, or maybe he didn’t feel it worth the mention.
“I can’t figure it, but Rachael says the Chinese don’t get cholera and they don’t drink water, only tea,” she said.
Rain pelted the window, driven by sidelong wind.
Princess laid her warm black head on Emma’s lap and whined. The dogs had grown as listless as their young mistress. Emma traced a line with her finger from the tip of the pup’s nose to the gentle slope of her head. “Good pup.”
“Rachael has lived all over the place.” Lightning blanched the inside of the room in stark light for an instant before thunder crashed over the house. Emma felt the dog tense and whine until the room once again glowed with the soft light of the oil lamp. “She says whenever her husband gets the call to move on, they pack up the family and go.”
“They’ve been in Dodge for some years now.” Matt slowed his rocking to a creakless tilt. “I expect there’s plenty of souls need saving right here without having to move on.”
“That must be a relief to her.” Emma listened to heavy rain pulse and ripple across the roof. “Getting to put down roots someplace.”
“I reckon she’d tell you her roots aren’t in any kind of soil, but in her family’s heart.”
There was a good chance that was the very thing Rachael would say.
What good did those kinds of roots do Emma, now? As soon as Lucy was well, and she would be, heartache in one form or another would shatter her.
Buggy wheels crunched outside, passing the window.
Emma shooed the dogs away from the bed. “That must be Doc Brown.”
Matt laid Lucy down in the center of the mattress and trailed his finger over her sunken cheek before he straightened.
“I’ll go see to his horse.”
“He’ll want to dry off and have a bite to eat.” Emma took a step toward the door, but Matt caught her arm.
“Whatever happens…” Emma’s shoulder grazed his chest. She felt his damp shirt brush against her arm with his breathing. “I’m not sorry you caught me in the livery that day.”
“I’m not sorry, either.”
He kissed her.
One and a half heartbeats later he dashed out to meet the doctor.
* * *
Piano music, jangling out of the open door of the Long Branch, wasn’t a whit muffled by the rain pounding Front Street to mud.
Red pressed his back against the wall of the store on the opposite side of the street. Anyone gazing out of the saloon would not notice him standing under the porch overhang with rain sluicing off the roof and pelting the toes of his boots.
Blamed if the rectangle of light coming out of the saloon’s door did anything but let fresh air in and smoke rings out. For observing what went on inside, it wasn’t much. How was he to get a glimpse of Hawker if he didn’t get any closer than this?
Matt had forbidden him to go inside any of the saloons in town. He’d forbidden him to come to town at all. Next thing, Matt would forbid him to even think a wicked thought.
There would be hell to pay if he got caught standing here, so why not move a little closer, as long as he might have to pay for the crime, anyway?
Since he was near the size of a grown man, he could stand outside the door with his hat pulled low, as if he was a gambler taking a break from his winning streak. That way, he’d be able to see most of what went on inside.
Odds were against anyone in there recognizing him. Since respectable folk were cozied up in their homes at this hour, he wasn’t likely to get caught.
With the chances of being found out slim, Red took long bold steps through the muck and up the steps to the Long Branch.
Sure was a party going on inside there. It would be a fine thing to be able to join in if he was of a mood, but celebrating wasn’t much in his heart. With Lucy sick near to death and Matt and Emma near lovesick to death, a frolicking time didn’t seem fitting.
With a deep tug on the brim of his hat he took up his bored-gambler stance beside the door.