Page 49 of The Daring Times of Fern Adair
“Get my things!” the man bellowed, and the woman dashed out of sight.
At a pair of open pocket doors, they turned inside a room that appeared to be a physician’s office.
“On the table,” the man instructed. Together, they lifted Cal’s heavy limbs onto an examination table. His legs were too long and hung over the end.
“Not bets, not bets,” Cal murmured incoherently, his lips gray, his cheeks waxy.
“Calvin,” the doctor said loudly as he tied on an apron and hurriedly washed his hands. “Has anyone else been shot? Are more of your boys on their way here?”
“Bets, don’t leave me,” Cal murmured. Bets. Was that a person?
“No. No one else was shot,” Fern answered.
The doctor spared her a moment’s glance, his eyes raking her scarred face. Then, the woman in the housecoat entered through a swinging door in the corner of the room. She delivered a tray brimming with steel instruments.
“Wait outside, miss,” the woman said, gently taking Fern’s arm and leading her out into the hallway. She landed on a cushioned bench across from the doctor’s office. The woman stepped back into the room, grabbed the edges of the pocket doors and rolled them shut, snapping off Fern’s view of Cal lying flat on the table.
She stared at the glossy, dark cherry wood of the doors and sucked in shallow breaths. The house smelled of pipe tobacco and baking fruit. Had the woman been in the middle of making a pie? Fern closed her eyes but that only made the sounds from the closed-off room seem louder. The doctor speaking to Cal, to the woman—his wife?—the clang and scrape of steel instruments, and the tearing of cloth.
There had been so much blood. Someone couldn’t possibly survive after losing that much blood. Could they?
What if Cal died?
Fern stood up from the bench on legs that didn’t feel attached to her. There was nothing for her to do but pace. The doctor certainly didn’t need her. But Cal…a lump formed in her throat.
“Miss?”
Fern flinched. A young woman stood at her side; Fern hadn’t noticed her approach.
“You’re bleeding,” she said as she leaned her head to the side. She was a younger version of the woman in the housecoat, her vibrant red hair pulled into a loose bun.
“It’s not my blood,” Fern whispered.
Cal.
“Some of it isn’t, but your elbow is abraded. Your forehead too.”
Pain suddenly flared along her left arm. She blinked and looked down to see her dress sleeve torn, blood darkening the navy fabric. Heat throbbed just above her left eyebrow too.
“Come into the kitchen,” the young woman said. “Let’s clean you up.”
On the way to the kitchen at the back of the house, she explained that she was Hannah Levy, Dr. Levy’s daughter, and that while she wasn’t a nurse, she had learned enough from her father over the years to patch up some scrapes. She was clearly trying to put Fern at ease. But as she sat in a spindle-back chair at the kitchen table, the sweet, berry scent stronger in here, Fern began to shiver.
“You’ve been through a dreadful shock,” Hannah said. “I’ll make you some tea. You need something warm.”
An enamel tea mug painted with pink flower buds appeared before Fern a moment later, or maybe it had been a few minutes. She hadn’t been able to keep track of time. As she sipped her tea without tasting it, Hannah cleaned the blood from Fern’s forehead and then went to work on her elbow.
“Thank you,” Fern finally managed to say.
“Friends of the Rosetti brothers are friends of ours.” The line sounded practiced and flat, as though it was something she had to say,rather than something she meant.
Fern looked at her as she blotted blood from her elbow. “I’m not sure I’m a friend of theirs.”
Hannah peered at her curiously. “Well, you can’t be an enemy, or else you wouldn’t have bothered to bring Cal here.”
“No, I don’t suppose I’m an enemy either.”
What was she, exactly?One big fucking mess,Cal had called her. She’d spent time with him, though most of it had been forced upon her. Not that time at the Pier, though. Despite the danger, it had even been a little bit fun.
