She remembered waking once in the middle of the night and seeing the doctor sitting there, his head bent forward, his breathing slow and steady. At first she thought he was sleeping, then realized he had positioned the lantern and turned it down so that the circle of pale yellow light fell on his lap, or more precisely, on the book he had open in it. Even as she watched him, he turned the page. She considered telling him to put the book back before Judah discovered it was missing, but the recollection that it was Judah that was missing came to her before she spoke.
She fell asleep again before he turned another page, yet the memory of his hands lingered. She could see one of them folded around the book, the other lying flat over the page he wasn’t reading. His hands were broad, the fingers long with nails that were trimmed short and scrubbed clean. The whole of his hands was clean, she recalled now: the tips, the palms, the creases of his knuckles. She imagined him rubbing them together over the basin, squeezing lather from between his fingers, reciting Lady Macbeth’s best-known line, “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!” The vision of it made her lips twitch.
“Oh, you’re awake.” Cole stood in the open doorway, a tray in his hands. “May I?”
Surprised by his sudden appearance, Rhyne blinked. How had she not heard him? She couldn’t believe he’d been that quiet, so she had to suppose her reverie had been that deep. She jerked her chin at the tray and regarded him narrowly. “I don’t smell anything. What do you have there?”
“Broth and bread.” He watched her curl her lip in disapproval. “It’s what I believe you can tolerate.”
“My stomach knows better.”
Cole decided that conversation was an invitation and carried the tray in. He set it carefully on one corner of the washstand and then looked over his patient. The curl in her lip had disappeared, but her mouth was tight, suggesting she was in considerable pain. “I can give you some laudanum after you eat something.”
“I don’t want laudanum ladled down my throat. It muddies my mind.”
Cole didn’t ask about the circumstances that gave her familiarity with the opiate. Instead he said, “I’d like to examine you.”
“I’ll eat.” Rhyne held out her hands for the tray.
“I wasn’t trying to trick you into eating. I’ll still want to examine you.”
She said nothing and kept her arms extended.
Cole passed the tray and made sure she could balance it on her lap before he sat down. He propped his heels on the bed rail and folded his arms comfortably across his chest.
“You’re going to watch me eat?” she asked.
“I thought I would, yes.”
“If I had my rifle …”
“It’s under the bed on your right. Would you like me to hold the tray while you get it?”
“You’d do that?”
“If it would make you feel better.”
Rhyne wondered if she could believe him. His expression was grave, too grave perhaps to be strictly credited, and it occurred to her that he was secretly amused. It followed that she amused him, and while that didn’t agree with her, it was better than being the object of pity.
She tore off a corner of bread and pushed it into her mouth, aware that his eyes followed her movement. Wrapping two hands around the cup, she sipped the beef broth. The crust of day old bread softened in her mouth and she swallowed.
“I don’t remember your name,” she said.
“Cole Monroe.”
Rhyne tore off another piece of bread. This time she dipped it in the broth before she put it in her mouth. “What’s the point of watching me? Doc Diggins never did.”
“It’s already well established in town that I’m no Doc Diggins, but it’s possible that’s not always unflattering. I observe all my patients.”
“It’s peculiar,” she said flatly.
“You’re right-handed. You have no fixed contractures of your arms and legs, allowing you full extension of both. No curvature of your spine, and also no evidence of rachitis.” He responded to her raised eyebrow. “Rickets.”
“You might have said so at the outset.”
“Indeed, I might have.”
He was practically daring her to shoot him, she decided.
“That’s all?” she asked.
“Well, there’s no spasticity in your movements, no gross deformities of your hips or feet. Except for the fact that your nose has been broken, there are no apparent physical deviations of your face. Your respiration is normal, your fever appears to have passed, and you’re able to make good eye contact.”
“Maybe I’m just observing you.”
He gave her a faint, knowing smile. “You’ve just proven that your gross hearing is within normal limits, as is your gross vision. Your color is improved this morning. There is no blue tinge to your lips or fingertips that would suggest a lack of oxygen to your tissues. As evidenced by the look you’re giving me now, I would say that you have coherent expression of thought and feeling.”
“Are the hairs at the back of your neck standing up?”
“They are.”
“Huh. I guess I do have coherent expression.” She raised the cup of broth to her lips, watching him over the rim, and took another sip. When she set it down, she said, “So you’re done examining me.”
“Hardly.”
She nodded slowly, having expected that answer. “I don’t suppose I can talk you out of it.”
“No. And it would be better all the way around if you didn’t fight me, either.”
Rhyne couldn’t even pretend she had the strength for that. Feeling cowardly because she couldn’t quite meet his eyes, she said, “I wouldn’t mind some of that laudanum about now.”
Cole didn’t comment. He simply reached for his bag on the floor, opened it, and removed one of the cobalt blue bottles. Using the spoon he’d placed on Rhyne’s tray, he measured out a half dose. “You can take it yourself,” he said, “or I’ll give it to you.”
Rhyne looked down at her hands, saw the slight tremor, and knew she couldn’t get the spoon to her mouth without spilling some of the medicine. It pained her that he must have also seen it, because the spoon was suddenly poised at her narrowly parted lips. She opened her mouth and swallowed.
Without a word, Cole took the tray and removed it to the kitchen. He washed the cup and spoon, and then stepped onto the front porch to shake bread crumbs off the tray. Chickens pecked the ground around the crumbs. He’d already tossed feed to them, but they evidently liked the bread better. Shaking his head, he went back inside and laid the tray on the table.
Rhyne was still sitting up in bed when he returned. He counted it as a good sign that she wasn’t pointing the Winchester at him but didn’t fool himself into believing her disposition had improved in his absence. Fear was in the thread of tension he’d observed earlier. The slight tremor in her hands could have been explained by a host of conditions from delirium tremens to ague to exhaustion, but he didn’t think he was wrong to suppose Rhyne Abbot’s root cause was dread.
He imagined it was life experience that gave her the bravado to face him with her chin up and her jaw thrust forward. In her own way she was preparing for a punch, and in truth, she probably would have preferred one.
Her mind wasn’t the least muddy.
Cole put himself between the chair and the bed. “I need you to lie down,” he said. “Do you want help?” When she shook her head, he simply dropped into the chair and waited. She moved carefully, in obvious