Page 143 of In These Hills

Dodge brushed a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll be right back.”

She watched him go, not wanting him to leave. Despite having his coat, she couldn’t stop shaking. The faint click of glass bottles, the potent scent of camphor, and a sharp metallic odor layered the smoky air.

“Mrs. Dunham, are you still with me?” Doc Wyatt asked.

She blinked, her head swimming but pain keeping her conscious. “Yes . . . I’m here.”

“I’m here to help you. If you’ve been . . . injured in any other way, you can tell me.”

The hesitance in his voice made her question, and she closed her eyes in an attempt to take inventory. Every part of her hurt, then she remembered. “H-he hit me . . . in the lower back . . . with a rolling pin.” Just remembering the pain, and the sound, brought fresh emotion.

A thud and the slosh of water, and she opened her eyes to see Dodge kneeling beside her again. His breath came hard from the run, but something else in him had changed. Anger rolled off him.

“I’d like to give you a thorough examination later, Mrs. Dunham,” Doc Wyatt said quietly. “But for now, Dodge, give her a quick drink then I need to cool down the wound.”

Dodge held the cup to her lips and she drank, the cold spring water working its way down and reminding her of the first day they’d met, when he’d offered her water from a stream. She saw the same memory in his eyes.

“Now, Mrs. Dunham, please stretch out your arm. Yes, just like that. Dodge, I need you to keep her arm still, please.”

She tensed, bracing herself as the doctor ladled a cup of water from the bucket.

“I’ll be quick, ma’am.”

She gritted her teeth, trying not to scream, and failing. Instinctively, she tried to pull away but Dodge held her arm fast as the doctor poured again and again.

Dodge leaned close. “I know it hurts. It’ll be over soon.”

Tears slid from the corners of her eyes as stabs of pain pulsed up her arm. “Thank you for coming when you did,” she managed, stifling a groan.

“We heard gunshots. I looked for you at Uncle Jack’s, but couldn’t find you.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but pain flared across her hand again, taking her breath with it.

“Soap to clean the wound,” Doc Wyatt said softly. “I’m being as gentle as I can.”

Dodge reached for her other hand and held it tight.

Drawing strength from his grip, she looked beyond him to the flames devouring the stillhouse and to the partygoers and locals passing buckets of water in a frantic chain. She spotted Mr. Daniel among them, unmistakable even in the chaos, helping alongside everyone else.

Another explosion sounded from within the building, and she flinched. Even knowing Clay Darden could no longer harm her, fear still clung to her. She could feel it on her skin and taste it on her tongue. But she tried to find comfort in—

Something moved in the doorway of the stillhouse, the silhouette of a—

No. It couldn’t be . . . She tried to raise up.

“Josephine, you need to lie still. The doc is—”

“It’s him,” she whispered, a chill gripping her chest. “But how? H-how can he—”

Dodge looked back just as Darden staggered through the door of the burning building then collapsed. Men raced to douse the flames on his clothing, then dragged his body clear of the fire.

“Doc!” a man yelled. “We need you over here!”

“Mrs. Dunham, one last step for now. Tincture of iodine. This must be applied carefully. It will not be pleasant, but again, I will be quick.”

She gripped Dodge’s hand as tightly as she could, the sharp scent of iodine registering just before the pain. She would have screamed if she’d had air left in her lungs.

“There, that should prevent infection in the short term. I’ll do more, but the wound needs to air. I do have laudanum if you—”