Stone Dreaming Woman by Lael R Neill Read Free Book Online

“There. We’re done. Fortunately it’s all superficial and he should heal uneventfully. None of those cuts is deep enough to require sutures. However, if it’s possible, you probably shouldn’t ride him until tomorrow, so you’ll have a chance to see if he’s going to come up lame.”
    “Thank you very much,” Shane responded stiffly, looking into the indefinite space over her head. Nevertheless, he ran his hands down the gelding’s legs, avoiding the patches of cattle medicine, then made him lift his hooves and flexed his knees and shoulders. Finally he looked directly at Jenny. “I truly owe you a debt of gratitude.” Jenny did not reply, but stood watching as he removed Midnight’s bridle and paused to rub the gelding’s poll. The horse relaxed under his master’s touch, his ears flopping comically.
    Toby, finished with the two mares, let himself into the loose box. He pointed to himself and then to Midnight. Shane nodded and moved aside as Toby began rubbing the gelding down with an old towel.
    “Well, I guess you’ll have to come in, won’t you?” She heard the hard edge in her voice and did not like it, but then, she did not like Sergeant Adair much either. For all that he was a handsome man, he had all the endearing charm of a dill pickle. She began to feel sympathetic toward Ruth Grayson.
    “I assure you I will stay out of your way.” His tone had an arctic blizzard behind it. She went to return the bottle to the tack room and pulled the door shut behind her. In the dim, storm-filtered light she scooted her left sleeve up. A ragged wound on the inside of her left wrist looked worse than anything Midnight had; not all the blood on the white stockings had been his. She held her breath and sloshed the viscous disinfectant into the cut, gasping at the sting that brought tears to her eyes. Then she looked up to see Sergeant Adair in the doorway, an expression of genuine concern on his face.
    “Miss Weston, are you…”
    “I’m all right,” she interrupted, dropping her sleeve and standing as tall as she could. She replaced the bottle and brushed past him, leaving him to close the tack room door.
    Rain still poured from the dark sky. She decided to leave her purchases in the buckboard until it abated. Shane sprinted to the house, running only far enough ahead to open the front door for her. Mavis turned from the kitchen counter with surprise on her face.
    “Jenny! Shane! Whatever happened? Jenny, you’re soaked!” she exclaimed. Richard put his week-old newspaper aside and came into the assembly room.
    “If you will excuse me, I need to go upstairs and change. As you noticed, I’m wet to the skin,” she said, looking at her uncle and pointedly ignoring Shane.
    Once in her room, she removed the two wet letters from her pocket and set them on the still warm railroad stove to dry before she took off all her clothes, more or less in a wad, and dumped them in the drawer at the base of the armoire. Everything would need to go to the laundress except her wool jacket. Hopefully that would dry. She hung it over the foot of her bed where the air could get to it. Shivering, she donned fresh underthings, then reached beneath the bed for the medical bag she had yet to use. She sat at Aunt Alix’s desk and cleaned her hands with alcohol, gritting her teeth for a second pass at the cut on her wrist . Here I am, she thought, first in my class at med school, brilliantly successful internship and residence years behind me, and my first patient is a horse. She wound gauze around her wrist and made a clumsy knot, tightening it with her teeth. Then she rubbed a dab of Honey Almond Cream into her hands and spent a moment working it into her cuticles.
    Downstairs, Shane ritualistically hung his hat, rain poncho, and gun belt on the pegs by the doorway, pausing to tuck the free end of the pistol lanyard into the front of his tunic. In his oilskin rain poncho he had fared better than Jenny; his tunic was dry and his