Page 49 of All We Carry Home

Warren took it and followed my instructions. How long had it been since Peter was bitten? Fifteen or twenty minutes?

“Hold his leg steady.” His ankle and foot were swollen, and the two small punctures oozed.

I’d known what to do for snakebites long before joining the nurse corps. Cut the wound, clean it, wrap it. Then, the hospital.

Behind us, Eddie paced and muttered to himself. Warren handed me items without even being asked. Annie cried and clutched the kitten as if it were a life preserver.

Once the ankle was wrapped, I met Warren’s somber gaze. “We need to keep his foot below his heart and get him to the hospital. They have antivenom. Let’s get him to my truck.”

Warren and Eddie did as instructed. I took Annie by the arm and led her carefully behind them.

The men loaded Peter into the center of the bench seat. I turned to Eddie. “Follow us and reassure Annie, please. Everything will be okay,” I said, squeezing his arm. Eddie nodded, but his eyes were still locked on his son.

Warren jumped into the driver’s seat, and I kept Peter’s shoulders steady as he bordered on passing out.

Warren looked across at me once we hit the wide, flat highway into town. The unspoken question: Were we too late?

In the open expanse of the road before us, the unknown and the terror crept in.

It felt as if every element fought against me, trying to pull me away from Birkstrom Ranch or destroy what chance we had to set things right. Were these all signs that my efforts were futile? I hadn’t ever belonged in Baker anyway—I’d only been pulled in by Gramps’s grace and convenient timing.

Would Eddie’s family suffer from my folly? What other sacrifice might these cursed, captivating lands demand?

Warren

An hour later, Eddie, Annie, and I paced the empty hospital lobby while Eva helped Dr. Harrison, Betty’s son, evaluate and treat Peter.

Eddie and Annie were both silent, in shock.

I wrestled with the demons in my mind, old habits rearing up to cut my emotions away entirely so I could just focus on the threat at hand. This wasn’t the battlefield, and I needed to stay present for Eddie and Annie. I couldn’t just lock myself away to numb the pain as I’d learned on the battlefield.

Footsteps echoed down the hall, and we all turned.

Eva strode toward us, her face unreadable and her strides filled with purpose. The sight captured me, just as her competence had as she treated Peter.

Had her interventions been enough?

She came to a stop and looked at Eddie, taking in a deep breath.

In that moment, my heart stopped.

“He’s okay.” She smiled. “He’ll have quite a bit of swelling for a few days, but we’re confident we were able to save his foot.”

The tension in the room broke like an overflowing dam, and Annie ran to her and hugged her around the waist. Eva laughed, but she looked exhausted, and her arm was still dirty and wrapped in a crusted strip of fabric.

“Can we go see him?” Eddie asked, his voice trembling.

She nodded, and he left with Annie at his heels.

When it was just the two of us, she pressed her hands to her forehead, smoothing the wavy hair around the side of her face behind her ears. I took her elbow and led her to a chair in the lobby, grateful when she sat without resisting.

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. I pulled a chair across from her and mirrored her stance, praying she didn’t collapse.

I wanted to reach out and take her hands, but I held back. The image of her and Keith burned, though this wasn’t the time or place to focus on that. I was her client. Nothing more. Even though being around her was so easy, so unique to anything else I’d ever known. I wanted to believe that I wasn’t imagining it, but I sensed she felt the same way. She was relaxed, quick to joke, at ease in my presence. Or perhaps I was just searching for the signs I wanted to see.

What did it matter anyway? In a few months, I’d be chained to the campaign trail and then Washington, DC.

“Peter is in the same room that Gramps died in,” she finally said, lifting her head to mine. “I hate that room. I hate that entire wing of the hospital.”