Prairie Song by JODI THOMAS Page B

could be. Just the memory warmed her blood as she watched his mouth tighten in pain.
    His face was relaxed for the first time all night. He’s finally passed out from the pain , she thought. Even though he hadn’t said a word, she’d known he’d been with her, trusting her with his life. She felt him watching her work as he’d forced his body not to jerk when she cut into his infected flesh.
    Quickly, she cleaned and closed the wound, marveling at his silence. When the wound was bandaged, Cherish wiped his pale face with a cool cloth. She had to admire this murderer for his courage. She’d seen men who endured a tenth of the pain she’d put him through scream for hours. Now, touching his face, she thought of how totally he’d placed himself in her hands. The sleeping priest beside the bed would have been no guard if she decided to run into the sitting room and tell Grayson a murderer lay near death in her room. The stranger had trusted her with his life.
    She felt no fear of Brant now as she touched the dark brown whiskers along his jawline. His features were strong, but not hard. There was something boyish and reckless about him that made her want to know the person behind the tough man. She wanted to know what had molded a man so hard that no pain seemed to touch him.
    “We’re very much alike, you and I,” she whispered. “We keep our pain within, never letting anyone see.” She thought of how the loneliness she felt was like an invisible open wound over her heart. She pushed back from people, never allowing herself to get too close. The very trait that had made her a good nurse had also cheated her out of knowing how it felt to be in a lover’s arms.
    Closing her eyes, Cherish leaned against the headboard and tried not to think of anything but Brant surviving the next few hours. There was nothing to do but wait and see if infection set in. During the war, she’d had plenty of experience with gunshot wounds. More men died of the poisoning from the black powder than from the bullets. Brant might be one more notch on the black powder’s handle of death.
    Bar slipped into the room, carrying another bucket of water. His thin, half-grown shadow moved over the wall as silently as he moved about the house. She’d enlisted his help when she’d found him sleeping on the stairs and he’d helped her all night without once complaining. “You think you’ll need any more water, Miss Cherish?”
    “No, thanks,” she whispered as she straightened. “You’d better get some sleep, and remember, in the morning you never saw this stranger.”
    Bar moved closer. “He ain’t no stranger, miss. I’ve known him and Father Daniel all my life. Though I haven’t seen Brant Coulter around here for a few years. Last time I saw him, he was downstairs arguin’ with Miss Hattie about somethin’.” Bar sat down by the fire as if thankful to have someone to talk to. “Miss Hattie told me later that Brant and Daniel was like me when they was kids, just kind of on their own. She said she didn’t remember either of them ever havin’ folks.”
    Cherish pushed a strand of blond hair back from her face. “I think I understand. The outlaw and the priest were childhood friends. Then one turned out good and one bad.”
    Bar looked confused. “What do you mean?”
    Cherish smiled at the child. “I mean one does good things and the other bad things.”
    Bar tilted his head as if letting this new thought wash around in his brain. “I don’t know. I can’t tell who’s good and who’s bad much any more. Like Miss Hattie. Folks say she ain’t no good. Some won’t even speak to her on the street. But she lets me live here when those folks that don’t speak to her ain’t offerin’ me a home. Even last winter when Azile tried to throw me out ‘cause she said feeding me was a waste of good food, Miss Hattie wouldn’t hear of it. Not that she can’t be meaner than the devil from time to time, but I owe her just as I guess