The Vacant Chair by Kaylea Cross

croaked, hardly daring to hope.
    In answer, she glanced over her shoulder and motioned for the visitor to enter. When Mitch appeared in the open flap wearing a sling, Justin sagged against the pillows, eyes squeezing shut in relief, and when he opened them they stung with unshed tears.
    Laughing, Mitch came over and bent to embrace him around the shoulders with his good arm, tousling Justin’s hair. “You look like hell,” he announced.
    Justin grinned up at him. “You don’t look so good either.” His chest felt like it was going to split wide open from a mixture of pain and relief. “I didn’t know what happened to you. The last I saw of you was sailing off your horse and hitting the ground. I thought you were dead.”
    Mitch snorted. “You don’t give me much credit, do you? It takes more than a busted collarbone to do me in.”
    He fought back the lump in his throat so the little bastard wouldn’t know how emotional he was. His voice was rough. “It’s damned good to see you.”
    Brianna snuck out of the tent before he could ask her to stay.
    Mitch slid into a chair beside the bed, propped his bound arm on his stomach, and shook his head. “You have to be the luckiest son-of-a-bitch I know. Not only did you avoid the pearly gates, but here you are, doted on by the most beautiful nurse in Virginia, a born-and-bred southerner who just happens to have a soft spot for Yankees.”
    “I know.”
    Mitch’s eyes twinkled. “Is she spoken for?”
    "Don’t even finish that thought,” he warned.
    “Like her all that much, do you.” Mitch’s expression filled with mock horror. “What will Laurel say?”
    The remark made Justin realize just how much he had missed the bastard. His glare brought a hearty gust of laughter from Mitch and a teasing poke in the chest. Justin growled in agony and when he was able to get his breath back, refocused on his brother with a glower. 
    Mitch’s devilish grin evaporated. “Sorry.” He leaned over to peer more intently at Justin’s side. “Is it bad?”
    “Bad enough.” He lifted the covers and revealed the bandages on his side. His brother made a face, paling as he saw how easily the bullet could have pierced Justin’s heart or lung.
    Mitch gave a low whistle. “You were damned lucky.”
    “I know it. I have Mrs. Taylor to thank. One of the doctors told me everyone else had written me off, but she had me personally moved into her ward, wouldn’t give up on me. If it weren’t for her, I would have died a few days ago.”
    Besides being kind and gentle, she was skilled at her work. She did everything in a competent, self-assured manner, examining her patients as thoroughly as the doctors did. She rarely had to call on them for help, and when she did, it seemed to be the same surgeon, a younger man with a neatly trimmed, coppery beard. He always listened to her, appeared to treat her more like a colleague than a subordinate. From what Justin could tell, none of the other nurses received that kind of respect from the surgeons.
    When the young doctor had come in earlier to check another patient’s progress with her, Justin had overheard them discussing complex medical terms that made him remember the texts she’d carried at White House Landing. She must have studied them from cover to cover to attain so much knowledge. Not only a skilled nurse, then, but a rare and highly educated one as well. Intelligence was one of the things he found most attractive in a woman. Combined with the attraction between them, it was no wonder his pulse quickened whenever she came near.
    And that wasn’t all that quickened. He must already be on the mend, because his body reacted the instant she touched him. Twice now he’d had to bend a knee to tent the sheet over a pounding erection because of her hands on his bare skin. Hers and hers alone. Lucky for him she either hadn’t noticed or pretended not to, and a dose of carbolic acid in his wounds made short work of his aching