Free Doing No Harm by Carla Kelly

gathering to her heart a boy in tears. She spoke to Tommy, but her eyes were on Douglas. “Your mam is well, but weak from hunger. Mrs. Cameron is taking care of her, and we are taking care of you.”
    How lovely that sounded to Douglas. He looked into Tommy’s face and saw a near tidal wave of relief wash over him. The boy’s shoulders relaxed and he rested his head against Miss Grant, who held him close.
    “We are taking care of you, indeed,” Douglas said. He touched Tommy’s head. “Your mother wanted us to bury your little sister in Miss Grant’s pretty backyard.”
    “With a headstone and everything?”
    “Headstone and everything,” Douglas echoed, thinking of so many burials at sea. He didn’t think he sounded ragged and needy, but Miss Grant spoke up so promptly that he wondered.
    “You can pick my flowers, when they bloom, and leave them for her. There’s already a little bench where your mam can sit,” Miss Grant said. “I can’t think of a lovelier place.”
    Tommy seemed to turn inward. He lay back down and looked beyond Miss Grant into another time and place. Douglas had seen such a look on any number of patients, hardy veterans of battle. “Lad?” he asked.
    Tommy opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He looked from Douglas to Miss Grant and took a deep breath. “Miss Grant, I stole a blanket off your line last fall. I think you left it out to air. I’m sorry.”
    Douglas glanced at Miss Grant, knowing Tommy was ripe for a scold. Miss Grant was made of kinder fabric, apparently.
    “Did you take it because you were cold, Tommy?” she asked, her voice quiet but not one to be ignored.
    “We had a long winter,” he said simply.
    “Aye, we did,” she agreed. “Did you wrap up tight in it?”
    He nodded. “It smelled of something wonderful.”
    Douglas thought of his visit to the Tavish hovel, where nothing smelled wonderful.
    “It’s called lavender,” Miss Grant said. “This summer I will put you to work gathering lavender heads. Perhaps your mother can help me make lavender sachets. I like to keep one under my pillow.”
    Well done, Miss Grant , Douglas thought.
    “On board ship, he’d have been flogged senseless for theft,” Douglas told her, after a lesser administration of laudanum put the boy under again.
    “And what did that ever accomplish?” she asked as she helped him across the hall to his own bed.
    “Very little,” Douglas admitted. “I patched up some torn backs but I could not do much for their spirits. Don’t let me make you blush, but upon my word, Miss Grant, you are amazing.”
    She blushed anyway, and tried to wave away the compliment. His laugh turned into a groan that took her right out of her embarrassment and back to the practical woman he already appreciated.
    “This state of affairs will not do, Mr. Bowden,” she said, all business again. “Your ribs might not be broken, but you know you will feel better if I wrap them.”
    “I won’t deny it,” he said. It was his turn to blush.
    “Don’t let me make you blush, sir,” she teased. “I have seen a rib cage before.”
    Without a word, he unbuttoned his shirt and let her help him out of it.
    “Where, in particular?” she asked.
    He pointed to the spot in question. “The extra strips from your sheet are next to my medical bag, where you will also find little clamps in a small box that remarkably says ‘clamps.’ ”
    She went across the hall and returned with the items in question. “My goodness, Mr. Bowden, I am not the only colorful person,” she said, and there was no disguising her amusement, even if he could not see her face. He knew she was staring at his back. “What on earth is it?”
    “That, Miss Grant, is a Fiji islander’s interpretation of a medical caduceus. And, yes, I was far gone, wasted, and three sheets to the wind. And young too. Why else would a man get a tattoo?”
    “A dare, perhaps?” she asked. “Did it hurt?”
    He laughed and groaned. “Not at the