Free Firefly by Linda Hilton Page A

animals set Julie's nerves on edge.  But at least she was awake and alert.
    After they had passed that first hill and were out of sight of the little ranchstead, Morgan said, "I must say, you surprised me, Miss Hollstrom.  You held up pretty good."
    "Thank you, I think.  I mean, that was a compliment, wasn't it?"
    He chuckled.
    "I'm sorry, Mr. Morgan, but I'm very tired, and I guess I'm not thinking very straight.  I'm probably not speaking very straight, either."
    "You're doing fine.  And yes, it was a compliment."
    When was the last time he had paid a woman a compliment? He must be out of practice, if she didn't recognize it.  Or maybe she's out of practice , he thought.  Probably doesn't get too many, tall skinny girl like her with that hair pulled back and those glasses .
    He looked at her, riding next to him.
    "What happened to your spectacles?"
    "What?  Oh, well, I...I took them off when we left so I wouldn't lose them if I fell asleep."
    She held her breath and prayed that he wouldn't--but he did.
    "No, you didn't have them on all evening.  In fact, I don't remember you having them on since we got to Baxter's place."
    She had one more chance, a slim one, but she took it.
    "Of course, I did.  You just don't remember, because you were busy with Mrs. Baxter."
    "No, I remember perfectly."
    He was tempted to rein in Sam and question the girl out here where she'd be scared to death and would tell him anything, but he let the horse plod on towards home.  He didn't want Julie Hollstrom afraid of him.
    Not after tonight.
    So he dropped the subject abruptly and went on to something else.
    "I kind of enjoyed tonight myself," he said quietly. "It's been a long time since I helped deliver a baby, saw the way a woman looks when she holds him for the first time.  I kinda missed it."
    The horses negotiated the path down into a rocky wash and then up again.  Julie used those few moments to frame the response she knew she really shouldn't make but was going to anyway.
    "All you need to do is go back to the work you left," she said when they'd reached the other side. "It's waiting for you."
    "It wouldn't be quite that easy.  I'd need some help."
    "Someone to keep you rehabilitated?"
    "No, more than that.  Well, that, too, but before I…when I was practicing before, I always had a nurse, someone to lend an extra hand, and calm people down in emergencies when I wasn't right there."
    It was painful to talk about it even in such an oblique way.  Julie heard it in the lowering of his voice and saw it in the way he turned his face away from her.  She wondered if he had ever talked about it to anyone.
    "What about Miss Upshaw?"
    "Winnie?  Winnie faints when she pricks her finger with a darning needle."
    "But I thought when Grace Fulton mentioned her that…"
    "Winnie is a dreamer.  She comes over and cleans my house once in a while and she pretends she's my nurse and we are saving lives by the thousands.  She was fourteen when...when I stopped practicing medicine, and I think she had it in the back of her mind to bring me back to it someday."
    "Oh."
    "What, is that guilt I hear?"
    She lifted her eyes from her hands to look at him and saw that he was smiling at her.
    He had a nice smile, she decided, if a little bit crooked, and there was warmth in the way his eyes crinkled at the corners.  If he shaved regularly and had some of that shaggy hair cut, he might be quite a handsome man.  A bath wouldn't hurt, either.
    "I just feel rather sad that Miss Upshaw, after all her dreams, couldn't have been the one to do it.  I mean, I'm a newcomer, and I feel I've taken a prize someone else has been trying for."
    "Well, you haven't saved me yet, Miss New Girl in Town. And we aren't far from town now, so you'd better put those spectacles of yours back on before somebody else notices you took them off.  Vanity can put some pretty big obstacles in your path to trip over, too."
    So that's what he thought!  Rather arrogant of him to