Homespun Bride by Jillian Hart

you are, ma’am.” He released the bit to stay the woman’s arm. “He’s injured. I need you to stay collected.”
    â€œInjured?” The woman began to hyperventilate, breathing deeply and rapidly.
    â€œNoelle, my brother’s riding for the doctor, but we cannot leave him in the road. I was about to put him on the back of this horse, but the sleigh would be best for him.”
    â€œOf course.” She looked stricken. Instant grief had carved its way around her emerald-green eyes. “Minnie, crowd the lunch pails and books into the backseat. Tilly, come help me. Angelina, see to your mother.”
    Thad turned on his heel, rushing the few paces back to the fallen man’s side. There was so little he could do for Robert, but do it he would. He crouched down beside the fallen man and knocked aside the snow. A fine layer had begun to accumulate on Robert’s body as if he were already gone.
    Taking gentle care with the injured man, Thad lifted him carefully, determined to get Robert home. With the big man’s heavy weight in his arms, he gave one final prayer. Help him, for his family’s sake. Noelle has had enough losses.
    A low note rose in the strengthening wind, and he feared his faith was not strong enough to lift his request to heaven’s ear.
    â€œThad, lay him here.” Noelle had deftly collected the lap blankets and had lined the center seat.
    As the wife and daughters caught sight of their loved one, battered and bleeding and unconscious, their renewed cries rose up and echoed around him. Thad hardened his heart, fearing a sad outcome, and carefully laid down his burden, holding the man’s head in one hand so there would be no further injury.
    He was concentrating so hard, he didn’t notice Noelle’s touch until her hands bumped his. Her fingertips feathered over the blood-soaked makeshift bandage.
    â€œWe’ve got to wrap him up well.” Thad spied the last lap blanket lying over the back of the front seat and pulled it onto the unconscious man. “Make sure to keep him as still as you can. I’ll be riding right behind the sleigh.”
    Noelle nodded. Snow clung to her everywhere, gracing her with a pure white luminescence. Her sadness eked into his stone-hard heart and he gruffly moved away, leaving so much—leaving everything—unsaid.
    â€œGetup, Miss Bradshaw.” He reached out to give the mare a light pat on the flank and the mare took off, drawing away the sleigh and Noelle.
    His Noelle. He could tell himself a thousand times that she was no longer his. That he didn’t love her, wouldn’t care about her, that the past was done and gone.
    The truth was not so simple. The truth left him feeling as hopeless as the bitter winds howling in from the north. He mounted up and pressed Clyde into the teeth of the growing storm.

Chapter Six
    N oelle had never felt so useless While they waited for the doctor to come, the maid and cook hustled back and forth from the bedroom to the kitchen and back again bringing all sorts of necessary items. The best thing she could do was to sit in a chair by her uncle’s bedside.
    â€œRobert? Oh, my Robert, please wake up.” Henrietta clutched her husband’s hand, tears streaming down her face. “You wake up. You hear me? It’s the least you can do for not listening to me. If you had, you wouldn’t be d-dying.”
    Lord, please don’t let that happen. Noelle swiped at a falling tear. She sat straighter on the ladder-back chair the maid had brought up for her and steepled her hands together.
    Please let him be all right.
    She could not see to bind his wounds, cook and prepare a poultice or tend to cleaning his abrasions. The most she could do was to keep out of the way of those who could. The only thing she could do with her hands was to pray. As important as that was, it didn’t feel like enough.
    â€œIf you l-leave me, Rob—” Henrietta