Healing Hearts (Easton Series #2) Read Online Free PDF

his name, as if he wasn’t sure he liked the sound of it.
       “Oh,
likewise, call me Hannah. Doctor Sutton is too formal.” Her lips curled. She
didn’t need to remind him he’d avoided addressing her with a professional title.
Sometimes she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Small steps, she told herself. Baby
steps.
       Hannah didn’t dare ask him about
the tintypes on the bureau in her bedroom. The dust-streaked photos from his
previous life spoke of hardship and duty. Soldiers laden with bowie knives,
blanket rolls, box knapsacks, and canteens stared blankly at the camera in the
photographs. There were notes on the backsides: “My medical corps” and “5 th regiment”, or simply a name of a colleague or patient.
       She’d also run across haunting photos
of soldiers with missing limbs, carefully stacked in the top drawer. Hannah had
seen such images during her training, but these were likely the cases
Rutherford knew intimately. He’d documented the devastating effects of the minie
balls, soft lead bullets that distorted on contact with flesh to create large
entrance and exit wounds. These tore and mangled tissue and shattered bones, making
amputation necessary because infection risk was high. Sacrifice of arms and legs
had saved countless lives, but those lives would never be what they should have
been.
       Hannah closed her eyes and
shuddered. The war left so much devastation.
      She came back to the table when Jed’s
voice broke through her dreary thoughts. He was saying something about a
wedding. Her eyes searched his face. He was nursing his coffee and avoiding her
eyes.
         “Pardon me, Doctor. Of what do you
speak?”
       He smiled wryly. “Ned Kingman’s getting
married today, in an hour. Cal Easton beat me out for best man. Hard to believe,
but anyway, we’re invited,” Jed muttered gruffly. “It’s a way for you to meet
people,” he added. His blue eyes stared blankly at a speck on the wall.
         Her eyes widened, but she suppressed her
pleasure at being asked to accompany him to such a special event. “You might
have given me more notice.” She rose and yanked at the loose ties on her blue
apron, ripping it from around her slim waist.
        Jed didn’t reply, so she turned to face the sink where she’d piled dirty
plates. “Who’s Ned Kingman?”
       “War veteran. He manages accounts
at the Mineral Creek ranch.”
       “Oh,” she shot over her shoulder,
“he’s marrying someone you know?”
       “Ned plucked our spinster
schoolteacher, Geneva Grayson. You’ll like her. She’s a lot like you.”
       The thrill she felt at being asked
to the wedding faded. “I’m not a schoolmarm, so you must mean the spinster
part,” Hannah bit off.
       A muscle tensed along his jaw. “Geneva
isn’t at all what you’d expect. She’s pretty, smart, practical, loyal,
hardheaded but kindhearted. A crack shot. Uncommon eyes. She’ll be a fine wife,
and any man would be lucky to marry her.”
       Hannah turned to face him and
smiled. He wouldn’t be asking her to meet
the town if he were serious about his plan to send her off in four days, would
he? “Well then, they’ll share a good life.”
       He nodded. “Bound to . . . Ned’s
an eager groom. He’s been courting her for the better part of a year.”
       Hannah swallowed. “Excuse me, I need
to dress and repair my hair.”   Hannah wiped her hands on a towel and headed for the stairs.
    *        *       *
       Hannah wore her best cream cotton
dress with lace overlay. Her dark hair was twisted into a French braid and
pinned under in a fashionable coif. Jed’s blue eyes widened in approval, and
Hannah was equally pleased with his attire – a clean white cotton shirt
with gray vest and wool pants. He wore a dark Stetson hat to match boots
polished to a black shine. Hannah thought he could pass as
going-to-Sunday-meeting cowboy, right down to the damp ends of his