Mail Order Cowboy (Love Inspired Historical) Read Online Free PDF

Brookfield, falling to her knees beside the fallen cowboy. “Josh, it’s me, Milly. Can you hear me?” Gingerly, she touched his face, not wanting to cause him any extra pain.
    Josh’s eyelids fluttered and then he opened one eye, blinking as he attempted to focus his gaze. “Miss Milly…sorry…I caught them redskins stealin’ cattle…tried to drive ’em off with the rifle…” He squinted at the ground on his right side and sighed. “Looks like they got that, too. St-started…they started t’ take my scalp…dunno what stopped ’em from finishin’…”
    â€œThank God,” Milly murmured. But Josh couldn’t hear her. He’d passed out again.
    â€œBobby, go get me some water from the well,” Milly called over her shoulder. “And tell Sarah and Caroline to bring soap and a couple of clean sheets to make up the bed in the spare room for Josh.”
    â€œAnd Bobby, bring me a couple of knives,” Brookfield called out, pulling off his black frock coat and throwing it over a fencepost in the nearby corral. He rolled up his sleeves past his elbows, revealing tanned, muscular arms. “And some whiskey if you can find it. Or any kind of liquor.”
    Milly turned startled eyes to him and saw that he knelt in the dirt beside her, oblivious of his immaculate white shirt and black trousers. “Mr. Brookfield, what are you going to do?”
    With his bare hands, he was digging into the dirt beside Josh’s wounded shoulder. “Before he comes around, I’m going to cut off the arrowheads. There’s no way we can pull the arrow shafts out otherwise without injuring him further.”
    â€œAre you a doctor, Mr. Brookfield?”
    He shook his head without looking at her, still digging in the dirt.
    â€œShouldn’t we wait ’til the doctor gets here to do that?”
    He shook his head again. “You can’t even move the man to a bed until we pull out those arrows. I’ve seen the regimental doctor remove a spear from an unlucky sepoy before, if that makes you feel better.”
    He didn’t explain what a sepoy was, or if the sepoy had lived through the procedure, but she didn’t have any better idea. And Dan Wallace might not find the doctor right away. They didn’t dare wait.
    â€œI suppose you’re right—you’d better go ahead. But even if Josh comes around, we don’t have any whiskey or any other kind of spirits. Papa didn’t hold with drinking.”
    â€œIt’d be to pour on the wounds mostly, though if he regains his senses I’ll be giving him some to drink,” the Englishman answered, with that purposeful calm he’d exhibited ever since they’d received the awful news.
    Just then Bobby dashed back, a pair of knives from the kitchen clutched in one hand, a half-full bottle of whiskey in the other.
    Milly’s jaw dropped. “Bobby, where on earth did you get that?”
    Bobby scuffed the toe of his boot in the dust and refused to meet her eyes. “Mr. Josh, he had some in the bunkhouse. He didn’t drink it very often,” he added in a defensive tone, “an’ never ’til the day’s work was done. He never would let me have any, neither. Said I wasn’t a man growed yet. He said I wasn’t to tell you, but I reckon I needed t’ break that promise.”
    â€œThat’s fine, Bobby,” Nicholas Brookfield said, taking the bottle from him. “Now go hold one of the knife blades in the fire for a minute.”
    After the boy did as he was bid and returned with the knife, its tip still glowing red.
    â€œNow you hold the hot knife, Miss Matthews—don’t let it touch anything, while you, Bobby, hold Mr. Josh by the shoulder, just so…”
    Obediently, she held the knife, watching as Bobby braced one of Josh’s shoulders, holding it just far enough above the ground so that the