The Outsider Read Online Free PDF Page B

to the world, and I aim to be part of the world.”
    Brice couldn’t argue with him on that. A person couldn’t shut out the problems of the world just by turning his back on it. He ought to know. He’d tried doing just that a time or two himself. He mixed some powders in a glass and held the boy’s head while he drank it down. “You’d best be resting. The days ahead will be hard, Bates, and if you plan to walk you’ll need to build up your strength.”
    Nathan swallowed the bitter liquid without complaint. “I’ll walk, Dr. Scott. You don’t need to worry about that,” he said after Brice took away the cup.
    The boy slowly relaxed as the medicine eased his pain. If Brice could keep the fever away, he’d make the boy get up tomorrow. Else his legs might tighten up too much to move. Even so, although it would be difficult, Brice didn’t doubt the boy would do as he said and walk. His youth left little room for fear or he wouldn’t have been in the burning barn to begin with.
    “Gabrielle.” Nathan called out the young sister’s name in his sleep.
    Brice frowned. He’d taken a liking to the boy while they talked. Now he couldn’t keep from feeling a bit of pity for him, because in spite of the boy’s cocky sureness, Brice doubted the young sister would go with him when he left the Shakers.
    Brice stood up and went to look out the window. Not that the boy wouldn’t go on living even without the girl. A man didn’t die of a broken heart. Life had a way of edging on through the pain, and it would for the boy the same as it had for Brice.
    Why today were all these things he’d put out of his mind coming back to haunt him? He hadn’t thought about little Amy Sue for years, and he practiced not thinking about Jemma. At first not thinking of Jemma had been survival after he’d once again walked away from his life.
    He should have said something to Dr. Feeley after all the man had done for him. He not only took Brice in and apprenticed him to learn medicine; he let Brice wed his only daughter. A smile touched Brice’s lips as he remembered those months of happiness with Jemma that lit up his life like sunlight reaching into a dark cave.
    Jemma was special. If as the boy said, the young sister was beauty, then Jemma was joy. Everything was bright and fresh to her, and laughter lived in her sun-specked green eyes. Their love had been young and innocent, and Brice had thought it would never end. But a fever had crept up on Jemma. Each day her father had treated her, bleeding her to let out the sickness. Each day Brice had watched her grow weaker until the joy was gone from her eyes and face and nothing remained but a shell of the beautiful girl he loved.
    He was beside her when she pulled in her last breath. He wanted to force his own breath into her, make her come back to him, but death kept its hold on her. After her hand grew stiff in his, he kissed her cold lips one last time and left without a word to Dr. or Mrs. Feeley. It wasn’t right, but he couldn’t bear seeing them put Jemma below the ground.
    For a year he’d wandered without purpose except to keep going away from his grief. Then one day he found himself in Philadelphia in front of a school of medicine and knew the desire to be a doctor had not left him.
    With a quick shake of his head, Brice turned away from the winter’s early twilight and his thoughts. It did no good to dwell on the past. It couldn’t be changed no matter how many times a man wished it differently.
    He stood over the boy and listened to his steady breathing. Brice would do as he’d done since he started back on the road to being a doctor. He’d take on his patient’s pains and push away his own. And this boy would have plenty enough to share.
    Brice yawned and stretched back his arms. He hadn’t been out of the room all day, and he felt confined. He was used to walking in the woods around his cabin every evening to gather roots and let the air clear his mind.
    With a