Banner O'Brien Read Online Free Page A

the base of the stairs, though Hildie’s children were nowhere in sight, and he looked up at her with eyes that betrayed an ache to match her own.
    They met in the middle of the stairway, but Banner could not manage a medical consultation at the moment. She covered her mouth with one hand, made a strangling sound, and rushed down the steps to vomit into a pristine snowbank at their base.
    Adam was ready with a clean handkerchief when the spasm of illness passed. “Cancer?” he ventured, like a teacher quizzing a slow child.
    Banner shook her head and took clean snow from the stair railing, putting it into her mouth and then unceremoniously spewing it out. “Diabetes,” she said, and the word was a soblike rasp. “Her breast—there’s gangrene—”
    Respect mingled with the sympathy in Adam’s blue eyes. “I know.”
    “How?” croaked Banner. “How did you know, if she wouldn’t let you examine her?”
    “The smell.”
    Banner nodded distractedly. “She should be hospitalized.”
    “Yes.” Adam paused, grinding his teeth and assessing the sky as though it had offended him. Snowflakes glistened in his thick hair and gathered on his eyelashes. “But—”
    “But ‘her Fitz’ won’t allow it.”
    “Right. He’s convinced that I merely want to get her alone so I can have my way with her.”
    Frustration swelled in Banner’s mind, crowding worthy thoughts into shadowed corners. She had thought she’d encountered every form of ignorance during her training and her brief practice in Portland, but this was a new aspect. “She’ll die.”
    “Yes.”
    “And she must be in wretched pain.”
    Adam only nodded, but his exasperation was visible in the set of his jaw and his shoulders.
    It was then that Hildie’s boys appeared, laughing and flinging handfuls of powdery snow at each other, exulting in the weather and the brief escape from the grim quarters at the top of the stairs.
    “What will happen to them?” Banner whispered.
    Adam sighed. “God knows. Right now, Hildie is my main concern. I’ll have another talk with Fitz tonight and try to persuade him to bring her to the hospital.”
    Banner had not dared to dream that there actually was a real hospital in Port Hastings. For all its vigor, itwas a relatively small town, and most such communities considered hospitals an extravagance.
    Despite the weight of what they both knew would befall Hildie, Adam smiled. Again, it seemed, he’d read her thoughts. “Would you like to see my hospital, O’Brien?”
    “Your hospital?”
    He nodded. “Since I run it myself, I tend to think of it as mine, yes.”
    The idea engendered depths of weariness Banner had never felt before, even during the grueling days of her training. “By yourself?” she marveled.
    Adam’s shoulders stiffened under the tweed coat. “I haven’t had much choice,” he said. “Henderson is the only other doctor within twenty-five miles, and I wouldn’t let that butcher near my horses, let alone my patients.”
    Having imparted this information, Adam left Banner to go back to Hildie’s room and reclaim the cloak and medical bag she had left behind.
    One of the little boys approached Banner, gnawing philosophically on the strip of dried beef Adam had been forbidden to buy. “You sure do got red hair till hell won’t have it, missus,” he said.
    Before Banner could come up with a suitable response, Adam reappeared, carrying her things. Somewhere between herself and Hildie, he had shed his frustration and his anger, or hidden them, and he was again the unflappable country doctor.
    Banner wasn’t certain whether to mourn or feel relieved.

Chapter Two
    T HE HILL LEADING FROM P ORT H ASTINGS PROPER to Adam’s hospital was a steep one—so steep that Banner knew moments of alarm. At times, it seemed that the lightweight buggy would slide backward, all the way to the harbor, dragging the stoic little horse with it.
    To distract herself from this image, Banner turned her attention to