Her Hesitant Heart by Carla Kelly

other side. Joe nodded to Sergeant Brown and wheeled over a hospital screen.
    “Do you need me, Sergeant?” he asked.
    “No, sir.” His steward glanced at Mrs. Hopkins, no more nonplussed than he was, which appeared to be not at all. “I’ll send her back to your office when we’re done.”
    Well, well
, Joe thought, as he looked at charts.
People continually surprise me
. He worked his way out of the ward and back into his office for another half hour of paperwork until the sun sank lower, the retreat gun sounded and his steward finished.
    “Here she is, sir,” Brown said when he ushered in Mrs. Hopkins. “Our patient decided to be brave for the lady. You’ll come back?”
    “I will. I can read to them.”
    With a salute less casual than normal, the steward left.
    “Mrs. Hopkins, you amaze me,” Joe said frankly.
    She surprised him again. “Most people just want to have someone touch them kindly.”
    He thought about that during their quiet walk to Officers Row. When she slowed down as they approached the Reeveses’ quarters, he slowed down, too. He couldn’t overlook her small sigh as she went up the steps, and the unconscious way she squared her shoulders.
    “Good night, Mrs. Hopkins. I kept you away too long and worked you too hard today.”
    “I didn’t mind,” she told him, her voice soft.
    He walked to his own quarters. There were notes tacked to the little board he had nailed next to his front door. He removed them, reading them after he’d carried the lamp to his kitchen. He didn’t bother to heat the stew, because he didn’t care. Hespread the messages in front of him and mentally planned tomorrow.
    He held the note from Sergeant Rattigan in his hand for a long time. “It’s Maeve,” was all it said, but he needed nothing more.
Another baby begun?
he asked himself.
That makes number seven since I’ve been here. Wouldn’t we all be pleased if one of them lived to term? I’m coming, Maeve, for whatever good I will do
.

Chapter Seven
    S usanna tried to trick herself into believing that the evening stretching before her would be easier this night. Maybe it was. Her cousin-in-law tried a little harder to be company, instead of hiding behind a months-old newspaper.
    She carried on a decent patter about her day and mentioned Nick Martin, which made the captain pull a face and mutter something about “sending him to the federal insane asylum.” She exhausted all topics soon, almost wishing for Emily to hurry downstairs and save her from her cousin-in-law. Major Randolph saved her, as he had been saving her since Cheyenne, even though he wasn’t present this time.
    “Cousin, I know this is none of my business…. ” she began, then watched with something close to unholy glee as his interest picked up. What had Major Randolph told her about the U.S. Army containingmore gossips per square foot than any other organization he knew of?
    Appeal to his masculine pride, Susanna
, she advised herself. “I know so little about the army, and you know so much,” she began. “Someone told me that Major Randolph wouldn’t be going on the midwinter campaign because of some general or other. Why not?”
    She could tell by the way Dan’s eyes lit up that she had hit on a topic guaranteed to please. “It’s a bit of a scandal,” he began, not even trying to feign some reluctance at proceeding. Major Randolph was right about gossip, but this was at his expense, and she felt a momentary pang.
    “It happened during the Battle of South Mountain in 1862,” Reese began, tucking away his old newspaper. “More properly, it was during a skirmish at Boonsboro Gap, in a forward aid station when a Union soldier and a rebel soldier were brought in.” He clucked his tongue. “Major Randolph took one look at the Union man and knew he didn’t have a chance—head half blown off, or something. He turned his attention to saving the Confederate, when Crook—he was a colonel then, in an Ohio division—came into