The Better Angels: Hearts Touched by Fire, Book 4

and the frustration because she could do nothing, unless it was only Will. And a constant wonder as to why she was here…
“Nurse Lorrance, if you will, please.”
The bustle behind her crowded her and she released the boy’s hand to step aside. The surgeon’s team was here to collect him.
“They’ll help you, son,” she stated boldly, and hoped she sounded sincere.
He gave her a weak smile that slid from his face after a moment, when they hauled him up to carry him to surgery. She bit her bottom lip in a way to stop from blurting out what needed to be done, though the surgeons would know. Clenching her fists, she shuddered as the tightness inside her struggled to say nothing.
“Nurse Ada.”
She looked up to find Maybelle giving her an odd stare. Absently she wiped the tear that wanted to run down her cheek and pushed the memory of the boy from her mind. Swallowing deep, she straightened herself.
“Yes, Nurse Maybelle?”
The young woman pointed her nose a little higher, trying to be subtle but Ada noticed. The New Englander seemed a bit too high strung, she decided. She and most of the nurses, schooled with her in a large walled tent for sleep, were hardly warm, Ada recalled, and most blamed that on their cold climate and Puritan upbringing. Though studious and helpful, Miss Maybelle never approached her except formally.
“Well, I do not wish to be quite so frank, but,” she paused. “You and Dr. Will seem to be overly close. Now, I know it ain’t my business, so to speak, but the other nurses are talking.”
Ada bit back a laugh. Nosy little girl, she thought. She rolled back on her heels. “Miss Maybelle, I assure you, Dr. Will and I do know each other. We grew up in the same street, as it were.” A thought raced through her mind and she wondered. “You don’t, perhaps, wish to set your cap for him?” The idea made her want to chuckle.
The girl blushed but she managed not to change her expression. “I’m sorry if I said something out of line. I just wished to bring it to your attention that tongues are wagging. As to my preferences, I believe I’ll keep them to myself. Now, my deed is done. If you’ll excuse me.” She spun on her heel to leave.
Ada bit her bottom lip, shocked at the nurse’s behavior. The air was thick, Ada believed, mostly coming from that nurse’s rudeness.
“Pardon me, Nurse Maybelle, but we do need to see that all the rags and bandages are cleaned, the bowls ready and the sponges close by for the surgeons. Please see to that after you’ve bathed the patients in the front parlor.
Maybelle didn’t turn but stopped and now, nodded her head. “Of course, ma’am.”
As Ada heard her walk away, she clutched her strand of buttons in her pocket, her fingers rubbing the large Union eagle one. Part of her wanted to laugh, for the nurses figured she and Will were flirting and perhaps, Will was, though she doubted it. He knew her heart was hurting for the man whose button she held tightly, in remembrance of him and prayed he’d return to her…
The firing of a cannon in the distance answered her wayward thoughts. He wouldn’t be as long as the North and South tried to kill each other. Inhaling sharply, trying to stop the blur from taking her vision, she stood and grabbed the basin. It was her hope that none of her patients died on her tonight.

Chapter 5
“There are but two parties now; traitors and patriots.”
—Ulysses S. Grant, prior to the Civil War
“There you go, sur, right as rain.”
Francois flinched as the hospital steward pulled the last stitch through the wound on his upper arm, the raw flesh still throbbed even with the skin sewed shut. The splash of whiskey, hardly enough to even swallow, was the only painkiller used, and it burned fiercely. A final tug and a snip ended the torture and Francois relaxed as best he could until the man had the nerve to wrap a bandage around his arm.
“It might seep a little and that’s to be expected. Good towards healing and such. Be thankful that bullet only grazed you, sur. You’d have lost your arm otherwise.” The steward schooled his supplies into the leathered box beside him and left.
Francois snarled, trying to ease his arm into the tattered shirt he had worn. The gaping hole had bloodstains on it but it was the only shirt he had and he refused to leave it, knowing his jacket, made of wool, would hardly be better to wear against bare skin. Buttoning his cuffs was trying, for even moving the fingers of the damaged arm made a thread of stinging stabs course through him. Damn the Yankee who’d shot him!
Standing up, he snagged his jacket and shoved his arms into the sleeves, ignoring the pain but he couldn’t help but glance at the sleeve of his wounded arm. The rip by the bullet held little trace of the blood…though the dirt on the jacket probably hid most of it. Another ripple of disgust washed through him. This jacket was the only uniform one he had, as retrieving uniform pieces appeared to harder from what he and Morris discovered on their journey east.
The bound arm ached and it limited his movement. He muttered a swear word, only to quickly cross himself as he got closer to the camp. Small fires pitted the site, amongst the hastily arranged shelters across the wooded land. The sounds of leaves shuffled by his bootheels grew softer as the soft tones of a violin and chimes rang with the sound of clanking wooden spoons in the Creole songs of back home. Instantly, he relaxed, the tensions of the day ebbing, though the throb of his wound didn’t as he rounded the corner into the campsite.
“Francois! Over here!”
He found Morris with a few other men, sitting on fallen timbers,