"That's good to know." Frank swiped at a spill on the bar with the cloth he kept tucked into his belt. "I'm kind of getting used to your conversation."

Vance had to smile because they rarely exchanged more than a few words throughout an entire evening. His concern surprised her, not that she hadn't expected men to doubt her ability to protect herself. But Frank hadn't automatically assumed she was incapable. He hadn't made assumptions, any more than Milton had. Her sergeant had accepted her, first at face value because she was the regimental surgeon, and after a time because no one could do the job better. They hadn't talked much either, reading one another almost effortlessly, whether playing cards or caring for the wounded in the midst of Armageddon. For nearly three years they'd been as close as lovers, sharing danger and hardship and triumph. On that last day, she hadn't listened to his cautions, hadn't been able to hear anything except the thunder of death all around her. And he had paid for her mistake. Not her. He had remained out of loyalty and duty and friendship, and she had failed him. She gripped the edge of the bar, swaying as the room receded and the stench of battle filled her consciousness.

"Why don't you buy a lady a drink, Doc," Mae said as she smoothly caught up the whiskey bottle in one hand and threaded her opposite arm through Vance's. She nodded to Frank, who stared at Vance's ashen face with alarm. "Bring some glasses, Frank."

"Right away," he said hurriedly.

"I'm okay," Vance whispered hoarsely.

"Don't doubt it. Now me, I could use a few minutes off my feet with a good drink and better company." With practiced moves, Mae guided them through the crowd to a table tucked underneath the second- floor balcony. The illumination from rows of oil lamps set into sconces along the walls barely penetrated the space. "Looks like I got both."

Frank set glasses in the center of the table and melted away into the shadows.

"I wouldn't be too sure about the company," Vance said as she sank heavily onto the wooden chair. When Mae poured whiskey into a glass and handed it to her, she shook her head. "No, thanks. I need to clear my head, not muddle it up anymore."

"You looked like something hit you hard back there," Mae said gently. She'd come downstairs earlier than usual, unaccountably restless.

She told herself she was only going to look over the crowd and make sure there were no troublemakers in the bunch. But the instant she'd reached the landing, she'd gazed toward the far end of the room where Vance usually spent an hour or two in the evening, quietly drinking alone. She'd seen her at once and, even at a distance, she'd known something was wrong. Something even the whiskey couldn't cure.

Vance's face was a study in torment. Every thought had fled except for one. She would not stand by and watch Vance suffer alone.

"I'm sorry," Vance said.

"For what?"

Vance was glad for the dark so that Mae wouldn't see her humiliation. Or her shame. "I regret that I caused you any concern."

Mae laughed. "I don't believe worrying over someone ever caused a body any harm." She leaned close and put her hand on Vance's arm.

"Have you had any dinner?"

"I...not as of yet." Vance refused to add to her embarrassment by admitting that she'd forgotten to eat. In fact, other than coffee and a biscuit at breakfast, she'd had nothing all day. She could smell Mae's perfume, the same scent that had clung to her coat after her visit to Mae's rooms. When she'd dressed the next morning and caught the hint of her in the air, she'd been shaken by a ripple of longing so intense it had left her weak. She'd deliberately put the moment from her mind, but now, with Mae so near and the warmth of her touch searing her to the bone, she couldn't resist. "Please allow me to buy you dinner."

For an instant, Mae was stunned to silence. Surely one of them misunderstood. "Well, that's very kind of you. If I'd known, I would have made arrangements for us to dine in my rooms. Perhaps another night."

"The hotel is just across the street."

"Vance," Mae said gently. "I can't eat there with you."

Vance's voice hardened. "And why would that be?"

"There are certain things that are...understood. In many other places, women like me would be living in shacks on the outskirts of town with nothing but tin and paper over our heads." Mae swept a hand toward the balcony above them. "Here we've got clean rooms, decent food, and doctoring when we need it. As long as we don't ask for too much, that is."

"I see." Vance wanted to protest, but she knew Mae spoke the truth. Prostitution was a part of life from the capital city to the smallest mining encampment. Most of the time, it was a dreary and dangerous life. She'd seen women worn out by it before they were twenty-five.

She'd also seen parlor houses in St. Louis and Denver that were as fine as any hotel. The women who ran them and lived in them dressed in finery and often were among the wealthiest women in the community, earning far more for their labors than common workmen. But those success stories were not the norm. Out here on the frontier, the sporting women were fortunate if they did not fall prey to disease or mistreatment. "I want you to know that whatever the rules--or the consequences--they make no matter to me. I would be honored by your company."

Mae looked away, undone by the sincerity in Vance's voice and her own deep longing for the impossible. Impossible for so many reasons. She met Vance's eyes, because to do less would be to discount the gift she had been offered. The price that Vance was willing to pay for her beliefs was starkly evident in the empty sleeve and the ghosts of guilt and self-recrimination that haunted her eyes. Mae thought she had never known a braver soul. "It is you who honor me. Under other circumstances, there's nothing I would like more than to dine with you."

"I would not do anything to endanger you or any of the girls."

"It was kind of you to offer. And to understand." Mae forced a lightness into her voice that she did not feel. "You should go on over and have that dinner while you're still thinking about it."

"No." Vance caught Mae's hand as she started to withdraw. "Not just yet. I'd rather sit here with you. How much time do we have?"

"It will be a little while before the girls come down. The men need to know that I'm here, that I'm watching. That I know who the girls are going off with."

"And what about you? Will you be...going off with someone?"

Mae studied Vance's face in the dim light. Her dark eyes glinted, sharp as a knife's edge. Mae dared not ask the question she so desperately wanted answered. What does it make me in your eyes? She shook her head. "From time to time. Not tonight, I don't expect."

"Then I'd be pleased with your company."

"Will you tell me something?"

"If I can," Vance said immediately.

"What happened tonight?" Mae asked, her penetrating gaze just as unrelenting.

"Why does it matter?"

Mae couldn't think of any answer except the truth. "Because whatever is tearing you up hurts me every time I see it."

"I have...spells."

"Is it a sickness?"

Vance laughed hollowly. "Of a sort. Something happens to me and I end up thinking about the war. That last morning. I can..." She shivered. "It's like I'm there."

"You mean, more than just remembering? Feeling it?"

"Yes. Yes, that's exactly it. It's not a memory. I feel it. I hear it. I see it. All of it." She closed her eyes. "God. So real."

"Does it happen a lot?" As Vance spoke, Mae watched the pain etch itself into the lines of her face, saw her body shudder as if from invisible blows. She wanted to put herself between Vance and whatever was hurting her, but she knew it was too far inside her for anyone to touch. There would be no relief, no end to the agony, until Vance alone unearthed the source.

"Not as much as it used to." Vance reached for the whiskey bottle, pleased to see that her hand was steady. She poured them each a drink.

"I don't remember very much about the first few months. My arm was infected, and I was delirious most of the time. I'd had pneumonia and that flared up. I couldn't talk, couldn't identify myself." She emptied the shot in a single gulp and closed her fingers hard around the glass. "I spent quite a long time in a hospital in Richmond before anyone figured out who I was."

"That you were a doctor?"

Vance nodded. "That and that my father was one of Lincoln's appointees to the Medical Bureau that organized medical care in the Union Army."

"So he's a doctor, too."

"Yes." Vance sighed. "Eventually I was sent home, back to Philadelphia to be cared for. Once my arm healed and it seemed that I was getting well, the episodes began."

"And there's no medicine? No treatment?"

"Laudanum effectively stops it," Vance said bitterly. "That's a bit like trading one devil for another. I finally refused it, against my father's wishes."

"I've seen what that can do," Mae said softly. "It's a way to escape, sure enough. But it's a little bit like dying, too, isn't it?"

Completely without thinking, Vance lifted Mae's hand and rested her cheek against Mae's palm. "How is it you understand so much?"

Mae brushed her fingers through Vance's hair. "I want to understand you."

"Why?"

They were dangerously close to crossing a line that Mae could barely see any longer, but she knew it was there. She knew who she was, what she was. And she sensed, no, she knew, that Vance was vulnerable.