by Sierra Rose
“D’ you think she’ll come to, pretty soon?”
“Dunno about that, neither. Reckon she’ll wake when—” If? “—she’s ready. Might be better if she sleeps away for a while, gives all them wounds a chance to heal. You got any idea what happened out there?”
“We found both of ’em buried under a monster pile of branches. At first I figured that—that—neither one made it.” Again that clunky, traitorous voice. Paul cleared his throat, swallowed another shot of bourbon, and tried once more. “Then she—I heard Molly give out a moan.”
“You did a fine job out there, Sheriff,” said Ben quietly. He had shifted to the settee, where he and Camellia sat huddled close together, each drawing comfort and support from the other’s nearness. Marriage could be a wonderful thing, and this was one time Paul felt a stab of envy for the couple. “Come next election, you got my vote, for sure.”
Paul managed a wan smile. Then, exhausted beyond measure, he nearly split apart his jaws in a mighty yawn before shambling awkwardly to his stockinged feet. “Reckon I’d better take off, then. I’d like to come back, tomorrow mawnin’, if that’s all right with you.”
“No.” Camellia saw how it was. She’d seen it for some time, a matter so private and so personal that apparently no one else was aware of the situation. But this must be encouraged, at all costs. “Paul, you stretch out right here in the parlor. Yes, you can, I’m inviting you. I’m getting used to having you two around as semi-permanent house guests. I’ll simply hang a shingle out front.”
“Oh, ma’am, I can’t put you out like that...”
“Of course you can, and you will. Ben, please go on up to bed; I’ll be there directly. Paul, you settle in, and I’ll fetch a pillow and a blanket. Gabriel, are you staying or going?”
“Lord keep me from a bossy woman,” chuckled Gabe. “You Burton ladies do beat all. I’m stayin’, Cam, so’s I can check in on my patient. You got a place for me to sleep, too?”
“Certainly; the house has four bedrooms. Very well, come along then. I’ll show you where everything is. I’ll be up and down periodically, too, Gabe, so don’t be surprised by movement during what’s left of the night.”
“Not a’tall, lovely lady. You and I will be as ships passin’ in the night.”
Camellia snorted. “Hmmmph. All right, then. But I’m warning both of you, here and now: do not—I repeat—do not wake me at some ungodly hour. If you do, I will not be happy. And an unhappy woman will turn everyone around her unhappy, as well. Do I make myself clear?”
Both men wore sheepish expressions. For some reason, males are not at their best once their boots are removed and their wool socks are visible for all and sundry to see. It must be an issue of vulnerability.
“Yes, ma’am. Abundantly clear.”
Chapter Twenty-One
SO HERE MOLLY WAS, a week later still white as death and insensible of everything around her, murmuring that one word: “—Bye. Bye...”
Camellia had to hunch forward to hear her voice. Heart amazingly lightened, she flew downstairs to let the assembled group know.
The kitchen and parlor, one great L-shaped room, had become the hub of activity centering around the patient in her second-floor bower.
Now that the storm had passed and the streets dried up to their usual state of ruts and dust, Hannah and Letitia were able to visit every day. Letitia, in particular, was continuing some of her training, under the doctor’s supervision: a two-fold purpose, surely; take over some of the responsibility for Molly’s care, while at the same time learning more about the great world of medicine.
Their sister might not be aware of their presence, but surely she should be able to sense all the love and support winging her way. Besides, two more women were able to help with the endless cooking of meals and clean-up of dirty dishes that those infernal men, always hanging around, seemed to require.
The first time Gabriel arrived to find Hannah mashing potatoes with great gusto, a few days ago, he had promptly turned right around and exited immediately through the door.
Surprised, Letty watched him go. Then her eyes crinkled with laughter. “You’ve got the poor man shaking in his boots at mere sight of you.”
“That’s a good condition for him to be in,” retorted Hannah unsympathetically. “Someone has to hold these males to account.”
A half-hour later, the doctor returned. He used that aforementioned boot to kick at the front door for admittance, since he was burdened by a large, awkward (and heavy) wooden crate.
“What on earth?”
Gabe would have doffed his hat had he had a hand free to do so. “Outa the way,” he huffed, pushing past Hannah without so much as a by-your-leave.
He dropped his cargo onto the table with a thump that nearly caved in its legs. By the time Hannah had followed him, to demand an explanation, he was rifling through packages, cans, and covered dishes.
“Beef stew from the Sittin’ Eat,” he pointed out with a beatific smile thrown her way, “already all prepared. And two apple pies from the Drinkwater Dinin’ Room. And a couplea chickens roasted in their own sauce from the Sarsaparilla. Oh, and a few other odds and ends.”
For once utterly and completely taken aback, Hannah stood, hands on hips, mouth agape but
wrapped in silence.
“Huh,” said the doctor, observing her reaction with obvious glee. “Kerflummoxed, yes? Figured I’d eaten enough meals here, I’d save you ladies some work. Only fair thing to do, doncha think? And, anyway, I ran into Paul, he’ll be here directly.”
“Hen! Letty!” Camellia came pelting down from the upper regions with an unladylike gait that almost tumbled her off the last two stairs.
Grinning, Gabe caught her amidships. “This is gettin’ to be a habit, Miz Forrester.”
Camellia, her mind still locked in her sister’s bedroom, looked at him blankly. “She spoke. Molly spoke to me! Where’s Letty?”
“She went outside.” Hannah, eyes widened, paused in the act of pawing through Gabe’s perishable. “Molly is awake?”
“Well—not exactly. But she did say something. Bye.”
“Bye? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” said Camellia impatiently. “Come along, Gabe, you need to see her.”
The room was as neat as Molly herself. Both windows open to the outdoors, with all the sound of bees industriously working at the flowers, and occasional bird song, but with shades pulled partway to keep out the worst of the sun’s rays. Quilt and linens were cool white, to match the painted iron bedstead, and a few rag rugs lay scattered across the wooden floor.
Camellia had managed to keep her sister sustained with broth and thin soup, water and hot herbal tea, but without more substantial fare she certainly had lost weight. Molly’s bandages had been changed, as needed, during this past week of near-comatose inactivity; she had been washed with lavender-scented soap, her hair brushed and tied out of the way, her night dress replaced. She looked as fresh and pristine—and probably as newly slender—as Sleeping Beauty in her glass case.
As Camellia and her entourage came quietly inside, Molly stirred slightly. She swallowed, and the fingers of one hand trembled just a little.
“You can’t fool me,” said Gabe, approaching. Good humor masked the worry that had ridden him like a rodeo nag for this past week. “You’re just playin’ possum, my girl, and we all know it. Time to rise and shine.”
“Bye...” murmured Molly.
Camellia’s worried gaze sought that of the doctor’s. “Bye?”
“What is it, Molly?” he asked her gently. “You’re tellin’ us goodbye?”
“Uh...” Frowning, she tried to turn away from his voice. “Head—hurts...”
Gabe drew up a chair, sat down beside the bed, and carefully took her hand in his. “Yes, dear, it hurts. But I can give you something to make it better. Would you like that?”
Tears gathered beneath the closed eyelids, no more pallid than the gauze bandage wrapped
in place, and oozed slowly down her cheek. “Yes,” came the faint answer. “—Bye...Bye—horse...”
After a few more minutes of confusing, frustrating back-and-forth, it seemed no progress was being made. Then Letitia slipped into the room. “Might she mean purchase? Something to do with purchasing—buying—a horse?”
“—Buy—Painter...” wept Molly.
“Painter.” Hannah turned the word around thoughtfully. “Wasn’t that the horse that—Quinn—”
she barely whispered the name, “hired from the stable, to run away on?”
Lightly, reassuringly, Gabe stroked the invalid’s limp hand. “Is that it, Molly? You want someone to buy Painter?”
“Save...save—Painter...”
“Someone already did,” said Camellia, with a serene smile now that the matter had been cleared up. “Paul bought the animal from Abel Norton. Specifically for Molly.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
ANOTHER WEEK FOUND Turnabout’s residents in mid-July, at the height of summer’s heat. Men rolled their long sleeves back to the biceps and frankly applied their neckerchiefs to sweating brows; women more discreetly unfurled their fans and tried to confine their heavier housework to early morning and early evening.
Matters at the Forrester house seemed to be progressing with great hope and plenty of optimism, for Molly, to the delight of everyone within her immediate circle, was recovering by leaps and bounds. Oh, she still slept extra hours during both day and night—apologizing, with a small flutter of laughter, for being so lazy—while the bones of her ankle knit together and the concussion’s headaches and dizziness faded. But she was not only regaining physical health but mental and emotional spirit, as well. Probably, confided Camellia to her husband, the fact that Quinn Hennessey could no longer present any danger had a great deal to do with that recovery.
Well-wishers, understanding only a little of what Molly had endured during her brief marriage (and that mostly through gossip), descended upon the house with an outpouring of gifts: mincemeat pie and wonderful little iced cookies; a granny’s square afghan and knitted slippers; even some sort of salve, containing arnica, guaranteed to relieve swelling and bruises. Items were received at the door, gratefully and with appreciation, but visitors, the householders always explained, had been limited to just the family and a few close friends for the time being.
One of those close friends was, not surprisingly, Sheriff Paul Winslow, and he showed up every day, several times a day, to see how Molly was doing. Once Camellia even asked him, with a tiny quirk of humor, if he were neglecting his duties by being absent from his office so often. He merely smiled that enigmatic smile of his and proceeded inside.
Each time, Camellia noted, he arrived wearing a shirt so fresh off the line one could still smell the soap used to wash it, and his face newly shaven. Clean boots, pressed trousers, as nattily turned out as anyone had ever seen him.
“If I didn’t know better, I might almost think he has come a-courtin’,” Camellia, seeking an outside opinion, murmured to her husband one fine evening.
Unconcerned, Ben had flapped a page of the newspaper. Not to read. To chase away the mosquitoes. “Maybe he has.”
“But it’s too soon! She’s barely a widow, and with what she’s gone through she won’t want to be trusting any man for a long, long time—if ever.”
He had looked up from the rim of his coffee cup. “Why doncha let Molly decide that?”
Life could be brief in the violent west, with untimely death always a possibility. The pairings and matings of interested individuals must sometimes, of necessity, move forward quickly.
By early afternoon that second-floor bedroom would grow stuffy and airless, rendering its occupant even more supine. Sympathetic, Ben took it upon himself to transport her carefully, night dress, wrapper, and all, to the parlor settee, (from whence he would reverse the process, come evening). There, at least partaking in a more normal routine, she might chat with her sisters, doze a little, or read.
And receive the only two males allowed inside the house.
Gabe harrumphed his way through a daily examination and usually stayed for supper.
Paul, on the other hand, sat quietly, with only a few conversational gambits, and—from what Camellia could see—feasted his eyes upon the woman he had come to visit. Realizing which way the wind blew, she often made excuses to discreetly disappear for a bit when the sheriff appeared. She needed to shake the kitchen rugs outside, or she wanted to check on how Amazin’ was progressing in the garden, or she had decided to give her bedroom a through airing and cleaning.
It wasn’t exactly according to the rules of decorum to give them private time together, she would admit. But who might be aware, other than she herself, if a budding romance were being gently nudged along?
“You’re lookin’ well,” said Paul, during one of these interludes.
Ben had returned to the store after dinner—not everybody could afford to take so much time away from work, he had commented with asperity—and Camellia, pulling another of her vanishing acts once Paul had materialized, had decided she simply had to have some ingredient for a recipe due to be concocted and traipsed along after him.
“Thank you. I’m feeling well.” Molly, dressed in a sweet and simple blue cotton dressing gown that should never, according to propriety, be seen by any man outside the bedroom, smiled.
“Ahuh.”
For a few minutes they idly discussed her returning strength. That she could actually hobble a short distance, holding onto the support of accommodating furniture, as long as she put no weight on the casted ankle. That she still seemed to get inordinately tired and needed plenty of rest. That she was anxious to be fully recovered, and back to her old self, so she could take up the routine of her life once more.
“The bruises on my face are almost all gone, you’ll notice,” she said, dimpling. “I’m not quite so ugly any more.”
“You were never ugly. You were always the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Uh—barrin’ your sisters, o’ course.”
“Of course.”
Their next topic covered the weather, ad infinitum (always a safe subject when anyone is reaching): the past, the current, the future of fall and winter. Bits and pieces about the town came next, from buildings to residents to business itself.
Finally Molly moved into the personal, to thank Paul with all her heart for what he had done. He had rescued her that first time, after her disastrous wedding night; and he had rescued her again a second time in the woods. She had no words enough to express her gratitude.
“Gratitude, huh?” A certain set to his mouth made one wonder if that was the emotion he had been hoping for. And might reject.
“And then you saved Painter for me, as well. Poor old horse. Quinn—Quinn treated him terribly. And if not for the warning he gave when the tree came down toward us, and for his sudden movement, I would have been killed.”
“I figured that was it,” Paul said quietly. He was leaning forward in the blue upholstered chair that seemed too small and delicate for his big frame, elbows propped on thighs and hat being turned slowly around and around in his supple hands. “Figured he deserved a second chance, too. Molly, you do know that Quinn is dead and buried, don’t you?”
She nodded. “Camellia told me. I—I wish I could shed tears for him, Paul. But, selfishly, I’ve been too busy shedding tears for myself. For my stupidity, and for dragging so many generous people into my troubles.”
“Molly—”
“It’s true, Paul, and I can’t deny it.” She shifted position upon the settee, to ease the ankle that had begun to ache. “I’ve been a very spoiled little girl. Do you think it’s possible to grow up and mature overnight, when circumstances demand it?”
“I reckon it’s possible to do just about anything you set your mind to. And see what you want outa life, and continue on so you’re happy.”
“Thank you for that. I—I’m really making a stab at it.” Her limpid ga
ze, as she raised those lovely wet turquoise eyes to look at him, might have been compared to a water lily, bedecked by dew.
“Whatever you are,” said Paul gruffly, uncomfortably, “is enough for me.”
Molly caught a breath and held it, as her heart began to beat a little more rapidly. “I’m not sure—what do you—what can you—?”
“D’ you trust me, Molly?”
“Oh, Paul!” The dew deepened and overflowed. “I would trust you with—I have trusted you with—my very life!”
A muscle flickered along the ridge of his jaw; clearly he was using every power of restraint to keep from moving too quickly with whatever he had in mind. “But d’ you trust me to take care of you, to watch over you, to never hurt you as—as you’ve been hurt?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“Well, then.” His face suddenly appeared ten years younger, as if a whole mountain of weight had just slid off his shoulders. And he grinned. A broad, full-fledged grin of boyish good looks and charm, such as she couldn’t recall ever seeing before. “Can I come sit b’side you, Molly?”
“Paul.” Feeling as she did, Molly didn’t want to—couldn’t bear to—be forced to fend him off. Important matters must be settled. “What are you expecting of me?”
He lifted one sturdy shoulder. “Nothin’; only what you are, yourself. I just wanna talk some more. And hold you.”
“But I can’t—we can’t—there’s all this—ugly stuff going on, in the background...”
“Yeah. But most people have some ugly stuff they have to handle somehow. If they can find the right person to match up with in life, why, that ugly stuff just sorta goes away.”
For every one of Molly’s points of dispute, the man came back stating a counterpoint. She was beginning to splutter against such calm, dispassionate assurance. “Are you—do you mean—planning for a future? Have you forgotten that my husband has just been buried? All these details... And—and—you’ve said nothing of love.”
