She held up the basket she carried in her hands. “I’ve brought breakfast, and I will not leave until you and Barney Bell have eaten your fill. I promise there is enough for everyone.”
Except she hadn’t listed everyone. “What about Miriam? She is here, as she is every day.”
The town still hadn’t forgiven her for something which had, in all honesty, not been her fault. And they didn’t seem willing to acknowledge how much she had done for them in the two weeks since her arrival.
“There is enough for her as well.”
Miriam ought not to have been an afterthought. But he was too weary to argue. “Miriam is in the kitchen with Mr. Bell. I can’t say how she did it, but there was none of his usual fear with her.”
Gideon didn’t mean to look that particular gift horse in the mouth, but he wished he knew how she’d managed it. Easing Mr. Bell’s worries grew trickier as his mind further deteriorated. Miriam’s approach might work with Andrew. Perhaps when he was less exhausted, he could sort that out.
And then maybe he could get to the bottom of Miriam’s connection to Nebraska, then he could understand her propensity to lie to him, then decide when and if to make his journeys around the territory, and a hundred other things that weighed on him day in and day out. He hadn’t had a chance to play his cello in days. If ever he’d needed a minute or two with his music, it was now.
“Come into the dining room, Gideon.” Mrs. Wilhite offered the invitation with a mixture of firmness and empathy. “You can sit and eat and not think about anything else for a few minutes.”
“That would be heavenly.”
He stood and allowed himself to be led to the dining room. Mrs. Wilhite served him a generous helping of sausage, boiled eggs, and corn bread drizzled with honey. He breathed in the mouthwatering aroma. Bless Mrs. Wilhite.
She took up the basket once more. “I’ll take this to the kitchen for Miss Bricks and Barney.”
“Thank you.”
She slipped out. He dove into his meal, devouring it in moments. His stomach no longer empty, sleep deprivation quickly caught up with him.
He pushed his plate to the side and laid his head on the table. The position was anything but comfortable, but at least it required no effort. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting the tension slip from his shoulders. The house stood, for once, still and quiet. Blissfully, blessedly quiet.
You have a patient, he reminded himself. For a long moment, his body refused to bow to the dictates of his mind. He sat there, head on the table, unable to move. When he felt himself beginning to drift off, he sat up and shook himself awake.
He took his empty plate and used utensils with him to the kitchen. Mrs. Wilhite was gone, but Miriam and Mr. Bell were at the worktable, sitting on opposite sides. She’d known enough, then, to give him some space.
“Of course you don’t have to eat all of it,” she said to Mr. Bell. “If you aren’t hungry anymore, you can be done.”
Mr. Bell nodded vaguely. “I think I’m not hungry. Maybe. I might be, but probably not.”
Gideon’s gaze fell on Miriam. How would she respond to his indecision? Too many people reacted with annoyance or frustration.
Miriam didn’t look the least bit bothered. “Is there anything else you think you might be?”
“Tired.” He answered quickly, decisively.
“Perhaps you’d like to lie down for a while,” Miriam suggested.
His mouth turned down. He looked around the kitchen, searching for something. “I don’t sleep here.”
“Your bed is upstairs.” Miriam stood, smiling at Mr. Bell. “You can sleep up there.”
His shoulders relaxed on the instant. “A good idea, Lizzie. Upstairs.”
Lizzie? That was a name Gideon hadn’t heard Mr. Bell use before. Who did he think Miriam was? A sister, perhaps? A childhood friend? It was impossible to know where in his lifetime Mr. Bell’s mind was from one moment to the next.
Miriam and Mr. Bell walked toward the door, and she paused by Gideon’s side. “I’ll see that Mr. Bell finds his bed, then I’ll return and clean up.”
“I can clean up,” he insisted. “You look every bit as tired as I feel.”
“We’ll work together,” she suggested. “Then we can both get a moment’s rest that much sooner.”
“I accept.”
Then he was alone in the kitchen, left with little to interrupt the silence beyond the lingering guilt of seeing Miriam still withdrawn and guarded. Until yesterday, she’d smiled at him now and then, jested a little. She’d been lighter and happier, and so had he. All that was gone now.
He pulled another slice of corn bread from the basket. He wasn’t particularly hungry, but Mrs. Wilhite’s corn bread was impossible to pass up. One bite at a time, he made his way through the bit of heaven. He refused to let his mind think about anything other than each morsel of food and the promise of his bed. He wasn’t delusional enough to think the effort would continue to work. Worries inevitably worked their way through the cracks in his defenses.
“Mr. Bell was confused, but I convinced him the room was, indeed, his,” Miriam said as she stepped into the kitchen.
“Thank you for being patient with him. Not everyone is.”
She carried the plates from the sink to the table. “There was a man, a patient I worked with, named George, who spent day after day, hour after hour, asking for an apple. Only ever an apple.” She scraped the leftover bits of food into the scrap bucket. “He was never violent or angry. He always seemed sad. His family grew weary of hearing about apples and, in their impatience, turned him over to a doctor whose solution was to ply poor George with one concoction after another.”
Gideon knew all too well the inhumanity too many doctors showed to those whose minds were struggling. “Did George stop asking for an apple?”
Miriam pulled her sketchbook from the shelf where she’d begun keeping it. She flipped through until she reached a particular page. She turned it around so he could see the drawing. A man, slumped in a chair, mouth hanging open, eyes utterly empty.
“This is George, as he is now—or when I last I saw him, at least. This is him every hour of every day.” She pulled the sketchpad back and gazed at it, her expression one of sadness. “He no longer asks for apples. He no longer speaks. Or interacts. He sits day after day, staring at walls. He was rendered a shell of a person—in deference to his family’s preference and to the delight of his doctor, he is a silent shell.”
Miriam’s story didn’t surprise Gideon, but it still wasn’t easy to hear. Doctors had the potential to do so much good in the world. Why did some choose to inflict pain instead?
“The sight of him so empty still haunts me,” Miriam said.
“Then why did you draw him like that?”
Her eyes snapped back to him. “So I won’t forget.” She closed her book. “So I won’t forget that people like George and Andrew and Barney Bell and so many others who are at the mercy of their struggling minds don’t deserve the misery too many people heap upon them. So I never forget that they are worth fighting for.”
Her impassioned declaration chipped away at the lingering frustration he felt over the secrets she was keeping from him. She was a good person in addition to being a good nurse. But he wasn’t certain how they would build true trust between them.
“When I ducked over to the hotel earlier to fetch my shawl, I noticed Andrew was sitting in a tree,” Miriam said. “I offered a hello, but he didn’t respond. He didn’t even seem to hear me, though he must have.”
Gideon’s heart dropped. Andrew hadn’t retreated to the trees in weeks. “He spent most of the war up in trees, acting as lookout. He returns there when he is overwhelmed or afraid.”
Heartache entered her deep blue eyes. “He hides there from the broken bits of his mind.”
That was it exa
ctly. “He used to spend every waking hour in the trees, but he’d been doing better these past months.”
“He will come down when he’s ready,” she said. “Let us hope it is sooner rather than later.”
He pulled the broom from the corner and began sweeping. “I worked in a sanatorium for six months,” he said. “The hardest six months I’ve spent as a doctor.”
“I was at one for two years,” she said.
He didn’t like talking about his experience, but if he opened up to her, she might do the same.
“I worked at St. Elizabeth’s in Washington.”
She wiped down the tabletop with a rag, not looking at him. “I was never there.”
“Where was the asylum you worked at?”
Still bent over the table, she whispered, “Nebraska.”
Nebraska. This was her secret, then. He seldom discussed what he’d seen and experienced at St. Elizabeth’s. She likely felt the same.
He returned the broom to the corner and moved to the table. He reached forward and took her hand. “I’m sorry I’ve pushed you about this. I have a few memories of my own that I can’t bear to relive. It was wrong of me to try to force you to do so.”
“You have no idea,” she whispered.
He gently turned her enough to face him. He needed her to see that he was sincere. “If you ever want to talk, know that I will listen. But I won’t broach the subject again unless you wish to. And I will do my best to give you the benefit of the doubt when other subjects arise that you aren’t comfortable discussing.”
“Won’t that ‘disappoint’ you?” Though she clearly tried to make the remark sound offhanded, the pain beneath it was all too obvious.
“I have spent most of my adult life being lied to by women, which is something I don’t think I’ve ever confessed to anyone before. Feeling misled is a particular sensitivity of mine.”
Her gaze turned concerned. “I ought to have at least told you that Nebraska was where I worked as a nurse and a place I don’t have fond memories of. I should have said that, rather than pretend there was nothing significant about it. I am sorry for that.”
“We are getting quite good at apologizing.” He let himself smile a little. “Perhaps we should make a habit of it.”
“Or not make a habit of doing the things we have to apologize for in the first place.”
He smiled more fully. “I like your idea better.”
“Who are these other women who have been lying to you?”
Though he’d guarded his history since coming to Savage Wells, he found himself unexpectedly willing to speak of it. At least a bit. “Let us just say that you are not the first woman I intended to marry who, in the end, decided against it. Although you are the first one I never directly made the offer to.”
“We can reasonably blame this on the Western Women’s Bureau.” A hint of mischief touched her expression. “They should apologize to us.”
“Another excellent idea.”
She set her other hand around his, clasping his between both of hers. “I’m sorry those women deceived you, Gideon. And I’m sorry you are disappointed in me.”
“I shouldn’t have said that. Certainly not the way I did.” He’d regretted it ever since. “My parents and I don’t get along for exactly the same reason.”
Her gaze dropped to their hands. “Likely not exactly the same.”
He brushed the thumb of his free hand along her jaw. She raised her eyes to him. “Will you give me a chance to prove to you I’m not a terrible person?”
“I’ve watched you with your patients. I know you’re not a terrible person.”
He touched a stray curl hanging loose from her braid. His heart pounded so hard she must have heard it. He tried to take a breath, but his lungs fought him.
“Miriam, I—”
She stepped back. His hand dropped away.
“I should finish my cleaning,” she said.
With a little distance between them, his heart calmed, but only a bit. “And I should update my patient files from our visits yesterday.”
She nodded and turned away, grabbing the broom he’d left in the corner. He slipped from the kitchen. One step into the hallway, though, and he stopped.
What in the world had just happened?
Chapter 14
Miriam’s first trip to the mercantile began on a cold footing. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, who ran the shop, hadn’t yet forgiven her despite some of the townsfolk having warmed to her. The Fletchers said hello when she passed, the preacher and his wife had smiled at her after services on Sunday, and Paisley and Cade tipped their hats and asked after her health when they crossed paths. The rest of Savage Wells was making the transition from adversary to ally much more slowly.
Having received her first pay, Miriam reconciled her bill with the hotel, and then set money aside for next month’s bill. She had a small amount left and meant to treat herself. For two years, she’d dreamed of a colorful ribbon for her hair or an anise candy. On her truly desperate days, she’d even let herself imagine having a dress that wasn’t gray, the only color Blackburn’s inmates were permitted to wear. She’d escaped with only two of the drab, shapeless dresses—the dresses she was still wearing. She wore them every day, but secretly dreamed of something colorful and beautiful.
A pink dress, edged in lace, hung in the window of the mercantile. Her hair was too red for wearing pink, yet it was tempting.
Mrs. Holmes passed by. She had done so several times since Miriam had arrived at the mercantile but had noticeably ignored her.
“Pardon me,” Miriam said.
Mrs. Holmes paused, but with the posture of one fully intending to move along quickly.
“How much for the dress in the window?” she asked.
“Two dollars and seventy-five cents.”
She couldn’t justify such an expense. Perhaps eventually. Mrs. Holmes moved on, helping another customer, and Miriam wandered toward the table of notions. She couldn’t afford a dress, but a ribbon for her hair might be within her reach. The table held no ribbons. She didn’t see any nearby.
No ribbons, then.
A rainbow of candies filled the row of lidded jars on the countertop. She stepped up to the jars. The black candies looked like anise. Her mouth instantly began watering. She’d craved the candies, favorites of hers since childhood, for two years. Two years.
Mr. Holmes was behind the counter but didn’t acknowledge her.
“How much are the anise candies?” she asked.
“Two for a penny.”
She didn’t bother to hold back her delight. “Four, please.”
Mr. Holmes yanked off a small square of paper, then pulled out four pieces of anise candy. With brusque, annoyed movements, he folded the paper around the candies. Miriam’s eyes fell on a small spool of fine ivory thread, just the right thickness for tatting.
“What is the cost of this thread?”
“Two bits.” Her questions clearly irritated him.
Twenty-five cents. That wasn’t too expensive. “I’ll take the thread as well, please. And do you have lead pencils?”
“A penny a piece.”
“Two, please.”
Mr. Holmes set the tatting thread on the counter with a thud, then fetched the pencils.
She counted out twenty-nine cents. Having spent a few weeks working for Gideon, and seeing how and what he was paid by the people who came to see him and those he traveled to treat, she knew with certainty he would never grow wealthy; he would likely never be anything other than comfortable. In light of that, her meager salary felt quite generous.
She thanked Mr. Holmes and slipped the candy and pencils into her coat pocket, but she kept the tatting thread in her hand. She’d told Gideon she would only be gone for a quarter hour. Though she felt certain he wouldn’t begrudge her a fe
w extra minutes, she didn’t care to be late.
Fortunately, Mrs. Wilhite did not reside far from Gideon’s house—almost directly across the street. Miriam made her way there quickly. The front of the house was a millinery shop, though she hadn’t been inside yet.
On the front step, she hesitated. Mrs. Wilhite had been cordial during her brief visit to Gideon’s house a few days earlier, but the woman was by no means warmly welcoming. Yet, Miriam could not forget the memory of her sad, careworn eyes the day she’d come complaining of a sore throat.
Miriam had had no apple for George. She’d not been able to determine what Mr. Bell was craving during his brief stay at Gideon’s home. But she could give something to Mrs. Wilhite, something to lift her spirits.
She pushed open the door. The shop was utterly chaotic. Bonnets hung from hooks and nails and sat on tabletops, surrounded by a mishmash of silk flowers, feathers, and the largest assortment of ribbons Miriam had ever seen. She had frequented the millinery shops of New York in the years before her parents stopped allowing her in public. Not one of them had carried so much ribbon.
Mountains of ribbon, and she hadn’t a single penny to spare. She ought to have passed up the candy or perhaps purchased only one pencil. Then she might have had, at last, a ribbon for her hair.
An older woman, sitting near the far wall, looked up at Miriam. Her smile faded quickly. Most of the town went through that transformation when they saw her. Disapproval. Disappointment. Miriam hid the pain of their rejection behind a mask of serenity.
“Is Mrs. Wilhite here?” she asked the woman.
“She’s lying down.”
In the middle of the day? “Is she unwell?”
“Wilma’s been tired lately is all.”
Being tired had been one of Mrs. Wilhite’s complaints when she’d come to see Gideon. Miriam would have to mention this to him.
The shop door opened. Hawk stepped inside. He slipped his wide-brimmed hat from his head, nodding to them both. “Howdy, Mrs. Carol. Miss Bricks.”
Mrs. Carol. Miriam committed that to memory.
Healing Hearts (Proper Romance) Page 10
