Healing Hearts (Proper Romance)

by Sarah M. Eden

  He looked up from the step he stood on. His smile clutched at her throat. “I am not alone either, Miriam.”

  Chapter 30

  The children had eagerly taken to the task of writing notes for their parents. Miriam stepped out onto the porch with an entire stack. She set it on the swing and placed a large rock atop it in case the Wyoming wind decided to cause trouble.

  She waved to the families, standing across the road. “Likely only a couple more days,” she called out to them.

  They cheered in response. It warmed her heart to see such love amongst these families. She missed that about her own family. So much had changed when her health had changed. Embarrassment replaced tenderness. Eventually all she felt from them was resentment and disappointment.

  She returned to the house, closing the door behind it. Long, slow breaths didn’t restore her energy. Too much weighed her down. She tried to will herself to keep moving, to face the remainder of her day, to endure another moment in the same house as Dr. Blackburn.

  “I am so tired,” she whispered, leaning against the front door.

  Once Gideon was awake, in another hour or so, she would have her turn to rest. She knew she wouldn’t sleep, but at least she’d be alone for a brief, fleeting time.

  If only I can stay on my feet until then. Exhaustion didn’t merely make things more difficult, it frightened her. She couldn’t be certain there was a connection, but she often had seizures when she was overly tired. The possibility that one might lead to the other was enough to give her tremendous pause.

  Gideon came down the stairs in that moment.

  “You are supposed to sleep for another hour, Gideon.”

  “I’m more than ready to be up. What do you need?” he asked.

  What did she really need from him? The answers rushed quickly over her. She needed more than his confidence in her as a nurse, more than his lukewarm support in the face of Dr. Blackburn’s arrival, certainly more than his friendship. She needed the devotion his words and gestures seemed to have been hinting at before her past had been laid bare.

  She needed his heart in a way he had never fully offered.

  None of those words would ever be permitted to pass her lips, not when everything was still so uncertain. The thought of opening herself up to more pain and misery was unendurable. And yet, she was falling apart.

  “I need a hug.” She knew it was a dangerous request, but “need” was the right word. Despite her confident words to Dr. Blackburn, she’d felt so alone in the twenty-four hours since she’d confessed to Gideon all that had happened before her arrival in Savage Wells. She needed a moment of his affectionate touch.

  He crossed directly to her. “I am quite good at hugs, dear.”

  Dear. “Does this mean you’re not angry with me anymore?”

  “I was never angry.” He set his hand gently on her unslung arm. “Surprised. A little frustrated. Mostly worried.” His other arm slipped around her waist, and he pulled her gently into his embrace.

  She laid her head against his shoulder and pressed her open palm to his chest. “Much better,” she whispered.

  His shoulders moved with his rumbling laugh. “This was easy enough. What else can I do for you?”

  Oh, how she needed him. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so warm and protected. For that one moment, safe in his arms, she could forget about everything else waiting for her in the outside world.

  “Will you play your cello again? Your ‘Gentle Annie’ is the most peaceful sound on earth.”

  Was it selfish of her to wish they could stay precisely as they were and not go back to work?

  “Once you’ve rested and the house is empty again, I will play it for you,” he said.

  How tempting it was to lean all of her weight against him and allow herself to drift away.

  The door opened behind them, and Paisley peeked inside.

  “Enough sparkin’, you two. Mr. Larsen needs to talk to Miriam.”

  “Who is Mr. Larsen?” Miriam asked.

  “Attorney. Hermit. Man of mystery.” Gideon made no move to release her. “Do you know what he needs to discuss?”

  “I’d wager something to do with Blackburn,” Paisley answered. “He talked to the doctor for nearly an hour.”

  This was the moment of truth, then. Mr. Larsen, an attorney, meant to tell her what her legal options were, assuming there were any. Miriam knew she had to face the reality of it, but she couldn’t force herself to step away from Gideon’s embrace.

  “What if he has bad news?” she quietly asked.

  “Even terrible news is worse when heard too late.” His hand rubbed her back. Up and down. An unwavering, steady rhythm. He bent close enough to speak softly and still be heard. “You are strong enough for this.”

  After one last, fleeting moment to relish Gideon’s attentions, she stepped back, head held high, and pretended that she was equal to the task before her. “We had best go talk with Mr. Larsen.”

  Gideon and Paisley walked with her out the door and across the side yard to the jailhouse. Mr. Larsen meant to meet with her there, it seemed.

  Gideon held her hand as they stepped into the jailhouse. Mr. Oliver and Eben, the local blacksmith, were playing a game of cards. They were the only two adults who had contracted the fever, and both were nearly restored to full health. Another few days of rest and they could return to their homes and jobs.

  “Mr. Larsen is in the back room,” Paisley said.

  The room was small, not much larger than the recovery room at Gideon’s house. A man Miriam didn’t recognize sat at the narrow table in the corner. Hawk leaned against the wall. Cade sat on a cot against the opposite wall.

  Gideon led Miriam to the table, where she took the only other chair in the room. Paisley sat beside Cade. Gideon closed the door and leaned against it. They would have been hard-pressed to fit another person in the tiny space.

  The man at the table had the bearing of an attorney: confident, no-nonsense, with eyes that studied and evaluated, and an aura of logic rather than emotion. He was younger than she expected, perhaps only a few years older than Gideon.

  “You are Miss Bricks?” he asked.

  “I am.”

  “I am Thomas Larsen. Sheriff O’Brien asked me to evaluate your situation.”

  Miriam nodded, feeling the tension building in her neck.

  “Dr. Blackburn has all of the required paperwork proving that you are a patient in his asylum. Insisting on verification of authenticity might delay a decision; however, I do believe the law is on his side in this matter.”

  With a heavy heart, she admitted, “I know.”

  “What if another doctor disputed his claim that she is mad?” Hawk asked.

  Mr. Larsen motioned toward Gideon. “Dr. MacNamara, you mean?” He shook his head. “He is not neutral in this matter. His viewpoint would be dismissed as biased.”

  “To my knowledge,” Miriam said, “only the doctor who ordered the person committed can authorize the patient’s release. Dr. Blackburn would never agree to that.”

  Mr. Larsen folded his hands in front of him. “Dr. Blackburn only signed your commitment papers as the receiving physician. He was not the one who ordered you to be institutionalized.”

  Miriam nodded. “Dr. Parnell handed me over. Do we need to contact him?”

  Mr. Larsen shook his head once more. “According to the paperwork provided by Dr. Blackburn, you were officially committed by Carlton Bricks.”

  Goodness gracious. “He is my father. But he lives in New York, nowhere near Blackburn Asylum.”

  Mr. Larsen tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “The authorization likely came by way of telegram with the signed papers following in the mail. From what Dr. Blackburn told me, you were given the same diagnosis and ordered committed while in your family’s care many year
s earlier.”

  “That is true.” Her family had meant to deliver her to the New York State Lunatic Asylum, which had necessitated her initial flight. “Dr. Blackburn must have sent word to them, though Dr. Parnell’s orders should have been enough.”

  “I do not know his reasons for going to the extra trouble,” Mr. Larsen said, “but he strikes me as a methodical person, one who would not act without reason. That, of course, begs the question of why bringing you back to his institution was important enough to come all this way.”

  “Or,” she added, “how he found me here to begin with.”

  “I do know the answer to that. He received a telegram from Dr. Parnell, who received a telegram from Dr. MacNamara.”

  She looked at Gideon, but he was clearly confused by the assertion.

  “I don’t know a Dr. Parnell,” Gideon insisted. “I certainly didn’t send him a telegram.”

  “Actually, Doc, you did.” Hawk spoke with an odd mixture of confidence and hesitancy. “You had me send them on your behalf when you were trying to sort out the mess with the marriage bureau.”

  What did the Western Women’s Bureau have to do with this? She hadn’t told the bureau about her time at Blackburn. “Why would our troubles with the bureau have anything to do with my medical history?”

  Gideon cleared his throat. Miriam didn’t like the guilt that crept into his expression. “I was—I could tell you weren’t being forthright about something, about a number of things, and I wanted to find the answers.”

  How clever she thought she’d been, tucking herself into an isolated corner of the world. If only the Western Women’s Bureau had been honest with her and Gideon. Had she come to claim the job she thought she’d been offered rather than a marriage, no one’s suspicions would have been raised. Gideon would not have begun questioning her background.

  “Who else did you contact?” she asked, but the answer came to her in the next instant. “The other doctors I worked for.” Weight settled on her, pulling down on her body and mind and heart.

  “Miriam, I didn’t mean for—”

  She turned her gaze back to the tabletop. “I am never going to be able to work again, am I? My past will always catch up with me.” She leaned her elbow on the table and dropped her head into her upturned hand. To Mr. Larsen, she asked, “What options do I have?”

  “Not many, I’m afraid. As a woman committed by a male relation, only he can authorize your release. Unless you have a closer male relative than the one who signed the papers.”

  “What relative could possibly be closer than a father?”

  Mr. Larsen steepled his fingers. “A husband, but it is my understanding that you are not married.”

  “I am not.”

  “What if she were to marry?” Paisley asked. “Could her husband then authorize her release?”

  “A person who has been declared insane cannot marry,” Mr. Larsen said. “In the eyes of the law, he or she is not considered capable of making that decision.”

  Of course not. “So not only will I likely never be able to work again, but I can never marry, never have a family. I cannot stay here. I cannot go home.” She rubbed her hand over her face. “But I know what awaits me at Blackburn Asylum, and I will not go back there.”

  Gideon approached and set his hand on her shoulder. “We’ll think of something.”

  His touch didn’t bring much comfort. She kept her focus on Mr. Larsen. “How long do I have before I can no longer refuse to go with Dr. Blackburn?”

  “According to the law, you are not permitted to refuse now,” he said. “And though Marshal Hawking has been unwilling to take you into custody, he is not legally permitted to refuse either.”

  “I don’t have an extradition order,” Hawk said.

  “One is not required. As a US Marshal, you have jurisdiction across all territories.”

  Tears stung the back of Miriam’s eyes as the hopelessness of the situation settled over her. Dr. Blackburn could take her back at any moment.

  “What if we won’t hand her over?” Hawk asked. “Cade and Paisley and I are all agreed that the law is wrong about this one.”

  “You’d likely all lose your jobs. You could be brought up on charges of obstruction of justice as well as harboring and abetting a fugitive.”

  Miriam wasn’t going to allow that to happen to these people who had stood as her friends. There had to be an answer. “Only my father can authorize my release?”

  Mr. Larsen nodded.

  “Could he be convinced?” Gideon asked. “My family knows a great many influential people in New York. We could put some pressure on him.”

  “He might.” Then she shook her head. “The possibility is slim, though.”

  “Still, it is a possibility.” Gideon sounded hopeful.

  “He is in New York, and Blackburn’s asylum is in Nebraska. The doctor’s influence over him is likely to be minimal,” Mr. Larsen said. “Working to convince Mr. Bricks to allow Miss Bricks to be released is your best chance for success. In the meantime, I will study this area of the law more closely and see if I can learn more.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Larsen, for your assistance in this matter,” Miriam said. “Please let me know if you find anything that might be helpful.”

  “I will.” He hadn’t looked her in the eye once since her arrival, and though he spoke with authority and eloquence, he seemed remarkably uncomfortable with conversation.

  “I am sorry we haven’t met before,” she said. “I feel rather like I am taking advantage of a stranger.”

  She actually heard his thick swallow. “That is my fault. I don’t come into town often.”

  “Well, next time you do—if I have not been taken to Nebraska—please come say hello, even if you don’t have any good news for me.”

  His ears turned red, but his expression didn’t change. He stood and offered a nod to the room in general before leaving with calm but swift strides.

  Finding no better way to make her own exit, Miriam borrowed a page from Mr. Larsen’s book: a quick, general nod and an even quicker departure.

  Gideon stopped her at the door with a hand on her arm. “Miriam, I—”

  This time she pulled free. She wasn’t ready to talk. Every fear she’d had—that the law would force her back, that anyone who tried to help her would be punished, that her fate rested in the hands of her distant and uncaring father—had been confirmed in a matter of minutes.

  She couldn’t bear to think about the future she faced, let alone speak of it. Without a word, she rushed from the jailhouse and across the side yard. Though the pull of her quiet room at the hotel was strong, the children of Savage Wells still needed her, and they were at Gideon’s house. She wouldn’t abandon them, no matter her current worries.

  One room would be vacant and peaceful.

  She pulled open the door to the tiny under-stairs recovery room and plunged into the darkness. She rested her head against the closed door and tried to breathe.

  Chapter 31

  Gideon stepped inside his house and came face-to-face with his father.

  “I assume the attorney didn’t have good news?” Father said.

  “How did you know about the meeting?”

  Father smiled briefly. “Paisley told me. I mean to send a telegram to Ian and see what he thinks. Perhaps he’s aware of some legal precedent your local attorney is not.”

  “Perhaps.” But Gideon didn’t imagine that was the case. Mr. Larsen lived in the middle of nowhere, but he was as dedicated to his profession as Gideon was to his own.

  “Miriam has taken possession of your recovery room below the stairs. She wouldn’t allow Hawk in, or Paisley. Even I received nothing more than a request that she be left in peace.” Father glanced toward the closed door.

  “I doubt I’ll have any more luck than you did,” Gideon said.
“She doesn’t trust easily, and all her defenses are up right now. I don’t know how to bridge that gap.”

  “When your mother is angry with me, flowers and a tin of Booth’s butterscotches are the only thing that saves me from her black books.”

  Gideon had so desperately wanted to avoid the anxiety he’d seen his own father carry around all his life, but there he was in the same situation: trying to prove himself to a woman he cared for deeply. There was, however, a key difference. Mother often grew upset with her husband over petty, unimportant things, and Miriam had turned away from Gideon for a real, legitimate reason.

  “What does Miriam like in particular?” Father asked. “Perhaps you could approach her with a token of your affection.”

  “I can’t recall her ever longing for anything in particular.”

  Except that wasn’t exactly true. She had wanted to hear him play his cello. He’d meant to oblige her once the house was empty again. He had lived in Savage Wells for nearly four years and hadn’t once played it within anyone’s hearing. He’d told her his reasons were to prevent the townspeople from thinking him too odd or refined to be considered one of them. But it was more than that. Music was a personal experience, a deeply vulnerable part of himself. Opening that up to possible ridicule unnerved him.

  What else has she ever asked of me?

  She had called his playing “heavenly.” The very antithesis of what she must be feeling. She needed it. His discomfort, his privacy all paled in comparison to that simple truth: she needed the music.

  He started up the stairs.

  “Where are you headed, son?” Father asked from the entryway.

  “To fetch flowers and butterscotches.”

  “You keep those in your bedroom?”

  “The equivalent.” A moment later, he stood in the corner of his room, staring at his cello case. The house was filled with the town’s children, as well as Miss Dunkle, Paisley, Hawk, Tansy. Word of this would spread far and wide.

  As the doctor, his life was open to everyone. His patients came by at all hours. They interrupted meals, pulled him from Sunday services, interrupted every social event he attended. Nothing in his life was his and his alone, other than this. Playing with so many people in the house meant losing the last shred of himself that he’d managed to keep private.