“It’s a scary thing to contemplate,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t figure why anyone would do it.” She and Thomas had known each other since they were babies. Their families had grown up in the woods there in Virginia. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t known him. Meeting a stranger and deciding to spend the rest of your life with them seemed like a crazy thing to do.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that there are many valid reasons. A person must realize their circumstances need changing and then they do something about it. Not all women are that brave.”
She hadn’t thought of it like that—being brave. “You got a gal in mind?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. I want to speak with each one individually. I have certain qualities I’m looking for to narrow my choice down to the best woman.”
She’d never heard of such a thing. “I guess you’ve figured a way to find a flower among the weeds, then. Could be smart,” she said slowly.
He raised a dark brow. “I’m so glad you approve.”
He was teasing her, she realized, her heart skipping a beat. Like they were friends. Imagine that! A man like him—smart, intelligent and handsome.
In the next breath, she reined in her delight. Don’t be silly, she told herself. You’re a grown woman with a seven-year-old son. No doctor is going to want to be friends with you. He’s just being kind.
She stood abruptly. “It’s time I got you back.”
She checked on her son once more and then grabbed her coat. When the doc stood and reached out to help her with her sleeve, she pulled back from him with a sharp tug. “I can handle it myself.” She plopped her old hat on her head for emphasis.
He looked to be about to say something but then turned to her son. “In the future, please refrain from climbing on the shed and scaring your mother. You may like to think you are a cat with nine lives to spare, but you are a boy with only one life. You need to take care of it.”
Sylvia looked from her son to the big man. He took a lot on himself to school her young ’un. Schoolin’ Tommy was her place. But what he said had truth in it.
“I’ll get my mule,” she said.
She hitched Berta to the wagon and fifteen minutes later they arrived at the river. They journeyed along a short piece, among the fledgling cottonwood trees that grew only along the southern bank. Buds had formed. Wouldn’t be long before leaves unfurled.
Nothing like her insides that were curled up tight.
Now that the deed was done, she couldn’t let loose of fretting about it. Would he tell the sheriff what she’d done? Would the entire town know that he’d spent the whole night at her place?
“Why was Carl Caulder bothering you at the mercantile?”
She tightened her grip on the reins and kept her gaze on the road. “We go way back. He’s Tommy’s uncle and thinks that gives him the right to boss me and Tommy around.”
His brows drew together. “I wouldn’t call what he was doing bossing. More like bullying.”
“I know. He’s hard to take,” she whispered. “Especially when he’s feeling all high-and-mighty and had a couple drinks. His brother wasn’t anything like him. Thomas was a good man.”
They came to the ferry crossing. Thankfully, the flat raft remained on this side of the river. She started to lead Berta down the bank and onto the wooden planks when she felt the doc’s hand on her arm.
“I’ll find my own way back from here.”
She held the reins taut while he climbed from the wagon and grabbed his doctorin’ bag. He returned to her side of the wagon and looked up at her, squinting against the sunlight. “I’ll check on Tommy in a day or two.”
“No need. I can care for my son now.”
He frowned. “I should be aware of how he heals.”
“It ain’t... It ain’t that I don’t appreciate the thought.”
“Then what is the problem?”
The reason stared him in the face! Didn’t he have any sensibilities? She let a twig drift past as she contemplated how to answer him. Seemed all she could do was be blunt.
“I can’t pay you.”
“I thought you understood. That isn’t a problem.”
“It is for me,” she hurried to say. “It may be late in comin’, but I pay my debts.”
It pained her to have to ask, but she had to know where things stood between them. “You going to tell about this? The sheriff—or anyone else?”
He pressed his lips together. “I won’t say anything to Sheriff Baniff. And I can’t see why it is anybody else’s business.”
It was as if the notion of being improper was not something he ever dealt with. Here she’d been dealing with it practically every minute of her entire life. She swallowed again. “I—I mean about stayin’ the night.”
“Oh. No one will hear a word of it from me.”
She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Believe me. It’s an easy decision. Should I say anything, questions will arise not only about your virtue, but also about my inability to thwart my kidnapping. People would know that you, a small mite of a woman, bested me. I can’t afford that. My reputation might never recover.”
He was teasing her in that way of his. Nothing seemed to ruffle him. In every moment, he was confident and strong. She wished she could soak up some of that. It would be nice to feel that sure of herself again. Guess when Thomas left her, any sureness she possessed had evaporated.
She smiled slightly at his quip. “Thank you kindly for your help.”
He stepped onto the ferry and slipped the tether line off the stump. Taking hold of the heavy rope that was suspended across the river to the opposite bank, he put his back into it and pulled hard. The flat raft eased out into the current and carried him across the water.
* * *
Once ashore on the north bank, Nelson followed the wagon trail toward Oak Grove.
The early-morning sun warmed his back and quickly melted the thin crust of snow into a slushy mess. After he brushed past, the weeds and grass lining the trail sprang back to attention with only a few casualties bent and crushed under his boots. He was vaguely aware of this while he walked and mulled over the strange encounter with Miss Marks.
He could have wrestled the gun away from her at any time. Why didn’t he? What had held him back every time that he’d thought to try it? Was it the desperation of the act? Tommy was worth everything to her. She would go to any lengths to make sure he was well and safe. He couldn’t imagine his own parents breaking the law in order to take care of him. They had packed him off to boarding school when he was Tommy’s age—with a formal, undemonstrative goodbye. Miss Marks would never have let her son go away at all.
It had to be impossibly hard for her to survive on that piece of land. Almost any other woman in her situation would have moved into town long ago. What was it that kept her there? That plot of land or her unmarried status?
She was an interesting woman—very different than any he’d ever met before. She was self-sufficient, stubborn and emotional all wrapped up under that ugly, floppy hat. And oddly enough, charming in an unsophisticated way. She had her pride. And she had certainly been worried about him being there all night even though it was her fault he was there in the first place. Guess she hadn’t thought that all the way through until morning came—another indication of how desperate she’d been about her son’s condition.
He stopped walking as a new thought occurred. Maybe it wasn’t her own reputation that she had been worried about. Maybe it was ruining his reputation that concerned her.
He started walking again.
Now, there was an interesting concept.
Just over the rise, a jumble of wooden buildings came into view, the white church steeple at the far end of town was the tallest and easiest to spot. The town hadn’t looked like much two years ago when he had firs
t come to Oak Grove, but it was growing. Each season brought new people to settle the town and, with them, new improvements and new problems.
The odor from the holding yards swirled around him. He barely noticed it now. The local ranchers had already brought their herds for transport on the train. Being the first of the season gave them a better price per head from those who would soon arrive up the Chisholm Trail. Josiah, the mayor, had been careful when laying out the town by building it west of the holding yards. The stench of cattle meant the town would thrive, but at least the wind blew most of the odor eastward and away from town.
Oak Grove wasn’t Eden, but it was far from Boston, and that had been his main thought to settling here. Denver would probably have been smarter for his career. In Denver, he would have had more patients with the increase in population and they would have paid for his services with coin. There would have been other physicians to consult with and to discuss things. Here his patients paid with chickens and canned goods and he was the only doctor within two hundred miles, but here he was needed. That was more important to him than a fancier house and the things he could get in Denver.
The thought brought him back to Miss Marks and Tommy. What kind of ointment had that woman rubbed all over the boy’s ankle? It had been nearly clear. Some home remedy, he imagined, and suited more for the pantry than the boy’s leg. With the tissue scraped off nearly to the bone, Tommy would have been crippled for the rest of his life if she hadn’t forced Nelson to come and see her son. He had a feeling it was the boy’s unconscious state that had frightened her more...as it should have. The healing of head injuries was up to time and the grace of God. Doctors had little they could do.
He would have to make another visit out to her cabin to check her son’s mental faculties and make sure there were no residual symptoms from that nasty bump to his head. He wanted to make sure the boy’s leg healed properly too. He wasn’t about to leave that up to Miss Marks and her backwoods medicine. He would go in three days. That would give the edges of the wound time to bind together and Tommy a chance to get over his dizziness.
For now, he was ready to get acquainted with the new women in town before they were all scooped up by other suitors. Perhaps one of them might accompany him out to Miss Marks’s place later in the week. It would give him the opportunity to see how the woman reacted to someone who was ailing.
He frowned as he considered the ruse. Would any of the women jump at such an offer when they were being wooed with fine dining and picnics by half the men in town? All he really had to offer was a comfortable house that doubled as an office. No...he’d leave Miss Marks out of his search for a bride.
He crossed the railroad tracks by the small station and headed up Main Street, bypassing the restaurant. He wasn’t hungry. Miss Marks had seen to that need quite adequately. He would wash up, change his shirt and then call at the hotel on Miss Vandersohn.
Chapter Eight
Nelson never got a chance to call on any of the women who had come to be brides. From the moment he stepped through his door and for the next two days after his kidnapping, he saw a constant stream of people who needed his care.
Now, finally, he’d found the time to take a stroll with Miss Vandersohn. She walked beside him, twirling her white ruffled parasol, which rested on her shoulder. The apparatus framed her face becomingly, but with the way she held it, did little to shelter her from the bright rays of the sun.
“So, Dr. Graham,” she said, “I would love to hear of Boston and what it is like there. What was your favorite thing to do?”
“I had my nose in a medical book most of the time,” he said, taking her arm to assist her across the street. “But in my rare moments of free time, I enjoyed sailing.”
“You had a boat?”
“No. But an acquaintance of mine—”
A sharp yell came from the vicinity of the livery.
A moment later Teddy White rushed from the building, scanned the road and headed straight toward him. “Doc! Wally Brown is hurt!”
Nelson took two steps toward Teddy and then remembered Miss Vandersohn at his side. “I need to check on him.”
“Then by all means...go.”
Together, they hurried into the livery. A quick examination revealed that Wally had a broken arm.
“We need to get you to my office so that I can set it. Can you walk if we help you?” he asked the older man.
“Dang mule,” grumbled Wally, glaring at a mud-colored mule nearby.
Nelson helped him to stand, and with Teddy’s help, they made their way to his office. Nelson didn’t like the way the color drained from Wally’s face, but once the wiry man was resting on his exam table, he seemed to get some of it back. Miss Vandersohn kept an eye on Mr. Brown while he gathered his supplies and then mixed up the plaster compound for a cast.
He glanced about the room. Teddy had disappeared after bringing him the pitcher of water he’d asked for. Wally had no family that Nelson knew of. It was fortunate that Miss Vandersohn was willing to stay and help. He made sure the major bones in Wally’s arm were aligned and then instructed her, “Hold his arm, just so.”
For the next fifteen minutes, he concentrated on wrapping strips of cloth that had been soaked in the plaster solution around Wally’s arm. He was so engrossed in his task that he barely heard the knock at his office door.
He glanced across the exam table. Mara Vandersohn still held Wally’s arm as she had been instructed, but her face had paled considerably. Wally was the patient, although at this point, that was becoming more difficult to ascertain. How long she could continue was becoming the issue as she swayed alarmingly to one side. In a moment, he’d have two patients, and if whoever was on the other side of that door had anything to say about it, likely a third.
“Doc! Doc! You in there?” The door burst open and Brett Blackwell rushed across the small parlor and into his exam room.
“What is it, Blackwell?” he asked...although he had a foreboding he knew what it was. Brett’s wife, Fiona, was seven months along with his first child.
“I think it might be time.”
It was too early for the baby to come. He’d warned Fiona about trying to do too much, but having had two lively children from her first marriage, her body knew just what to do and was anxious to get started.
“I can’t stop in the middle of this. I’ll be there as soon as I am able.”
Noticing Wally for the first time and then Miss Vandersohn, Brett moved farther into the room. He whipped his hat off and crushed it in his hands.
Nelson dipped a length of cloth in the bucket of plaster of Paris solution. Then he patted the wet cloth around Wally’s arm. Nelson had to get the cast finished and the entire arm elevated. Time was of the essence.
“Well...what should I do about Fiona?”
Nelson needed to remember that Brett was a first-time father and all this was new to him. Fiona was probably handling things better than her new husband. “Make her lie down. Give her some water to drink. And keep those young boys out of her room.”
He dipped another length of cloth in the plaster solution. Nelson could feel Brett’s heavy breathing on his own wet hands. “What are you waiting for? I’ll come as soon as I can.”
“How soon will that be?”
“Soon as I am done here.”
Brett spun around and walked out the door. This day was shaping up to be like any other day. He had too many people in need of his services and not enough of himself to go around. And besides that, he was hungry. He had missed lunch.
“Dr. Graham...” Miss Vandersohn said tentatively. “I’m not feeling well.”
He glanced up at his assistant. Perspiration had popped out on her forehead. That, along with her chalky appearance, which easily matched the color of the cast he was making, made him drop the strip of cloth he held over the bucket edge and rush around the tabl
e to her. He was just in time to take hold of Wally’s arm, but not quick enough to catch Miss Vandersohn from slumping to the floor.
She went down gracefully, in a soft, rather slow crumpling, her petticoats and gingham skirt billowing out around her. He could only hope they afforded a bit of cushion as she sank to the floor and toppled over, for he certainly could not let go of Wally.
“Drat,” he said under his breath. He lowered Wally’s casted arm carefully to the table. “Don’t move.” He grabbed a nearby wet rag and wiped what plaster of Paris he could from his hands, then crouched down to check on the woman on the floor.
“Miss Vandersohn?” Gently, he jiggled her shoulder. “Mara?”
“She all right, Doc?” Wally asked, sitting up slightly to see.
“She’s coming around.” The return of color to her cheeks was a good sign. Her eyelids fluttered open. “Lie still, Miss Vandersohn. You’re fine. You just fainted.”
A soft moan escaped her thin lips. Actually, it sounded more like a gasp.
Not what he expected.
“Uh—Doc?” Wally tilted his head toward the open doorway.
Miss Marks stepped into the room.
He realized, with sudden clarity, that she was the one who had emitted the gasp.
She set a package she held on a nearby chair, grabbed his coat from the wall peg by the door and folded it into a bundle as she strode quickly to Miss Vandersohn. Crouching down, she stuffed it under the woman’s head.
Miss Vandersohn stared first at him and then at Miss Marks.
“You had a spell,” Miss Marks said softly. “Lie there for a bit until you get your thoughts all going in the same direction. No need to rush. When you are ready, the doc and I will help you get up.”
The woman nodded, her eyes still wide and vacant.
Nelson frowned. He wasn’t used to anyone usurping his position in his own office. “I have to finish with Mr. Brown. She will weather it if we get her up now.”
“You sure, Doc? I think she will just pass out again.”
The Prairie Doctor's Bride Page 6
