Reluctant Brides Collection

by Cathy Marie Hake

  As the oldest son, Joshua bore the weight of expectation that he would become the next lighthouse keeper in the Wells family, a tradition maintained through three generations. But as a young teenager, Joshua embraced a different dream, and he went away in order to become a doctor. Joshua was convinced of the area’s need for a doctor. He had seen many tragic lumber accidents; and the small towns springing up along the shores of the northern peninsula were hours away from medical care. Now they had a doctor. His practice was small and erratic. Weeks might pass with everyone in good health and not more than a scratch to clean up, leaving Josh time to dream about the town that the camp might become or to pitch in with the physical labor of the lumberjacks. But, in the blink of an eye, all that could change and Josh would be entwined in emergency care where his years of training were exactly what was needed.

  Today had been a slow one. With no pressing medical emergency demanding his time or expertise, Dr. Joshua Wells had been sent by his sister to check on their father, Daniel, and their youngest brother, Micah. Daniel Wells tended the lighthouse in which Lacey, Joshua, the twins, and Micah had been raised under the stern hand of their mother, Mary Wells. She had died shortly after Joshua left home. In Josh’s mind, the stroke and debilitation that had taken her life were one more reason why the peninsula needed a doctor. After his wife’s death, Daniel Wells had sunk into a spinning depression, but with time and Micah’s burgeoning passion for the lighthouse, he had begun to function again. Daniel no longer sat in a chair, staring for hours at a time. He once again applied his spit-and-polish standards to the brass fixtures of the lighthouse and kept impeccable watch over the rocky waters in his charge. Meticulously, he taught Micah everything the sixteen-year-old boy would need to know to someday tend the lighthouse himself. But even after eight years, the light was still gone from Daniel’s eyes and the spark missing from his step. Lacey insisted that she and Joshua must check on Daniel and Micah at least once a week, and she persistently counseled Micah to come to the lumber camp for help any time he thought their father was regressing.

  After Mary’s death, Lacey had stayed in the lighthouse with her brothers and father for as long as she could. But Travis Gates had at last finished building a home for her, and then he married her and carried her off to the lumber camp. Many times since then she had crossed the miles back and forth, checking on Daniel and making sure her brothers completed their schooling under her tutelage. She was still supplying lesson plans and books for Micah. Joel and Jeremiah had done well enough to earn scholarships for college; Micah could go, too, but he did not want to.

  Sixteen-year-old Micah Wells was a younger version of his father. The deer-specked meadow around the lighthouse thrilled him as much now as when he was seven years old, the solitude did not bother him, and Micah could not imagine his life anywhere else. Of the five Wells children, Micah alone still burned with a passion for the lighthouse, and he would be the fourth generation of Wellses to carry on the tradition of being an official lighthouse keeper. In his midfifties, Daniel still had many years before retirement, but Micah would be ready when the time came for him to assume the job.

  Long before anything else, the lighthouse had been on the peninsula, standing regally at the peak of the cliff. For months at a time, it was inaccessible by water, especially in severe weather. The generations of Wellses who had lived there had long ago learned to conserve the goods brought to them by the supply boat, for they could never be sure when it would come again. In recent years better roads to the northern peninsula had been built; and with each passing year, even the path between the lighthouse and the expanding lumber camp was better defined.

  Daniel Wells had been raised in the lighthouse; his siblings had left, but he had stayed and raised his family there. Now most of his children were gone; only Micah would stay and possibly produce another generation of Wells children in the old lighthouse.

  As the lumber camp came into view, Joshua raised his eyes. He hated to call it a camp, for it was not really a camp anymore. It had one dirt street and a series of recently constructed permanent buildings. But it was not really a town, either. None of the permanent buildings would exist if it were not for the lumber industry thriving at the north end of the peninsula. As the cities in the southern part of the state grew and prospered, the demand for lumber increased. The thick, rich forest to the north seemed inexhaustible. Trees were milled into planks for homes and tables and chests and chairs and office buildings. But Joshua believed that the lumber camp would someday be much more than it was now. He could already see the progress that eight years had brought.

  When in his teens, Joshua had worked as a lumberjack in the camp. He remembered the days when men slept in lean-to shelters and worked for weeks on end without decent food. Gradually buildings began to spring up, and the bunkhouses kept the men out of the elements. A cook arrived and demanded that the dining hall be enclosed and have a roaring fireplace at one end. The lumber camp manager, Tom Saget, dared to build a house and bring his wife and daughter to live in the camp. His daughter, Abby, had married Peter Regals, a lumberjack, and together they built another house. And Joshua had begun to see that the camp could become a town—that in fact the transformation was inevitable. The change was far from finished. But in his mind’s eye, Joshua could see the finished picture: rows of homes, a church, a real school for his sister, Lacey, to teach in, a bank, mercantile shops—and a doctor’s clinic.

  While Joshua could not return to the lighthouse and be content there like his brother, Micah, he never regretted for a moment that he had come back to the peninsula. He had a natural talent for medicine, especially for the fast-thinking, quick-acting care needed in an emergency. When he finished his medical training, he had three job offers that would have given him a comfortable living in a civilized city, but he had turned them all down.

  And then there was Priscilla, who had very nearly lured him away. His heart still twinged when he thought of her dark curls and shining eyes and the lilting laugh that enchanted everyone she met. She was a woman of far more depth than she let the world see: intelligent, articulate, opinionated, daring. But she would not come to the lumber camp to live, and Joshua could not do anything else but return. So last year they had parted sorrowfully, and Joshua had come home to his future.

  Joshua was at the edge of the camp now, at one end of the single road that served as a center of social gatherings and business activities. The foreman’s office stood prominently at the center of the cluster of buildings, while his home was at one end of the road. Across the way stood the dining hall, followed by a short row of houses and shedlike structures. Six bunkhouses were set back away from the road but with easy access to the dining hall. Completing the layout, at the far end of the road was a stable that housed the workhorses needed to haul the heavy lumber from the forest to the water, where it was floated south to a full-scale mill. Tom Saget who ran the lumber operation, also ran a small mill as a supplementary business to lumbering.

  Josh was certain that mill operations would expand drastically before much longer. Soon the camp would have its own mill. Tom Saget, and his son-in-law, Peter Regals, had lobbied for years with the company that owned the lumber business. Machinery had been arriving for months, and soon the skilled workers to run the machines and mill the wood would come. And they would bring families, and they would need shops. Next would come the craftsmen, who could make furniture to ship all over the state. Excitement rose in Joshua’s chest as he thought of what the future would bring.

  “Hey, Josh!” a voice boomed and broke Joshua’s reverie.

  “Peter!” Josh called back. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have work to do in the office?”

  Peter grinned. “Lacey and Abby sent me out to wait for you.”

  “What Abby wants, Abby gets,” Joshua said playfully.

  Peter looked sheepish. “They wanted to be sure you came straight home.”

  Josh nodded. He slid off his horse and held the reins lightly as
he fell into step with Peter. “I know. Lacey wants to know how Papa is. She always sends me to check on him, but she wants to be the judge of whether he is really all right.”

  Peter shrugged. “Can you blame her? After what she went through taking care of your mother while she was ill and then looking after Daniel when he could hardly put his shoes on for himself?”

  Josh nodded again. “I know. And Micah is like her own son instead of her brother. But Papa and Micah are both doing fine. Don’t you have to go back to the lumber office?”

  Peter shook his head. “I’ll finish my paperwork tonight.”

  “Does Tom know you’re gone?”

  Peter chuckled. “He indulges his daughter even more than I do.”

  “So there are some advantages to being married to the boss’s daughter?”

  “Only because I work hard and get the job done in my own way. I can’t just count logs all day. I have to have time to dream.”

  “I know what you mean.” Peter and Joshua had spent hours dreaming together before Josh left for school.

  “I have some new drawings for you to see,” Peter said. “I’ll meet you at Lacey’s house in a few minutes.”

  With a wave, Peter darted back to the office. Josh nodded with satisfaction, for seeing Peter’s latest drawings of what the town might look like was always a treat.

  Chapter 2

  When Joshua slung his lanky legs around the corner and into his sister’s kitchen, Lacey Wells Gates raised an eyebrow at him. “You look more like Mama every day,” Joshua said, laughing softly.

  Lacey threw an enormous mound of biscuit dough down on the polished pine table. “That’s not a bad thing. Now that I am a mother myself, I have a much greater appreciation for Mama’s ways than I did when we were young,” she said. She dug the heels of both hands into the dough and pushed with the automatic motion of years of kneading bread dough.

  Joshua looked around. “Where are my adorable nephews, anyway?”

  “Napping,” Lacey answered, “and I want to make sure it stays that way.”

  Joshua lowered himself into a chair. He eyed the biscuit dough, unsure how long he would be able to restrain himself from pinching a bite. Mama had always disapproved of that habit. On the right day, Lacey would allow his indulgence, but his dilemma was that he was unsure of his sister’s present mood.

  “Adam is too old for naps, isn’t he?” Josh asked. “Six-year-old boys don’t take naps.”

  “They do when they don’t feel well. He has nearly whined me out of my mind today.”

  “Maybe I should take a look at him.” Joshua assumed his best doctoring expression.

  “When he wakes up. If you go in there now, you’ll wake up Caleb, too. And three-year-old boys do take naps.”

  “Yes, Mama, I mean, yes, ma’am.”

  Lacey swatted at her brother with a hand covered in flour. Josh ducked and grinned.

  “So?” Lacey said, kneading her dough.

  “So, what?”

  “So, how are Papa and Micah?”

  Joshua shrugged. “Papa is Papa and Micah is Micah.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means they are not any different than they were last week or than they will be next week. They’re fine.”

  “Mama was fine one day and an invalid the next,” Lacey reminded her brother.

  “Come on, Lacey. You know that if anything like that happened to Papa, Micah would be over here lickety-split.”

  “It takes half an hour, even at a gallop. And what if you weren’t here? What if you were off on one of your circuits to the towns?”

  Joshua sighed. “They’re fine, Lacey. Micah is as excited as ever about that old lighthouse, and it’s good for Papa to be teaching Micah all he knows.”

  Lacey nodded and sighed. “You’re right. Papa was so depressed for so long, I sometimes have a hard time believing that he’s all right now.”

  “He still misses Mama, even after all these years, but he’s so much better. I really don’t think you need to worry as much as you do.”

  “Are they coming for supper?”

  “I was supposed to invite them for supper?” Joshua asked innocently.

  Lacey’s eyes widened. Josh grinned.

  “Yes, they’re coming for supper. They won’t be far behind me. Your biscuits won’t be wasted on Micah. Papa says he eats like a horse now.”

  “He’s a teenager. I can remember when Mama said the same thing about you. And she was right.” Lacey folded over the dough and began to knead again.

  “Peter said he would meet me over here with some new drawings,” Josh said, changing the subject.

  Lacey turned to stir the stew on the stove. “That’s right. Abby and the kids are coming, too.”

  “For supper?”

  Lacey nodded.

  “No wonder you’re making so many biscuits.”

  “A triple batch. I want some left over to pack in Travis’s lunches. He spends nearly every day in the forest these days and doesn’t make it home for lunch.”

  Joshua pinched a bit of dough and dropped it in his mouth. Lacey laughed. “I was wondering how long you could wait.”

  Chagrined, Josh avoided his sister’s gaze and changed the subject. “Can’t Travis eat the camp food when he’s in the forest all day? I thought the men took lunch with them.”

  Lacey scowled. “He used to, until Lars Peterson got fed up and quit cooking. All the men are complaining about the food since he left. Now Travis would rather eat cold biscuits.”

  Suddenly, the back door swung open and a blond-headed ball of energy, about four feet high, whizzed past Lacey before she could stop him.

  “Nathan, wait!” she called futilely. “The boys are sleeping!” With a groan, she reconciled herself to the fact that they would not be sleeping much longer.

  Nathan’s mother, Abby Regals, appeared in the doorway, breathless. Her five-year-old daughter, Francie, was attached to her skirt and moving in tiny steps; her eighteen-month-old boy, Nicholas, was squirming in her arms.

  “I’m sorry, Lacey,” Abby said plaintively. “He’s over here so much he doesn’t think he has to knock or be invited in. I just couldn’t stop him from charging ahead of me.”

  “You know your children are like more of my own,” Lacey said. She wiped her hands on a towel and reached to take Nicholas out of Abby’s arms. He seemed fascinated by something on the ceiling and pointed and grunted persistently. Lacey tilted her head back, because she had no idea what was so interesting about the beams over their heads.

  Abby gently tried to get Francie to let go of her skirt. The little girl loosened her grip enough to allow her mother to sit down and then put the child on her lap.

  “How’s Adam?” Abby asked.

  “Still not himself,” Lacey answered.

  A crash and a wail from the room above them brought Joshua to his feet. “That’s my cue,” he said. “Dr. Josh will find out how Adam is.” And he left.

  Nicholas was through being held. “Down,” he demanded, and Lacey complied. She set a fry pan on a throw rug and tried to interest him in that.

  Abby smiled at the scene. “When we were little girls living miles apart, we were dying to see each other more often. It’s hard to believe that we ended up living next door to each other in…in…in a lumber camp, of all places.”

  Lacey laughed. “We both swore we would never marry lumberjacks. We were going to get out of this place once and for all.”

  “Well, with two husbands and five children between us, it looks like we’re pretty settled here.”

  “I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t here,” Lacey said. “You and Peter forged the way when you built your home and stayed here.”

  “We have five homes now,” Abby remarked. “And my parents are planning to add on again, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know. Why?”

  Abby laughed. “I think they want some escape from the noise when the grandchildren come to
visit.”

  “Peter and Travis have done a beautiful job with our homes,” Lacey said, “but those two other homes are hardly more than shacks. I feel sorry for the wives who live in them.”

  “Bridget and Moriah don’t have children yet,” Abby said. “Their husbands are working hard, and those homes will be ready for families when the babies start to come along.”

  “At least we knew what we were getting into when we married lumberjacks and moved here,” Lacey said. “Those poor women from the city…I can’t imagine how they’re coping. In the city they could have electric lights, even a telephone. They could go to church on Sundays and have ice delivered to their homes.”

  “You’ve never said you wanted all those things,” Abby said.

  “I don’t. I’m used to life without them. But it’s different for Bridget and Moriah.”

  “I talked to Bridget just the other day. She’s doing very well but she’s caught the virus.”

  “The virus? Is she sick?”

  Abby laughed. “No, she’s fine. I mean she’s caught the one-day-we’re-going-to-be-a-real-town virus.”

  “Oh, that,” Lacey said, relieved. “Then I guess she’ll be okay, after all. Speaking of the dreaded virus, I wonder where our husbands are. I understand Peter has new drawings.”

  “Yes, you’ll love the sketch of the school this time. He wants it to have two rooms, not just one.”

  “Two rooms! He must be planning on a lot of students.”

  “He is. He’s building for the future, not just what we need right now.”

  “Mama, I’m sick,” a little voice said.

  Lacey spun around to see six-year-old Adam standing in the doorway and looking droopy.

  “I know you are, sweetheart,” she said. “Did Uncle Josh come see you?”

  The boy nodded. “He wanted me to open my mouth so he could look down my throat.”