“Well, you’re not a bad woman, no matter what them other folks say.” And she walked out, leaving Eliza Jane to stare after her.
She couldn’t possibly buy a pickle now.
The money she earned was supposed to be getting her back to Philadelphia, but she’d grown complacent. Instead of writing letters and reaching out to acquaintances in order to procure the means necessary to further her campaign, she was still in Gardiner, Texas, bookkeeping for prostitutes and carrying on a clandestine affair with the town doctor.
Making the lives of a few women easier wasn’t enough. There were countless women in towns just like Gardiner waiting for somebody to show them how to make their world a slightly better place. And she was failing them.
Suddenly, she couldn’t take a full breath and she pressed a hand to her chest. Doubt clouded her mind to the point she didn’t think she could think straight.
Doing what she thought was right meant leaving Gardiner…and Will. And then there was Sadie and her baby. Would she marry Dan O’Brien? Would Beth Ann and Joey ever come home? Would the sheriff and his ugly horse ever find a woman to love them? There were so many people in Gardiner she’d hate to leave behind.
But especially Will. It was hard for her to imagine her life without him—his strength, his laugh. His touch. The pain of leaving him behind threatened to be even worse than the pain she’d suffered when her husband cast her aside—she’d never loved Augustus.
Maybe it was time to preserve the money she had and earn some more so she could head out of town before she and Will became even more attached to each other. That way, he could find one of those perfect doctor’s wives he was talking about and she could continue her work.
He thought he wanted to marry her, but she could see it would never work out. She simply wasn’t what he needed.
Why did doing the right thing always have to be so painful?
“Mrs. Carter, you all right?” Tom Dunbarton asked from behind the counter.
Belatedly realizing she was making a spectacle of herself in the Mercantile, Eliza Jane managed a wobbly smile. “I need a job.”
“Thought you were working over to the livery? Not that I think you should be, of course.”
“I am. I need a second job—more money. Do you need any help here in the store?”
He looked at her like she was plumb crazy, which she more than likely was. “I been thinkin’ on hiring a young man to—”
“I can do anything a young man can do.”
“Is that right?”
With the day’s general ailments behind him, Will had just propped his feet up and cracked open a recent medical journal when his door flew open damn near hard enough to rip it off the hinges.
“Do you see this?” Adam Caldwell demanded, holding up a bullet. “This one’s got Eliza Jane Carter’s name all over it, whether you’re bouncing the bedsprings with her or not.”
If the sheriff was looking for him to be shocked, he’d be sorely disappointed. The woman had been damn near begging to be shot since she’d arrived, and the sheriff damn near begging to do the shooting. He did look particularly vexed this evening, though. And Will had thought Adam was growing accustomed to Eliza Jane.
“What’s she gone and done now?”
“It seems the idiot men folk of this town decided she could have a job at the Mercantile if she proved she could take her drink like a man.”
Will let his feet slide to the floor with a thump. “I don’t want to hear this, do I?”
“You’d better hear it, or you’ll be hearing the gunshot. She’s in the saloon right now, drinkin’ down the liquor like she’s at a goddamn tea party.”
“Shit.”
“I’m giving you a ten minute head start on account of us being friends.”
Will didn’t even grab his hat on the way out the door. The damn fool woman was going to be the death of him.
He heard the laughter and shouts of encouragement well before he stepped into the dimly lit saloon. Eliza Jane stood at the bar, surrounded by a crowd of men. Judging by her bright eyes and flushed cheeks, they’d been at this for a while before the sheriff caught wind of the goings on.
“Doc!” she yelled, raising her shot glass in a none-too-steady salute.
“Doc!” the crowd chorused.
“What in blazes are you doing?” he demanded.
It was Tom Dunbarton—a little pink-cheeked himself—who answered. “I’m gonna give Eliza Jane here a job if she can drink me under the table like a man.”
“Well, if that ain’t the most damn fool notion I’ve ever heard, I’ll eat my hat.”
“You aren’t wearing it,” Eliza Jane pointed out helpfully, waving her glass in what she probably thought was his general direction.
“Time for you to leave, sweetheart,” Will said in his best deputy voice. No doubt Adam would be along very shortly.
“Ooh, are you going to give me another one of your special examinations?”
Every head in the saloon swiveled in his direction, but she was too busy giggling to notice.
“Eliza Jane,” he warned.
“Doc likes to sit in his fancy leather chair and have me ride him like a horse,” she cheerfully informed at least half the male population of Gardiner. “Giddy up, Doc!”
“Giddy up, Doc!” the crowd shouted.
Eliza Jane giggled, belched and then passed out cold on the floor.
Aw, hell.
Eliza Jane didn’t remember getting kicked in the head by a mule recently, but she couldn’t think of any other way to explain the excruciating pain.
She knew with a certainty if she opened her eyes or tried to move she was going to lose whatever remained in her sour stomach.
“You awake, darlin’?”
“No,” she whispered with cotton-dry lips, wishing Will didn’t have to shout quite so loud. Cracking one eye just enough to get a glimpse, she realized she was in the narrow bed he kept for patients.
“Let me guess—pounding head, upset stomach, dry mouth? Think you’re dying?”
“Yes.” Maybe he’d cure her of it.
“Good. Maybe you’ll think twice before you do something so fool headed again.”
Up until that moment Eliza Jane had thought doctors were supposed to be compassionate, but this one’s bedside manner was sorely lacking.
The front door to the office opened and then closed with a bang that nearly rattled the window loose. Eliza Jane moaned aloud and prayed for death.
“Good morning, Doc! Patient awake yet?” Sheriff Caldwell yelled, and there was a cheerful note to his voice that told her he knew exactly how she was suffering.
“She just woke up, as a matter of fact. Was thinking I’d send over to the restaurant for some runny scrambled eggs and maybe some warm milk.”
Her stomach rolled and she gagged, but she kept down whatever evil concoction was burning up her stomach.
“I hate you, Will Martinson,” she forced out in a croaky voice.
“Now that’s funny,” the sheriff said—shouted, “because just last night you were telling every man in the saloon how you ride the doc here like a horse.”
Oh…good Lord. Moving very slowly and gingerly, Eliza Jane grasped the thin blanket Will must have given her and pulled it up over her head. With any luck people would mistake her for dead.
Glimpses of hazy memories returned. Giddy up, Doc. She’d actually said that right before things got really blurry—then dark. Poor Will.
She’d have to sneak out of Gardiner in the middle of the night. She could hide under the blanket until dark, steal a horse and ride like the wind. Assuming she could move by nightfall.
“What I want to know, Mrs. Carter,” the sheriff continued, “is if you wore spurs.”
His laughter sliced through her head and Eliza Jane whimpered.
“Goddammit, Adam,” she heard Will say. “Are you here for any reason besides tormenting me?”
“You? Hell, I thought I was tormenting that women’
s libber of yours. I gotta say, she is one liberated woman.”
“I may not be able to take you in a bare-knuckle brawl, but you’re going to be damn sorry you said that next time you need doctoring.”
“Now don’t go getting up on your high horse, Doc.”
“Adam, you—”
“Just sit tall in the saddle and it’ll pass.”
“Stop.”
“You need to be a man about this or folks will start wondering if you’ve been gelded.”
There was a scuffle that echoed through Eliza Jane’s skull as if her head was a burlap bag and her brains were pots and pans.
“Dammit, cut it out, Will! Jesus, you’ve sure got a burr under your saddle blanket this morning.”
There was more scuffling and male laughter, and Eliza Jane thought about lowering the blanket to see what was going on, but that would require movement. It would also let the light back in.
Finally, they settled down and turned to the real business at hand. Eliza Jane tried to hear what they were saying over the awful pounding in her head.
“Lucy Barnes heard all about last night and she’s on the warpath,” she heard Adam tell Will. “Word is she’s declared you unfit to treat anything but diseased swine, and anybody offering your woman a job will be boycotted by the Bible Brigade. And she’s convinced Dan O’Brien the wrath of God will descend and turn his hotel into a pile of scorched lumber if Eliza Jane spends another night under his roof.”
She heard Will mutter a string of words she couldn’t repeat, even in her own mind. But they did seem to sum up what she was feeling.
“Maybe she could stay at the Coop,” Will suggested, which was even worse than the cussing in her estimation.
Eliza Jane genuinely liked Sadie and the other chickens, but taking up residence in a whorehouse was close to the bottom of the list of things she’d hoped to accomplish in her life.
“Dan and I had a little talk this morning,” Adam said, and Eliza Jane pondered how busy everybody had been while she lay dying in the doctor’s office. “And it seems Dan’s more afraid of me than he is of God.”
“Well, there ain’t no stories in the Bible about God shooting a man just for calling his horse ugly.”
“He lived. And my horse ain’t ugly.” There was a short pause. “Of course, as horseflesh goes, he ain’t nearly as pretty as you.”
When the sheriff’s laughter finally died down, Will called out, “You still suffering, darlin’?”
She unglued her tongue from the roof of her mouth well enough to say she was.
“Good.”
There was a little more conversation she couldn’t quite make out, and then the sheriff left as boisterously as he’d arrived. She hated Adam Caldwell with a passion, whether he’d scared Dan O’Brien into keeping her or not.
“Why did you do such a thing?” Will asked, clearly talking to her now. There was no trace of the jovial ease with which he’d spoken to the sheriff.
She pulled the blanket down and opened her eyes as far as a squint. “I need another job. I need to make more money.”
“So you can leave me.”
His voice was so flat it almost hurt more than her head. “Will, I…you knew I wasn’t staying forever.”
“You know, Adam told me a while back you’d either stay here for me or you wouldn’t. I guess he was right. A life with me is either enough for you or it’s not, Eliza Jane.”
Tears leaked from her puffy eyes, spilling over her cheeks, and she didn’t have the strength to wipe them away. “It’s not about you. It’s not even about me. I need to make a difference.”
“You make a difference here,” he snapped, and his tone echoed through her head like a thunderstorm. “You make a difference to the chickens and to Melinda Barnes and a whole lot of other people. And me. I don’t want you to go.”
Why did he have to do this now—now when her head was screaming and her whole body hurt and she couldn’t even think straight? “It’s not enough.”
He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again his voice was so sad she could feel her heart break. “I have to ride out to one of the ranches and check on some cowboys laid up with a fever. You think on it, and when I get back I’ll give you the money to get whereever it is you think you’ll be happy.”
And then he was gone. Eliza Jane pulled the blanket back up over her head and cried. It hurt to cry and the sobbing wracked her sore body, but it couldn’t even come close to the pain she was feeling on the inside.
Chapter Fourteen
Will had only been back in his office ten minutes when he heard the running boots on the sidewalk that generally signaled he wasn’t about to enjoy peace and quiet anytime soon.
Ten minutes had been long enough to find the bed empty and realize he felt about the same. Empty and hurting and about as angry as he’d ever felt. Now he even gave a thought to going out the back door, getting on his horse and leaving it all behind—Gardiner, Eliza Jane and the ache in his chest there was no medicine for.
Before he could move, the door flew open and Tom Dunbarton was there, red-faced from exertion and excitement. “Doc, you best come. They need you out to the Thayer place. Seems Dandy started throwing around ideas she got from that women’s libber of yours. Roland got into the liquor and he took his fists to her.”
“How bad is she hurt?”
“I can’t rightly say. But they’re poor folk. Wouldn’t call for a doctor unless they needed one. And Dandy took after him with her rolling pin. Chased him right out into the street. He might be dead, Doc. And you better hurry, because the sheriff and that women’s libber are like to shoot each other iffen you don’t.”
Will’s blood turned icy and he almost dropped his bag. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“Miss Carter, she’s got herself a shotgun. Says she ain’t gonna let the sheriff near Dandy. And the sheriff, he’s got his guns and he says there ain’t no way he’s going to let a crazy woman be what kills him. Damn, giddy up, Doc. We’re missing it!”
Will ran all the way down the main street and off to the right where the Thayers’ sorry excuse for a house stood. Where the hell had Eliza Jane gotten a shotgun? And he and Adam might have a good friendship, but the sheriff wasn’t going to let himself get shot just because his friend was partial to the woman holding the gun.
Tom hadn’t been exaggerating. Roland Thayer was sprawled in the dirt with a bloody head. Dandy Thayer stood on her front porch, holding a blood-smeared rolling pin. Eliza Jane stood in front of her, wielding the shotgun while Adam stood over Roland, guns drawn. Will should have known better than to leave her alone.
“Doc may never forgive me if I have to shoot you, Eliza Jane Carter,” Adam was shouting. “But I ain’t lettin’ you kill anybody today, even if it means shooting a woman.”
“You just stay back. This shotgun doesn’t care that I’m a woman, Sheriff. It’ll blow you out of your boots just as surely as if a man pulled the trigger.”
Will walked slowly toward the men, until Dandy spotted him. “Don’t you go near him, Doc Martinson! You let him lie there and suffer.”
He saw Eliza Jane jerk when she heard his name, but she didn’t lower the barrel of the gun. When she looked at him, he saw such a look of misery he almost felt bad for her. But there was a stubborn set to her mouth that told him she might not be the one needing the pity. He shook his head, still not quite believing the nightmare he could see with own damn eyes.
“Hush, Dandy,” Adam ordered.
“Don’t you tell me to hush, Adam Caldwell,” Dandy shouted. “Don’t you dare. I am tired of being hushed. I am tired of being told the stew wasn’t salty enough and the shirts are scratchy and that I don’t have the brains God gave a sheep. And I ain’t gonna be hit no more, neither.”
“Nobody’s gonna hit you,” Will said quietly. “But you’ve got to let me see to Roland or you might end up with more trouble than bland stew.”
“My stew ain’t bland.”
; “Sweetheart, listen.” Will was taking slow, easy steps forward as he spoke. He didn’t want to spook anybody, especially Eliza Jane. She still looked like hell and was a little unsteady on her feet. “You let me see to your husband. Let me get him fixed up first, and then—if he’s been taking his fists to you—we’ll lock him up.”
But Dandy Thayer would have none of it. “You ain’t gonna do nothing. You just want Miss Carter to put down that shotgun.”
“I’ll admit to not liking that gun being waved around, but I’m not lying about locking Roland up. Ain’t that right, Adam?”
“I won’t stand for a man hitting a woman,” the sheriff said in a tone that told them he meant it.
“You won’t shoot him, will you?” Dandy asked, and Will wondered if maybe she was starting to feel some remorse. They’d been married a long time—their children were already grown and gone.
It took Adam a few seconds to decide. “Not unless I have to.”
“Good, because if he’s got to be killed, I aim to be the one who does it.”
Will was watching Eliza Jane. Her arms were trembling, whether from the weight of the gun or fear, he couldn’t tell. “You don’t need that gun anymore, darlin’. Put it down on the floor next to you.”
He was surprised when she actually did what she was told. “I’m sorry, Will. I was visiting and he came home. He was…so angry I was here and went to hit her and she grabbed the rolling pin. I…I just didn’t want anybody to hurt her, and the gun was leaned next to the door.”
Will didn’t look at Adam as the sheriff moved toward the porch. Eliza Jane had found herself in a whole new kind of trouble, and Will had a patient bleeding in the dirt to tend to. Plus, she’d made it pretty plain she didn’t need him after all.
“Mrs. Carter,” he heard Adam say in a cold voice, “I need to talk to Dandy some more and help the doc see to Roland. I want you to go right now and sit in my office until I get there. Do not make me come look for you.”
“I’ll be there,” she told him in about the smallest voice he’d ever heard from her, and it took a considerable amount of willpower to keep from looking up—from taking her in his arms whether she wanted it or not—as she walked slowly past.
Taming Eliza Jane Page 14
