Yesterday's Rain (Rainy Weather Series Book 2)

by Barbara Goss

  She turned to Meg and forced a smile. “I’ll have to shop for a wedding gift for them.”

  “That would be a nice thing to do,” Meg said, and Cecilia thought she looked relieved she’d taken it so well.

  “I had a feeling they’d somehow get together. I thought it strange Carter would bring home a patient, and such a pretty one at that.”

  Cecilia picked up her reticule. “I really must go. I’ve a million things to do before returning to St. Louis. Thank you for the tea, Meg.”

  She walked to the front door and down the front steps. Now, what? Carter had married her. Now she’d have to visit that hospital and find out who this Ben person was. Maybe she'd be able to find another way to pay Carter back for making a fool out of her.

  Cecilia pushed the heavy hospital door open, walked up to the reception desk, and said, “I’m looking for Ben Turner.”

  The man scrolled down a long list of many pages until he finally found the name.

  “You’re in luck. He’s just been transferred to the north wing. Visiting hours are more restricted on the south wing,” he said. “He’s in room 534, but he’s usually in the sitting area.” The man pointed to the right. “Take this main hall and at the end of it, turn right. That’ll be the north wing.”

  Cecilia thanked him and walked down the long, dark corridor to the sound of vague screams and howls. She shivered. At the end of the hall, she turned right and walked a few feet before passing a desk marked “Passes.”

  She continued down the hall until she came to room 534. She knocked, but no one answered. She continued down the hall, following the sounds of talking and music. On her left was a sitting room and on the right a dining hall. She swung into the sitting room.

  She slid into an armchair so that she'd be able to study the people before trying to find Ben.

  A woman wearing a hideous wig danced by herself to an old victrola, while a young man struggled at putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Another man played Solitaire, and next to him, an elderly woman knitted a scarf that looked to already be about six feet long.

  Which man was Ben? Could it be the jigsaw man, or the Solitaire man? She studied them both. She didn’t want to just call out his name and attract attention. They were both fairly good looking, however, the jigsaw man wore outdated clothing.

  Just then, a doctor entered the room and called for a Jordan McCarthy. The man putting the puzzle together stood and left with the doctor, which left the Solitaire man.

  Just then, the Solitaire man looked up. “Hello,” he said. “Are you new in this wing?”

  “I’m just visiting. I’m looking for someone.” Cecilia was hesitant to talk in front of the knitting woman. If Carter still worked there, it couldn’t get back to him that she’d visited Ben. When Ben looked her way again, she winked at him, which brought a wide smile to his face, and he winked back. Then he looked at the woman knitting.

  “Hortense, would you move away? The clicking of your knitting needles is getting on my nerves,” Ben said.

  “And Annabelle’s music doesn’t?” the woman asked.

  “No, I find that rather soothing. Can’t you move over there?” he pointed to a chair on the other side of the room.

  The woman scooped up the yards of knitting and moved toward the other side of the room. “Sometimes,” she said, “you act like you own this room, Ben.”

  Cecilia stood and took the woman’s vacated seat. “Is there a place we can talk?”

  “Would you like to come into my room?” Ben asked.

  “I would, actually.”

  “You go first. It’s room 534. Go in and sit down and I’ll be there in a few minutes. I can’t be seen going into my room with a woman.”

  “Fine.” Cecilia stood, and walked to the hall, found 534, opened the door, walked in and took a seat on a chair.

  Ben joined her after a few minutes.

  “I’m Ben,” he said holding out his hand.

  “I’m…I’m Hope. I’m pleased to meet you.” She shook his hand.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes, it’s about Susannah.”

  “Susannah? You know her? I miss her. I’m going to marry her as soon as I get out of here.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible; she recently married Dr. Harding.”

  “She did? No! She wouldn’t do that.”

  “She did. That’s why I’m here. Maybe you can help me get even with them for treating us so badly.”

  “Aw, Susannah never treated me badly,” Ben said. “She’s always been sweet and kind.”

  “She said you were a lunatic and that you’d never get out of here because you were violent and mad. She said she married Dr. Harding just to get away from you.”

  “She said that?” Ben’s voice grew louder. “That isn’t true. I’m about to be released. My brother’s coming here from Kansas City. He wrote me that he’d be here this week.”

  “I see. Well, here’s the address of where I’ll be staying. When you get out, come and see me, and we’ll come up with a plan to get even with them.” Cecilia handed him the paper with the address and room number of her hotel.

  “What’s in this for me?” Ben asked.

  “I’ll make it worth your while,” Cecilia winked and smiled seductively.

  Ben smiled back.

  Carter was disappointed. He was able to get his job at the hospital back, but the administrator, Hillyer Clawson, had already hired a doctor for the north wing, and he was stuck with the screamers on the south wing again. He’d just bide his time until he got his veterinary certificate. He’d already taken the test and felt good about the results.

  Working the south wing didn’t seem as bad as it once had, mainly because he had Susannah to come home to. She was the light of his life. She seemed happy with their marriage, but he often caught her crying—not severely, just tearing up sometimes. She said she missed her family, which was understandable. It hadn’t quite been a year yet since the tragedy. He constantly tried to cheer her and take her mind off her loss and what she’d witnessed that day.

  Spring had blossomed in Missouri, and many of the farms had put out signs advertising free kittens. He stopped at a house that had a barn full of them and he picked out a cute little calico female kitten for Susannah, black and brown with a white belly and streaks of orange on her back. She was a barn cat, so he knew he’d have to bathe her with lye soap when he got her home. She was so tiny that he put her into his medical bag, with just her little head sticking out.

  When Carter walked into the house, Susannah ran to meet him, as usual. She threw her arms around him and hugged him.

  “Welcome home,” she said. “I missed you. You’re later than usual.”

  “I stopped to buy you a gift.”

  Susannah looked at him, curious. “I don’t see one anywhere.”

  He held out his medical bag and she caught sight of the little kitten’s head peeking out, and her hands went to her mouth.

  “Oh! It’s so cute and colorful. May I?” she reached out for the kitten.

  “You may, but she has a few fleas. I’ll bathe her after you’ve welcomed her home.” Carter took the kitten from his bag and handed it to Susannah who hugged the cat to her face. “Careful, I also need to file down her claws a bit, if we plan to keep her in the house.”

  “In the house? Where will she do her duty?”

  “A sandbox…I’ll make it and put it in the back entry hall.”

  “Oh, I love it. Are you sure it’s a female?”

  “Only female cats have three colors, since they have two X-chromosomes while male cats only have one, so they can only be one or two colors.”

  “I’ll bet you passed your veterinary test with flying colors.”

  “I hope so. I love animals. What will you name her?”

  “I’ll have to see her personality first,” she said. “Are you sure she should stay indoors? Most cats go outside, don’t they? On the farm where we lived they ran all over the p
lace.”

  “I think she’ll stay safer and cleaner inside. The streets are full of horse manure, and some people actually poison cats if they find them eating from their trash bins. I think we’ll keep our treasure inside,” Carter said, stroking the cat behind her ears. “That way she can jump onto our furniture without being scolded and she can even sleep with us. But first—a bath!”

  Carter took the kitten to the laundry room and filled up a large laundry tub. Susannah watched as he dunked the kitten into the water, lathered her up, and then rinsed her. They both laughed at her. When she was wet, she looked more like a rat than a cat. Carter placed her in a towel and handed her to Susannah.

  “You can dry her and become acquainted.”

  The cat didn’t seem happy about being wet and tried to scramble away, but Susannah held her tightly and tried to dry her.

  “She’s frisky,” Susannah said. “Such a colorful female needs a fitting name.”

  “Let’s introduce her to the sitting room and you can think of one.”

  “Thank you for her.” Susannah went up on tiptoes and planted a kiss on his cheek.

  “Oh, come on, dear wife, you can do better than that. After I bought you the most precious kitten in the world, all I get is a peck on the cheek?”

  “I’ll bestow more on you later,” she said as she scurried to the sitting room with the kitten.

  “Now, I hope I haven’t made a big mistake in gifting you that kitten. I hope I won’t become jealous of all the attention you’ll give her instead of me,” Carter put out his bottom lip in a fake pout.

  “I’ll be very diplomatic with my favors,” Susannah said.

  Chapter 3

  Cecilia knew exactly what she would do, providing Ben cooperated. She’d sleep with him if she had to. It wouldn’t be the first time she'd traded her body for a favor, and as long as it was done so she didn’t conceive, she didn’t care‒it was the easiest way to get a job done.

  She bought material and sewing supplies and began working on her project.

  Susannah named the kitten Penny, for the copper streaks on her back. She made a playtoy for Penny with a piece of yarn and an empty spool of thread. The kitten did wonders for taking her mind off the loss of her family, whom she missed terribly. Praying for them daily hardly seemed like enough. Whenever she began to feel depressed about them, Penny would scamper up and cuddle on her lap, or bat at her hand to play with her. She’d smile and thank her thoughtful husband for providing her this wonderful distraction.

  Carter came home later than usual and called through the house for her. She scurried downstairs to the front hall. She always welcomed him warmly at the door, so she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  “Welcome home, husband.”

  “Thank you, wife. For a moment I thought you were too preoccupied with Penny to remember to greet me at the door.”

  “I was waiting for you and ready with your welcome an hour ago,” she said.

  “I’m sorry. I had to make a few stops. I picked up our mail and look at this.” He held up a fancy certificate.”

  “Your veterinary certificate!”

  “Yes. I can start my veterinary practice now. I’ve rented a small office, downtown. And now, I’m going to write my letter of resignation to Mr. Clawson.”

  “Do you think you can make a living at veterinary medicine so soon? Maybe you should keep the job for a while,” she said.

  “No. God will provide, and I feel this is what he wants me to do. I also stopped at both newspaper offices and ordered ads to run as soon as possible.”

  “I’m happy for you,” she said. She hugged him. “When you’re happy, I’m happy.”

  “That’s not all. Guess who my assistant will be?”

  “Oh, no—not me! I couldn’t.”

  “Yes. You’d be perfect. It will give you something to do, since Reverend Smith isn’t keeping you busy enough mending hymnals.” He looked down at her and winked. “Or I could hire a beautiful, shapely assistant…”

  She slapped his arm playfully. “That won’t be necessary; I’ll do it.”

  After thinking about being his assistant for a while, Susannah grew to like the idea. They'd made a good team on their camping adventure, and she was certain they’d be great together in this endeavor as well.

  “I rented a build on Elm Street. I also stopped and ordered medical equipment, hired a painter, a person to hang our sign built us some examining tables.”

  “You got a lot done today.”

  “I’m anxious to get started with our business.”

  “What will you name your clinic?” she asked.

  “Our clinic? Harding Veterinary, probably. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds wonderful.”

  “I can start setting up in the shop I rented tomorrow. It really is perfect. It even has several little rooms where I can see the pets that come in privately, and when I can, I’ll visit homes and farms to treat the larger animals.”

  “How’s Penny?” he asked, looking around the sitting room.

  “She’s asleep on our bed. We played for over an hour and I'm afraid I’ve tired her out,” Susannah said. “I gave her some milk and she just curled up and fell asleep.”

  “Make sure you give her more water than milk. Everyone thinks kittens need milk, but water's better for them. Once a kitten is weaned from its mother it no longer needs milk and some can even become intolerant of it.”

  “Really? I’ll start giving her water, then.”

  “I’ll file her nails tonight.” Carter reached out for Susannah. “Come here.” She went into his arms. “I think we should celebrate our new business. Do you think Effie has cooked our dinner yet? I’d like to take you out for dinner, instead. We haven’t dined out since we’ve been married.”

  “We can ask her, although with her cooking our meals, I feel as though I am dining out each day,” she said with a giggle. “I feel so lazy and totally pampered.”

  Carter kissed her forehead. “Get use to being pampered. I plan for it to continue.”

  Ben’s brother had him discharged from the hospital and then drove him to the address Cecilia had given him.

  “Thank you, Jake. I’ll be in touch,” Ben said. He jumped down from the buggy and disappeared into the hotel.

  Carter and Susannah cleaned and set up the clinic. Men were coming soon to hang their sign. Carter had arranged for a desk in the waiting room so that Susannah would be the first one to greet people when they walked in. He knew that would be a big asset for his clients.

  The little rooms off of the waiting room were painted and Carter had tables set up in them, as well as cabinets with medical supplies.

  “Carter,” Susannah asked as she mopped the floor, “where are we getting all the money for these supplies? They must have cost a fortune.”

  “The bank. We took out a loan.”

  “We did?”

  “I will always refer to this business as ours, my love. We’re a team.”

  “Then,” she said, looking at him carefully, “maybe I should have been informed of the loan.”

  “I’m so sorry. Of course you should have been told. I’m just so used to handling these things on my own that it never dawned on me to discuss it with you first.”

  “It’s all right. I'd just feel more a part of it if you did,” she said, smiling up at him.

  “You are one in a million,” Carter said, kissing her lightly.

  “The ads will run starting tomorrow, so we need to make sure we’re ready for business first thing in the morning. Are you okay with that?” he asked.

  “I’m ready. I just have to greet the people, let you know who’s waiting, and try to keep things peaceful while they wait for you to finish with the customer you’re with, right?” she asked. When he nodded, she said, “I also have to schedule your out of office visits for after clinic hours?”

  “Perfect!” Carter said. He took the mop from her hands and swung her around. “Have I t
old you yet today that I love you?”

  “I don’t believe you have.”

  “I love you,” he said and squeezed her to him. He closed the door of the examining room they were in and pushed her gently against the table. “I think we need to christen the clinic with our love, darling.”

  “Hmm,” she murmured. “Good idea.”

  Carter pressed his lips to hers and kissed her passionately. Her lips always felt like returning home after being away‒familiar, warm, and comfortable. He moved the intensity of his kiss up a notch to flaming hot passion.

  “Hm,” Carter moaned.

  “Will it always be like this, Carter?” she said breathlessly.

  “I’ll make sure it will be.”

  “How will you do that?” she asked.

  “By never forgetting that you are the very reason I smile each day, the reason I whistle while I shave, and the reason I can’t wait to come home each day,” he said. “You are everything to me, Susannah.”

  Chapter 4

  “I just can’t do that, Cecilia,” Ben said. “I won’t hurt Susannah like that.”

  “She’ll get over it,” Cecilia said, moving closer to Ben. “It’s Carter I want to hurt and the only way to do that is through the woman he loves.”

  “I don’t like it,” Ben said.

  Cecilia stroked his cheek. “What would it take to change your mind?”

  “I saw what happened to Susannah after that Thanksgiving play. I just don’t want to see her hurt like that again.”

  “After what she said about you?”

  “She told you about what I did?” Ben asked nervously.

  Cecilia’s mind jerked to attention. Now was her chance to find out what the incident he’d mentioned in his letter to Susannah was about.

  “Yes, she did, but I’d rather hear your side of the story.”

  “I wanted to marry her, so I thought the only way she'd say yes was if I compromised her in my room, but Dr. Carter burst in before I could do anything, and I got sent to the south wing. In order to get out I lied and said she came on to me.” Ben cast his eyes downward. “I hated lying like that, but I’d never have gotten out of the south wing, otherwise.”