“You’ve got mine, too, for the little it’s worth.” Wilson reached to embrace Josie. “I was wretched. I’m sorry.”
She glanced at Daniel. From his smile, it was clear he’d made peace with Wilson, too.
When he released her, she reclaimed Daniel’s hand. “So when are we getting married?” She almost shouted, so ebullient was her joy.
“Hold up there.” Wilson folded his arms. “We have a race to reschedule first.”
“I’m not racing.” Daniel squeezed her hand.
Josie squeezed back. “I think you should.”
“More competition between me and Wilson?” Daniel’s brow lifted.
She shook her head. “I have a better idea.”
“On your marks!” Congressman Roger Blair’s sterling voice lifted above the crowd gathered at Golden Gate Park for the Ladies’ Aid Society Community Race. The proceeds raised from the modest entrance fee would go toward the construction of the Mothers’ Home, and Josie was pleased to see so many familiar faces among the dozens of cyclists this temperate afternoon. She rested her boot on the pedal, preparing to embark.
Viola Predmore, president of the Society, waved at Josie from her spot on the sidelines. Beside her, Mrs. Crabtree gave a cheerful nod. Even Mrs. Beake had come after Mrs. Humphries’s personal invitation, and she busied herself preparing cups of lemonade for the participants. Mother perched on a stool, an easel set before her, Father reclining at her feet. Josie waved at all of them.
“Get set!” The congressman shouted.
“Are you set, darling?” Daniel inquired from behind her on their bicycle-built-for-two.
“More than ready.” Her foot twitched.
“Go!” Mr. Blair waved a flag. Josie and Daniel pedaled in perfect time, and their tandem joined the throng.
At once Wilson zipped past. Josie laughed after him. She was in no hurry. Instead, she regarded the scenery. Dahlias bloomed on the hills, blending their fragrance with the eucalyptus and pines. “How wise we were, choosing to go slow.” She twisted her head so Daniel wouldn’t miss her words. “This way we can enjoy the view.”
“And what a charming view it is.” His low tone provoked a hot blush up Josie’s neck.
“Hush,” she scolded, but she couldn’t stop smiling. They’d be married in a fortnight, surrounded by their loved ones. Already they’d found a cozy home to rent until their home by the sea could be built. Josie’s skin tingled from bonnet to boot.
Soon, the serious racers like Wilson and Pablo were mere dots in the distance. Those more interested in fun tooled along like Daniel and Josie, admiring the green. Nora looked fine upon Josie’s Yellow Fellow. Harvey rode alongside Estelle York, and both of them wore shy smiles.
She and Daniel pedaled around Strawberry Hill, where they’d spoken weeks ago. She turned to see if he remembered, and he smiled back.
Before long, they neared the finish line. Wilson waved. “I won! Hear that, Blair?”
Josie turned her head to the side. “Are you sad? Even a little bit?”
“Are you joking?” Daniel’s chuckle warmed her to her toes. “I’m with you, looking at everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“But you lost the bragging rights of winning the race.” It was dangerous, but she took a quick peek at him behind her.
He was smiling. “The rewards of true love are too nice for me to mind. Now face forward, Mrs. Blair-to-be. Let’s go round the park again.”
She grinned. “Fast?”
“Life with you will never be boring, will it?”
To answer, she pedaled. Hard.
“Hey!”
They sped off, their laughter trailing behind them.
Susanne Dietze began writing love stories in high school, casting her friends in the starring roles. Today, she writes in the hope that her historical romances will encourage and entertain others. A pastor’s wife and mom of two, she loves fancy-schmancy tea parties, travel, and curling up on the couch with a costume drama and a plate of nachos. You can visit her on her website, www.susannedietze.com.
A Doctor’s Agreement
by Cynthia Hickey
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—for your love is more delightful than wine.
SONG OF SOLOMON 1:2 NIV
Chapter 1
Montana
1888
Doctor Phelps—Zeke—I need your help.” Sadie Rollins burst into the whitewashed cottage that held the doctor’s clinic and living quarters.
“Sadie.” Tall, with massive shoulders and hair the color of varnished oak, he looked more like a blacksmith than a doctor, and nothing like the lanky young boy she used to fish the creek with. His blue eyes crinkled with concern as he stood from his desk and rushed to greet her. “Are you hurt?”
“No, but the newspaper is sadly in need of help, and I’ve come up with an idea that might benefit us both.” Ever since she had overheard her father telling her mother that the number of subscribers to the Oak Shadows News was dropping, she had spent many hours trying to come up with a solution. She thought she might have found one. Zeke, her childhood friend, was the key to her plan working. “Since you only just returned to Oak Shadows, I—”
“Doctor!” A man rushed into the clinic. “You got to come quick. There’s been an accident.”
“Zeke, I really need—” Sadie reached out a hand.
“I’ll do whatever you need me to,” he said, grabbing his black leather bag. “You know that. Lock the door and flip the sign to CLOSED for me, all right?”
“But—”
“Anything, Sadie.” He patted her shoulder on his way out the door.
She sagged against his desk. That was easy. Too easy. She flipped the sign and locked the door, dropping the key into her reticule. Zeke would retrieve it later. She had a newspaper article to write.
Her boot heels clicked the wooden sidewalk as she made her way to the newspaper office. Spirits lifted, she almost stopped in the mercantile for a piece of lemon candy but decided to pass. She needed her article in the paper that would be delivered in the morning. Front page, she hoped.
She sat at the small desk beside her father’s larger one and caressed the shiny new Remington typewriter. It had cost a precious amount of money, but after her graduation from journalism classes, Pa said she deserved it. While she still preferred taking notes with a newly sharpened pencil, the typewriter made writing the actual article much faster. The small announcement she intended for the front page would take only moments to write.
Soon, the sound of striking metal keys filled the office.
“Good morning, Sadie dear.” Her pa emerged from the back room, wiping his ink-stained hands on an equally stained rag.
“Pa, I’ve come up with something to save the paper.” Sadie ripped the sheet from the typewriter and handed it to him.
He scanned the words. “The doctor agreed to this?”
“Yes sir.” She grinned. “He said he would do anything to help us.”
Pa shook his head. “I thought Ezekiel had more sense than this, but you’re right. This will definitely sell a lot of newspapers. I’ll set it to type right now. Front page, my dear Sadie. Front page!”
Happiness bubbled inside her. She’d made her pa proud and most likely saved the newspaper as well. At least for a while. She grabbed her reticule. It was time for that lemon candy.
“I’m heading to the mercantile, Pa.” She peered into the back room. “Do you need anything?”
“Your ma needs sugar and white thread.” He never looked up from the printer.
Sadie smiled and left the office, smiling at the town residents she passed. Oh, what would they all say come morning? Surely they would be as excited for the upcoming event as she was. Not that she planned to participate. Oh, no. She was a career woman and not cut out for marriage.
Still… she did dream occasionally about a promise made to Zeke before he left for medical school. But the letters between the two of them had grown sparse over the years, u
ntil they stopped altogether. A silly, childish dream had no place in a grown woman’s heart. After tomorrow it would be out of her hands anyway.
“Good afternoon, Sadie.” Mrs. Hoffman, the wife of the mercantile owner, looked up from where she measured a deep-pink fabric. “Won’t my Lucy look lovely in this color?”
“Beautiful.” Sadie approached the counter. “I need five pounds of sugar and a spool of white thread, please.” Lucy, at the age of eighteen, would be perfect for the competition Sadie had planned.
She ticked off in her mind who she thought would join in. There was Sally, the daughter of Ira Newman, who owned the diner; the widow, Ruby Pierson, who owned the bed and breakfast. She wasn’t too old at twenty-five. Sadie tapped her fingernail against her cheek as she thought. Then there was Iris, the pig farmer’s daughter; Clara, the poor girl who lived alone on the edge of town. There were several others, but Sadie wasn’t sure they lived close enough to follow the day-to-day happenings of the competition.
Would any of the unmarried girls who lived on the outskirts of town be interested? If so, the competition could grow to a large number. Maybe they should have a lottery of some sort.
She asked Mrs. Hoffman to put the order on her family tab and dashed back to the newspaper office to have Pa make a minor change to her announcement. Oh, what fun the town would have!
After having the necessary change made, Sadie prioritized the messages on her pa’s desk and headed home. She couldn’t wait to tell Ma about her plan.
“What in tarnation is this?” Zeke rattled the newspaper in Sadie’s face the next morning. “A competition to win my hand in marriage?”
“You agreed to it.” She tilted her chin and crossed her arms, the little minx. One dark curl fell forward, obscuring one of the most fetching hazel eyes he’d ever seen.
“I most certainly did not.” He scanned the announcement again. “A lottery in which five names will be drawn in competition for the town’s most eligible bachelor, Doctor Ezekiel Phelps. A competition in which women will try to out-bake and out-sew each other in order to wrangle me in?” He tossed the paper on the desk.
“You were always the one to come up with a wild scheme that usually resulted in me getting the switch. This one tops it all.” He shook his head. What was she thinking? Had she forgotten a promise made years ago when he was eighteen and she fourteen? “I won’t do it.” He met her stare.
“You promised.” High spots of color appeared on her cheeks. “I asked you yesterday and you said yes, anything I needed.”
“I wasn’t paying attention.”
“That isn’t my fault.” Her eyes glittered. If she cried, he’d be lost. He never could keep from giving her anything she wanted when the tears started.
“I can’t take it back now,” she said. “The paper has been printed and is flying off the mercantile shelves.”
He ran his hands through his hair. While he’d been gone the day before, taking care of a man whose ribs were broken by a bucking horse, she’d been working on ruining his life.
“This will benefit you, too, Zeke.” She came around the desk and took his hand. “You haven’t been back but a few weeks. Think of the new business this will bring you, not to mention how the town council disapproves of the town doctor being unmarried. This resolves a lot of issues. I stand by the announcement.”
He glared and leaned close, their noses almost touching. “You”—he put a finger in the middle of her chest—“made me a promise years ago, Sadie Rollins. One I aim to hold you to, one way or the other.”
“We were children.” Her eyes widened. “You’ve been gone for years. You never wrote—”
He stepped back. “This will ruin everything.” He spun and dashed out the door.
For as long as Zeke could remember, he’d followed Sadie along on her harebrained schemes, taking the blame when things went wrong and they were caught. Not this time. She had gone too far. How could he be expected to choose a bride from a contest? It was unheard of.
He felt like a prized bull as he headed to his office. Every unmarried woman—and her mother—looked him up and down as he marched down the sidewalk. He’d never have another moment’s peace.
A wooden box with a slit cut in the top sat on the bench outside his office. A small sign, stating that names were to be inserted by noon of that day, hung from a nail. The names would be drawn at dusk and posted in the next day’s paper.
Zeke groaned, unlocked his front door, and ducked inside, pulling the blinds closed. He had no desire to be ogled through the window or to see who slipped their names inside the box. He wanted to cast the infernal thing into the stove.
A young man entered the office, perspiration dripping from his forehead. “If you can drag yourself away from the circus outside, my wife is ready to have the baby.”
“I’ll meet you there.” Zeke grabbed his medical bag and snuck out the back door.
By the time the baby was delivered eight hours later, dusk had arrived. Zeke placed his bag in his office and locked the front door behind him. If he didn’t head to the newspaper office, someone would come fetch him. He refused to be led like a lamb to the slaughter. He’d walk under his own power.
“There you are.” Sadie met him a few feet from the sidewalk in front of her pa’s office. “You’re late.” She narrowed her eyes. “Were you considering not coming? That would have left me looking like the biggest kind of fool.”
He wisely kept his mouth shut and took his place beside her. Quite a crowd had gathered. All the town and most of those living close enough to make a short drive must be there. Sadie was right. It would increase his exposure as the town’s doctor, but couldn’t they have come up with a different way of doing so?
“In just a moment, I will pull five names from this box.” Sadie held the box high. “Each day, the five chosen women will perform a particular task for which our good doctor will award them points. These tasks will be listed in the paper and performed at dusk on the same day, with the results printed in the next day’s paper. At the end of a week, Doctor Phelps will have narrowed the competition to three finalists.”
Zeke tugged on the collar of his shirt. When had the late summer evenings grown so warm?
“Certain tasks will be completed without the doctor knowing which competitor performed the task, such as baking. Of course, the sewing one will require the participants each wear their entry, so that can’t be a secret. I’m hoping this will make the competition run more fairly.” She cut him a sideways glance. “There can be no ties, Doctor Phelps. You must make a solid decision each day. As for the contestants, once your name is drawn, there can be no backing out.”
He thought he nodded but wasn’t sure. Thank goodness she hadn’t asked him to speak. His mouth was as dry as the Arizona desert. Good Lord, help me out of this predicament.
Maybe he should have taken a more active role in answering Sadie’s letters while he’d been gone, but medical studies had consumed his time. If he had somehow found the time to write her more, perhaps right now they would be planning their wedding instead of him standing like a stuffed turkey on display in a mercantile window.
Goodness, she opened the box. His heart rate accelerated as Sadie reached inside. The crowd hushed. Zeke thought he might faint.
“The first name drawn is…”
Chapter 2
And the last name…” Sadie pulled out the fifth slip of paper with a flourish. “Sadie Rollins?”
“Wonderful!” Ma clapped. She looked around the crowd as if expecting congratulatory praises.
“The contest is rigged,” someone shouted.
“No.” Sadie shook her head, dread coursing through her. “I didn’t put my name in the box.”
Ma turned to the grumbling crowd. “I want my daughter married off as much as the rest of you want yours to be. At twenty-two, she’s past marrying age, and the doctor is as good a husband as any, I reckon.”
“I’ll draw another name.” Sadie thrust her hand into
the box.
Zeke laughed. “Aren’t you the one who said there would be no backing out for any contestant?”
“That’s right, Sadie.” Mrs. Pierson crossed her arms. “Or are you above the rules?”
“It ain’t fair for her to run things now,” a farmer shouted. “She’s biased.”
“I’ll do it.” Pa stepped forward and took the slip from her hand. “Join the other contestants, Sadie.” He turned to the crowd. “As the owner of the Oak Shadows News, I vow to you all to make sure things are run in a fair and impartial manner. The names will be listed in tomorrow’s paper along with the announcement of the first competition. Have a good day.”
Sadie joined the group of giggling girls and avoided Zeke’s smirk. He would think this was funny, the scoundrel. Oh, why had Ma put her name in the box?
“Don’t worry.” Zeke patted her head, something he knew she hated. “This will sell a ton of newspapers. The townsfolk will be glued to the results each morning, waiting to see if I pick the town’s old maid.”
“Old maid!” She whirled. Her boot heel caught in her dress and she fell forward, smashing her nose against his chest. He smelled of a woodsy aftershave and soap. An altogether nice smell. She took another sniff before she realized the entire town was watching.
Zeke’s arms wrapped around her, drawing her close until she caught her balance. “I’m holding you to your promise,” he whispered before letting go. “I aim to make sure you win this competition.”
Heaven help her. “Not if I have anything to say about it.” If Ma had her way, she’d do all the work for Sadie. But it wouldn’t matter. Sadie would sabotage her entry in each competition. If she hadn’t been good enough for Zeke while he’d been at medical school, then he could just go ahead and pick someone else. Couldn’t he see she was only trying to help him?
“Look.” Annabell Larson, the youngest of the banker’s daughters, frowned. “She’s already competing.” She stomped her foot. “Since when does Sadie Rollins play the defenseless woman?”
The Most Eligible Bachelor Romance Collection: Nine Historical Romances Celebrate Marrying for All the Right Reasons Page 14
