by Paty Jager
“Clay.”
The one breathy word sent his heart soaring. He scooped her up and found the bed with his knees. They descended onto the mattress. He used his arms to cradle her from the fall and his crushing body.
Clay sneezed as dust tickled his nose. Rachel coughed, laughed, and coughed again. The powder settled on his skin, making him itch.
“Bad idea,” Rachel said, squirming under him and causing more filth to enter his nose.
Clay turned his head and sneezed. Rachel’s body shook as she coughed. He pushed off her, caught her leg, and pulled her to the edge of the bed, drawing her up to her feet.
“You warned me.” He patted between her shoulder blades. Tonight. He’d show her how much she meant to him tonight. Somehow he’d figure out a way to get her alone.
“Oh, we both look like we climbed out of a hole!” Her coughing evolved into fits of laughter. “Let’s find the well and see if we can clean up before we go to lunch and find out how to purchase this house.”
“You mean it? You want to stay and live here, with me?” Elation pulsed in his chest, hindering his breathing.
“Only if you marry me in no more than two months. I’ll not wait any longer than that.”
Clay heard her toe tapping on the floor. He visualized her hands on her trim hips, a scowl on her face. He loved this woman!
He stuck out his hand. “It’s a deal.” Her slim fingers touched his palm, and he tugged her against his chest, kissing her until he had to come up for air.
“Don’t start that again.” Her palms rested on his chest, pushing her out of reach of his mouth. “I’ll not be thrown on that dusty, no doubt, flea-infested bed again. At least not until we have a new mattress.”
He released her. Her footsteps moved a few paces, stopped, then moved again.
“What are you doing?”
“Retrieving my bonnet and pins. You tossed them opposite directions.”
“I don’t like you wearing hats. It gets in the way.” His knuckles bumped the end bedpost. He walked straight out from it, recollecting the door should be ahead of him.
“I’m not too crazy about that ugly hat you wore today either.” Rachel touched his arm, and he caught her hand.
“That hat and I go way back.”
“It looks it.”
Their steps were muted by covering on the hall floor.
“Stairs.”
He grasped the railing and started down, Rachel tucked by his side.
This would be their home. He could already smell bread baking, hear children’s voices.
He stopped. How long would it really be before Rachel was ready for children? After a while would she decide not to have any at all?
He wanted children.
Chapter 31
“What’s wrong?” Rachel asked, tugging on Clay’s sleeve. He’d stopped in the middle of the stairway a grim set to his mouth.
“I-I just… Nothing.” He half turned from her and slightly bowed his head.
She studied the side of his face. Whatever he wasn’t willing to talk about meant a good deal to him. His furrowed brow and downturned lips constricted her chest.
“Are you sure there’s nothing wrong? You look like you have something you want to say.” She turned down the hall to the kitchen. They’d need plenty of water to clean this place up, and she wanted to see if the well was in good condition.
When he didn’t respond, she continued as if nothing were amiss.
“The well would be out the back kitchen door wouldn’t it?” she asked, continuing through the kitchen.
“Yes. It should be.” He followed, his brow wrinkled in a frown and a hand rubbing his face.
The backyard was overgrown. A space to the side sprouted weeds and a vegetable here and there, proving at one time a garden had flourished. Beyond the garden she spotted a rock well.
“There it is.” Rachel walked to the circular formation and placed her hands on the edge. She peered into the dark hole. Cool air fluttered the curls around her face. Picking up a pebble, she dropped it into the darkness.
“Plink.”
“There’s still water. Now…to find a bucket and rope.” She scanned the area. “Why didn’t they leave the rope and bucket by the well?”
“They probably did.”
Clay leaned his backside against the well and crossed his arms. The male stance fluttered her heart.
“If we can’t get water, we can at least brush the dust off one another.” She took a step closer and brushed at the dust coating his sleeves. Her back had to be coated like his forearms.
“Okay, I’ll turn my back to you. I’m guessing you’ll have to start at the top and brush me off all the way to my hem.” She backed toward Clay until his hand stopped her.
His hands scraped the fabric as he swept them from her neck all the way down her riding skirt. He coughed and slapped his hands together, creating a cloud.
“I can’t see if it’s gone, but I think I breathed it all in.” He coughed again.
Rachel spun around. A thin coat of dust covered the front of him. She laughed and brushed her hands over his shirt. “I think the only way to get rid of this dust is to take a bath and wash our clothes.”
“I could suggest a spot in Cracker Creek that’s an excellent swimming hole.” Clay’s eyebrow arched and a dimple graced his cheek.
“I’m sure you could, but you promised me lunch, and my stomach is ready.” She looped her arm in his and began the walk to the main street and Myrle’s. “Maybe Myrle would let us use a bucket of water at the back door.”
A small entourage entered the far end of the street. The man on the lead horse bore a striking resemblance to Clay. Sunlight glinted off something on the man’s vest. He was followed by a woman and child astride an eye-catching palomino and a dark horse carrying a young man tying knots in a small piece of cording.
“I think you’re about to see some family,” Rachel said, stopping in the street and waiting for the group to approach.
The woman swung off the horse, child and all, and threw an arm around Clay. “Clay, you’re a sight for sore eyes. I couldn’t believe it when Hank sent a telegram saying you were coming back.”
Clay wrapped an arm around the small woman and smiled. Rachel shifted her attention to the man still sitting on his horse. He didn’t attempt to dismount. His full lips tipped into a smile.
“About time you came back so Darcy’d quit wearing my ears off about how you can’t possibly be happy in a school.” He swung his leg over the front of his horse and slid to the ground. In three strides he clasped Clay’s shoulder. “Good to have you back.”
The woman turned her attention to Rachel. Her gaze roved from her disheveled hair and dirty face to the rolled waistband of her riding skirt.
“That looks like Aileen’s skirt,” she said, shifting the child to her other hip.
“It is. I borrowed it when Clay said we were riding to town.” Rachel ruffled the curls by her scar. She skimmed a finger over her scar. Dust coated the makeup. All the better to hide her disfigurement. She didn’t want the same response from these two she’d received from Hank.
Clay reached out to her. She twined her fingers with his. “Gil, Darcy, Sadie- is Jeremy here?”
“Over here, Clay.” The young man slid to the ground in the same fashion as Gil and walked nonchalantly over to the group.
“Family, this is Doctor Rachel Tarkiel.”
She smiled at the group, not missing the thorough stares. “Soon to be Doctor Rachel Halsey.”
“Oh, a doctor in the family. That’s wonderful.” Darcy grabbed her free hand. “I can have you help with the next baby. I didn’t care for the doctor that helped with Sadie. He wouldn’t let me out of bed for days.”
“You mean he didn’t want you out of bed. You were fixing my breakfast the next morning.” Gil wrapped an arm around his tiny wife and tickled this daughter’s leg.
“It’s all in what the patient is able to handle.” Rachel watc
hed the silent signals between the two and the way their gazes and bodies connected. She glanced at Clay. Would they have that kind of connection after they married?
“Then why did you make me stay in bed for six weeks when I broke my leg? I was ready to get out after two?” Clay tugged her closer, his arm encircling her waist.
“Because you would have climbed on a roof again had I let you out of my sight.”
Gil, Darcy, and Jeremy laughed. Little Sadie guffawed a fake laugh and made them all laugh more.
Rachel’s stomach growled.
“We were heading to Myrle’s for lunch. Then we have to find the owners of the Leonard place.” Clay patted her hip. “We’re going to buy it.”
“Blazes, you two move fast!” Darcy handed Sadie to Gil and looped her arm though Rachel’s. “So tell me all about the plans you have for the house. I might be able to talk my husband into letting me stay a while and help.”
Rachel found herself propelled away from Clay, their fingers slipping apart.
“I thought we were cleaning up?”
Clay voiced the frustration she felt at being dragged away from him. “Darcy, we’ll tell you all about it at lunch. First, we need to go to the back of Myrle’s and beg a bucket of water. That house was dusty.” Heat crept up her neck, suffusing her cheeks from the knowing expressions on Gil and Darcy’s faces.
“We’ll get a table.” Gil spun his wife away. Jeremy followed behind, leading the horses.
“Nice family,” Rachel said as she and Clay walked to the rear of the building.
“Yeah, Gil found a woman that’s feisty enough to make him mind and has a strong sense of family.”
Family. Clay wondered again if he and Rachel would have a family. His fists clenched thinking of her foolish reasoning earlier. He wanted more of an answer from her about not wanting to get with child. Did her reluctance have anything to do with his blindness? Did she believe him incapable of helping raise children? The thought drained all the fight out of him.
“What’s bothering you? You look like you lost your best friend.” Rachel smoothed her palm over his cheek.
Her gentle touch didn’t rush heat through his body. It conjured up images of her tenderly holding a child, their child.
“Do you really want kids or is your reluctance genuine?” he blurted out, hoping her words would quell the fear rumbling in his gut.
“If we have children I’ll be happy, but I don’t need children to be happy.”
Her offhand comment smacked as smart as a slap.
“Are you afraid to have children because I can’t see? Can’t protect them?” His fists clenched at his side. This was a matter he’d shoved to the back of his mind every time it surfaced. But it had to be addressed now, before they were married. “Because if you want kids but are afraid I won’t be a good father, we best not get married.”
Rachel’s feet stomped up the two porch steps, and her scent invaded his senses. She grabbed him by the face as an exasperated breath rushed over his face.
“First off, you can do everything short of whipping me and I’m not leaving you. I’ll not let you toss what we have away just because you’re feeling sorry for yourself.”
Clay wanted to deny her accusation. Wanted to say he was self-assured enough to not take her dismissal of a child as a slap at him. But he couldn’t. Self pity was something he fought every day in this darkness.
She continued, “Because Mister, I don’t feel sorry for you. I think you are the most courageous man I’ve ever met and the most thoughtful and gentle. You will make a wonderful father.”
Her assessment lodged a lump the size of a fist in his throat.
She drew a breath, her thumbs caressed his cheeks. “Like I said before, as a doctor, I come in contact with illnesses and diseases I wouldn’t want to bring home to a fragile child, or expose them to through patients coming into our home. To bring a child into this world then watch it die because of me…” She gulped loudly. “That would nearly kill me. I would like children, but not until I have fulfilled my dream of being a doctor and helping others.”
The soft yearning in her voice said she wanted children. He covered her hands with his, drawing one to his lips. If she needed to wait, so could he, as long as she wanted his children.
“I want to have your children. They would be beautiful. They’d be intelligent and loving… I just don’t want to have them until I decide what direction to take with my career.”
He wanted to tell her he understood, but she interrupted.
“And when that time comes, we’ll determine the best way to take care of them, together.”
She leaned forward, her lips meeting his, drugging him in a lingering seduction.
The door banged open. “Gil says you two need a bucket of water. Looks like I should throw it on you to cool you down.” Myrle laughed and the door slammed shut.
Rachel drew out of the kiss. He wasn’t ready to let her go and hugged her against his chest, reveling in her strength and delicious curves.
“So you want to have children, with me, just not right away, and you could tolerate living here?” Clay’s heart cavorted with happiness.
“Yes. I’m not leaving here unless you do.”
A smile curved his lips, and he kissed her. “Then we have two months to get the house ready for a wedding.”
Rachel’s heart hammered in her chest. Elation fluttered in her abdomen. “We can have the wedding in our home? Heavens! That would be— Oh!” She jumped and wrapped her arms around Clay’s neck, kissing him.
He laughed. “I take that for a yes.”
Rachel pushed out of his arms. “Quick clean up. We have to eat, fill Darcy in, and then buy the house, so I can start planning.” She spotted a broom sitting by the back door.
“Stand still, I’ll broom you off. Then you do the back of me.” The dust drifted away on the slight afternoon breeze.
She put the bucket of water on the edge of the porch and splashed her face. Water in her eyes, she realized she’d forgotten to ask for a towel. The door opened. She blinked and glanced up at a blurry Gil. He held out a towel.
“Myrle sent me because she thought you two would need to be pried apart.”
The gleam in his eyes made her laugh. “Maybe a moment ago, but we’re getting cleaned up now.” She stepped back, and Clay dunked his hands in the bucket.
Rachel dried her hands and lightly patted her face, trying to keep the makeup in place. Clay bobbed up from washing his face, and she slipped the towel in his hands, and then stood on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear.
“Dry your hands, then see if my makeup is smeared.” She held still as his fingers gently probed the right side of her face.
“Perfect.” He placed a kiss on her temple.
Rachel glanced at Gil still holding the door, his brow furrowed.
“Come through the kitchen. It’s faster. The food’s been on the table a while.” Gill held the door open.
Rachel looped her arm through Clay’s and stepped into a kitchen filled with mouth-watering aromas of baked bread, roasting meat, and spicy gingerbread. Her stomach rumbled loud, and Myrle swung away from the stove.
“Best get in there and quiet that belly of yours.” She grinned and winked as they continued to follow Gil through a door and into the eating area.
Jeremy had cleaned his plate and was stealing bites from Sadie.
“Jeremy, how many times do I have to tell you to quit stealing Sadie’s food?” Gil snatched the young man’s fork away from the toddler’s plate.
“She isn’t going to eat it all, are you, Sadie?” Jeremy cooed to the child who smiled at him as if he’d just handed her a piece of candy.
“No. Jemy have mine, Papa.” The child’s sweet face and big eyes beseeched her father.
“Only if you’re done.” Gil sat down beside his wife and dug into the food on his plate.
Clay pulled out an empty chair, and Rachel sat. He moved to her left, found the empty chair, and sat,
pulling it closer to her.
“Chicken at three, mashed potatoes at six, and carrots at nine.” She moved his water cup to the middle above his plate. “Water at twelve.”
Rachel inhaled the mouth-watering aroma of the roast. She couldn’t remember when she’d been this hungry.
“So what were you two discussing in the back so long?” Darcy flashed a peek at Clay, and then studied Rachel.
“Our wedding.” Clay picked up his glass.
Rachel’s excitement about having the wedding in the dusty old house they were going to buy gave him hope they could make a marriage work. His mind wandered to the tongue lashing she’d given him. He’d deserved it.
Darcy clapped her hands. “When?”
“Two months. That should give us time to get the house ready and Rachel’s family to be contacted and arrange a trip.” Clay halted the bite going to his mouth. He also had to get the building ready for Jasper and Donny.
“Jeremy, how’d you like to work for me for a couple months?”
“Really?” His adolescent voice squeaked. “Me, work with you?”
“With getting the house ready and a building for my new business, I’ll need someone to make sure my orders are being followed.” Clay faced the direction of Jeremy’s voice. “Someone I can trust.”
“Gil, Darcy, can I stay here and help Clay? I’m not really needed in Galena right now anyway.” Jeremy’s voice lost the squeak as he justified his question.
“Gil, that will leave you all alone, because I plan to stay here and help Rachel,” Darcy chimed in.
“I’ll miss you all, especially my two girls, but these two could use the help.”
Clay nodded to his brother. “Thanks. We’re going to have our hands full.” Clay told them about Donny and his broom-making business and the writing tablets he and Jasper would make and sell. Rachel jumped in now and then. The conversation lasted past the disappearance of the food and several cups of coffee and Myrle’s famous huckleberry pie.
Myrle sat down to visit after the other customers had left.
“Who owns the Leonard house? Rachel and I would like to buy it.” Clay held his breath, hoping it was someone in the area.
