An Improper Proposal

by Spencer, Davalynn

  She stepped out to the landing that overlooked the great room. “Thank you for coming so early, Dr. Weaver. You do keep the most difficult hours, riding out to ranches in the middle of the night or near after sunrise.”

  “All part of the job, Mrs. Parker.” He smiled as he reached the landing, but the creases at his eyes spoke of his total disregard of his most highly recommended medicine—rest. He crossed to the chair and sat heavily upon it to study Cade’s sleeping form. “How is he doing?”

  Mae Ann pulled the footstool out of the way and stood back. “He wakes twice a day and grumbles at my gruel, but so far we’ve managed to keep him in bed.”

  “Nightmares? Fits or frights?”

  She clenched her hands behind her, grateful again, yet uneasy at the doctor’s questioning. “None that I know of. Deacon has not mentioned any such thing, and only he or I attend Cade.”

  “Have you tried to wake him?” The doctor took off his coat and let it fall over the back of the chair.

  “No, I let him wake on his own.”

  Dr. Weaver leaned forward to feel Cade’s brow, and after a moment he shook him gently by the left shoulder. “Mr. Parker.”

  Cade turned his head toward the doctor and frowned.

  Another shake, less gentle. “Mr. Parker. You awake?”

  Cade drew his left hand across his face and squinted. “I am now.”

  “Good.” The doctor leaned over, slipping an arm behind his patient’s back and taking Cade’s left hand. “Sit up.”

  Cade grimaced as he pulled himself upright and swung his bare feet to the floor. Mae Ann moved closer in case he toppled forward out of Dr. Weaver’s capable hands. She would catch him, support him, right? Cade rubbed his immobile arm, and sweat broke out on his forehead. She gripped her apron with both hands and glanced at the corked bottle on the end table.

  “I’ll stabilize that shoulder for you. See to it that you don’t use your right arm for six weeks.”

  Cade grumbled under his breath and looked up at Mae Ann. She blushed at his undressed state but held her ground, reminding herself that she was his wife. Keeping him from using his arm would be more of a challenge than anything she had yet faced, but she and Deacon were managing just fine with the chores and could continue to do so for as long as it took.

  Cade grumped again. “Six weeks puts me almost into the roundup. I can’t be laid up that long.”

  Dr. Weaver ignored the remark as he riffled through his bag and withdrew a rolled black cloth. He shook it out square, folded it into a triangle, and fashioned a sling to support Cade’s right arm, knotting it behind his neck. “If you don’t let this shoulder heal all the way, you’ll pay for it the rest of your life. Now stand up.”

  Tempted to add an emphatic amen, Mae Ann instead rolled her lips at the scolding. With a hand beneath Cade’s left elbow, Dr. Weaver steadied him as he unfolded to his full, glorious height. Her heart raced to see him once again where he needed to be—upright. But he looked lean and tired and pained. How she longed to comfort him. Instead, she turned to fetch a clean shirt from the wardrobe.

  At first Cade seemed unsure of himself, but within a few steps, he managed a more solid stance and walked to the window unattended. Bracing his left arm against the frame, he stood looking down on the yard and corrals and barn.

  “Now come back this way.” Not one drop of sympathy colored the doctor’s order.

  “I have a chore to take care of while you are here, Doctor, but I’ll return shortly.” She laid the shirt across the foot of the bed and went out, glancing over her shoulder to find Cade frowning after her.

  In the kitchen she filled two small pails with water and hurried out the back door and up the hill, grateful that Cade’s bedroom window did not give him a view to the north. And thankful that the fledgling rose had not failed. She brushed pine needles from the bowl-shaped depression and emptied both pails.

  The wind sighed through the great pine’s boughs, surprising her again with its full and rushing voice, as if from a chorus of trees instead of just one. No horseman watched from the distant rise, at least not that she could see, but she hurried back to the house just the same, gooseflesh rising on her arms. Voices in the great room warned that Cade had ventured downstairs.

  “You’re weak, but that’s to be expected.” Dr. Weaver’s tone had not softened. He evidently knew how to handle his more stubborn patients. “You are to spend the rest of the day resting and none of it on a horse.”

  Cade fell heavily into his chair at the hearth, grumbling again about ranch work that needed to be done. Mae Ann stoked the fire in the stove, brought the broth to the front, then hurried out the back door and around to the corral, where she loosed the horses and shooed them out of the near pasture, waving her apron and calling Blue and Cougar to her aid, a task in which they delighted. Winded from all her running, she slipped through the kitchen door in time to hear Dr. Weaver’s final orders.

  “I’ll be back next week to look you over unless your wife drives you into town in the buckboard.” He tugged his coat on and picked up his bag. “But that may even be too much for that hard head of yours. Best take it easy and let others do your chores for a while.”

  He turned to locate Mae Ann. “Do you need any more of that remedy I left with you last time?”

  “No, she does not.” Cade shoved his free hand through his hair and glowered at the doctor, who humphed at him and ambled over to Mae Ann. “You let me know if he gives you any trouble.”

  “I will. Thank you again.” It was all she could do to keep a sober face with Cade’s disgruntled frown in her line of vision.

  “Good day, then.” The doctor jerked a nod at Cade as he passed and let himself out the door.

  She smoothed her apron. At least Cade was dressed, his shirt buttoned awkwardly over his right arm, pinning it and the sling inside. Possibly the doctor’s way of making movement inconvenient. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “If you swear you won’t put gall in it.”

  For all his bravado, fatigue tinged his voice and he sounded like a petulant child.

  She joined him at the hearth and perched on the edge of her chair. “You don’t want it ‘horned and barefoot’?”

  A faint spark lit his weary eyes, and his mouth ticked in that familiar way.

  Thank you, Lord.

  “Speaking of that old badger, where is he?”

  “I sent him to town for supplies.” She rose against the urge to throw her arms around Cade’s neck and kiss the frown from his brow.

  “I’ll take some food too. But no more broth.”

  Gasping, she pressed a hand to her chest. “You don’t like it?”

  He nearly smiled. “Give me what you give that foreman of mine. Biscuits. Gravy. Eggs.”

  Her heart danced with relief, and she moved past him, stopping abruptly when he grabbed her wrist.

  Looking up at her, he probed her countenance with that same deep appraisal from the day they were married, and his voice sank to the dark, gritty mine. “You were always there. Caring for me.”

  She swallowed against her tight throat and covered his hand with hers. Would he let her stay? Did he want her to stay? “I was happy to.” I love you.

  The admission, even to herself, made her tremble, and she freed herself from his grasp lest he discover her secret.

  In the kitchen, she stopped behind a chair, gripping its sturdy back to brace herself against her storming emotions.

  ~

  Cade closed his eyes and turned his head against the cool leather. He sure hadn’t figured on falling—off the ladder or for a woman. And not just any woman, but this bride of his. Both acts complicated his life and required more concentration than he felt capable of at the moment. He reached for the stool with a bare foot, then sat up to look for it, wrenching his shoulder in the process.

  Then he remembered. It was in his room. Her room. She’d probably spent every night on that stool beside him.

  He tracked her mo
vements by the sounds she made in the kitchen. Opening the oven door, shifting the skillet on the stove. The aroma of coffee and cornbread threaded from his nose to his stomach and tightened it into a knot. He couldn’t lose her.

  He couldn’t let her stay.

  She brought his coffee in a tin cup, not china, and he took a whiff. No laudanum, but he wouldn’t put it past her. As he tested the brew, she went upstairs and quickly returned with the footstool and something tucked under her arm.

  “While I dish up your food, you can make yourself comfortable.” She set his moccasins atop the stool and left a pair of clean socks on the table next to his chair.

  Actions rarely lie. His ma’s words twisted around his knotted gut as he slipped his feet into the soft sheepskin.

  He dozed off and on in his chair for the rest of the day, not as comfortable as he’d been in his bed, but not as quarantined either. He looked to the door for his boots, but they weren’t there, which meant they were upstairs. Feeling stronger than he had that morning, and counting on Mae Ann being busy elsewhere, he took his time climbing the stairs, his left hand skimming the banister. He didn’t need her finding him in a heap at the bottom.

  As he suspected, his boots were tucked under the footboard. Even as he reached for them, he wondered if he could pull them on by himself, a question that graveled him more than anything. He didn’t take kindly to dependency on other people, especially when it came to getting dressed. But he wanted to walk outside, check on the horses, breathe fresh air. Even if he had to do it barefoot.

  And horned. His pulse kicked. He checked the wardrobe, and just as he’d figured, Mae Ann had moved all her things out and his clothes in. A quick glance into his old room across the hall confirmed that she’d moved her trunk too. Confounded woman. At the landing he dropped his boots over the edge with a thunk, then made his way down.

  Sitting on the stone hearth, he worked his socks on with one hand, stuck his left foot in his boot top, and pulled. Pain shot through his right shoulder anyway, as surely as nails through the ladder rungs on the barn wall. If he’d taken care of repairs when he should have, he wouldn’t be here tugging his boots on with one hand. The front door opened and Deacon stomped inside, a flour sack over one shoulder and a crate under his arm.

  He slid Cade a glance on his way to the kitchen. “You just gettin’ up?”

  Arrogant old man. Cade managed to shove on his right boot and, a bit woozy but under his own power, made it to the kitchen. Deacon was dumping flour in the baker’s cabinet, and a fine white cloud rose from the possum-bellied drawer to dust his clothes and face. He puffed a breath to clear his mustache, and set about stashing sugar, coffee, and other stores in the pantry. Cade poured them each a hot cup that had cooked down to thick black brew and eased into a chair at the table.

  “Got somethin’ for you.” Deacon turned his chair around and straddled it, then pulled a paper from his vest and slid it across. “Saw the sheriff and he said it’s been waitin’ at the telegraph office nigh on a week.”

  Cade leaned his good elbow on the table and gripped his cup. He felt weaker than a kitten.

  “Your missus got any of them ginger cookies left?”

  He shrugged—a painful mistake.

  Deacon checked the covered crock on the counter, grabbed a handful, and deposited them on the table.

  Cade dunked one in his coffee and shoved the whole thing in his mouth before unfolding the yellow paper.

  Where was she anyway? He hadn’t looked outside. She could be milking the cow this late in the day. Or at work in the garden. He didn’t hear her washing out back, and he didn’t expect she’d ride to the Price place while he was laid up. At least she’d better not.

  “Were the horses still corralled when you drove in?”

  Deacon shook his head, a cookie swelling one cheek. “Nope.”

  Cade’s heartbeat jumped, and he attempted to follow it to a standing position. The sudden act shot needles through his shoulder and a small herd through his forehead. He dropped to the chair and considered swearing.

  “I’ll check on ’em.” Deacon grabbed the rest of the cookies and left.

  Cade looked again at the telegram. Judge Murphy wanted to see the will. Mae Ann was to deliver it to the courthouse at the county seat Monday morning. Decision to follow that afternoon. That meant a long wagon ride to Cedar City the day before and a night in the hotel. Maybe two.

  He leaned back and dragged his hands down his face, finding close to a week’s worth of whiskers in the process. He’d never shaved with his left hand, but he wasn’t about to let Deacon at him with a straight razor. Nor that no-good, mealymouthed Bartholomew Ward. That left his choices slim to none, and he imagined Mae Ann taking a turn at him with his razor. His chest grew tight. He left his coffee on the table and walked out to the back porch.

  Evening slipped across the high park with a cooling sigh, and he filled his lungs, hoping to cool his emotions as well. A distant cow bawled, a hawk screed. A dog barked and he looked up toward the ponderosa where a flash of yellow on summer’s green grass charged downhill, rolled to a stop, and ran back up again. At the top, Mae Ann stood at the edge of the evergreen’s branches, her faint laughter rippling down and through his soul. She bent over Cougar, then threw something the pup chased like a hound on a rabbit. Her unbound hair draped her shoulders in a dark cloud.

  Why was she up there? He watched her make her way down with Cougar, who ran back and forth to fetch what she threw. Her laughter wafted to him again, as pretty as the meadowlarks she was so fond of. She carried a pail over her arm like an egg basket, but nothing grew atop that hill. No berries or currants. Only crosses.

  She saw him leaning against the porch post, for her gait faltered and then picked up again more slowly. As she neared the house, she disappeared from view behind the cedars, then came around the side into the yard, past the clothesline. She stopped at the bottom of the steps to look up at him standing like a guard at his back door. A weak guard who wanted only to take her in his arms and declare his love.

  Mighty strong word for a man who still bore scars from another woman’s loose handling of his heart. But he might as well face it head-on. Mae Ann had tangled his spurs with her stubborn, gentle ways and convinced him that he couldn’t live without her. So how was he supposed to put her on the train and send her away?

  He steeled himself with visions of what could become a bloody battle over a dead man’s farm. “I heard from the judge.”

  Expectancy drained from her face, leaving it pale in the fading light.

  “Deacon picked up the telegram when he was in town.”

  Cougar dropped to his haunches at her side and leaned against her leg, his tongue lolling. The pail slid from her arm to her fingers, and with the other hand, she scratched the dog’s head. “What did it say?”

  “He wants to see the will. On Monday, at the county seat.”

  “I see.” She hitched her skirt and climbed the steps to stand next to him, but kept her eyes on the door. “And your decision about me leaving. Is it the same?”

  Anxiety cinched his chest, and he felt he’d snap in two. His first obligation was to keep her safe, in spite of what he really wanted. He swallowed past the stone in his throat and reached for her hand, but she stepped away and looked up with a challenge.

  He had no choice but to tell her the truth. He owed her that much. “Yes.”

  Her head remained high as always, the little fighter who had lassoed him into this arrangement in the first place. She didn’t even blink.

  “But I—”

  “Supper will be ready shortly.” Without letting him finish, she swept into the house and shut the door, closing him out of her presence.

  Exactly what he didn’t want.

  CHAPTER 19

  Mae Ann set the pail in the sink and leaned against the edge, pressing her fingers to her temples where her heartbeat pounded. Gracious. Be gracious. Nowhere in the preacher’s blessing had it said graciousness w
as deserved.

  She drew a ribbon from her pocket, then coiled her hair at the base of her neck and tied the ribbon around it, praying it and her heart would hold and not fray into a thousand strands.

  If she were not such a coward, she would have waited to hear what else Cade had to say.

  But she hadn’t waited because she could not bear to hear his argument again, not after his tender kiss that day at the range and the fire in his eyes that said he would fight for her. Not after she’d kept vigil at his bedside three nights, praying that he would change his mind. She squeezed her eyes shut and swiped away the pain leaking through her lashes.

  At supper Deacon mentioned he’d found the horses out beyond the near pasture, and shot her a glance from beneath his bushy brows. He knew what she’d done, and surely he knew why. Other than that, the meal was a quiet affair, and Cade soon retired upstairs. Deacon left for his cabin, and she washed the dishes and started a batch of bread to rise overnight. She added the remaining bone broth to the stew, plus an onion and turnips that Deacon had brought from town.

  Come fall they’d have their own garden vegetables. But she’d not be here to see they were set in straw in the root cellar for winter. Nor would she preserve berries or dry apples or do any of the things she’d planned.

  Climbing the stairs with a heavy heart, she forced herself to consider where she would go, for she’d not return to St. Louis. Nothing awaited her there, and she refused to scratch out a living in another rooming house in a stifling city. Or answer another bridal advertisement.

  She sat on the edge of the rope bed, not much more than a cot, and strained to hear across the hall behind Cade’s closed door. He more than likely slept, weary from the first day in four on his feet.

  Three more days, and they would be on their way to Cedar City. If the judge ruled in her favor, and Henry’s farm was truly hers, she would put it up for sale, withdraw her money from the bank, and rent a room in Olin Springs until someone bought the land.