That Certain Spark

by Cathy Marie Hake

  Curiosity burned within her. She wanted to ask why his brother got stuck. But Enoch started snaking under the bed, so he’d be able to tell her later exactly how the man was stuck.

  “Mr. Van der Vort, you must remain in bed. It’s vital for you to rest.” Stepping over the booted feet, Taylor headed toward the far side of the bed.

  “Just what are you doing?” Mr. Van der Vort barked from his seat on the floor.

  It wasn’t his tone that stopped her; it was the realization that instead of the roomy calf-length cotton nightshirt he ought to have on, he was sporting a blue flannel shirt. She jerked her chin upward. “Sir, I expect you to be in that bed, covered up, when I return to this room in exactly one minute.”

  “And if I’m not?”

  “I want to watch this,” Piet declared. The whole bed shuddered from his attempt to wiggle free.

  Wild threats whirled around in her mind. “If you’re not—” Taylor’s focus drifted down from the ceiling and locked with her patient’s eyes—“I’ll be back in here, and you’ll still be down there.” A smug little smile tilted her lips. “Now, I don’t think either of us wants to give even one more second’s thought to that.”

  “You might not . . .”

  “Enoch!”

  Roars of masculine laughter filled the room.

  He betrayed me. Just for the sake of a few laughs. She’d dealt with male jeers, derision, and heckling in medical school. Automatically drawing on the skills that had gotten her through then, she pasted on a half smile. Jaw tight and head held high, she turned and marched from the room. I’m going to return just as I said I would. Those men were acting like naughty children, testing her limits. Fine. They’d soon discover Taylor MacLay Bestman stood her ground.

  But it was Enoch’s jesting that made her heart ache. Already he’d declared he’d fallen in love and found his future wife, and now he’d chosen coarse male camaraderie over what had once been an unshakable allegiance to her. Taylor walked into her own bedchamber and collapsed onto an empty trunk near the door.

  “With or without you, I’m going to Texas.” Remembering his words to her now triggered a panic. Had Enoch truly wanted to come by himself? Had she stifled him when he wanted to break free?

  The same crash that had brought her running upstairs sounded again next door. “Piet, are you trying to crack all your ribs?” Enoch asked, sounding mildly irritated. “I told you to wait.”

  He coerced me into coming here. “Come with me, Sis,” he had pleaded. “I sold my practice. You and I have always been a team. Look to the future with me. Come.”

  Well, I came. He got what he said he wanted. Now we’ll have to make the best of it . . . If Saint Paul could learn to be content in prison, I can do well here. A wry smile twisted her lips. Until that moment, it had never occurred to her that Paul had written he’d learned to be content. Heartened by the knowledge that he’d had his share of struggles or he wouldn’t have had to learn, she decided not to feel quite so guilty about being upset.

  One minute—she’d given the men more time than that. Squaring her shoulders, she smoothed her hair. Regardless of how she felt, she had a job to do, and she was going to get it done.

  Karl heard her coming—not because of the creaking floorboards but because of the I-mean-business drumbeat of her heels. Until now she’d always walked silently, so he knew she fully intended to make this racket. It had been downright funny watching the doc go all prissy and proper, jumping to the wrong conclusions. She’d probably do the same thing again as soon as she spied him. Sitting on a chair in the middle of the floor, halfway between a small bookcase and the bed, he was supposed to hand Enoch books to prop up the legs of the bed.

  With a Sears’ nightshirt on, Karl felt ridiculous. A couple months back, Piet had been so delighted to have found something with a seventeen-and-a-half-inch collar and long enough to hit their shins that he’d sent away for a pair of the dumb-looking things. Rarely did ready-made clothing come of a size to accommodate the muscles that years of blacksmithing developed. Since his jeans wouldn’t fit over the bandage, he was stuck in this getup for a day or so. Definitely no longer.

  As soon as Doc cleared the doorway, her eyes locked onto his. Only the momentary, very slightest widening of her eyes gave away her surprise. “Mr. Van der Vort, you’re not where you belong.”

  “Doc,” Piet whined from beneath the bed, “do you think I wanna be stuck under here?”

  “Then you should let me cut off your suspenders,” Enoch said, accepting the last few books from Karl.

  “Nee!” Piet paused a moment. “Mama—these she gave to me.”

  “Of course we won’t slice them off.” The doctor’s thumb went to trace the small silver chatelaine at her waist as she turned to him. “Mr. Karl Van der Vort, remain in that chair with your limb raised while my brother and I see to extricating your brother.”

  Her resolute expression invited no discussion and her order rubbed him the wrong way, but for an instant he’d seen her features soften and heard the compassion in her tone when she reassured his brother. That alone bought his cooperation. Nodding his head was a waste of time. She’d already turned away and started dragging over a sturdy little table.

  “I’ll get that.” Enoch yanked it into place. “We’re going to need more books. I’m going to stack them up, lift the bed onto the piles, crawl under, and untangle him.”

  Once her twin left, the doctor just stood and studied Piet’s boots. Feeling slightly guilty for having embarrassed her, but not enough to apologize, Karl decided to lighten things. “At least this time I didn’t summon a horse to free me.”

  The doctor glanced at his brother’s feet and back at Karl. “If it weren’t for the boots, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”

  Was that a— No, she couldn’t have smiled. Had she? “Matteo made those boots. Runs the saddlery down the street.”

  She got down on her knees by his brother. “So Matteo dresses man and beast.”

  “Ja.”

  “I’ll have to go see him.”

  Karl jumped at the opportunity. “You are not a man. Matteo makes things only for men and horses. Nothing else at all. Nothing for women.”

  “I see. Then I’m going to advertise for a woman cobbler to come to Gooding.”

  “You cannot do that!”

  She arched a brow. “Are you one of those tedious men who believes all women should be barefoot and breeding?”

  “Nee. But this is not your town. You cannot advertise for someone just because of a whim.”

  “Of course not. I’m doing so out of need. No matter how attractive a shoe might be, a bad fit makes one miserable. Both women and men are entitled to something so basic and essential.”

  The woman had spunk. No getting around it—she was smart and had a surprising wild streak in her. Maybe not wild. Spirited. But that also translated into her being headstrong about carrying on a man’s profession. He could admire the quality without approving of how she applied it. What a pity, though. She was like that shoe—attractive, but the wrong fit for her own gender.

  Unaware of his thoughts, the doctor delicately cleared her throat. “Mr. Piet Van der Vort, this is awkward.”

  “Nee. I am okay. Not comfortable, but not bad. It would be better were I flat.”

  “The right rear shoulder of his suspenders is stuck, so he’s . . .” Karl stuck out his hand and twisted it.

  She closed her eyes. Her shoulders rose and dropped with a slow, deep breath. “I was referring to my questions and solution to the problem. Your braces—suspenders, that is—are they two-sided in the back?”

  “Nee. Just the middle is where they button to my pants.”

  “Good. Good. I’m going to reach in sideways and see if I can unfasten the back.” A minute later, her voice a touch strained, she said, “Are you able to undo the front now that the tension is lessened?”

  Bumping and rustling ensued. “The right side, that could I do. Linken—I lie too
heavy on that side. My hand is too big.” A moment of silence stretched. “Doctor, I . . . you are . . .”

  “Very well. If you’ll pardon me, I only mean to extract you.” Still on her knees, the lady doc had to reach in and strain. Finally she sat back on her heels. Letting out a deep breath, she carefully made sure her black skirt was covering her properly.

  Freed, Piet started a clumsy exit.

  “Hold it!” Enoch dropped a huge armload of books. “You’re going to tow that bed and mow it over my sister!”

  “Come on out, Piet Van der Vort,” the doctor said as she rose. “You’re big and strong enough to tow just about anything, but I’m not one to be mowed over.”

  Enoch gave the books a dark look, then began to gather them up. “Piet, how’d you get there, anyway?”

  “I wanted to see my brother. You were busy, so I did not interrupt. I just came up the stairs.”

  “And crawled under the bed?” The doctor and her brother exchanged an incredulous look.

  “The chamber pot—it was not by the edge.” Piet emerged and stretched. “I thought perhaps it was deep in the middle, in the shadow.”

  “You were kind to want to assist your brother. We have a washroom next door, and I’ll provide your brother with crutches.” While she spoke, the doctor tugged Piet over to a chair. He sat down, but from the adoring look on his face, he’d do anything for her. “Does anything hurt? How is your breathing?” She proceeded to examine him. “You’re fine. With that bed crashing on you, you might well have fractured some ribs or given yourself a concussion.”

  “But you would make me well.” Piet’s head bobbed with absolute certainty. Enoch handed him the suspenders, and everything was fine. “I think just as you are two Bestmans and it was confusing at first, we are two Van der Vorts. It was confusing today.” Piet chuckled. “But now we are all friends. You will call me Piet and my brother Karl.”

  Oh brother. He got stuck under the bed, but Piet might as well have fallen at the doctor’s feet. In less than a day, she’d won his allegiance and adoration. Exasperation pounded through Karl’s veins. He’d counted on Piet springing him loose. That woman had just charmed his brother into becoming her ally, and Piet would merrily strand Karl here for a month if it provided an excuse for him to come over. Which just proved Karl’s point: A pretty young woman and medicine didn’t mix.

  Eight

  That’s where I draw the line. A man has to have some pride.” Karl gritted his teeth and pushed away from the new table they’d put in the smithy for him. He’d champed at the bit to come back to work today, but not for this. “I’m not repairing it.”

  Piet looked at the ugly contraption through the wide-open shop door. “I don’t know. It has some charm, don’t you think?”

  Karl snorted. “Charm?”

  “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Piet sounded far less certain now that he’d come over and had a chance to see the swan-shaped silver wall sconce up close. The fact that he hadn’t picked it up spoke volumes.

  “The beholder is Mrs. Cutter.”

  “Ja, now it all makes sense.” Piet shrugged. “She’s willing to pay for you to repair it.”

  Prodding it with the dull end of a pencil, Karl muttered, “I’d pay her to take it away.”

  “You made a bargain with the doctor that though you could not yet do all work, silversmithing was reasonable.”

  “Reasonable? That woman doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”

  “If the deal you struck is not to your liking, you can stop and go lie down.”

  “Of course it’s not to my liking.” Karl scowled. “But I’d do anything to get out of that surgery!”

  Smirking, Piet looked at the sconce. “Anything?”

  “You made your point.” Karl grumbled, “It was a deal I didn’t want to make.”

  “You are a man of your word and you said—”

  “Don’t remind me. All of this broken garbage is reminder enough.” Karl looked at the array of pieces everyone in town came up with the very moment word went out that he’d be doing this kind of repair work. Silver, that he could do. The gold? Ideally, it would go to a goldsmith, but there wasn’t one. Tapping out dents, straightening kinks, repairing chains, and tidying engraving—that was all doable as long as he kept in mind gold was much softer than silver.

  But this wall sconce? The beak had fallen off the swan in protest of being attached to something so ugly. Karl shoved aside the project. “I’m not going to do it. I refuse.”

  “Your word has always been your bond, so there is no doubt that you’ll meet your obligation.”

  “Condemned by faint praise.” Karl grabbed it back again. He went over each step mentally as he got started. He filed the edges until they came together smoothly again and cleaned them with the “pickling” solution, carefully joined them with the flux, and then added the solder. Using the torch from inside the swan’s narrow neck demanded his complete concentration. He finished the job, cleaned it up a little bit, then polished the silver so that it would look good—well, as good as anything that awful could look, anyway.

  The next piece was a dandy little item. It deserved his attention, and he wanted to get it done right away. Doc Enoch had slipped it to him. It was a chatelaine that the doctor wore clipped to the waistband of her skirt all of the time. Whether anything was hanging from it or not didn’t matter; she always had it clipped there. Most chatelaines had a simple bend of metal that tucked into the waistband, but hers bore some kind of interesting latch to secure it.

  Karl now studied the mechanism. When flipped down, it locked, securing the chatelaine to the waistband more closely, or it would—but at present it was broken. He’d have to figure out how to fix the piece. If he added a semicircular tension spring, maybe that would take care of the problem, but he’d have to manufacture one . . . but exceptionally small, and of very strong wire, too. The challenge energized him. Anything to make the time pass quickly. He’d told the doctor he wouldn’t do any blacksmithing for the next three days if she let him out of that place. Having Doc Enoch and Piet flanking her as she extracted those words turned a purposefully vague comment into a solemn promise.

  The smithy’s soot didn’t allow for proper jewelry soldering, so some of the men had taken canvas and configured a three-sided structure for him just inside the smithy, but outside the forge area. After two more days of doing this soldering, he would make up for lost time, wielding his hammer on the anvil from first light until the kerosene in the lanterns gave out at night.

  Grudgingly, he had to admit silversmithing was a good use of his time until he gained more strength. His leg was healing nicely, and each day he could feel it growing stronger. Truthfully, he was thankful to the doctor for having done all of the work she had. Grateful—but not convinced that a woman ought to be a physician.For all the orders she gave, she would have done well to enter the military and aim to become a general.

  But the one good thing that developed from this whole affair was that his brother hadn’t a drop to drink ever since Karl got hurt. Indeed, Piet suddenly turned a corner. He seemed . . . well, different. Karl hadn’t mentioned it—wasn’t sure he wanted to—but he was praying and waiting. Piet wasn’t a man to be pushed or pestered. Contrary as he’d been, saying something might very well send Piet straight back to the saloon.

  Winding the wire for the tension spring, Karl considered the inevitable mental and physical descent that overtook drunks. If wounding my leg helped spare my brother that fate, it was worth it. Karl leaned forward and glanced at his brother. Even if Piet had been right and the doctor had to cut off my leg, I would have agreed to it if I knew the result would be him turning his life around.

  Snap! The end of the spring he’d been forming suddenly broke off. Deep in thought, he’d formed five coils when the application called for three or four. Setting down the delicate pliers, he reached for more wire.

  “I’m taking these over.” Piet loaded cross braces, hinges, hitchin
g posts, and a variety of hardware for the vet’s barn raising into the wheelbarrow.

  Squinting out the smithy doors at the almost barren trees, Karl nodded. “The weather will be good.”

  Piet slugged him on the shoulder. “I sent word that the doctor would call on some folks this week. As pledged, you will drive her.”

  “We pledged a buggy, not a driver.”

  Piet scowled. “We don’t know if she can drive a rig, and she doesn’t know where she’s going. Even if that were not the case, there are bad feelings about a woman doctor.”

  “I’m not getting in the middle of that.”

  Jaw dropping, Piet stared at him. “Your life—she saved it.” He shook his head. “The least you can do is protect her in return for what she has done for you.”

  What kind of idiot am I? Though I paid for my surgery, I didn’t consider that some debts cannot be canceled with mere money. It is true. I owe her.

  While Karl thought, his brother sustained his tirade. “If the doctor was a man, after he saved your life, you would ride with him. Even if you do not approve of a woman doctor, it is not like you to be ungrateful and unfair.”

  Karl held up his hand. “You made your point. Many points. And all of them are right. I’ll drive her. I neither approve or disapprove of her.”

  “You should be ashamed.” Piet turned and walked off.

  Karl turned back to the doctor’s chatelaine. There’s nothing wrong with being neutral on an issue. Not everything has to be a fight; instead of the extremes, some things can be in the middle. So it is with how I feel about the doctor. I have no call to be ashamed. I’m grateful for what she did—but she lacks modesty to do her job. If she limited herself to treating women, perhaps that would be a good thing.

  He returned to his work and by the time he was done, the clasp would secure just about anything. Certainly it could hold whatever little frippery the doctor might want to put on it. The old latch must have given way out of sheer exhaustion. Some of these pieces got handed down for generations. Judging from the heavy patina of the silver, this was one such treasure.