That Certain Spark

by Cathy Marie Hake

  Karl had to give her credit. She’d kept her tone crisp and businesslike, even gave the mayor leeway that he didn’t rightfully deserve after implying she was a liar. Any man would have called him out; she provided facts and roped him in before he rode roughshod over her.

  “You could conjure up any number of names.” The mayor dropped the paper.

  “Among them, the dean of the medical college in Chicago?” Doc arched a brow. “And the chief surgeons of two different hospitals? Or—”

  “Quit chippin’ your teeth. Nag a man half to death—that’s what women do. It’s one more reason why they oughtn’t be doctors!”

  While Skyler growled, Karl again swept the doctor behind himself. “Don’t raise your voice at the lady.”

  The mayor sneered. “I didn’t raise my voice at a lady.”

  Every muscle tensed with the need to fight for this woman’s honor. From behind him, he felt the slightest brush of a hand and the softest whisper, “I forgive him.”

  “You forgive him, but I do not.” He continued to stare at Cutter. “Get out.”

  “I don’t need your forgiveness.” Clutching the crushed sconce to himself, Cutter marched out the door.

  Unable to wheel around without his leg tearing apart, Karl yanked her into view. Before he could open his mouth, she stabbed her forefinger into his chest. “I forgive that blustering windbag, Karl Van der Vort, but I don’t forgive you!”

  Nine

  Forgive me? You should thank me!”

  “I don’t need rescuing.” Punctuating each word with a poke to his chest, Taylor added, “Do you understand me?”

  FKarl snorted. “You need to be rescued from yourself, if this is what you believe.”

  His observation brought her up short. Taylor sucked in a sharp breath, then started laughing. “You’re not going to rescue me from myself any more than you’re going to get me to thank you.”

  Sagely nodding, he finally sat on his stool. “I knew you to be a stubborn woman when first I looked at you. My mother—she had the same line to her jaw.”

  From the way he’d spoken of her in the past, the hulking man loved his mama. Because of that, Taylor overlooked the insult of being called stubborn. “Women must use their wits because we don’t possess brute strength.”

  “You didn’t use your wits just now. Not with Cutter.”

  “Of course I did, and you’re going to want to know how, aren’t you?”

  He started to rummage through some scraps of silver. “No.”

  Astounded, she leaned closer. “Why not?”

  “Forgiveness is not of the mind; it is of the soul.” He seemed to have some method to his actions, and Taylor found pleasure watching the way he strove to manipulate his large fingers around a plethora of minute tools lying atop a faded square of maroon felt on the workbench. For all the deft-handed, long-fingered surgeons who’d practiced with laudable skill, she’d never seen a sight she admired more than when his fingers dusted a spot and gently set her chatelaine in the center, where the lighting glowed best. “I’ll have this to you by the end of the day.”

  “Thank you. I’m sure my brother told you how important it is to me.”

  “Earlier, Piet and I discussed respecting the legacy given us. So it is with you.”

  “You’re a smart feller, Doc Enoch.”

  Enoch looked up from the coon dog. “Smart enough to know you’ve helped your dogs whelp plenty of times, Mr. White. Why don’t you stop wasting your time and mine and say what you want to?”

  A sheepish grin crossed the man’s face as he glanced over at his wife. “Said you was smart. Feller like you’s gotta see reason. It’s better for you to do the doctorin’.” The second Enoch started to react, the man hastily half shouted, “You can do the critters, too. Goodness knows we’ve all been needin’ help when our horses or cattle take sick.”

  If it weren’t for his Christian scruples and his promise to his sister that he wouldn’t damage his knuckles defending her, Enoch gladly would have punched the smile off the dolt’s face. In a deceptively bored tone he said, “If you try telling me how to run my life or my practice again, you could only hope to have a physician as talented as my sister to attend you after I finish reining in my temper.”

  “Are you threatenin’ me? You can’t do that!”

  “It wasn’t a threat; it was a promise. On the other hand, you implied a threat when you said it was better for me to assume both practices. As I know my sister’s skill is unequaled, that could only mean that you must believe some other threat exists—and the only logical assumption is that harm would befall either my sister or me.”

  “You’re mistaken.” Mrs. White gave Enoch a stingy thin-lipped smile that didn’t reflect in her eyes. “I’m sure my husband merely felt compassion for the bachelors of Gooding. You can treat man and beast, and we can send away for another physician; but finding an attractive, marriageable young woman who’s willing to come live here is exceedingly difficult.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I said. It’d be better if she stopped doin’ a man’s job and set about seein’ to a man’s pleasure. There’s a heap of men who’d be tickled to have a gal wearin’ their ring, cookin’ Sunday suppers, and singin’ lullabyes to a passel of their young’uns.”

  “I just came from the Richardsons’.” Or more accurately, barely escaped from there. “You can pass the word to all of those bachelors that Richardson has a daughter who’s unspoken for. His wife informed me that double wedding they have planned could be a triple easily enough.”

  “Men round here are desperate, but they ain’t fools.”

  Mrs. White added, “Linette means well, bless her heart—”

  “She’d probably say the same thing about you. She seemed to be a sincere young woman.” Enoch rose. “It’ll be ten cents for my visit.”

  “Ten cents! Nuthin’ was a-wrong!”

  Hooking his thumbs in his pockets, Enoch looked at White. “There was plenty wrong—just not with your dog. You want me to betray my sister by asking her to give up the thing God’s called her to do, and you expect me to assume responsibilities for which I’m not trained. But I am a veterinarian, and even though it was under false pretenses, you summoned me out here on a professional call for your animal.”

  “Ten cents is robbery. ’Specially since you done nuthin’ I couldn’ta done myself.”

  “Prized coon dog like this needs mindful tending when she’s due to whelp, but if you needed professional help, it should have been with that bird dog.”

  “Netta?”

  The retriever came at the sound of her name. Enoch commented, “Something’s wrong on her left hindquarter. She’s limping.” He examined Netta and found a splinter in the fold of her leg. After removing it, he rubbed her belly. “Oh, so Queenie’s not the only one having babies here.”

  “Huh? What?!” White perked up and groped her belly. He shook his head. “Nope. Shouldn’ta got my hopes up like that.”

  “Let me show you. Hey, girl.” Enoch stroked her side before moving to her belly. “Between twenty and thirty days, there are firm, discrete lumps from the pups’ placentas. In a few more days, the lumps will be spread out through the womb and easy to mistake for her intestines. Here.” He ran the edge of his thumb over one spot, then another. “And here. Feel those.”

  White did so. “Well, I’ll be. We were all laid up with a miserable complaint, then harvest was upon us and we all had to get out to the fields. I just didn’t notice Netta—”

  “She and Dash throw off fine pups,” Mrs. White interrupted. “How many will she have?”

  “Can’t say for certain. I’d estimate six. Maybe a runty seventh. She’ll probably whelp mid-January.”

  “Farming families don’t keep much cash, Doc Enoch.” Mrs. White wrapped her arms around her ribs. “Would you wait and take a puppy or maybe take one of Queenie’s?”

  “A fine coonhound is worth far more than a dime, Mrs. White. So’s a retriever.”

  �
�How ’bout chicken? You’ll take home chicken, won’t you?”

  C risp, golden-fried chicken? “You bet!” Enoch figured he’d made an excellent deal until Mrs. White handed him a squawking gunnysack. Bartering instead of being paid is part of country living. I expected that. Maybe not this soon, and certainly not with live chickens.

  “These will make for a couple of nice suppers.”

  “Indeed, they will.” I just don’t know for whom.

  “By the way, Doc, we got a son—Ozzie. Him and Lloyd Smith are fast friends and hardworking boys. They’ve dreamt up that you’ll hire them.”

  “I suppose I could scare up odd jobs for the boys to do. Mucking, too.” Enoch couldn’t be sure who squawked more over that news—the chickens or Mrs. White. He mounted up and started for home, then looked down at the sack in his grip. What was he going to do with chickens?

  “Sis!”

  “Merciful heavens.” Taylor set aside the treatise on asthma she’d been reading and rose from her desk. She tried to recall the last time Enoch had yelled for her. There must be an emergency. Grabbing her bag, she dashed through the kitchen and out the back door. Her momentum almost carried her right down the steps, but she caught the rail just in time when she noticed her brother standing alone. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why did you shout for me? I was reading a fascinating piece on asthma and—” Her eyes widened. Enoch pulled a gunnysack from behind his back. It wiggled. He brought me a puppy! He knows how long I’ve wanted one. Only I’m not going to say anything. I’ll let him tell me.

  “I was over at the Whites’. They have a coonhound, Queenie. Even-tempered as could be. Anyway . . .”

  Once he mentioned the coonhound, Taylor couldn’t take it any longer. She dropped her medical bag and skipped down the steps. Just feet away, she suddenly froze. “Enoch, that gunnysack did not cluck.”

  “Not exactly. At least not the sack.” He started to open the top.

  “No.” She shook her head as if her denial would change the facts. “There aren’t chickens in there.”

  “Sure are. They’ll make a couple of fine suppers.”

  Gaping, she stared at him for a full minute. “For whom? Neither of us knows how to cook.”

  “Maybe this new stove won’t burn stuff.”

  “It’s not the stove; it’s us. When it comes to food, we’re pyromaniacs.” Another thought occurred to her. Backing up a big step, she added, “I categorically refuse to kill or pluck them.”

  “You don’t have to act so dramatic, Taylor. Bartering instead of being paid is part of country living.”

  “Certainly not with live chickens! Go do some more country living and barter them off to someone else.” And bring back a puppy this time.

  “There’s not much I could get for a pair of chickens. Maybe what we ought to do is keep them in that coop. We’ll undoubtedly wind up with more, and it has to be easier to parlay several chickens for something decent than to quibble with a pair. It’s probably why the coop’s here to begin with.”

  “Brilliant deduction,” she said in a wry tone.

  “You’re going to have to help me. Mrs. White used twine to tie their legs together.” They freed the fowl from the bonds and put them in the wire coop.

  “So what about their coonhound . . . Queenie, was it?”

  “Yes. She’ll be whelping soon, and their retriever is having a litter in mid-January.”

  Taylor clutched his sleeve. “And I’ll get a puppy?”

  “They offered, but I didn’t accept.” Giving her an impatient look for the outraged sound she made, he said, “They’re hard up for money and can sell a pup for a good sum. Besides, what business do you have, owning a puppy? Coming and going at all hours of the day and night—you don’t have time for a helpless little creature.”

  “I put up with you.”

  “I’m insulted. I’m not a pup. I’m a wolf.”

  “Yes, you are.” She reached up past his collar and checked. “Still wet behind the ears, though. That makes you a wolf pup.” Not wanting him to sense her disappointment over not getting a dog, Taylor tousled his hair. “Helpless, too—at the stove and at the coop.”

  “And at the bedside of a man caught by his suspenders.”

  Taylor finally managed a true smile. “How is it you concocted such a complex solution to the problem when such a simple one existed?”

  “I told you: I wanted to be in a position to watch your expression when you came back into the room.”

  “When did you— Oh!” Taylor couldn’t believe it. She’d thought the worst of her own twin, that he’d betrayed her just for the sake of coarse male camaraderie, when he’d simply wanted to be in a position to watch.

  “You swept into that room with the fire of an avenging angel. With Piet mistakenly thinking you were talking to him instead of Karl, all your aggression disappeared into nothing more than a mere wisp of smoke. The only thing that was more hilarious was watching beefy old Karl pull down the hem of his nightshirt and yank up his socks.”

  Disbelief and giggles shivered through her. “Like prissy old Great-Aunt Agatha?”

  “No. Piet started yammering instructions from under the bed, worried lest his brother scandalize and offend you.” A huge grin split his face. “Karl looked like a man passing out forks to cannibals before he had to crawl into a pot.”

  “He doesn’t deserve that distinction; I do. Ever since I arrived, I’ve been boiling in oil and folks keep stoking the fire.”

  “Then scoot over. I’m hopping into the pot.” Enoch’s words couldn’t be sweeter. His unswerving loyalty humbled her. “Where two or three are gathered, Jesus is with them, so He’s with us. We’re never going to burn.”

  “Like Shadrach, Meshach, and To-bed-we-go?” she teased, remembering the time he’d messed up that name in the Bible story.

  “Yep.” The chickens both fluttered and squawked.

  “You hush.” Taylor eyed their feathers. “Both of you ought to be the ones in the boiling oil, and you just might end up going to bed, too, as a nice fat pillow.”

  Clip, clip, clip, clip. The distinctive sound of the doctor’s purposeful footsteps approaching the smithy Saturday morning made Karl mutter to his dog, “If there was flint on the bottom of her heels, she’d strike sparks with every step.” Skyler wagged his tail.

  Hat at a jaunty angle, hair tamed and her pelisse folded over one arm while she held her medical bag in the opposite hand, the doctor appeared and announced from the double doors, “I’d like a buggy prepared, please.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’m going to the Ochoa residence.”

  He didn’t challenge her on the we versus I. Instead, he eyed her critically. “Go change while I hitch up.”

  “I’m ready to leave just as I am.”

  “You cannot go thus.” His focus darted away. “Red—it is not a good color.”

  She laughed! “I always wear red. Except for Fridays, my pharmacy and laboratory day, when I wear a shirtwaist that’s faded to pink. What difference does the outside make? ‘Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.’ ”

  Karl couldn’t find the words to tell her what kind of women wore red. Shaking his head, he went to get the buggy. Years had passed since he’d been to church, and now that he’d started attending again, he hadn’t yet gone long enough to refresh his memory on all the stories. Though he’d hoped to remember names of the women of ill repute so he could cite them as examples as to the type who would be wearing red if they lived in Gooding, he couldn’t come up with a single name. Frustrated, he led the rig to the front. “Let’s go!”

  Dr. Bestman had taken but a few steps before Skyler came running, scrambled up his familiar route, and perched atop the buggy. The doctor halted and gawked. “Call him down before he falls through!”

  “He won’t. I reinforced the roof.”

  “Nevertheless, we must be off.”

&
nbsp; “Ja.” This is going to be entertaining. Karl folded his arms across his chest. “So get over here.”

  Eyes huge, she stalked toward him. “You cannot mean to allow that animal to ride atop the buggy. It’s unsafe, for one thing. Furthermore, it’s undignified.”

  “Skyler’s been riding up there since he was a pup, and he’s never been too worried about his dignity. I’m happy to have him ride along.”

  “It doesn’t lend a professional appearance to my arrival,” she gritted.

  “Are you not the one who just said the outside makes no difference? That man looks on the outside appearance, but God looks at the heart?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I’m going to have to watch every word I say around you.”

  “Impossible. You talk far too much to succeed at that.”

  “I’m not going to worry about you any longer, Karl Van der Vort. You’re feeling well enough to be ornery. It just serves to prove what a fine physician I am—even if I wear red shirtwaists.”

  “How,” Karl asked as the buggy pulled out of town, “did your father ever permit you to become a doctor?”

  “My mother did; being a physician himself, Father couldn’t very well disparage the profession.”

  Shaking his head as if to dislodge what he’d clearly thought to be the unbelievable first part of her comment, Taylor couldn’t be certain he’d heard the second.

  “That is even worse. Your mother—it is her place as a woman to keep the gentleness in your life. How could she permit this?”

  Falling back on her stock answer, Taylor flashed him a disingenuous smile. “I’m pigheaded. It’s more a matter of her being wise enough to know she couldn’t stop me once I’d made up my mind.”

  “When you confided your wishes to her, why did she not go to your father and plead with him to dissuade you?”