by Merry Farmer
Bebe glanced up with anxious eyes and nodded. Talia stepped back, sending Wendy a sad, knowing look.
As they turned to go, Mr. Montgomery let out a wracking cough. Talia glanced over her shoulder, frowning with concern for the man. She was on the verge of marching back to place a hand on his forehead to test for fever, but he got up and swayed over to the women, taking money to complete a few sales.
“Isn’t there anyone in town who teaches people how to take care of themselves?” she asked as Wendy nudged her on.
“Dr. Meyers does what he can, but his main concern these days is with the Cheyenne and his duties as Indian Agent for the area. Dr. Abernathy…well, he’s a different story.”
Talia hummed in understanding. As pressing as she felt her duties as a wife were, a deeper part of her was beginning to see that her duties as a nurse might be more important.
Chapter 4
It was well after lunch by the time Trey got back from Paradise Ranch. He’d gone out there, done his business, and come home in a grumpy mood after finding Virginia’s missing cattle at one of the far corners of her part of the ranch, unmolested. But as soon as he entered the jail and started up the stairs to the apartment, his spirits lifted.
“What’s that delicious smell?” he asked as he reached the second floor.
Talia stood at the counter beside his small stove, mixing something in a large crockery bowl that he didn’t know he had. “I made chicken soup for lunch,” she said. “And I’m working on cornbread now.”
Trey took a few steps toward the kitchen area, then stopped and breathed in. “Smells perfect.”
She gave him a smile that zinged right to parts of him that he swore he was going to keep on a tight leash, then turned back to the counter. “The soup is ready now, if you’d like some.”
He took one more breath, then let his shoulders drop. “I had a thought on the way back from Paradise Ranch that we might go for a picnic this afternoon, but if you’re busy….”
“Oh.” She perked up and turned back to him. “I could set this aside.” She nodded to her bowl. “I haven’t added the wet ingredients yet, so it could sit. And we could put some soup in a jar and take it outside.”
Trey’s brow ticked up. “You’d really interrupt your work like that? Because I had some silly idea for a picnic?”
“It’s not a silly idea.” Talia laughed, setting her bowl aside and wiping her hands on a towel tucked into the waistband of her skirt. “It’s a beautiful afternoon, and I, for one, would rather be outside than trapped in here working.”
“Well…all right, then.” Trey smiled. That had been far easier than he thought it would.
He stepped into the kitchen area and looked around for something he could do to help. Talia had already reached for a jar on the shelf beside the counter. The only thing he could see to do was to wrap up some of the bread he’d bought from the general store two days ago.
“Shouldn’t you be putting soup in two jars?” he asked when Talia stopped at one, loading it into a bucket—which was the closest thing to a picnic basket he had.
“Oh, I already ate,” she answered, holding out the bucket for him to put the bread in.
Trey let out a breath. “You already ate lunch, but you’re still coming out just to sit in the grass with me while I eat?”
“It’s a nice afternoon.” She shrugged, her smile as content as any he’d ever seen.
He loaded a bottle of beer into the bucket along with his lunch, then offered an arm to Talia. She took it with a smile. It took every ounce of concentration Trey had to remember that he and Talia were only ever just going to be friends. He wouldn’t let her cheerful smile get through to him or the happy spring in her step. They headed down the stairs, out into town, and around to the meadow between the church and the baseball field. He’d seen enough of sorrow and loss in his past to know that he wasn’t going to get attached to anyone else.
“Wendy and I walked out this way this morning,” Talia said as they picked a spot in the meadow and sat.
“You went out walking with Wendy?” Trey started unpacking the bucket. He should have brought a blanket for them to sit on, but Talia didn’t seem to mind spreading her skirt in the fragrant grass.
“She took me on a tour of the town,” she said. “Oh, and I got to meet the Bonneville sisters.”
Trey nearly spilled soup as he opened the jar. “You got to meet the Bonneville sisters?”
“Well, it wasn’t quite the privilege that I’m sure they would think it was.” Talia laughed. “But all of my friends have been writing to me about them for so long that it felt as though I was meeting famous people.” She giggled, lowering her eyes, then said, “I’m sure Vivian Bonneville would be right at home on a stage.”
“You’ve got that right,” Trey drawled.
Talia’s expression clouded over to a frown. “Vivian doesn’t know the first thing about being a mother. Her poor baby seems to be suffering from jaundice, and from what little I could glean, she is part of the problem, not part of the cure.”
A warm feeling spread through Trey’s gut that didn’t have anything to do with the soup. “You know about babies?”
Talia glanced up at him with a softness around her eyes. “As a nurse, yes. But obviously not as a mother.”
Shoot. The way Trey’s chest squeezed at her words made him feel like a cad. Worse still, it made him wonder if he couldn’t figure out a way to change what he was determined to stick to.
He shook his head to clear that ridiculous thought away, reminding himself of the mess of kids that had made him so uneasy at the station platform just the day before. He wasn’t ready to commit himself to any of that yet.
“Wendy told me a little about the baseball field,” Talia said, glancing over her shoulder at the stands and fence behind home plate. “Do you play?”
“Yes, ma’am, I do.” Trey nodded, relief spilling through him. Baseball was something he could always talk about. “I play for the Westside Wolves this year. The season has only just started, and we don’t have a game until two weeks from now. It’s the Haskell Hawks and the Eastside Eagles this weekend.”
“Wendy says nearly everyone in town comes out for the games.”
“It’s true,” Trey said. “And from a lawman’s perspective, it’s a good thing too.”
“How so?”
“Keeps folks out of trouble,” Trey explained. “Haskell is one of the safest places I’ve ever heard of out in the West, mostly because Howard keeps everyone entertained and provided for. And because folks are so happy, they’re protective of what they have. They don’t let outsiders waltz in and upset their peaceful world.”
Talia’s smile faded, and her eyes lost their focus as she looked past his shoulder. It took Trey a second, but when it hit him how she might take what he’d said, he swallowed his soup wrong and coughed.
“That doesn’t mean that they’ll consider you an outsider because you just showed up in town,” he rushed to say. “Besides, you’re friends with so many people already.”
She continued to stare into the distance for a moment before blinking and focusing on him. “Oh? Oh. No, that’s not…” She pursed her lips. “That’s Mr. Montgomery’s wagon over there.” She nodded to where she’d been staring.
Trey twisted to get a good look. Sure enough, Steve’s peddler wagon was parked near the entrance to the school, a little off the road. Steve had gotten out the bows and covered the back of the wagon at some point. It looked more like a prairie schooner than a plain old delivery wagon now. He frowned. “Steve knows not to park himself anywhere but down by the station.”
“Why would he park where he knows he shouldn’t?”
Trey wondered the same thing. “I tell you what. As soon as I finish my lunch, let’s go over and ask him.”
Talia’s smile returned. She leaned back, propping her hands behind her in a lounging posture. “I hope he’s—oh!” She sat forward suddenly, rubbing her left hand as though somethin
g had bit it. But instead of there being a bug, she reached into the grass behind her and pulled up a silver brooch with a large amethyst in the center. “Ooh! Look at this.”
Trey’s eyebrows shot straight up to his hairline. He set his mostly empty soup jar aside and scooted closer to get a better look as Talia rubbed the dirt off of the brooch. “Well I’ll be!”
“You recognize it?” Talia turned to him. They sat close enough together now that he could have kissed her if he’d wanted to.
He cleared his throat and squinted at the brooch, pushing aside the odd thoughts about kissing. “I sure do. That’s Olivia Garrett’s lost brooch.”
“Her lost brooch?”
Trey suddenly laughed. “She lost that, oh, I guess it would be about three years back now. Had the whole town scrambling to search for it. Her husband, Charlie, the man who started Hurst Home, offered a reward and everything.”
Talia blinked. “This brooch has been missing for three years?”
Trey nodded. “And you just found it. That’s some kind of magic.”
“It’s not magic, it’s luck,” Talia said, her expression faltering.
Alarm coursed through Trey. He’d said the wrong thing, but he couldn’t think how. Something had to be done. “I tell you what,” he started, packing up the last of his picnic. “Olivia teaches at the school. The kids have probably all gone home for the day, but she stays late, grading papers and preparing lessons and things. Let’s go return her brooch. We can stop and ask Steve what he’s doing parked out here on the way.”
Talia took a deep breath, a bolstering smile returning to her beautiful face. And it was beautiful, foreign angles, startling eyes and all. “That sounds like a splendid idea.”
They packed up the last of Trey’s things and stood. As they made their way across the meadow—not too fast, not too slow, just enjoying the walk, the sunshine, and the abundance of May flowers—a voice in the back of Trey’s mind kept telling him to take Talia’s hand. She was his wife, after all, even if they weren’t—
Shoot, who was he fooling? He wanted to have a real marriage with her. But being the dumb mule that he was, he’d gone and told her otherwise. Well, he was stuck now. He couldn’t very well go back on what he’d stuck his neck out to say only yesterday.
“Mr. Montgomery?” Talia called as they neared the peddler’s wagon.
“Steve, you in there?” Trey rapped on one of the bows as if it were a door as they rounded the back.
The wagon covering had been pulled closed at the back, but before Trey could even think of untying it to take a look inside, an almighty cough rang out from inside.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Talia said, fingering the covering and running her hands along the canvas, searching for a way to open it. “Blast. I had a feeling Mr. Montgomery wasn’t feeling well yesterday, and I ignored it. I should have listened to my instincts.”
Trey merely grunted in answer, set his bucket down, and reached past her to find the ties holding the back of the wagon shut. As soon as he pried the canvas open, an uncomfortable heat seeped out of the wagon.
Steve coughed heavily before croaking, “Shut that up, I’m tryin’ to sleep.”
“Mr. Montgomery, are you sure you’re feeling well?” Talia asked, stepping boldly up onto the back of the wagon and trying to reach far enough in to feel Steve’s forehead.
Steve batted her hand away. “I got the influenza, if you must know,” he grumbled. “Tried to ignore it, but it won’t be ignored anymore.”
Talia sucked in a breath. Trey wanted to pull her back and wrap her up in cotton so she wouldn’t catch the potentially deadly disease, but he was too afraid to touch her.
“You should get a room at the hotel, somewhere clean and quiet,” Talia told Steve. “We should call for the doctor to help you.”
“Ain’t nothin’ can be done to help me but sleepin’ through it,” Steve snapped. “’Sides, I got some old Indian remedy that’s makin’ me feel lots better.”
Talia humphed and stepped back down to the ground. She sent Trey a frustrated, doubtful look. “Those ‘old Indian remedies’ are mostly alcohol and laudanum. But at least they’ll help him sleep.”
“And that’s a good thing?” Trey rolled his shoulders uncomfortably.
Talia sighed and shrugged. “It’s better than nothing, especially if he isn’t willing to move.”
Trey ran a hand over his face. “Steve, you know you’re not supposed to park here. I might have to talk to Howard about it if you don’t move.”
The only response he got was a grunt. It had been a shot in the dark anyhow. Steve didn’t look like he’d be able to move his body, let alone the wagon. Trey exchanged another look with Talia, wishing he knew what to do. Men with guns and bellies full of whiskey he could handle. Sick folks were a whole other story.
“Why don’t we leave him here for now, go return Mrs. Garrett’s brooch, then check back later to see if Mr. Montgomery’s symptoms have worsened,” she suggested.
It seemed as good an idea as any. “All right.”
He reached down to scoop up his lunch bucket, then the two of them headed on to the school. Trey had never been lucky enough to attend school in a building as fine as Haskell’s schoolhouse. He’d barely attended school at all. At least he’d learned how to read and do a few simple numbers. Haskell’s school always instilled awe in him. It was far bigger than the number of students the town currently had to study there, but that only gave the place a sense of towering majesty.
“Olivia’s classroom is down this way.” Trey nodded to the right-hand corridor as he held the door for Talia. “Second door on the right.”
“What a magnificent building.” Talia glanced around at the childish drawings and projects that had been tacked to the walls in the hallway. “Haskell’s children must be overjoyed to come to school every day.”
“Some of them,” Trey said. “Some are—”
He stopped and Talia gasped as they walked through the open doorway to Olivia’s classroom. Olivia sat at one of the child-sized desks, slumped over, her face buried in the crook of her elbow.
“Mrs. Garrett?” Talia rushed forward, dropping to her knees beside the desk. Olivia lifted her head groggily, and Talia laid the back of her hand across Olivia’s brow. “She’s burning up.” Talia sighed. “I’m afraid it’s probably influenza, given Mr. Montgomery’s condition.”
“Who are you?” Olivia asked in a wispy voice, blinking at Talia.
“Olivia, this is Talia, my new wife,” Trey said, raising his voice. It didn’t feel right to talk to Olivia as if she were deaf, but he couldn’t think of a single thing else to do.
“Oh,” Olivia said, then laid her head on her arm again. “I’m sorry, I don’t feel very well.”
“I know.” Talia smoothed her hand across Olivia’s head, then stood. “We’ll need to take her home and fetch a doctor.”
“Right.” Trey nodded. He stepped forward and gently lifted Olivia into his arms. “I’ll take her home if you go and fetch Dr. Meyers.”
Talia nodded, her energy and vitality a stark contrast to Olivia’s feverish faint. “I assume once I find the doctor, he’ll know where Mrs. Garrett lives?”
“Yep.” Trey started for the door and into the hallway. “Everyone pretty much knows where everyone lives here, so that won’t be a problem. But you’ll probably want to hurry.”
“Agreed,” Talia said, then darted out the school’s front door ahead of him.
Chapter 5
Talia picked up her skirts and ran down the lane from the school to Elizabeth Street. It wasn’t until she was past the baseball field that she realized she still had Olivia’s brooch in her hand. She pinned it to her blouse for safekeeping as she hurried on. Once it was secure, she lifted her head and searched up and down the street for any indication of where Dr. Meyers might live.
“Excuse me,” she said to the first person she came across. Her heart sank a little as she recognized the woman as the plu
mp one, Beata, from the station yesterday. “I’m looking for Dr. Meyers.”
Beata stopped and blinked at her. “You? You’re that girl from the peddler’s wagon yesterday, the one who rode into town on a broomstick.”
“Yes, my name is Talia Knighton.” Talia shook her head with a sense of urgency. “I need to find Dr. Meyers.”
“You sick?”
It took all of Talia’s patience to remain calm. “No, but Mrs. Garrett is. I need to find—”
“Olivia Garrett is sick?”
Talia was about to crawl out of her skin with frustration.
Beata narrowed her eyes, staring at Talia’s chest. “Hey, isn’t that Olivia’s lost brooch? The one half the town spent the summer looking for a few years ago?”
“Yes, but—”
Beata glanced up, eyes wide. “Where’d you go and find that?”
“In the field, but—”
“You found a brooch no one else could, and now Olivia is sick?”
“Please, I need to find Dr. Meyers,” Talia pleaded.
Beata continued to stare at her, surprise turning to suspicion. She pressed her lips together, eyes narrowing again. It was several painful seconds before she said, “You don’t want Dr. Meyers. He’s one of them young, flighty doctors. You want Dr. Abernathy for anything that’s wrong.”
“Fine.” Talia breathed out, patience at an end. “Where is Dr. Abernathy?”
Beata pivoted and pointed farther down Elizabeth Street. “First right after Main Street is Prairie Avenue. The Abernathys live in the fifth house down on the left.”
“Thank you,” Talia said, then rushed on, as eager to get away from the woman as she was to find the doctor.
Fortunately, Beata’s directions were easy to follow in a town as small as Haskell. Prairie Avenue was marked with a small but grand sign—something that seemed in character with what her friends had told her about Howard Haskell—and Dr. Abernathy had a shingle in front of his house that marked it as a medical office as well. Talia rushed up to the front porch and knocked.
