by Merry Farmer
A few seconds later, a strangely familiar voice inside called out, “All right, all right, keep your knickers on.”
Talia took a step back as the front door opened, then gasped. The woman who answered the door was Jill, the one with the severe bun from the train station.
Jill jerked in surprise at the sight of Talia. “You? What do you want?”
“Is this Dr. Abernathy’s house?” Talia asked.
“Yes.” Jill narrowed her eyes the same way Beata had. “I’m Mrs. Abernathy. What do you want?”
There was no time to deal with Mrs. Abernathy’s coldness or her instant suspicion. “Please, ma’am. I need Dr. Abernathy to come at once. Mrs. Olivia Garrett has taken sick and needs a doctor. I’m afraid it’s influenza.”
Mrs. Abernathy’s brow shot up. “Influenza? Olivia Garrett?” She turned and shouted back into the house, “Leonard! Come quick! Olivia Garrett’s got the influenza!”
Talia’s surprise that the wife of a doctor would shout like a fishwife was quickly overridden by relief as a grey-haired man appeared in the hall. He was dressed well for the frontier and had a patrician look about him. It set her at ease, even as she was eager to get moving.
“What do we have here?” Dr. Abernathy reached the door, wedging his wife out of the way. His expression shifted to an appreciative smile at the sight of Talia. “Well then. My doors are always open to pretty young women.”
There wasn’t time to feel awkward at the comment or the way Dr. Abernathy raked her with a glance from head to toe. “Dr. Abernathy, sir, I need you to come with me. Mrs. Garrett seems to have come down with influenza.”
Dr. Abernathy’s smile disappeared in an instant, replaced by a frown. He stepped out onto the porch, crossed in front of Talia, and started down the stairs.
“But what about the pharmacy bills?” his wife called after him.
“Later.” Dr. Abernathy waved a dismissive hand.
Talia opened her mouth, but didn’t have time to comment on the way Dr. Abernathy treated his wife. She had to leap into motion, following after him. He seemed to know where he was going, after all, and she didn’t.
“It’s not just Mrs. Garrett who’s been taken ill,” Talia said as she caught up to Dr. Abernathy’s side. “Mr. Montgomery, the peddler, is ill too.”
Dr. Abernathy turned to her with a frown. “That vagrant?” He snorted. “He’s probably the one who brought the disease into town.”
“Well, yes, most likely, seeing as there is an epidemic in Rawlins,” Talia agreed, surprised that her patience was stretched so thin again so quickly. “But he’s not a vagrant. He’s a traveling salesman. His wagon is parked near to the school, so once you’re finished examining Mrs. Garrett, you—”
“Going near a man like that would only put my other patients in jeopardy,” Dr. Abernathy cut her off. “Men like him can fend for himself.”
“But he’s sick,” Talia argued.
Dr. Abernathy didn’t respond.
To her surprise, they traveled only one street over before reaching the Garrett’s house. It was already in a state by the time they got there. Trey had arrived only a few minutes earlier and had carried Olivia into the front room, settling her on the sofa. A girl who looked to be about nine or ten knelt anxiously beside the sofa, smoothing a hand frantically across Olivia’s hair, while an older woman tried to calm a boy and a girl who looked to be about four or five.
Trey broke away from the side of the sofa as soon as Talia and Dr. Abernathy entered the room. “I sent Benedict to fetch Charlie at his office. They’ll be here soon. She’s awfully feverish, doc.”
Dr. Abernathy marched to the sofa, nudging the girl aside when he got there. Talia frowned, and the girl protested with a cry.
“It’s all right, Lenore. Come here and hug your brother and sister,” the older woman said, reaching out an arm to the girl.
Lenore flew across the room, burying her face against the woman’s breast.
“That’s Josephine Evans,” Trey whispered to Talia with a frown.
“Oh? I’ve heard of her.”
“And those are Charlie and Olivia’s kids, Lenore and the twins, Allen and Ellen.”
“I see.”
Trey let out a breath. “Why’d you bring him? I told you to fetch Dr. Meyers.”
“I didn’t realize it made a difference,” Talia defended herself. “I didn’t know where either lived, and the first person I came across in town recommended Dr. Abernathy.”
That was all they managed to say before Dr. Abernathy hummed and said, “It most certainly looks like influenza.”
Josephine gasped and held the children closer. Trey rubbed a worried hand over his face. Talia, on the other hand, jumped into action. She rushed to the sofa and knelt the way young Lenore had.
“We should get her in bed, make sure she drinks as many fluids as possible,” she said.
“I’ll send over a bottle of laudanum later,” Dr. Abernathy said, standing and backing up.
Talia nodded slowly. “Laudanum will help her sleep, but she needs willow bark tea and purple cone flower, if someone in town has any.”
Dr. Abernathy snorted. “Do you fancy yourself a doctor now too, young lady?”
Talia stood and turned to face him. “I am a nurse. I have worked in several prominent hospitals in Baltimore and Nashville.”
Dr. Abernathy’s brow shot up. “Well aren’t you a special little woman then.”
“Excuse me.” Trey stepped in. “I don’t think I like you speaking to my wife like that.”
“Your wife?” Dr. Abernathy blinked at him. A moment later, understanding dawned. “Oh, she’s one of those mail-order brides. I see, I see.” He turned back to Talia, stroking his chin with a calculating look. “Either way, if that filthy peddler brought influenza to town, then we might have an epidemic on our hands. And if we do, I’m going to need a trained nurse at my side to help get folks through it.”
Talia swallowed, her thoughts and feelings instantly split. On the one hand, she had the skills the people of Haskell would need and an obligation to use them. On the other, she liked Dr. Abernathy less and less the more she knew of him.
“I’ll do what I can,” she said in the end.
“Good girl.” Dr. Abernathy nodded. “You stay here and help Mrs. Garrett get settled in bed. I’m going to make a few inquiries around town to see if anyone else is sick.”
“Yes, sir.” Talia nodded. Dr. Abernathy reminded her of the doctors she’d served under, doctors who thought very highly of themselves and not so much of those they were meant to be curing.
“And I’m going to go find Dean Meyers to see what he has to say about this,” Trey added in a dark voice.
Dr. Abernathy snorted. “I can assure you, a second opinion won’t be necessary.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Trey muttered.
“I am,” Dr. Abernathy said. He turned to go before anyone else could argue with him.
Talia hardly cared. She knew where her attention should be focused, and that was on Olivia Garrett. “Can you carry her upstairs?” she asked Trey.
“Yeah.” Trey sighed and moved to scoop Olivia into his arms. “But as soon as she’s up there, I’m going to track down Dr. Meyers.”
Trey found Dean Meyers on the other side of town, at the Plover’s house.
“You can’t come in,” Jim Plover tried to tell him. “Henrietta’s come down with influenza, and the kids aren’t looking so good either.”
“It’s okay,” Trey tried to tell him. “Olivia Garrett’s got it too. I’ve just come from there.”
“Olivia has influenza?” Dean walked up behind where Jim blocked the door. Only then did Jim step aside so they could all talk.
“Looks like it,” Trey said. “At least that’s what Talia thinks.” The very idea of Talia and influenza together set off something dark and anxious in Trey’s gut.
Dean sighed. “I was at the Jamisons’ before I came here. Edna has all the sympt
oms. Graham Tremaine, and half of the Murphy family have them too.”
The pool of acid in Trey’s stomach grew, so much so that he pressed a hand to his gut before he could think about it. “You think it’s serious?” he asked Dean, sending a sideways look to Jim.
Jim looked as interested in the answer as Trey was.
“Influenza is always serious,” Dean replied, doing nothing to allay his fears. He turned to Jim. “I’ve done just about everything I can to make Hetty comfortable. She needs rest, fluids, and willow bark tea now.”
“That’s what Talia said,” Trey spoke his thought aloud. The other two men turned to him. “Talia, the wife I married yesterday, used to be a nurse back East.”
Dean’s brow inched up. “She might be helpful if this reaches epidemic proportions.” Before Trey could voice his objections to the idea, Dean went on with, “Hold on, I’ll go fetch my bag and come take a look at Olivia.”
The seconds seemed to tick by like hours as Trey waited on the porch. He combed his hands through his hair, rubbed his face, even paced across the porch and down to the road a couple of times. Nothing shook the tight, sour feeling in his stomach. ‘Epidemic’. That word struck the kind of fear into him that the word ‘War’ or ‘Indian Attack’ struck in others. It brought to mind smells of the sick room, sounds of people gasping for their last breaths, images of fresh, pine coffins lined up in the street. It whispered to him of the shock of finding himself suddenly alone in the world, of being carted off to relatives he barely knew, passed over, and dropped at the door of a third-rate orphanage. It conjured up memories of the darkest time in his life, and he’d seen a lot of dark since then.
“Are you all right?” Dean asked when he strode out onto the porch, shocking Trey out of his thoughts. “You aren’t coming down with it too, are you?”
Trey cleared his throat. “No. Not yet, at least.”
It was all he could say and all he wanted to say. They set off down the street and back around to the Garrett’s house, neither saying anything along the way. By the time they got there, the Garretts were in another kind of uproar. Charlie and Benedict were home.
“There has to be something we can do,” Charlie was all but shouting at Talia in the upstairs hallway. “We can’t just leave her there, helpless with a fever.”
“I can assure you, Mr. Garrett,” Talia tried to calm him. She reached out to touch his arm, but he flinched away. “Mrs. Garrett is receiving the best care we can give her. Your daughter, Lenore, has gone to the store on my orders to fetch some willow bark, but beyond that—” She stopped when she saw Trey and Dean walking up the stairs.
Charlie saw them too. He immediately broke away from Talia and met them halfway up the staircase. “Dean, I’m so glad you’re here. There has to be something you can do.”
“Calm down, Charlie.” Dean clapped a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “I have it on good authority that Mrs. Knighton is a nurse, and that she’s giving out the right advice.”
“Mrs. Knighton?” Charlie glanced from Dean to Talia, then over his shoulder to Trey. His expression betrayed that he had suddenly made the connection, but his focus was instantly elsewhere. “It’s not that I don’t trust a nurse, but there has to be something you can do.”
“Let’s find out,” Dean said.
At the top of the stairs, Dean and Charlie continued on to the bedroom at the end of the hall, while Trey and Talia stayed near the top of the stairs.
“How is she?” Trey asked.
Talia shrugged. “No different than she was when you left to fetch Dr. Meyers.” She paused. “I’m sorry I went to the wrong doctor first.”
Trey let out an impatient breath, more for the fact that his panic had pushed her into thinking she’d made a wrong decision than because he was upset. “It’s all right. Everything worked out as well as it could.”
Talia’s expression softened. “Influenza can be deadly, but Mrs. Garrett is still relatively young and strong.”
“She’s very strong.” Trey nodded in confirmation. He rubbed a hand over his face. “We should be getting home now.”
“We should,” Talia agreed.
They started down the stairs together. Josephine was still there, reading a book to the children in the parlor. She glanced up and nodded as Trey and Talia left. Afternoon was stretching into evening by the time they made it out into the street. It may have just been Trey’s imagination, but the whole town seemed subdued somehow, waiting for more people to fall sick, for people to start dying. Haskell hadn’t had a major epidemic since he’d moved there. Trey wasn’t sure he was ready for it.
“I washed off Mrs. Garrett’s brooch and left it on her bureau.”
“What?” Trey blinked his way out of his encroaching thoughts.
“The brooch,” Talia repeated. She smiled weakly. “I’m sure it will be a nice surprise for her to find once she’s feeling better.”
“Oh, yeah.” He was having a hard time concentrating on her words, a hard time getting his thoughts to settle down. All he could think about was what might happen.
“I’m not sure I care much for Dr. Abernathy,” she went on.
“No,” he said, not sure it was the right answer.
“I do think I’ll offer him my help tomorrow,” Talia went on as they rounded the bottom of Main Street and crossed to the jail. “I have a feeling he’ll need it.”
At last, her words clicked in his mind. “No,” he said as they mounted the step onto the boardwalk in front of the jail. He turned to her before they reached the door. “No, I won’t have you putting yourself in danger by being around sick people.”
Talia blinked so hard that to Trey it looked like she flinched. Her mouth dropped open, and a few beats later she said, “I am a nurse, Trey. I have put myself in danger around sick people for years now. It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
“Yeah? Well, it’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”
He instantly knew his words were wrong, even if the logic behind them felt right to him. Without waiting for her to protest more, he yanked open the jail door and stomped inside. Talia followed him, but he didn’t turn to look at her until he got to the top of the stairs. Even then, she was faster on the draw than he was and spoke first.
“I may be your wife now, Trey, but you barely know me. I am not comfortable with having someone who doesn’t know me, doesn’t know how hard I’ve worked and how much I’ve trained, telling me that I can’t do the one thing that I feel in my heart I must do.”
Trey drew himself up to his full height and opened his mouth to lecture her. Only, nothing came out. How could it? She was right. But that didn’t stop the dusty, old memories of loss and fear and hopelessness that assailed him. He’d known getting married was a bad idea. Why’d he ever let Howard talk him into it?
After too much silence, he blew out a breath, letting his posture deflate with it. “So you refuse to stay home for the next few days, where it’s safe and where you can stay away from the influenza.”
“I do refuse.” She planted her hands on her hips.
“And you’re still going to go out there and tend to sick people, even if I tell you I don’t want you to.”
“It’s not fair of you to make a demand like that,” she fired back. “I have valuable skills, and I’m proud to be able to use them. I may have arrived in Haskell in the nick of time.”
“You arrived with the man who brought the disease,” Trey reminded her.
She shook her head. “People here must have been exposed before Mr. Montgomery came into town. It usually takes a few days for the disease to introduce itself and spread.”
Trey’s brow went up. That was more than he knew. It didn’t make him feel better, though. “Nothing I could say would stop you?”
She hesitated, her lips twitching and her sharp, green eyes filling with compassion. “No, Trey,” she said in a quiet voice. “I’m sorry. I have a great deal of respect for you. I can see that you are a good, gallant man. In time, I
know I could…I know that we will be very happy together. But I cannot deny who I am. I am a nurse. People need me. Please understand that.”
“I understand,” he said, crossing his arms. He crossed them to stop the painful, hollow feeling that was spreading through his chest. He couldn’t bear to feel that kind of pain, that kind of loss again. Just because he was a man now when he’d been a boy back then didn’t mean losing people you cared about was any easier. The only way to stop the hurt from spreading was not to care in the first place. “I understand that you’re going to do whatever you want to do, whether I approve or not.”
She let out a disappointed breath. That only made the ache in his gut—in his whole body—burn harder. They’d only been married a day, and already he was letting her down. Well, maybe it was best for her too if they just didn’t get attached.
“Excuse me,” he said, marching past her and back to the stairs. “I left my bucket of lunch at the Garrett’s house, and I’d better go back and get it.”
“Trey, I—”
He marched away from her before the tender tone of her voice could penetrate the wall he was building around his heart. It would be best for everyone if he got that wall in place as quickly as possible.
Chapter 6
In all her years of nursing and trying to find her way in the world, the one lesson that had been driven home to Talia time and again was that you couldn’t talk sense to a man who was determined to see things only his own way. She slept in the same bed with Trey that night, fixed breakfast for him in the morning, and tidied up his apartment as he washed and dressed for the day, but they didn’t exchange a word. Trey barely looked at her.
Until, just as he was about to head down the stairs and off to work, he said, “And nothing I can say will convince you to stay home, where it’s safe?” as if they had been discussing the matter constantly since their argument the night before.
Talia clasped her hands in front of her and shook her head. “No, Trey. I have to do what I think is right.”
