The Doctor's Wife Read online

  “I’ll bring it tomorrow.”

  “I can set up an account and you can pay whenever you like,” he offered.

  She faced him with her chin raised. “I will pay you tomorrow.”

  “That’ll be fine, Miss…” His voice trailed away, waiting for her to supply the rest.

  “Parrish,” she said, turning her gaze away and using the name she’d fabricated to obtain a job. “Elianna Parrish.”

  “Miss Parrish,” he said. “Clive left your bag here. I’ll carry it to the dormitory. Or I can fetch my buggy if you don’t think you can walk.”

  “I can walk. Of course I can walk.” She got off the bed, but her legs were rubbery, and the motion set her arm to aching something fierce.

  He must have seen the pain reflected in her face.

  “I’ll leave this with you.” He took a tiny bottle of white powder from a cabinet and slipped it into the pocket of his neatly pressed shirt, drawing Ellie’s attention to the way the fine ivory fabric encased a broad chest. She looked away quickly, surprised with herself for noticing. “It’ll help you sleep tonight. Take only one teaspoonful in a glass of water every six hours.”

  He picked up her shabby bag and his stylish hat and held open the door.

  Ellie walked out ahead of him, gripped the wooden banister with her right hand and prided herself on limping down all the stairs without groaning aloud. Her hip hurt like the very devil, too.

  The young Dr. Chaney strolled beside her, tall and lean, his boot heels thudding on the creaky boards. He greeted an occasional passerby with a courteous lift of his hat. In the fading sunlight, she sneaked a sideways glance at his profile, his warm brown hair shot with streaks of gold. Once, when he turned his face down to hers, she had a good square look into his dark-lashed brown eyes.

  Finding herself in the company of a respectable and handsome man was disconcerting. If he knew who she was and where she’d come from, he wouldn’t risk being seen with her on the street. But then no one in Newton knew who she was, and she intended to keep it that way.

  She pretended, for the length of time it took them to get to the hotel, that she was a young woman just like any other young woman in Kansas, and that this handsome man with the gentle caring manner and warm eyes was a friend.

  She wondered what it would be like to have a friend like Dr. Chaney. Someone who’d been to college and traveled and aspired to an important profession. Someone who was smart and compassionate and smiled easily. They reached the door of the dormitory and, tight-throated, Ellie dismissed the lofty thoughts. “Thank you, Dr. Chaney. I’ll bring your payment tomorrow after I go to the bank.”

  “Can I carry this bag in for you?”

  “Only to the courting room. No men are allowed on the girls’ floor.”

  “Okay.”

  She opened the door, and he followed her down the corridor and into the room where several young women sat playing board games and entertaining guests. A few of the girls glanced up and acknowledged Ellie with wide eyes.

  “What happened to your arm?” asked her roommate, Goldie Krenshaw, quickly crossing to Ellie.

  The interesting cast and the handsome doctor were too much of a distraction for the others, too, and they crowded around. Ellie made quick work of the story of her misfortune, and the girls sympathized.

  Diplomatically, Dr. Chaney excused himself from the bevy of chattering females. Ellie watched him leave and experienced a strange sensation akin to loss and anticipation. No one except Mrs. Conner, a schoolteacher in Florence, had ever been so kind to her, so…respectful.

  Of the few Florence citizens who knew her, half looked down their noses and whispered about her. The other half pitied her. She’d rather bear scorn than pity any day.

  Surprised murmurs broke out among the females, and Ellie turned to find the doctor had returned. An odd little catch tugged in her chest.

  “I almost forgot.” He took her hand and pressed the bottle of medicine into her palm.

  Ellie jerked back her tingling hand. “Thank you.”

  He frowned. “Every six hours.”

  “I remember.”

  “Goodbye, then.”

  “Bye.”

  The looks on the other girls’ faces were far from pitying.

  She was accepted here. She’d worked her way up from the pantry to the dining hall, just as they had. The Arcade hired men and women from all over. A few of her coworkers were locals, but most were from other parts of the country. Ellie had given a false name and asked a gentleman in Florence who’d known her mother to falsify references. Since she knew infinitely more about the man’s leisure activities than did his wife and neighbors, he’d complied.

  Goldie carried Ellie’s bag to their room and helped her change out of her ruined traveling suit and into a flannel gown. Goldie had come from Indiana, and like many of the girls, sent much of her pay home to her family. Her fondest wish, also like most of the girls, was to meet and marry a Western man.

  The two got along well because both stayed to themselves. Until Goldie became especially homesick, and then Ellie would cheer her up by popping corn and setting up the cribbage board.

  This night, Goldie returned to the courting room, and though it wasn’t yet bedtime, Ellie took a spoonful of Dr. Chaney’s bitter-tasting medicine and climbed between the covers. Her trip and her accident had combined to leave her exhausted.

  She turned from her side to her back and adjusted her arm in several positions until the medicine started to work and the pain turned to a dull ache. As she always did to get to sleep, she gave her mind over to thoughts of Benjamin and Flynn, and imagined what life would be like when they were all together. She’d do whatever it took to make a home and a family for them. They’d all been without love and security far too long. Ellie meant to change that. The boys deserved it. She deserved it.

  She’d taken care of her brothers her whole life—diapered them as babies, cut their hair and kissed their skinned knees. She’d grown a small tobacco patch and sold cigars to the men who patronized the saloons in order to buy them food and shoes. Her brothers were as much a part of her as the grieving heart that ached in her chest at every thought of their being apart from her.

  Benjamin had turned fifteen last winter—soon he’d be a man. The first thing she’d noticed when they met her at the station in Florence had been the new shirt and trousers she’d saved to buy him. Planning for the boys and providing for them eased her loneliness while they were separated.

  After the state workers had discovered the three of them living in an old shack and condemned it, forcing the boys to go live with the Heaths, Benjamin at fourteen had become aloof.

  Ellie never had much of an opportunity to talk to him alone. Perhaps he’d felt as helpless as she had, but he was even younger and more helpless to do anything than she to protect Flynn.

  Flynn was nine, good with animals, handsome and quick to laugh…when there was something to laugh about.

  Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes, slid down her temples and grew cold in her hair. Flynn had always pretended hurts so he’d get hugs and kisses, then he’d break into a grin and she’d let him think she’d been fooled. This morning he’d been too self-conscious in front of the Heaths to kiss or hug her when she left. She’d climbed aboard the train with a space as big and hollow as the Santa Fe railroad’s roundhouse gaping in her heart.

  Getting drowsy, Ellie took out every sweet memory she’d saved and gave them to herself now as a gift. She had to keep her memories fresh. Had to keep them vivid. There were too many ugly ones crowding in from the bleak outskirts to let the good images fade or diminish.

  Ugly memories. Shameful memories. Pictures so dark and black and oppressive they could only surface at night in her sleep, when she couldn’t consciously keep them at bay.

  Secrets nobody but Ellie knew.

  And wished to God she didn’t.

  “How’s that fine son of yours, Caleb?”

  “Nate’s jus
t fine, thank you.”

  “It’s so unfortunate that your wife died so young. Such a pretty young thing, she was. And it’s so sad that the boy will grow up without a mother.”

  Caleb listened to Mabel Connely’s heart for the third time in as many days, and ignored the depressing thoughts she continually rattled on about. From her two-story house on Broadway and Main and the front window of Miss Libby’s Tea Room, she made it her business to know the comings and goings of everyone in Newton. She never wasted a minute in sharing the latest bits of gossip or admonishing the citizens from her boundless perspective.

  He didn’t need anyone to remind him of his situation, or that of his son, unless they had a solution. Caleb had been trying to figure out a plan for taking care of Nate for weeks.

  Mabel smelled of mothballs and the garlic she’d obviously eaten for lunch; an evil combination. “Your heart sounds just fine to me, Mrs. Connely.”

  “Well, it’s not, I tell you. It beats like a triphammer when I come in from hanging laundry. I have to sit on the back steps and rest in the shade. Why, your stairs out there were nearly enough to put me in my grave.” She plucked a rumpled damp hankie from the sash girding her enormous waist, and waved it beneath her bulldog chin, stirring the humid air with mothball scent. “Any doctor worth his salt would have an office on the ground floor.”

  Caleb leaned back against a wooden cabinet, folded his arms across his chest and leveled his best wiser-than-his-years look on her. He had a sneaking suspicion that she’d started coming to him because she wasn’t hearing what she wanted from old Doc Thornton. She was one of only a dozen patients who’d been visiting him regularly, and he’d probably lose her business once he spoke his mind.

  “I’m sure it seems that strenuous activity is putting strain on your heart,” he said.

  “Land sakes, yes!” she hastened to agree. “I told Mr. Connely yesterday that I was going to need some help with housework.”

  “I don’t think help with housework is the solution.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “It’s not the work that’s straining your heart, it’s the extra pounds you’re carrying around.”

  “Why, I never!” She fanned the hankie frantically.

  “You’re going to have to push away from the table a little sooner and take off that weight. Do some walking. Cut out Joe Hintz’s custard pies.”

  Mabel Connely blustered, her face turning red and her posture indignant. “My mother was a large woman, Caleb Chaney.” She scolded him as though he were ten again and she’d caught him playing a Halloween prank. “We’re big-boned people.”

  She hefted herself down from the examination table.

  “Didn’t your mother die young, Mrs. Connely?” he asked.

  “Only forty-nine.” She touched the hankie to her quivering lips. “God rest her soul.”

  “All the more reason for you to take care right now and do something about your situation before it’s too late.”

  “Why, that’s preposterous!”

  “Not at all. A lot of health factors are passed down from our parents. Ending up overweight or with a weak heart is a chance like blue eyes or big ears.”

  She snatched up her reticule and marched to the door. “Your impertinence is unbecoming, young man. Good day.”

  “Come back if you’d like to discuss a menu.”

  “Humph!”

  She yanked open the door and Elianna Parrish, who’d been about to enter, nearly flew into the room, her good hand riveted to the doorknob. She released it quickly and caught her balance, turning to watch Mabel huff and puff down the steps.

  Turning back, she cast enormous violet eyes his way, a curious expression lighting them from within. There were mysteries in those haunting eyes, a softness and a sadness that made him want to offer protection and comfort.

  “A disgruntled patient,” he explained.

  “Oh.” She closed the door and stood just inside. The plain brown skirt, which she wore with a crisply pressed high-collared blouse neatly tucked in, showed off her tiny waist and girlish figure. He hadn’t noticed yesterday, because she’d been wearing a jacket. And he’d concentrated on looking at her as a patient.

  Today it was more difficult to see her as only a patient. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe because he’d walked her home and seen where she lived. Maybe because she’d flitted through his dreams last night. Maybe because his last caller had been Mabel Connely.

  “How’s the arm today, Miss Parrish?”

  “My fingers are black and blue,” she said, stepping forward and showing him.

  The faint scents of soap and clean hair drifted to his nostrils. She wore no artificial floral or powdery smells, but her skin and clothing exuded their own pleasant feminine scent. He checked a sudden urge to place an arm around her shoulders and offer his strength. “Can you wiggle them?”

  She demonstrated.

  He touched her darkened knuckles gently, but she drew the hand away quickly. When he looked up, tears shone in her luminous eyes, and immediately regret pierced him. “Did I hurt you?”

  She turned her face aside and shook her head. With her right hand, she reached into her pocket and withdrew a silver coin. “Your dollar.”

  Caleb accepted the payment she placed in his palm without touching him. “I’ll get you a receipt.” He scribbled the amount on the pad on the counter, dropped the coin into a drawer and handed her the paper.

  “Thank you. And thank you for tending my arm.”

  “You’re welcome. Did the medicine help?”

  She nodded.

  She avoided his eyes for several seconds. He asked, “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

  Her mouth pressed into a firm line. She looked up, but her gaze rested on his tie, then meandered past his head to a chart on the wall. “Mr. Webb—the hotel manager—won’t let me work until the cast is off and I can carry trays.”

  “I think that’s wise,” Caleb said. “You could reinjure yourself trying to do too much.”

  “He’s only worried I’ll get in the way and be a nuisance. He won’t even let me help in the kitchen or pantry.”

  “I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what more to say.

  She took an unconscious step toward the table where he did his bookwork, and her fingers stroked the back of his wooden chair. The sight started an ache deep inside him. “I can stay two weeks without paying for my room and meals. After that I’ll have to pay, or eat and sleep somewhere else.”

  “What about family?”

  She angled her chin over her shoulder uncertainly.

  “You said last night you had no parents, but isn’t there anyone who can help?”

  She shook her head and drew her hand away from the chair.

  The silver dollar in the drawer weighed on Caleb’s conscience. After her reaction to his mention of credit yesterday, he knew better than to offer to give it back to her. “I know most of the families in Newton and on the surrounding ranches,” he said. “Maybe we can find someone to take you in for a few weeks.”

  “Do you think I can take the cast off sooner?”

  “No.” His reply was firm. “Especially not with the type of job you do. That bone needs time to knit firmly.”

  She nodded halfheartedly, as though she’d known what his reply would be, but had needed to ask anyway. For the first time, her wide violet eyes rose directly to his, and their intensity and vulnerability surprised him. Her pride held her so straight and taut, he imagined she’d snap in a stiff wind. “I won’t be a charity case. If you can find someone for me to stay with, I’ll work for them. I can do anything I’m shown how.”

  “I’m sure you can.”

  “I’m strong, and this arm will be better soon. I heal fast. I never get sick.”

  “You don’t have to sell me, Miss Parrish.”

  A rose-tinged blush lent her ivory skin becoming color. “No. Of course not.”

  He wanted to turn away from the instinctive desire to ease whatever pa
in he read in her eyes, but he couldn’t. “I’ll start inquiring today.”

  She nodded and moved toward the door. “Thank you, Dr. Chaney.”

  A clatter of boots pounded up the stairs and Ellie moved back out of the way just before the door flew open and a young man burst into the office. “Doc! There’s a fire out at the Bowman place! Come on!”

  Chapter Two

  Caleb checked his medical bag for salves and bandages, grabbed his hat from its hook and thundered out the door and down the stairs behind the fellow who had a wagon waiting on the street.

  Robert Bowman had died of influenza last winter. Joanna Bowman had stayed on at the farm alone, and Caleb felt an affinity with her now, since they’d both lost their mates. Only a few weeks ago, Caleb had delivered her stillborn baby boy. How much more hardship could the woman bear?

  Townsfolk were saying she’d either have to find herself a man to take over the farm or get work in town. Caleb had taken her a few supplies on his last visit.

  He didn’t realize until they were almost to the Bowman property that he hadn’t excused himself from the Parrish girl before running out of his office. He hoped she’d forgive his lack of manners.

  Ghostly wisps of gray smoke curled into the sky, pointing out what little remained of the charred house. The dry air carried the acrid stench of soot and ash. Held together with aged wood and dry newspaper, the structure must have gone up like kindling.

  The few neighbors who had seen the smoke and come to help stood around a frighteningly limp form on the ground. Alarm knocked along Caleb’s spine. He jumped down from the wagon before it rolled to a stop and bolted toward the gathering. The men and woman parted to give him room.

  Joanna lay unconscious on a soot-covered blanket, her fair lashes and eyebrows singed. Her face and hands were bright red and blistered, and her clothing had been singed.

  Caleb ticked through the possibilities in his mind. She wasn’t burned that badly, but the condition of her lungs could be fatal. He bent to listen and was grateful to hear her heart beating faintly. “Who got here first?” he asked.