Finding Your Heart

by McBride, Bess

  “Peters, Leigh Peters.” Leigh remained standing.

  Mrs. Jackson brought the tea tray into the parlor and set it on an oval wooden coffee table in front of the sofa.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Jackson,” Dr. Cook said. “Will you sit, Miss Peters?”

  Before Leigh could answer, Mrs. Jackson spoke.

  “Doctor, I have some cookies baking in the oven that I need to see to. Will you need me any further?”

  Dr. Cook hesitated, then looked at Leigh.

  “Do you feel the need for a chaperone, Miss Peters? We will remain in full view here in the parlor.”

  “No, I’m fine,” Leigh finally replied.

  Mrs. Jackson threw the doctor an indecipherable look before smiling sympathetically at Leigh. The woman left the room, and Dr. Cook looked down at the tray on the table.

  “Shall we drink our tea standing?” He looked up at her with a wry smile.

  Leigh’s lips curved into a sheepish grin in response. “I’m sorry,” she said, crossing the room to take a seat on the far end of the sofa. She perched on the edge, still wary about the doctor’s plans for her, unsure if he was about to attack her with a sedating needle when she let down her guard.

  “I know I seem a bit paranoid, but I should probably explain that I’ve had a lifelong fear of all things medical, including doctors.”

  Dr. Cook sat down on the sofa and poured out the tea, handing her a cup. She noted that his eyes were a lovely shade of azure blue.

  “Did you have a terrible medical experience as a child?”

  Leigh shook her head.

  “No, but my mother died when I was young from a long, painful battle with cancer, and I’m pretty sure that triggered my phobia. All the treatments and hospital stays, and still she died.”

  Leigh swallowed hard against the knot in her throat.

  “I am so very sorry,” Dr. Cook said in a quiet voice. “How old were you when she fell ill?”

  “Eight,” Leigh said. “My parents tried to shield me from her illness, but everyone in the neighborhood knew her cancer was terminal. She couldn’t attend school functions, couldn’t do the things that other mothers did for their children. My father tried to fill in as both parents, but he had to work. I ended up taking care of my mother in the evenings and on weekends for the last year of her life.” Leigh swallowed again. “Don’t think I feel sorry for myself. I feel sorry for my mother. She was the one who suffered through all the indignities of cancer, of the treatment for it.”

  “Indeed,” he said. “Did you have no other brothers or sisters?”

  “No, I’m an only child. My father died fairly early as well, when I was about nineteen. So I’m on my own!” Leigh, knowing how maudlin she sounded, tried to end on a bright note.

  “A pity,” the doctor said, his sympathetic expression threatening to send Leigh into a bout of tears. “Where are you from?”

  “Orting.”

  “Orting. That is not far at all.”

  “It seems a long way off right now,” she mumbled.

  “Yes, I can imagine it does.”

  His eyes dropped to her legs, encased in blue jeans, and she felt oddly self-conscious, though why, she couldn’t say.

  “May I ask why you were hiding beside the house when I arrived?”

  Leigh paused to think about her next words. “Look, I’ll be frank,” she finally said. “I think I might be dreaming.” She paused. “Although it’s very bizarre that I would incorporate a doctor and his office into my dream.”

  “Dreaming?” Dr. Cook repeated. “I can assure you that you are not in a dream, Miss Peters. What makes you think that?”

  Leigh stalled by sipping her tea. The doctor’s charming eyes had hardened to a sharp blue, and she thought she’d better be more careful with her words. Doctors had immeasurable power. He could quite easily certify her as insane and have her committed.

  Committed? What was she thinking? No doctor could have her committed for thinking she was dreaming. The thought led her to one that had been nagging at her. She didn’t think she was in the “modern era” any longer. Everything about the house, the doctor, his housekeeper, even his examining room, suggested she was no longer in the twenty-first century.

  “No reason,” she said, pressing her lips together.

  Dr. Cook watched her, and she flashed him a lopsided grin.

  “Is it your plan to return to Orting tonight? If so, how? Or are you staying in Kaskade tonight?”

  Leigh thought fast. “Oh, I’ll head back to Orting tonight. No need to worry about me.”

  “How will you return? The last train has gone. No conveyances run at this hour.”

  “Conveyances?” Leigh repeated, again stalling. “Yes, there’s that.”

  “There is what?”

  “Are you sure?” she asked. “I just saw a guy on a wagon go by. Maybe I can get him to drive me down to Orting.”

  “That was Jack. He dropped me off from my visit to the logging camp up near Electron. He was exhausted after a long day and heading home to sleep.”

  “Oh! Well, in that case...” Leigh let the words dangle. She drank the last of her tea and rose. “I’d better get going.”

  Dr. Cook stood as well.

  “Yes, but, Miss Peters, where are you going?”

  “Back to Orting.”

  “I do not wish to seem obtuse, but you have yet to explain your plan to travel there.”

  “Not to worry,” Leigh said. She walked toward the parlor door, hoping he wasn’t going to tackle her. “Thank you so very much. I’m all set!”

  Dr. Cook moved after her, and Leigh picked up her pace, reaching the front door in short order. She twisted the knob and pulled the heavy thing open.

  “Miss Peters!” Dr. Cook protested. “Wait!”

  Leigh heard him but ran out the door, down the steps and around the corner of the house into the darkness.

  “Miss Peters!” called the doctor from the front of the house.

  Leigh reached out to touch the foundation, following it as she scurried around to the back of the building. A scan of the sky showed no moon, and she worried about her footing. She bumped into a large concrete structure and glanced up to see a door at the top of some concrete stairs. Light showed through a window at the top of the door, and Leigh thought she recognized pale-green walls.

  The kitchen. At that moment, the door swung open, and she dropped to her knees in the crevice between the stairs and the building.

  “Miss Peters!” Dr. Cook called, albeit in a whisper. “Are you out here?”

  Panting from stress, Leigh pressed a hand over her nose and mouth and buried her face in her lap. She waited, expecting the doctor to discover her at any minute.

  Chapter Two

  Moments passed, and then Leigh heard the kitchen door shut. She waited for another full minute, and when she didn’t feel the doctor’s hand touch her shoulder, she looked up. The back steps were empty. No one stood in front of her.

  Leigh relaxed the tension in her jaw and loosened the arm clamped around her bent legs. Her spine ached as she hunched. She had no idea what to do or where to go, certainly not in the darkness. She pressed her head back against the foundation and looked up at the black sky.

  A single raindrop hit her face, then another. Leigh wasn’t surprised. It rained all the time in Western Washington. Of course it would rain when she was stuck in some sort of time-warping dream with nowhere to go. The rain began in earnest, and Leigh shielded her face and weighed her options.

  She could give in, crawl up the stairs and knock on the kitchen door. She could try to find some sort of shelter in the dark, or she could just hunker in place. Rain in Washington could be a gentle drizzle or a brutal torrent. She wouldn’t die from either, but one might be more uncomfortable than the other. Thankfully, the temperature felt like summer, so she wasn’t particularly cold. Just wet.

  Or she could try to wake herself up, if she was dreaming. She gave herself a slight tap on her cheek.
Nothing. She was still hunkered down on wet grass next to a building in the rain. A pinch on her arm did nothing to change her situation.

  The door above opened again, and Leigh saw the doctor’s face highlighted in the kitchen light before she buried her head in her lap. He didn’t call out, and she held her breath until she heard the door close again.

  Dr. Jeremiah Cook seemed like a very persistent man, or a conscientious one. She had seen the concern on his face for a confused woman who seemed to have lost her way. His blue eyes had softened as she spoke about her mother. Leigh was tempted to tap on the door and let his warm gaze nurture her, but she steeled herself. She was fine, she didn’t need a doctor, and she wasn’t going to depend on one. When first light came, she would creepy crawl away from the house and make her way up the hill to the highway, find her car and drive away from wherever she was. Or she would wake up. Either way was fine with her.

  Leigh closed her eyes, pressed her face against her bent knees and wrapped her arms over her head to try to shut out some of the rain. Time passed, and she rocked herself back and forth, wondering what Sam would have thought of her situation. She wished for the millionth time that he could hold her once again, that she could talk to him. They would have laughed at the absurdity of the entire thing.

  Her handsome twenty-eight year-old husband, the love of her life, had possessed the best sense of humor. They had met in junior high school and had been inseparable from the day they got their seat assignments in math. Sam had been the one to get her through statistics, and she had helped him through literature.

  Tall and blond, his handsome Nordic looks had dazzled her. A brunette like her father, Leigh had been fascinated by Sam’s wavy golden hair and laughing blue eyes.

  His car had skidded on black ice on his way home from work one night in an unexpected late-spring ice storm, and just like that, her husband, her playmate, her best friend was gone. Sam hadn’t suffered a slow and painful death like her mother, and for that Leigh had been grateful.

  As rain pelted her head and back, Leigh wished Sam would come, throw his jacket around her shoulders and tell her to stop pouting and come inside. As if she had willed Sam alive, a blanket covered her shoulders and gentle hands lifted her to her feet.

  “I hoped you would come inside willingly, Miss Peters, but you seem to be a stubborn sort of young woman. I must insist. I can no longer watch you huddle down here any longer.”

  Leigh looked into Dr. Cook’s determined face. Her own cheeks heated as she realized he had known she’d hid behind the house the entire time. She allowed him to wrap his arm around her and lead her up the stairs. Pulling open the door, Dr. Cook guided her inside, where Mrs. Jackson rushed toward her, cooing.

  “Oh, my dear, whatever were you thinking?” she asked. “You are soaked to the bone. Come sit down in front of the stove and have a cup of hot tea.”

  Mrs. Jackson pulled Leigh toward one of four wooden chairs encircling a quaint oval kitchen table. She turned it to face an ornate and large antique iron and nickel-plated stove, although the appliance shone as if it was brand new. A basket of wood lay beside it, and the housekeeper threw a few logs inside to fuel the heat. A kettle on the range whistled next to a large pot of something steaming.

  “There! Just in time,” Mrs. Jackson said. “I set the kettle on when Dr. Cook finally decided he was finished checking on you and would haul you inside if need be.”

  Leigh, feeling waterlogged, looked over her shoulder at Dr. Cook, who had shrugged out of his wet jacket and hung it on a hook by the back door. He wiped his feet on a mat and grinned at the housekeeper.

  Leigh looked down at her muddy athletic shoes. She had left prints on the black-and-white ceramic tiles of the kitchen floor.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t wipe my feet.”

  “I didn’t let you wipe your feet,” Mrs. Jackson said, pouring out hot water into three cups with tea bags. “The floor will clean.”

  “I really don’t want to be a bother,” Leigh began.

  “I am more bothered by the sight of you huddled outside in the rain, Miss Peters,” Dr. Cook said. He pulled out a chair at the table and sat down while Mrs. Jackson set saucers and the cups of tea down on the table.

  “Leigh, please.”

  “Of course,” the doctor said. “Then you must call me Jeremiah.”

  Leigh picked up her tea and sipped on it, lulled by the warmth of the fire and the weight of the blanket.

  “I had some hot soup set by for the doctor’s dinner, but he wouldn’t eat while you languished outside,” Mrs. Jackson said, pulling blue-and-white ceramic bowls out of a glass-fronted cabinet.

  “I’m so sorry,” Leigh said again, looking at Jeremiah out of the corner of her eye.

  He propped his elbows on the table and smiled. “Mrs. Jackson exaggerates. Of course I would have eaten.”

  Mrs. Jackson ladled soup into the bowls and set two of them on the table along with a plate of homemade sliced bread.

  “I will just go see to the young lady’s room, Doctor,” Mrs. Jackson said.

  “No, wait!” Leigh said hastily. “I can’t stay here.”

  Mrs. Jackson, on the point of leaving the kitchen, hesitated, looking at Jeremiah.

  “Leigh, it is quite evident that you have no place to go tonight and no way to get there, or you would not have huddled outside my back door in the rain. Stay the night. Mrs. Jackson will act as chaperone. In the morning, we can talk about what we can do to help you.”

  Both the doctor and Mrs. Jackson watched her, waiting to hear her decision. Leigh relented, if only to keep from being the center of attention.

  “Okay, thank you.”

  Mrs. Jackson nodded and left the room. To Leigh’s relief, Jeremiah applied himself to his soup as if everything was perfectly normal. Maybe everything was normal in his world. Maybe he dragged in strays all the time and fed them soup.

  He offered her the plate of bread, and she took a slice.

  “Mrs. Jackson does make the loveliest tomato soup, in my opinion. How do you like it?” Jeremiah asked.

  Leigh, swallowing the first delicious spoonful, nodded.

  “It’s wonderful! So thick!”

  “I am not certain, but I believe she thickens it with chopped carrots.”

  “I’m no expert at cooking, so I couldn’t say, but this is the best tomato soup I’ve ever had.”

  “I am certain Mrs. Jackson will be pleased to hear that. She has only me to cook for, and I know she wishes she had a houseful.”

  “Do you live here alone?” Leigh asked. “It’s such a big house.”

  Jeremiah nodded. “I do. My mother died when I was young, as well...in childbirth actually. Sadly, my sister did not survive. My father, also a doctor, never remarried, and Mrs. Jackson came in to take care of the house—and me—when I was young. My father passed away about five years ago.”

  “So you’re not married,” Leigh stated, though she was sure Jeremiah’s earlier response had made that obvious.

  “No, I am not. And you? Forgive me. I have called you Miss Peters, but I did not ask. I do not see a wedding ring.”

  “It’s Mrs. Peters actually, but...” Leigh paused and swallowed. She still longed to talk to Sam about what was happening to her, whatever that was, and his absence seemed particularly painful at that moment.

  “You are married?” Jeremiah raised surprised eyebrows. “But where is your husband? He must be worried! I am surprised to hear that you are married.”

  Leigh shook her head and looked down at her soup. She wasn’t sure why he should be surprised that she had been married.

  “He’s...uh...he passed away last year.”

  A few seconds passed before Jeremiah responded. “Please accept my condolences.”

  Leigh nodded. “Thank you. A car accident.”

  “Car?” Jeremiah repeated. “Ah! Automobile, yes.”

  “On black ice. We had that bad ice storm last year at the end of March?” She fin
ally looked up at the doctor, whose eyes expressed such sympathy that Leigh had to swallow again to keep from crying.

  “I do not remember such a storm last year, but no matter. I am sorry for your loss. You have suffered much loss, I think. Do you have children? That will be a problem.”

  Leigh shook her head. “No. We wanted to wait to have children until we turned thirty, but...” She pressed her lips together. “I turned thirty this year. Sam would have too if he had lived.”

  Jeremiah tsked but said nothing more. Leigh drew in a deep breath and swallowed a spoonful of soup. She glanced up at the handsome doctor.

  “Why haven’t you married?” she asked boldly.

  “Me?” he asked, his cheeks bronzing. “Unlike you, I have not been so fortunate to find my life’s companion. Kaskade is a very small town.”

  Leigh nodded. “But Tacoma is nearby. I’m sure there are plenty of women there.”

  “Tacoma is a little over an hour away by train. My duties here keep me quite busy.”

  “There’s no train running from Kaskade to Tacoma,” Leigh said. “The only trains I’m aware of run from Tacoma to Seattle, Portland or east.”

  “Ah! But there is. One runs daily from Tacoma to Ashford. And then of course there are logging trains.”

  “Noooo,” Leigh said. “I don’t think so. Really?”

  “Really,” he confirmed with a smile that seemed somewhat amused while at the same time sympathetic. “There is a depot in Orting.”

  “An old depot. I’m sure it hasn’t been used in years.”

  “No, it is an operational depot.”

  Leigh frowned.

  “Maybe I’m wrong. I live up on a hill and don’t spend much time in town. Maybe there’s some sort of train that I’m not aware of.”

  “There is.” Again, that half-amused, half-sympathetic smile appeared on his face.

  Confused by the expression, Leigh busied herself sipping her soup. Jeremiah finished before she did and pushed his bowl away.

  “I suppose I do not need to ask this, but how did you travel to Kaskade? I imagine you did not come by wagon, did you?”

  Leigh gave up, literally and figuratively. She set her spoon down and faced the inquisitive doctor.