by Lynda J. Cox
Her head bent to the washbasin, and she stilled. The change in the room affected even Ethan. He placed the spoon on the table and looked over at her. Her shoulders rose, then lowered, and she twisted her head to him. “I would like that very much...Mathew.”
She hesitated so long before she said his name he wondered if she even would. He gulped a swallow of coffee to alleviate his suddenly dry mouth. Her smile when she looked to Ethan grew and softened at the same time. Mathew averted his gaze to the depths of his cup when his heart quickened in response to that soft smile.
Water splashing in the sink drew his attention to her again. The very last rays of daylight entered through the opened back door, bathing her in crimson and gold. Rose-gold shimmered in the long tendrils escaping the braid trailing down her back. The urge to loosen that braid and watch her hair spill unbound over her shoulders ran through him.
Mathew shoved away from the table, hoping to distract his thoughts from such musings. He crossed the floor to the sink and set his empty cup on the counter. “The rest of the dishes will wait, Abigail.”
Her name felt comfortable on his tongue, startling him more than anything had so far this day.
“I’ve found if I don’t finish the dishes in the evening, they seem to multiply in the sink overnight.” She scrubbed a supper plate with more industry than he thought necessary.
Mathew slid his empty cup into the hot water and took the washrag from her. He moved another step closer to her, his chest almost against her shoulder. “In my experience with dishwashing, limited that it is, I’ve noticed there is always a cup or a plate or even some silverware that escapes the hot water and is found after the wash basin has been drained.”
She continued to look into the sink. The pink coloring her cheeks and ear tips also darkened the smattering of freckles visible along the slope of her cheek.
“They will still be here after the dance, Abigail.”
She tilted her head to him. Earlier, he would have sworn her eye color was brown, not the same shade of cinnamon as the freckles dotting the bridge of her nose and delineating the slopes of her cheeks. “I suppose you’re right.” She seized the dish towel next to the basin and dried her hands. “I do need to freshen up before we go. If you wish to brush some of the dust from your coat, there is a garment brush in the front parlor behind the bar.”
“The bar?” Mathew allowed his gaze to cut toward the hallway leading to the front of the house.
The pink staining her ear tips deepened and splashed along her cheekbones, darkening the freckles. “Um, yes. The bar. The house...it was...it served as a brothel before Sam and I bought it. The front parlor is rather gaudy. Mrs. Donovan, the madam who owned it before we bought it, had ostentatious tastes, as Sam put it.”
Mathew glanced down the hallway, again. The blush staining her cheeks deepened further and told him the parlor was more than gaudy. Abigail’s sudden discomfort precluded satisfying his curiosity as to just how risqué the front parlor might be. “Ethan and I will wait for you on the back porch.”
He escorted Ethan out the door and watched his son climb into the two-seated swing, kicking his feet back and forth. The glider began a slight forward and backwards motion with Ethan’s kicks. Mathew leaned a shoulder into the roof support. He let his gaze skim over the thick tree line a few hundred yards from the house. The railroad tracks cut through the trees. Almost directly to the east stood a short, squat, solid building—the jail, if his assumptions were correct.
“You the new doc in town?”
Mathew startled and took a step back, closer to Ethan. The child scrambled from the swing. The tug at his hem was the same he’d felt every time Ethan latched onto his frock coat. Without looking, he knew the boy hid behind him. Mathew sized up the newcomer, unsuccessfully quelling the ripple of unease that traversed the length of his spine. He’d been so deep in thought he hadn’t heard the younger man approach. “Yes.”
The smile breaking over the young man’s face looked like an opossum hissing in defiance. “Guess you’ll be getting a room over at Sophia’s.”
“I hadn’t planned on it and Abigail hasn’t asked me to do such.” Mathew dropped his hand onto Ethan’s shoulder. “Who are you?”
“Sorry. I’m Robert Roden.” The grin reminiscent of a possum narrowed. “Guess Abby forgot to tell you that we’re getting married tomorrow afternoon.”
Chapter Seven
Abigail was marrying this snake? No. Even if she hadn’t already married him by proxy, he just couldn’t envision her consenting to spending the rest of her life with Roden. He might have only made her acquaintance that afternoon, but he would bet his life Abigail would never marry anyone like the young man standing in front of him.
Mathew let his gaze travel over Roden. Oil of some sort slicked what was probably blond hair. He wore a dark brown, cut-away frock coat over a champagne colored silk vest, and a pristine white shirt. A lighter brown tie encircled his neck. It wasn’t that he was dressed as some sort of dandy that unsettled Mathew. Rather it was the sharp features, the cold, almost emotionless depths of his eyes, and the heavy revolver strapped down to the man’s thigh. The ripple of unease grew. “Maybe she didn’t tell me because she and I were married by proxy a month ago.”
Roden put a foot on the lowest step. “Proxy isn’t married. It can be easily annulled. Or terminated.”
Mathew didn’t take his gaze from Roden as he bent to Ethan. “Go into the kitchen and wait for Abigail there, please.”
Ethan couldn’t have been out of earshot when Roden said, “He’s a cute kid. You know Abby can’t have kids of her own. She and Sam tried, but—”
“I’ve never put a lot of stock in the validity of gossip.” How in the name of heaven did this snake know that?
Roden quirked his brows and added a smile as oily as a barrel of whale grease. “Ain’t gossip. Everyone in town knows it. Just like everyone in town knows you were a Reb doctor.”
“I told you to never come to my home again, Robbie, unless you were truly dying.” Abigail’s voice brimmed with ice.
Mathew spared a glance over his shoulder. Abigail stood with Ethan’s hand held in hers. Anger leeched the color from her face and sparkled with hard glints in the cinnamon depths of her eyes.
“It’s Robert, not Robbie.” The oily smile tightened and grew chilly. “I asked you the day I went off with Hood’s Brigade to stop calling me Robbie.”
“You were with Hood?” Mathew drew his shoulders back, unable to control the reactionary recoil.
“Please don’t encourage him.” A long-suffering sigh whispered behind Mathew.
“From the very start of the war.” Roden’s overly friendly smile returned, dripping again with false charm and snake oil. “I was in the Third Infantry and was wounded at Chancellorsville.”
If disgust had a sound, it was the short, huffing breath from Abigail. “His pride was the only thing wounded at any time in that war.”
“Bragg made some serious mistakes at Chancellorsville. Almost cost Longstreet and Lee that battle,” Mathew said. Serious mistakes were made in that battle, but not by Braxton Bragg.
“Hood wanted to fight.” Roden sagely nodded. “Bragg kept us in reserve.”
“Bragg wasn’t at Chancellorsville. Neither was Hood nor any of his Texas Brigade. Hood was never under Bragg’s command.” Mathew took several steps closer to the windbag. “I was with the medical corps attached to Longstreet’s division, and I know there wasn’t a Third Infantry with Hood’s Brigade.”
The rat scurried backwards. “I rode with Hood.”
Mathew quelled the urge to roll his eyes with Roden’s insistence of “riding” with Hood. He assumed claiming to have ridden with Hood for a Texan was the same as a Virginian claiming to have been at Appomattox Courthouse urging “Ol’ Marse Lee” to continue the fight. If as many men had actually been in Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia that day as claimed they were, the Confederacy probably wouldn’t have surrendered, much less lo
st. “I’m inclined to doubt your claims of being one of Hood’s Texans.”
Roden’s face blotched with angry color. He reached for the revolver strapped to his leg, seemed to think better of it, and backed another step away.
“Mr. Roden, kindly step aside so that I may escort my wife and my son to the festivities.” Mathew inclined his head to Abigail, took her elbow, and led her and Ethan off the porch. Without being too obvious, he asked, “Where are we going for this dance?”
In a move that seemed to shuttle Ethan in front of them, she gestured toward the north end of town. “The Brokken Arrow Ranch. Just slightly outside of town.”
The soft glow of lanterns led Mathew away from Abigail’s home. Ethan dropped to Abigail’s side. Though they walked away from Roden, Mathew was sure he followed.
In front of the town’s shuttered bank, Abigail snapped, “Mathew, slow down. I’m nearly dragging Ethan.”
A quick look over his left shoulder revealed Ethan’s face flushed and sweaty with exertion. Shame ricocheted through him. Mathew halted. “I can carry you, Ethan.”
His son glanced up at Abigail and then shook his head. “I walk. Abby say I big boy.”
They had been on his left side. Any complaint Ethan might have had or suggestion from Abigail to slow his pace had been unheard. “I’ll walk slower. Or take shorter steps.”
The smile lifting her lips tightened his chest and sped up his heart. Mathew resumed walking, angry with himself for his reaction to her almost shy smile. He simply required a gentler influence for Ethan. Or at least that’s what he had almost convinced himself of. She—on the other hand—had stated in no uncertain terms all she wished of him was that he proved to be a competent physician. Yet, completing his shaving routine for him had been anything other than the disinterest she professed.
Flirtation he understood. That had been more than flirtatious behavior.
He halted with Abigail’s gentle tug on his arm. Her brow furrowed when he snapped his head to her.
“What’s wrong, Mathew?”
His gaze dropped to Ethan before he brought his sight back to her. “What do you really want from this? I’m a little confused because I don’t think it was my competency as a physician you were interested in earlier.”
Color flooded her face, visible even in the twilight. She stepped closer to him. His breath caught in the back of his throat when she smoothed her palm over his chest. “I’m not sure I can explain it.”
“Try.”
“I loved Sam with all my heart. But he’s been gone for more than four years.” Her voice cracked. The deep breath she drew shuddered. “I didn’t know just how lonely and empty my heart has been until I saw you and Ethan. Every one of the men who have come here because of those advertisements is broken in some manner. Ethan is just as broken. He’s as broken as you are. As I am. I can’t have children of my own. Sam and I...we tried. I miscarried, or they were stillborn.”
His angry words earlier echoed in his head, searing his conscience. So, the little rodent had been correct in his sharing of the gossip about Abigail’s childless state. To avoid her tear-filled gaze, Mathew turned his sight to the lamplight spilling out from the wide-open doors of a large barn and what he could see of the couples inside. The glow of a single lantern over the doors drew more than the citizens. Moths and other insects fluttered around the lamps while either bats or nightjars swooped with abandon into the veritable feast. Partners moved across the cleared space, their steps according to the instructions of the caller.
Her hand slid from his chest to his withered and useless left arm. “I know I’m not Ethan’s mother and never will be.”
“Making that comparison would be a grave disservice to you.” Mathew shook his head and met her gaze again. “You don’t have to be her. Just be you.”
A single tear slid down her face. “Maybe I was too forward earlier. Maybe it was dishonest of me to have Vic write my letters, but I didn’t want you to think I was stupid. A doctor has to be smart and if you thought I was stupid...”
“No cry, Abby,” Ethan murmured. His son wrapped his arms around Abigail’s leg and leaned his shoulder and head against her, the closest to a hug he had ever seen from Ethan.
“There is a big difference between not having a ‘lotta book learning’ and being stupid.” Her eyes widened with his deliberate use of her own words and dismay filled her already crestfallen expression. Mathew leaned into her and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m not belittling you, Abigail. Anyone who may have ever accused you of stupidity simply proved their own lack of intelligence.”
Another tear slid down her cheek. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
“Neither do I.” God help him, not three hours earlier he had himself convinced he wasn’t looking for another wife, just someone who would nurture Ethan. And then he met Abigail. He raised his left hand, pausing to glance at the gnarled and twisted fingers. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
This time, he knew who he asked and why he asked it.
Without any hesitation, she pressed the back of his hand to her cheek. A tremulous smile lifted her lips. “I knew when I read your first letter.”
Mathew didn’t attempt to extract his hand. “Why did you agree to my stipulation we be married by proxy before I arrived here? That could have gone badly for you. You could have found yourself married to a short, fat, balding man with a hair-trigger temper.”
To his surprise, a deep, genuine laugh broke from her. “You forgot bad breath.”
“What?”
“My best friend, Victoria, said the reason you didn’t include a description of yourself was because you were short, fat, balding, with a nasty temper and bad breath. It could have gone just as badly for you. I could have been an utter nag who hates children.” Another laugh, this one softer and shorter, sounded. “Have you ever felt something was right, even though there was no reason to believe that feeling? That’s what I felt when I read your letter. It was right.”
“So is this.” Mathew leaned fully into her, wrapped an arm around her waist, and caught her lips under his. Before he could deepen the kiss, a male voice filled with disapproval intruded.
“Abigail, I will choose to believe it is the excitement of the evening which has led to such a public display of affection.”
Mathew twisted his head with measured deliberation toward the speaker. The man was older, greying, with a stomach gone to a middle-age paunch, and a gaze that peered at Abigail down a long, hawkish nose in outright censure. Abigail attempted to put some distance between them but ceased the effort when he tightened his arm. Ethan ducked behind them. Mathew released Abigail’s waist and lowered his hand to his son’s shoulder, startled to discover Abigail’s hand already on the back of the boy’s head with her fingers splayed through the loose curls.
“Pastor Grisson. Good evening.”
She had enough ice in her voice that Mathew felt the chill. He decided to follow her lead of neither apologizing nor attempting to justify their public display. He dipped his head in a brief nod. “Pastor.”
“Are you Dr. Knight, Abigail’s intended?” Grisson’s gaze drifted down to Ethan.
Mathew wasn’t sure exactly what he saw crossing the preacher’s expression, but he knew he didn’t like it. “Husband, by virtue of a legally binding proxy. Though I’m sure I can speak for Abigail in saying we would like to repeat those vows we offered to one another through a proxy and have the full blessing of the Almighty on our marriage.”
Grisson’s expression tightened before he forced half a smile. “And the child?”
“My son.” The hair rose on the back of his neck in warning. There was something not right here. A tug on the hem of his frock coat let him know, without even looking down, that Ethan latched onto his coat.
“I’m sure you’ll agree, Abigail, that the Lord works in mysterious ways. Your prayers for a child have been answered.”
Condescension charged the warm night a
ir. Mathew slid a sidelong glance to Abigail. All the color drained from her face and her expression mingled pain and outrage. He removed his hand from Ethan’s shoulder and slipped his arm around her waist, again. Her trembling ignited something fiercely protective deep inside. Mathew gently pulled her ever closer into his side and said, “God always answers. It may not be the answer we wanted, but He always answers.”
“Enjoy the festivities tonight.” The preacher’s half smile faded. “Church starts at nine tomorrow morning.”
Mathew watched as the preacher made his way to a smaller gathering of couples several feet outside of the barn. At length, he cocked his head to Abigail, breaking the sudden uncomfortable silence between them. “I don’t think I like him. I’m not sure I wish to attend his church.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t like you.” Her soft words further shattered the discomfort. “He was very angry you dictated on what terms you would come to Brokken. He tried to tell me a proxy marriage wasn’t right in the eyes of the Lord. I don’t agree with everything he preaches, and I’ve told him I don’t see eye to eye with him.”
“In other words, you can think for yourself.” He brushed the rebellious strand of hair from her cheek again. “What a novel idea...a woman who knows her own mind and is strong enough to stand by those convictions.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“No. Speaking with sincerity and admiration.” He extended his arm to her. “Shall we join the festivities?”
Chapter Eight
Ethan scampered in front of them, drawn as much to the brightly lit interior of the barn as the moths to the lanterns. He attempted to catch a lightning bug that floated near him. What seemed to be millions more of the glowing insects blinked in rapid pulses in the bushes and trees. The loud chorus of tree frogs almost drowned out the musicians.