Within My Heart

by Tamera Alexander

  Not yet finished with their conversation, Rand realized that his patient apparently was. “I will not lie to your wife,” he said quietly.

  “And I’m not asking you to,” Ben answered. “All I’m asking for is time to get my business in order. And to prepare Lyda for the truth. There’s a way to tell a woman something, and a way not to, Doc. I want to do this the right way.”

  Rand stared ahead, uncomfortable with the way things were being left. Lyda deserved to know the truth about her husband’s condition, but Ben needed to be the one to tell her. With reluctance, Rand finally nodded, and Ben’s features relaxed in gratitude and relief.

  Lyda rounded the corner, glasses of tea balanced on a tray, and with two familiar redheads in tow. The boys’ expressions held apprehension, revealing they’d been told about Ben’s circumstance, at least as much as they could grasp at their age. Rand stood and readied himself for their mother’s return, determined to deliver a flawless apology to her this time.

  But Rachel Boyd was nowhere to be seen.

  6

  The second-story bedroom above the mercantile was tidy enough, even with boxes and crates stacked high on a far wall, but a hint of dust and disuse tainted the air. Rachel deposited the fresh bedding in the rocker by the door and crossed to the window. Bracing her hands on either side, she gave the window a good push. It refused to budge. On her third try the paint-peeled wood finally relented and edged up with creaking complaint.

  Brushing the dust from her hands, she looked out across the town of Timber Ridge and welcomed the chilled breeze.

  She breathed deep, willing a calm she didn’t feel, despite having time to regain her composure since Rand Brookston’s thorough dressing-down. She fingered a crack at the corner of the window. Dressing-down was probably too harsh a term for his comment. But still, her body heated again just thinking about the encounter.

  Everything she’d suspected about the “good doctor” was true— despite what James had told her. Her brother had a knack for reading people, but he’d read this one wrong. People revealed their true natures under pressure, and Rand Brookston had certainly revealed his. He was short-tempered, demanding, and had an arrogance about him that all but dared a person to contradict him. Just like her father.

  She stripped the bed, yanking the rumpled sheets off and shaking the pillows out of their cases.

  Rand Brookston was handsome, she guessed, in an aristocratic sort of way, which she’d never personally found appealing. And despite his explanation, she still couldn’t erase the image of him opening the bedroom door at the brothel from her mind. The guilty look he wore, the provocative gleam in the eyes of the young woman lying on the bed.

  And there was something else. . . .

  On certain occasions when she’d been in his company, she’d caught him staring at her—as he’d been doing today. She could be wrong, but she’d gotten the feeling there might be interest on his part, and interest was the last thing she wanted to encourage. When she’d married, she’d done her best to choose a man who was the exact opposite of her father, and that relationship with Thomas had been the sweetest of her life.

  But one thing she was interested in knowing about Rand Brookston was how he’d restarted Ben Mullins’s heart. If indeed that’s what he’d done. Doctors often overstated their roles in healing, taking credit where little to none was due. One of the less-than-desirable character traits of her father, among other traits she didn’t care to dredge from memory.

  But if Rand Brookston had indeed accomplished such a thing, he’d saved Ben’s life. For that she was most grateful, and eager to know how he’d done it.

  After fluffing the mattress ticking, she tucked in the fresh bed sheets and dusted the side tables, knowing it wouldn’t be long before Ben occupied the room. She and Lyda had debated the wisdom of taking Ben home to the Mullinses’ house a few streets over, versus the two of them living above the store for a while, until Ben regained his health. Lyda had opted for the latter, preferring to keep Ben close so she could check on him throughout the day, and Rachel agreed.

  It would also be easier for her to help Lyda with the store and to assist with Ben’s care if the couple stayed in the spare upper room. Not that Rachel had an inkling how she would accomplish helping them with every hour of every day spoken for. But Ben and Lyda were like family to her, and she couldn’t not help them. Plus this room had special meaning to them as a couple, she knew. This was where they’d first lived upon moving to Timber Ridge many years ago, before they’d built their house.

  As Rachel moved to wipe off the dresser, a chorus of angry voices drew her attention. She peered out the bay window to see that the crowd waiting on the boardwalk below had multiplied and was pressing forward toward the doors.

  “I’ve got an order to pick up,” one man yelled.

  “We need to get our supplies!”

  “Mullins said they’d be ready today! Why’s he closed up so early?”

  The chorus of complaints piled one atop the other, and Rachel turned to head downstairs, worried about Mitch and Kurt fending off such an onslaught. Then she caught sight of a gentleman stepping up onto a bench. She looked closer. It was the same man she’d seen on the boardwalk earlier, the one who’d unofficially volunteered to stand guard. Arms outstretched, he addressed the gathering. She couldn’t make out his words, but to her surprise, the complaints died down.

  She waited, watching, debating whether her assistance was needed. Apparently it wasn’t.

  She closed the window and hurried to finish dusting, then readied the bed.

  “Be careful, please, Mr. Daggett!” Lyda’s sharp warning echoed up the twisting stairwell, and Rachel couldn’t fault her for it. She’d nearly lost her footing on the stairs herself a moment ago. Lyda’s instruction continued. “There’s a sharp turn ahead where the stairs grow more narrow.”

  As Rachel plumped the pillows, Charlie Daggett’s heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway, and she turned to see his frame filling the doorway as he cradled Ben in his arms. Ben Mullins was no small man, but he resembled a mere boy when measured against Charlie Daggett. Then again, what man wouldn’t?

  Rachel motioned. “Here, Mr. Daggett. The bed is all ready.”

  “Yes, ma’am, Miss Rachel.” Charlie moved with surprising agility for so large a man—and with surprising steadiness for being into the bottle so early in the afternoon, if the smell of whiskey wafting toward her held any truth. His drinking wasn’t new to her, nor to anyone else in Timber Ridge. But the better she’d gotten to know Charlie over the two months he’d been working at her ranch, the more his drinking puzzled her.

  He never showed up for work intoxicated and had never behaved rudely or unseemly toward her or her boys. That wasn’t the source of her concern. It was more the question of why he often drank to such excess that she found so troubling. A hard worker and a quiet man by nature, Charlie Daggett was stone silent when it came to his past.

  Ben grimaced as Charlie lowered him down. “I’m not an invalid, Daggett,” Ben grumbled beneath his breath, heaving a sigh when Charlie deposited him on the bed. “At least not yet.” He repositioned himself on the mattress, wincing. “I’ve still got two good legs. I could’ve climbed those stairs myself.”

  Charlie’s whiskered cheeks pushed up in a customary grin. “I’m just doin’ what the doc told me to do, Mr. Mullins.”

  Looking on, Rachel couldn’t tell whether Ben’s discomfort stemmed from being carried by Charlie or from the earlier bout with his heart. Knowing Ben, she guessed the former.

  “Yes, yes,” Ben said. “I know you are. But why don’t you try listening to me once in a while? I’m the one who’s paying you, after all.”

  Ben’s voice held an edge, but his subtle smile softened his words and hinted at the root of his frustration, which Rachel understood only too well. Being dependent upon others wasn’t easy for her either—it never had been. But she’d especially struggled with it following Thomas’s death. She didn�
�t know why exactly. Relying on others made her feel as if she were standing too close to a drop-off, on a very slippery slope.

  She glanced up at Charlie. Judging from his unhindered grin, she guessed he understood the cause of Ben’s annoyance too.

  “Mama, Dr. Brookston let me listen to Uncle Ben’s heart!” Childish enthusiasm heightened Mitch’s voice as he hurried into the room after Lyda and Dr. Brookston.

  “Did he, now . . .” Rachel stood near the foot of the bed, not missing how Kurt lagged behind, hanging close to the doorway, looking noticeably less enthused. She glanced in Rand Brookston’s direction while intentionally avoiding his gaze. Seeing Mitch in such high spirits did her heart good—he’d been so serious lately. She rumpled his red hair. “This isn’t your first time to have done that. You’ve listened to my heart through your grandfather’s stethoscope before, remember?”

  “I know, but . . .” Mitch edged closer to Ben. “You can hear a lot better through this one.” He pointed to Dr. Brookston’s black leather bag.

  Dr. Brookston reached inside and withdrew a stethoscope. “Would you mind checking Mr. Mullins’s heart again for me, Mitchell?”

  Ben huffed. “Why? To make sure it hasn’t stopped a second time?”

  Rand Brookston’s laughter was immediate and full, and in extremely poor taste. Rachel fought to think of something to say to smooth over his lack of tact—until she heard Ben chuckling, and Lyda too. Still not seeing the humor, she noted their smiles and the way they glanced at each other and decided to keep her opinion to herself.

  “It’s my guess, Mitchell”—Rand Brookston bent closer to her son—“that the reason you can hear better through this stethoscope is that the tubes on your grandfather’s stethoscope are likely much shorter than the tubes on this one. Improvements have been made in recent years by lengthening the tubes—” he demonstrated what he meant—“which allows for enhanced auscultation. That’s what we call listening to the sounds of the heart or lungs. Do you happen to know how the stethoscope got its name?”

  Mitchell’s eyes narrowed and his tongue curled between his front teeth, telling signs he was concentrating. He finally shook his head.

  “It’s from the Greek language. Stethos is Greek for chest, and skopos means examination.” Dr. Brookston gave a self-conscious shrug that Rachel might have considered boyish, perhaps even charming, if she hadn’t already glimpsed his true nature. “I picked up that bit of information somewhere.”

  “Stethos . . . skopos,” Mitchell repeated, using the same inflection Dr. Brookston had used, and Rachel knew her older son would remember it. He never forgot anything.

  Mitchell fitted the earpieces in his ears and positioned the bell-shaped amplifier over Ben’s chest. “What am I listening for, Dr. Brookston?”

  The image of Mitchell bending over Ben Mullins brought future possibilities into clearer focus, and Rachel fought the urge to grab her two sons and run. For years she’d told her boys that they could be anything they wanted to be when they grew up and she would be content, as long as they were happy.

  But that wasn’t the truth.

  Rand went down on one knee. “First, you want to locate the patient’s heart, which, depending on their temperament”—he tossed a wink at Ben and Lyda—“is more difficult to do with some patients than with others.” Ben and Lyda smiled, which prompted Mitchell to grin. “But you’ll know you’ve located the heart muscle by the particular sound of the . . .”

  Rachel looked on, feeling a little like the odd man out. Ben and Lyda seemed to have a more familiar friendship with the doctor than she’d credited them with. And this bedside manner of Rand’s . . . this humor he used had a way of nurturing the doctor-patient relationship, which was clever, she admitted begrudgingly. She smirked to herself. Apparently he saved “arrogant, abrupt, and rude” for his assistants. Poor Angelo . . .

  “Miss Rachel?”

  Charlie Daggett stood by the door, hat in hand, and Rachel joined him, mindful of Kurt watching the scene play out on the bed, a faraway look in his eyes. She reached out to give him a reassuring touch, but at the last second he sidestepped her affection.

  Aware of Charlie looking on, Rachel pasted on a smile, pretending her son’s rejection hadn’t hurt. “Yes, Mr. Daggett?”

  Charlie turned his hat in his hands, and his gaze briefly dropped to Kurt. His expression grew pensive. “Miss Rachel, I’m glad I ran into you here, ma’am. Fact is, I came into town looking for you.”

  Rachel waited, a tad unnerved by the seriousness of his voice.

  “Mr. Daggett . . .” Lyda walked up beside them and laid a hand on Charlie’s coat sleeve. “Excuse me for interrupting, but before you go, let me thank you again for happening by when you did. We couldn’t have managed moving Mr. Mullins up here without you.”

  Charlie ducked his head. “I’m glad I was here to help, ma’am. You and your husband have always treated me kindly. You’ve been real generous with giving me work too.”

  Lyda laughed softly. “You’re a hard worker, Mr. Daggett. So it’s hardly generosity on our part.”

  Charlie’s ruddy complexion deepened. “I’ll come by every day, ma’am, and can tote Mr. Mullins up and down the stairs as you need, ’til the doc says he can do it himself.”

  Lyda nodded. “Thank you. In fact, I was going to ask that very favor of you. I have a feeling it may be several days before Dr. Brookston allows Mr. Mullins to move about on his own.”

  Lyda returned to the bedside, and Rachel waited, both eager to know what Charlie was going to say and apprehensive at the same time. Charlie let out a sigh, his breath soured with liquor, and she fought the urge to take a backward step.

  “I came into town looking for you, ma’am, because I can’t find one of the heifers that’s due to drop. I went lookin’ for her, seein’ as more snow’s comin’ in tonight, but I couldn’t find where she’s gotten off to.”

  Rachel relaxed. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. Heifers due to calve wander off, but I’ll help you look for her as soon as we get home. We’ll be leaving here soon.”

  Charlie’s gaze dropped to Kurt again, then slowly slid to Mitchell before moving back. “It’s Lady, Miss Rachel,” he whispered. “The heifer that’s missin’. ”

  Rachel frowned. “But that’s not possible.” “She was in the stall this morning. I checked on her right before breakfast. I don’t see how she could’ve . . .” Sensing more than seeing a shift in Kurt’s posture, she peered down, and knew that look on her son’s face. A stone sank into the pit of her stomach. “Kurt, did you visit Lady after breakfast this morning? Before we left for school?”

  His nod was slow, calculated.

  “And did you remember to latch the stall door like I’ve told you to do?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I did,” he answered a little too quickly, a note of challenge stiffening his posture.

  Kurt had gotten good at lying in recent months, but not so good that she couldn’t see through him. Kurt and Mitch loved Lady the way other boys loved their dogs, and while her younger son had no qualms about telling a falsehood, he hadn’t yet learned to fully mask his emotions. She saw that he was afraid. Not of her, Rachel knew, but of what might happen to Lady.

  She’d disciplined Kurt in every way she knew how. When James, her older brother, lived with them before he’d married Molly last month, he could simply look at Kurt and the boy’s defenses would crumble, same as they had with Thomas. When she looked at Kurt, it was as if his defenses dug a moat and shored up a five-foot wall of stone.

  Anger tightened her throat. Her face burned. For Kurt to misbehave was one thing, but for him to stand there and lie straight-faced to her was another. And in front of Charlie Daggett, no less. “Wait right here for me, young man,” she whispered, and turned to Charlie. “Thank you, Mr. Daggett,” she managed, “for letting me know. The boys and I will meet you at the ranch as soon as possible.”

  He slipped his hat on. “I’ll take a horse and head out when I get there, if i
t’s all the same to you.”

  “Yes, that’s fine. I’ll meet you up around Crowley’s Ridge in about an hour. If you find her, fire two rounds. I’ll follow the sound.”

  “Will do, ma’am. And . . .” Charlie shifted his weight. “I’m sorry, but there’s one more thing.”

  Rachel found his hesitance unnerving. “Yes, Mr. Daggett?”

  “I came across another heifer . . . while I was out lookin’ for Lady. The one that got tangled in the fencin’ last month?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Rachel, but . . .” His voice lowered. “Looks like a cougar got her. Either that, or it might’ve been a . . .”

  He lowered his gaze, and Rachel heard what he didn’t, or couldn’t, say. Or it might’ve been a bear. . . . Images of what the scene must look like rose in her mind with stinging clarity, and a sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. Fighting a shiver, she refused to let her thoughts go toward their natural bent. It was still too early in the season for bear—that’s what she told herself. In the end, it didn’t really matter what took the heifer down—cougar or bear—but it made a difference to her. And she knew it would matter to the boys. “Please, Mr. Daggett,” she whispered where only he could hear. “Don’t tell my sons about this. But if they do find out and ask, say you think it was a cougar.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, nodding as he left.

  Gaining Kurt’s attention again, Rachel gave him a reproving stare as she crossed to the bed. The loss of the other heifer was upsetting, but losing Lady would be devastating. Beyond the emotional attachment she had for the first-time mother-to-be, Rachel silently counted the financial investment Lady represented. Before his passing, Thomas spent the bulk of their savings on a prized bull hailing from superior stock, as did Lady. And their first offspring, due to deliver anytime, promised strong stock for the ranch’s future. Which was even more crucial since a snowstorm had cost her the bull last month.

  If something happened to Lady and her calf—Rachel cringed inwardly, a barrage of what ifs crowded close, tempting her to worry—it would be one more confirmation of her inability to provide for her family.