“Actually, I do.” She fumbled through her satchel and pulled out the medical bag her father had purchased for her as a graduation gift. “I’m ready.”
Matt looked at the black bag she held with a frown. “That looks like a doctor’s bag.”
Sinead smiled. “Looks can be deceiving…but this time, they’re not. I’m a doctor. Will you kindly take me to my patient?”
Matt shrugged, not knowing what else to do. His pretty little bride was a doctor, and a doctor was just what he needed. He wasn’t sure if the answer was to be thrilled for the help or upset. A doctor wasn’t going to want to stay home and cook his meals, which was what he wanted from a bride. “What room number, Jake?”
“Twenty-seven. Stella says to hurry if you don’t want the tourist to die.”
Matt started toward the hotel at a half run. He didn’t want to lose her if there was any way they could keep her alive. It sounded like his pretty little bride knew exactly what to do, so they needed to hurry. He passed the sign that said, “Cougar Springs Health Institute,” and ran right up the stairs.
Sinead ran beside him, keeping up the pace perfectly. She was a very athletic woman, as well as being a doctor. What on earth had he gotten himself into? Miss Hazel must have lost her mind.
Chapter Two
Matt wasn’t sure what to think as he rushed through the institute with Sinead. She had a look of determination on her face that told him she would do anything it took to save the life of a woman she’d never met. It wasn’t something they often saw in the doctors of the area, so it would be good to see it from at least one person.
He headed for room twenty-seven, knowing exactly where it was. He’d dealt with enough robberies of the guests at the hotel to know each room. He just wished they could figure out who the culprit was!
He knocked on the door, waiting for Stella to open it. “Thank God you’re here, Constable. The guest keeps saying if we just take her to the waters, the baby will be fine. This is her fourth pregnancy, and the other three didn’t make it.”
Matt nodded, entering the room and watching as Sinead rushed to her patient. “My new wife is a doctor. Her name is Sinead.” He said nothing more as he watched her lean over the woman.
“What’s your name?” Sinead asked. She was about to deal with the woman very intimately, and she knew that having her name could be calming later. She wished she’d had more experience with birthing babies, but she was obviously going to get some while she was there. She’d seen four pregnant women on her way up. For a moment she considered calling Molly, who had midwife experience, but Molly was probably marrying as she stood there trying to decide what to do!
“Betty!” the woman screamed as one of her pains wracked her body. “The baby’s stuck. Take me to the springs!”
Sinead shook her head. “The springs aren’t going to help you. I promise you that.” She walked to the water bowl in one corner of the room and using the lye soap there, she scrubbed her hands all the way up to the elbows. “I’m going to examine you, Betty. We’re going to see if this baby can come out the normal way, or if I need to cut it out. Either way, I’m going to do everything I can to save you and your baby.”
Betty watched her warily as she lifted back the sheets. Sinead spoke softly, trying to calm the woman. “You’re going to feel a little pain as I check to see if the baby needs to be turned. If it’s something as simple as turning him, we can be done faster, and you’ll feel better soon. If I have to cut him out, then it’ll take you longer to recover.”
Betty nodded, gripping the bars on the headboard of the bed. Sinead carefully used her hand to gauge what the woman needed. It didn’t take her long to realize the baby was just turned wrong. “All right, Betty. When your next pain is on you, I want you to let me know. As you push, I’m going to turn him just a little. He’s stuck where he is, but I’m sure he’ll come out the normal way.” At least she hoped he would. She knew that her not speaking confidently would only make things worse for Betty, so she did her best.
“It’s coming now! The pain is coming!”
Using the woman’s contracting body to help her, Sinead carefully turned the baby. Two more pushes, and it was delivered into her arms. She carefully snipped the cord and handed the baby to Stella. “It’s a girl. We’re going to finish up while Stella cleans the baby, and then you can hold her.” She said a silent prayer of thanks that the birthing had gone all right. She’d been afraid she’d have to call in Molly.
“She’s alive?”
Sinead grinned. “She’s very much alive. She has all ten fingers and ten toes, and she’s as beautiful as can be.”
Betty broke down then, sobbing hysterically. “She’s alive!”
Sinead helped Betty with the afterbirth, and then gave her the cleaned-up baby. “Congratulations.”
Betty stared down at the baby she’d carried for nine months. “Tell my husband to come back. She’s alive!”
Sinead was glad to see she wasn’t disappointed that the baby was a girl and not a boy. At the first birth she’d attended during medical school, the mother had all but rejected the baby because her husband had wanted a boy. She hadn’t much practical birthing experience since school, but at least she’d read a lot about it in her medical books.
After washing her hands, Sinead picked up her medical bag and turned to Matt. “She’s going to be fine now. I’m not needed here any longer.”
Matthew offered her his arm as they walked the short distance back to the cabin they’d share. “I asked for a wife who would love staying home and keeping house. I have a feeling you’re not that wife.” But watching her help Betty give birth had been downright miraculous. He couldn’t be upset that she was a doctor.
Sinead frowned, looking down at the ground for a moment. “I told Miss Hazel I was probably not what you were looking for.”
He sighed. “Well, it’s certainly a surprise, but we can use the medical help here. I don’t know why she didn’t just have you come to be a doctor.” Did the woman even want to be his wife?
“Because I don’t think she thought anyone would accept me. Being a woman doctor is one thing, but being a quarter Negro is another strike against me. People don’t readily accept me in any community.” She was surprised he hadn’t complained as soon as he saw her.
“I can see that, I suppose. I’m glad you’re here, though. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about the housework and cooking I want done, but at least there will be fewer deaths. The health institute is actually a sanitarium. People come from far and wide to be healed here, but they get doctors who really just want to sell them patented products that do no good. You’ll have to go spend time there.”
“Would you mind if I spent some time there working with the sick every day? I know I came here to marry you, but I really do want to help people.”
“I watched you with Betty. I know you could no more stop helping people medically than I could watch as one man killed another without trying to do anything about it.” Matt was resigned. He couldn’t find himself being horribly angry that his wife was a doctor, because she was beautiful. When he’d seen her get off the train with the other three, he’d known immediately she was his.
“So you’re not going to try to stop me?”
“I would no more stop that fox over there from making a den. There’s no point. You are who you are, and truthfully, there’s much good you can do here. Just not the kind of good I thought you were coming to do.”
Sinead hugged the arm she was still holding against her. “I want you to know that I appreciate you taking this all in stride. I was worried you’d be angry with me.”
He shrugged. “I learned a long time ago that anger only hurts me. I try my best to keep smiling at all times.”
“I like that attitude.”
“The criminals don’t. When I put someone in jail for drinking and disturbing the peace, they never seem to like it when I grin at them.”
She laughed. “I think I can understand
their perspective.”
When they reached the cabin, he looked at her, his head tilted to one side curiously. “Can you cook?”
“I can cook a few simple things. Miss Hazel taught me to cook, clean, and sew before I left. Of course, I could already sew, because I have to be able to stitch someone up when necessary.”
“All right. Why don’t we fix supper together tonight, and tomorrow you can start working on showing me how well you learned?”
Sinead shook her head at him. “You trust me not to give you food poisoning?”
“I’m not sure I’d say that. But I do trust you to treat my food poisoning after you gave it to me.”
“You already know me so well! How long since I got off the train? Two hours?”
He glanced at his pocket watch. “About that.”
She shrugged. “Thank you for accepting me.”
“You’re beautiful, and you just traveled hundreds of miles to be my wife. How could I not accept you for who you are? I will expect you to work on your cooking skills so that I can enjoy supper at home.”
“My friend Molly will teach me. I think she’s a good cook.” Sinead knew cooking was important to most men, so she was determined to learn to do it well. Whether she preferred to have someone else cook for her didn’t matter. He wanted her to cook, so she’d do it.
“Is Molly the one who married Easton?”
“Yes. She’s really sweet, and we got to be good friends during our classes with Miss Hazel.”
“I wonder where Miss Hazel is!”
Sinead shrugged. “I’m sure she found a place to stay in the hotel. She said she’d stay for a week or so until she knew we were all going to be all right. I think she really just wanted to use the springs.”
“You might be right.”
She walked to the window and looked outside. “I expected everything to be snow-covered in November.”
“It’s been unseasonably warm this year. Give it another week or two, and the snow will start to fly.”
She looked down at her purple traveling dress. “I need to change if I’m going to cook tonight.”
Matt grinned, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall. “I don’t mind.”
She felt her face heat. “Would you mind going for a walk while I do so? I don’t want to mess up my best dress, but I also need to cook. It’s a real dilemma unless you leave for a moment.”
“We’re married, Sinead.”
“I know we are. But that doesn’t mean all my inhibitions are gone!”
“How long is that going to take?” He asked, his brow furrowed.
“How long will what take?”
“For you to lose all your inhibitions? I’m ready for that to happen.”
She shook her head at him. “Go for a walk and quit teasing me. We have a meal to fix.”
*****
It turned out that Matthew was a good cook. He just preferred not to have to do it all the time. “This is delicious!” Sinead had just taken her first bite of the supper he’d painstakingly taught her to cook.
“My mother died when I was very young, so I learned to cook for my father and me. It was that or starve, and I don’t particularly enjoy being hungry.” Matthew took a big bite of the stew he’d taught her to cook. “And now you have one more meal you can cook. If I teach you something new each night, I think you’ll be doing great in no time.”
“I’ll do my very best. I promise.” She took a sip of her water, thinking about the town. “Do you think they’ll let me into the sanitarium? I’d love to be able to see if I could help people.”
“You are very dedicated to your work. I can tell. Why did you leave your practice?”
“I didn’t have a practice,” she said softly. “No one would hire me. The only patient I helped after medical school, other than family, was Miss Hazel. That’s how I met her.”
“Well, I’m glad you did. I’m pleased to have you here, and we’ll figure it all out.” He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking. “About the sanitarium, I don’t think anyone will mind if you go there, as long as you don’t contradict the other doctors and you don’t charge anyone.”
“That works for me. I just want to help people. Making money doesn’t matter all that much to me.”
“I make enough for us to live on. Barely. So you go on in and see if people want you to treat them. They may be like the folks back in Ottawa who would prefer you not treat them because you’re a woman.”
“Or they may welcome another opinion that could stop them from dying or keep them from terrible pain? That’s possible, right?”
He nodded. “You just keep thinking positively.”
*****
Sinead made pancakes the following morning, the one thing she felt like she’d perfected at Miss Hazel’s. The older woman had insisted that every one of her girls could at least make pancakes and bacon so the Mounties would have a good breakfast. She would have preferred they could make everything they needed to, but sometimes things just didn’t turn out that way.
When Matthew woke, he smelled the bacon cooking and grinned, hurrying to her side to kiss her good morning. “Beautiful, and you know how to make me a good breakfast. Who could ask for more?”
She laughed. “You could ask for a wife who knew how to make lots of meals and not just bacon and pancakes.”
“I could, but that’s not who I got. Why would I envy someone else their wife when I got the most beautiful wife of all?”
“You sure do know how to sweet talk. That makes me worry you have a long stream of women left in your wake.”
“Nah. I scared women away, usually. I was so determined to be a Mountie that they all knew there was no chance with me.” He shrugged. “They don’t exactly encourage you to marry right away in the academy.”
“I can see that!” She served breakfast for them both, pouring them each a generous cup of black coffee. “I hope this is as good as I think it is,” she said, frowning down at her plate.
He took her hand in his and prayed for them both. “You’re ready with the food poisoning remedy, right?”
She made a face at him. “Sure. Why not?” She’d never treated anyone for food poisoning, but she felt perfectly capable of doing so. She could handle any medical crisis better than any household crisis.
“Delicious,” he said with a wink. “You really can cook breakfast.”
“You’ll be getting the same thing for every meal. I hope you don’t mind.”
“We’ll work on other meals together.” He leaned back and stretched. “I don’t work until two, so I’m going to go for a nice long walk. I like to start my day with some exercise. Will you be all right?”
Sinead nodded. “I’ll see you later. I might go out too, but I’m not sure yet.”
As soon as he’d left, Molly appeared at the door. “Do you need help cooking?”
Sinead grinned. “He said he doesn’t mind that I don’t know how to cook. He’s going to teach me himself.”
“He looked really affable. Is he as happy as he seems?” Molly joined her at the sink, picking up a towel to wipe the dishes as Sinead washed them.
“I really think he is. He isn’t even angry that I’m a doctor. I had to deliver a baby right after our wedding.”
“I noticed the two of you hurried off to marry while the rest of us were exchanging names.” Molly frowned. “I wish you’d called me. I have more experience with birthing than you do.”
“If you hadn’t been in the process of getting married at the time, I would have! I promise, next time we’ll go together.”
“Was it a difficult birth?”
“It was, but I fixed it quickly. The local midwife was thrilled for the help, and the mother was just happy her baby lived. The baby got stuck, and I had to turn her so she’d be born.”
“So why did you hurry off so quickly after the wedding?”
Sinead shrugged. “He was willing, and I didn’t want to give him time to learn so much about me
that he’d change his mind.”
Molly shook her head. “You worry me sometimes, Sinead.”
“Why? Because I look at things differently? That’s just how life is. Everyone has a different perspective.”
“Do you want to go for a walk now that the dishes are done?”
Sinead nodded. “I want to get to know the area just as soon as I can. I need to be able to find my patients when they need me.”
As they walked, Sinead kept her eyes peeled for any sort of herbs that could help her in her practice. She was determined to be able to do as much as possible with the herbs around their home, only sending off for a few medicines. It probably wouldn’t work for her to practice that way, but she would at least try.
As they passed the hot springs, Sinead slowed down, looking at the people there. All of them had looks of bliss on their faces until they climbed out of the waters. She walked closer, trying to determine who was really sick, and who just liked how it felt to soak in the springs. “Are you hurt?” she asked an older man who was limping.
“Yes, I am. I came here for the cure of the springs.” He drank from a tin cup that obviously had the water from the springs in it. “I’m going to get better.”
“How long have you been here?” Sinead had to understand how firmly entrenched he was in his belief that the springs would cure him. She knew that it was a bunch of hogwash, but she couldn’t run around telling potential patients that.
“A couple of weeks.” The man studied her. “Why are you asking me all these questions?”
“I’m a doctor. I’m trying to determine what types of injuries and illnesses the springs actually help.”
A man stepped up to her. He was in his mid-twenties, and he had a look that made her skin crawl. His hair was a bit oily. “I’m Dr. Jenkins. I run the sanitarium, and I bring people here for their treatments. If you have any questions about the springs, I’d like you to address them to me.”
“Might I make an appointment to see you tomorrow so we can discuss things?” Sinead asked. She heard Molly gasp behind her, but she didn’t back down.
Bride for Matthew Page 2