“Your life belongs to me, and you will not forget it. The Lord puts the lives of the weaker sex in the hands of the stronger sex to teach them and to punish them in equal measure.”
My ears rang. “Do you treat Mrs. Jackson like this?”
“It’s not my responsibility to interfere in another man’s business. Her son is her keeper.”
I climbed to my feet, using the desk to pull myself up. “I’m Emmett’s wife, so you have no right to interfere in his business.”
This time he doubled up his fist and threw it right into my face. My head snapped back and my glasses flew off. I stumbled, falling backwards onto his desk, sliding all the way across, and tumbling onto the floor on the other side amid a shower of loose papers. The Bible landed on my belly with a thump.
I groaned. How had mother put up with this from Father, then Randall? Had they hurt her like this? I didn’t recall seeing bruises on her face. Maybe he managed to keep them to places she could hide with clothing. Suddenly, I wished I’d known her better, before she’d gone dead inside. I wished there’d been some way I could have stood up to Father and saved her.
I rolled to my side as Randall came around the desk. It was tight with the desk behind me and a wall-sized bookcase in front of me, and very little space to maneuver. I tried to shimmy toward the fireplace, around the other end of the desk, but he caught me.
“You’re a real big man,” I said, “beating up on a woman half your size.”
He didn’t answer, just hauled off and kicked. I managed to get the Bible in front me in time for him to kick it and not my mid-section.
“Give me that,” he said, reaching down to yank it out of my grasp. “That’s a family heirloom.”
I laughed. How ironic that he honored the heirloom more than he honored family.
By mid-afternoon, after packing and repacking the few things I had with me, I finally talked myself into heading over to the train station to book a ticket. I had no idea where I’d go, but I needed to get as far away from Randall Templeton as possible.
It was another cold day, but the snow in the streets had been churned into the mud underneath, leaving a sloppy mess. I walked the board sidewalk toward the train station, feeling like a traitor with every step. How could I, in good conscience, leave Lydia trapped here with Randall? How could I abandon the woman I loved? I was a poor excuse for a husband if at the first threat to myself, I left. Randall had threatened my father, but as I walked I thought, and as a senator, and a man of means and reputation, Father had little to fear from Randall. Given his clout, he could figure out a way to deal with the problem. If nothing else, he could turn the tables and have Randall investigated. I doubted Randall could afford that kind of attention.
After the incident with the Fords, Father and I had parted ways and I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since. He didn’t need reminding of my failure. While I loathed the idea of crawling to my father in need of help again, allowing Randall to get away with his scheming—and more importantly allowing him to subjugate Lydia—was out of the question. Father could likely stand the scrutiny, and I had no care for myself anymore. My only concern was protecting Lydia.
The thought of leaving her with him made me sick, especially considering all the lies—and truth—he’d feed her to turn her against me and make her hate me. I imagined the more it hurt her, the happier he’d be. It meant she’d be broken and turn to him. He’d own her by the time he was done.
I passed the telegraph office, and it occurred to me that rather than wiring Beth, I’d wire Father. It was past time that I stand up and face the consequences for my actions. I hated the idea of owing him even more, but I’d rather owe him than Randall, and I’d gladly owe Senator Wilder for the rest of my life if it meant paying Randall back the pain he was bound to cause Lydia. It was a debt I’d gladly pay.
I backtracked to the telegraph office and went inside.
“Afternoon, sir,” the clerk said. “Can I help you?”
“I need to send a telegram.”
I had him transmit a message telling Father to be on the lookout for an important letter from me, and that I’d be heading his direction as soon as I wrapped up some business in Omaha.
I left the office relieved that I could stay and work on a way to get Lydia away from Randall. In the meantime, I walked back in the direction to the hotel to start writing the letter to Father.
On my way, I considered my options where Lydia was concerned. I couldn’t just go back to the house and demand her. That wouldn’t get me anywhere. I could keep a covert watch on Randall and when he left the house, I could go after Lydia, assuming he didn’t take her with him. Maybe I could get a note to Mrs. Jackson to pass to Lydia. To do what? If she could sneak out, I was sure she’d do it. On the other hand, what was he going to do, lock her up at night?
I had to face the fact that Randall would most certainly do everything he could to turn her against me, so maybe she wouldn’t feel any need to sneak away on her own. If she didn’t want anything to do with me, maybe she’d just stay with Randall. In that case, having Mrs. Jackson pass her a letter would be a good idea. It would allow me to explain everything, and maybe convince her to try to get away so we could at least talk.
I was so deep in thought that I didn’t at first notice Mrs. Jackson on the boardwalk in front of me.
“Mr. Wilder!” she called.
I looked up to see her ambling toward me, huffing and puffing as she did. My heart dropped to my gut.
“Lydia?” I asked, running to meet her.
She wheezed as she tried to catch her breath, but she nodded and gasped out a few words. “Mr. Randall…Miss Lydia…fighting…afraid…”
“They’re fighting?”
She nodded.
“With words or fists?”
“Fists…”
“Shit.”
I took off at a dead run. The few blocks seemed like miles. If he hurt her, I’d kill him. He was a lot bigger than her, so if there were fists involved, he’d have hurt her, for sure. Something inside me rubbed its greedy little hands together because now it had permission to deal with Randall the way he deserved to be dealt with.
I skidded in the mud in front of Randall’s house and rushed up the steps, turning the knob and throwing my shoulder into the door. It slammed open and I charged in the inside.
“Lydia,” I called, heading for the office.
I stood in the doorway for just a moment to take in the scene; overturned chairs, books strewn all over the floor, and Lydia cowering in front of the fireplace as Randall kicked her in the ribs.
“Randall,” I said. My voice roared in the small space. He looked up just as his boot connected with her ribs and she grunted. She didn’t respond otherwise, clearly unconscious. “Get the hell away from her.”
I crossed the room in two steps and grabbed a handful of his coat and shirt, then pounded my fist into his face over and over. My vision had gone red around the edges, and my head throbbed, I was so furious. When the beating went from rage to satisfying, I came back to myself. Randall lolled in my grasp, his face a bloody broken mess.
I threw him to the ground. “It’s less than you deserve, you piece of shit.”
Turning my back on him, I rushed to Lydia’s side, rolling her carefully to her back. A quiet moan escaped her lips, but she didn’t open her eyes.
She’d certainly taken a beating. Her right eye had swollen shut, the cheek puffy beneath it. Her bottom lip was split and bleeding. Her hair had half pulled from the updo and was a tangled mess around her head. I examined both her arms, using my fingers to push and prod, looking for breaks in her arms, wrists, or hands. Thankfully, I found none, though there were plenty of soft tissue injuries—bruises in the shape of Randall’s fingers. If I weren’t more concerned for Lydia’s injuries, I’d go back to beating on Randall for inflicting this pain on her.
I took a deep breath and tried to focus on Lydia. Moving my fingers to her torso, I felt each rib and found at lea
st two broken, and if he’d kicked her more than once, there were likely some cracked, too. Her chest would be blooming with bruises. A growl rumbled in my chest against my will.
“Will I need to put you on a leash?” she asked, her voice a hoarse whisper.
I hadn’t even noticed her open her eyes, I was so busy cataloging her injuries.
“Lydia? Oh, sweetness, I’m so glad to see you,” I said, kissing her non-bruised cheek.
“I’m glad to see you too.” She groaned and wiggled her jaw back and forth. “Hurts to talk.”
I inspected her jaw and didn’t perceive any obvious breaks, but I suspected every part of her body would hurt for weeks to come as she healed.
“We need to get you to the hospital. I can take better care of you there.”
“Look at you being a doctor.” Her eyes sparkled with humor.
“For you, anything.”
I leaned down to kiss her cheek again, but she gasped and her good eye flew wide. She screamed and I threw myself over her to protect her.
Something big and hard came down on my back and pain exploded everywhere. Before he could hit me again, I jumped to my feet and turned to face him.
Randall looked like a bloodied demon from hell. His face was cut and bruised, but his eyes glittered like obsidian, and his lips pulled back, baring his teeth like a rabid dog. He had a huge Bible in his hands, ready to strike me with it again.
“It’s over, Randall. Put the Bible down and back away.”
Instead he roared and swung it at me. I threw my hands up to block it, turning to protect my face. When I did, I saw the fireplace poker on the hearth. I squatted and swiped it, bringing it up and swinging it like a club.
It connected with his shoulder, a clumsy strike, but it caught him by surprise and made him stumble back a couple of steps.
Lydia scooted behind a chair and curled as best she could out of the way. I got a better grip on the poker. If I weren’t so intent on the fight, I’d laugh at how ridiculous we must look—me wielding the poker like a sword, and Randall using the Bible as a shield.
“You can’t win. Put the damn thing down,” I said.
“Never.”
He hefted it over his head and lunged at me, but before he could bring it down on my head, I stabbed him in the gut with the poker. It went in a lot easier than I thought it would, but wasn’t nearly as satisfying. In fact, I gagged when a wet gurgle bubbled up his throat.
I let go of the poker and he fell flat on his back with a resounding thud, right at Mrs. Jackson’s feet.
She screamed and her hands fluttered like a flock of birds disturbed from a tree.
“Is he…?”
My legs lost their strength and collapsed from under me. I sank to my knees, breathing deep, all the horrors from the war rushing back at me at once—ragged holes torn into soft bodies, broken corpses, piles of sawed-off limbs stacked outside the tent rotting in the hot sun. I fell onto my hands, hanging my head, dry heaving next to Randall’s boots.
Then a soft touch on my back, like a cool spring rain, washed the pain away.
“It’s okay, Emmett.”
Lydia leaned into me, hugging me from behind. I basked in her warmth.
“I thought I wanted to kill him,” I said. “I couldn’t stand the way he treated you. I had no idea he’d hit you. I’m so sorry I left you alone with him.”
“I didn’t know he’d do it, either.” Her words were husky with emotion. “But I’m not sad he’s dead. He killed Mother, you know. He admitted it.”
“Killing him was…” I couldn’t find the right words. “I’m not a killer.”
“I know, darling. You’re a healer.”
She caressed my hair like a mother would a child who’d had a nightmare. It was deeply comforting, and then I remembered the things Randall had threatened me with.
“Whatever Randall told you about me is…”
“…a lie, I know.”
I squeezed my eyes tight and swallowed hard, but I had to face it. She had to know. I shifted so I sat on the floor beside her. “He may have twisted the story, but I didn’t lie to you when I told you the woman would have died anyway. She would have.”
Lydia looked to the door. “Mrs. Jackson, would you please go fetch the sheriff?”
I’d completely forgotten about her. She nodded mutely, still staring at Randall’s body prostrate on the carpet, then turned and left.
Lydia returned her attention to me. “There was a baby, too?”
I nodded. “She’d been in labor for days. The baby wasn’t coming, and she was exhausted. She couldn’t push anymore. They were both bound to die if she couldn’t deliver it. Her husband begged me to do something. Anything. I’d read about doctors trying to deliver babies surgically, so I tried even though I knew there was nothing I could do to save them. I did it to appease her husband, to make him feel like I’d done all I could.”
“Randall said you were drunk.”
“I was,” I said, hanging my head. “After the war I was chronically drunk, but the longer her labor lasted, the more I knew it would be a bad outcome, so I stopped drinking. I needed a clear head. When I tried to do the surgery, I had mostly sobered up, but it didn’t go well. I know they would have died anyway, but I caused her and her family more pain, and I feel like I killed them.”
She cupped my face in her palm, turning it so I had to look her in the eye. “Are you responsible for her death? No. I believe you when you say they would have died anyway. Were you negligent? Probably. But you know the mistake you made and you learned from it. You’ll never drink again while practicing medicine.”
I smiled. “I can always count on you to be honest with me.”
She tried to scrunch her brows together, but half of her face was so swollen it didn’t respond the way it should. “Of course. I’ll always be honest with you.”
“Does that mean there’s still a future for us?”
“If you’ll have me, Mr. Wilder, I still want to be Mrs. Wilder.”
“As far as I’m concerned you always have been.”
“You want a shot of whiskey?” Isaac asked. “It’ll calm your nerves.”
“I haven’t had a drink in years, not going to start again now. But thanks for the offer,” I said.
Miles—the last of Isaac’s brothers—lounged in a chair on the other side of the room. He wasn’t part of the wedding party, but since all the men in the family seemed to be gathered in the room, I wasn’t surprised to see him. “I’ll take it, Ike.”
Isaac handed the glass over without a second look. Miles had only recently arrived and the two of them were still figuring out how to get along after not seeing each other for a while. Made me think about my brother and sister—neither of whom could attend the wedding. Lydia and I planned a wedding trip back east in the spring or summer. We’d visit my family, then.
“Your tie’s crooked there, Doc,” Sam said from behind me.
His reflection in the mirror grinned at me. “Thanks,” I said, untying it so I could try again. “And I’m not officially in practice yet.”
Dread still made my heart skip a beat when I thought about practicing medicine again, but as long as I had Lydia by my side, I’d get through the fear.
I took a deep breath to calm my nerves.
“You’ll be hanging out a shingle before you know it,” Sam said.
Wyatt cracked the door, “everyone decent?” he asked, then stuck his head in. “Damn. Got the wrong room. I hoped for a room full of pretty ladies.”
“You’re in a good mood,” Miles said.
“Better than you,” Sam said.
“Piss off.”
“You first.”
“Jesus, you two never grow up, do you?” Wyatt said, coming in and leaning on the closed door. He’d discarded his usual denims for trousers, but otherwise he wore his standard white shirt, vest, and string tie. He’d added a jacket as a concession to the formality of the wedding.
Miles grunted and t
hrew back the last of his whiskey. “Weddings make me itchy.”
“Nobody’s asking you to get married,” Wyatt said.
“Good thing. I ain’t never going to.”
Isaac laughed, and I snorted. “Never say never, little brother,” Isaac said. “I never thought I would, either, but when you meet the right woman it’s like being hit by a train.”
“Why would you ever want that? Sounds painful.”
“I guess it is, sort of,” I said. “The right woman wraps your heart around hers and suddenly the thought of not having her in your life is too painful to even consider.”
“Ugh. Sounds awful.”
“I’d like to get married someday,” Sam said. He looked wistful at the idea, but I couldn’t tell if he meant it, or if he just gave his brother a hard time. Of them all, Sam was the jokester. I never knew whether to take him seriously.
“Like any woman’s going to want you,” Miles said.
“Palmer is definitely not big enough for the two of you,” Wyatt said.
Personally, I found them—all of the siblings—entertaining. I’d been happier since we’d returned to Palmer than I had been in a very long time.
“There’s someone for everyone, Sam. You’ll find her,” I said.
Miles made a disgusted sound, and the rest of us laughed at him.
“By the way, Doc,” Wyatt said, sweeping his hat off his head and slapping it on his thigh. “Everything’s been cleared for you to take over Doc Brown’s practice. You and Beth can open up any time you want.”
“Beth doesn’t think I’m stepping on her toes, does she?” I asked Isaac.
“We’ve been over this, Emmett. Beth’s patients are mostly women and children. Men don’t really like her doctoring them. She’s happy to have a partner to share all the work, especially after the baby comes.”
Depending on the Doctor (Nevada Bounty Book 2) Page 23