Holt had enjoyed sharing the secrets. He'd long since regretted the laughs.
Vivian leaned forward on tiptoe and planted a kiss on Holt's cheek. "I really did miss you," she whispered.
Then with a laugh and a wave of her hand, she was borne away by her covey of young men. He had thought that separation would be like pulling out his guts. Instead it was something of a relief. He didn't understand that.
"I didn't realize she was so young," Felicity said.
"She's twenty-two," Holt said. "She was much too young to get married."
"I know women who got married two or three years younger," Felicity said. "Are you ready to go?"
Much to his surprise, he was. He retrieved Felicity's cloak, and they left. He expected Felicity to ask whether finding Vivian again had turned out to be what he'd hoped for, but she didn't say anything at all until they reached her house.
"She really is a very beautiful woman," Felicity said as Holt helped her down from the carriage. "I'm surprised she hasn't married again. I'm sure she's had many offers."
Holt paid the driver and followed her up the walk to the house. "Vivian won't marry just anyone."
"She must be a very strong and resourceful woman. It's not easy to be unmarried and without family."
"She's been without a family since she was a little girl."
"Then her success is even more remarkable." Felicity turned at the door. "Will you eat breakfast here or with Mrs. Bennett?"
She sounded very cool, very businesslike. "Here, if it won't be any trouble."
"It's just as easy to cook for three as two. See you in the morning." Without waiting for a response, she opened the door and disappeared inside the house.
Holt didn't move down the steps. His mind was busy trying to gauge Felicity's reaction to Vivian. No matter how beautiful a woman might be, she couldn't be expected to enjoy meeting a woman who was even more beautiful, especially a woman so beautiful that men automatically gravitated toward her. But Felicity's only reaction seemed to be indifference.
He went down the steps and walked toward Mrs. Bennett's house.
It would be a better use of his time to try to figure out his own reaction. There wasn't any doubt about his initial response. After the first shock of seeing her, realizing it really was Vivian, that he had truly found her after all this time, he'd been filled with relief. The unnamed fears that had clustered at the back of his mind for so long could be banished. She was alive and safe.
Next came a kind of euphoria. His long search had come to an end. All he had to do was speak to her and the past six years would roll away. Naturally, it would take time to catch up on their lives, time to reestablish the intimacy they'd shared. In some ways it would be like getting to know each other all over again, but he was certain they could regain their old relationship.
But even as the thoughts formed in his mind, he wondered if they could be true. Neither he nor Vivian was the same. They'd experienced a lifetime of change during the past six years. The carnage of the war had left him certain he didn't want to be a doctor. She'd been married and widowed, had grown into a woman who'd learned to take care of herself.
And then there was the problem that he didn't really know what he wanted to do with his life. How could he even think of a wife and children? The idea of so much responsibility hung heavy around his neck. He'd spent his childhood being responsible for his father. And feeling a failure. He'd joined the army to help his friends, but his skills hadn't been sufficient to save many men from death. He'd spent years feeling he was responsible for Vivian, that he'd failed again. Marriage and children would merely add to the possibility of more failures.
He still couldn't understand why he didn't mind leaving Vivian, why he felt more comfortable with Felicity. He liked Felicity a lot, but he'd loved Vivian for years. Felicity was pretty, but Vivian was beautiful. Yet he felt more at ease with Felicity talking about Vivian than actually talking to Vivian. Did he resent her calling him her big brother? Could it be that he didn't love her as much as he'd thought, that his attraction to Felicity was eating into his feelings for Vivian? Could his reluctance be fear that she didn't love him anymore?
He pushed that aside. She'd been happy to see him again. Their feelings for each other were still intact. It only remained to revitalize them.
Then why had she married Abe Calvert after knowing him only a few weeks? It had taken Holt months to absorb the fact that she really had gotten married and really had disappeared from his life.
It didn't matter that he probably didn't--couldn't--love her the way he used to. They were both adults now. They would start over again. Not from the beginning, but getting to know each other, learning the true nature of their feelings for each other. The shock of seeing her tonight, the real Vivian, forced him to realize he'd spent six years building a fantasy in his mind. If his feelings were not what he thought, it was just as likely that Vivian's feelings for him weren't the same. They couldn't have been, could they? After all, she'd married another man.
There was no point in torturing himself with these questions tonight. He'd soon have the answers to all his questions. He'd waited six years. He could easily wait a couple of days.
He had walked up the steps and reached for the knob on the front door when he heard a door open and Felicity's voice calling his name.
"What's wrong?" he asked, moving quickly down the steps and across the yard separating the two houses.
"Papa's operating on Mrs. Farley's tumor, but he did something wrong. I'm afraid she's going to die."
Chapter Thirteen
The scene in the office reminded Holt of the tent hospital where he'd performed so many operations. Dr. Moore and the patient were covered with blood. Holt shed his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and plunged his hands into some soapy water. "What have you done?" he asked Dr. Moore as he dried his hands and doused them with alcohol.
"She came in complaining of bleeding."
Holt cut him off. "What did you do after you cut her open?"
"I was just going to remove the tumor."
"What happened?"
"Blood started oozing everywhere."
"Didn't you stop it?"
"I can't. Every time I move my hand off the wound, it bleeds again."
Dr. Moore had somehow cut a vein or an artery.
"I've got to sew it shut and hope it doesn't leak," Holt said. "I need the smallest needle and finest silk thread you have."
Felicity must have analyzed the situation as quickly as he had. She placed the threaded needle in his hand only moments after he asked for it.
"Don't let go," Holt told Dr. Moore. "Hold it closed while I sew."
Holt had done this many times before, but knowing that his patient could die made every time feel like the first. Each tiny stitch, each nearly invisible knot was a victory. By the time he'd finished, he felt exhausted from the struggle.
"That's it," Holt said as he straightened up. "Now let's clean out the cavity and see if the stitches hold."
Dr. Moore, looking very old and tired, stumbled as he backed away. "You do it."
It was impossible to tell what was affecting him most--alcohol, fear, or exhaustion.
"I can't do this operation alone."
"Felicity can help you," her father said.
Holt wanted to argue, but he didn't have time. Besides, he remembered how efficient Felicity had been when he operated on Durwin. "Can you do this?" he asked Felicity.
She nodded.
"Okay, let's clean her up and remove this tumor."
By the time he'd removed all the blood from the abdominal cavity, Holt was more worried. The patient had lost a lot of blood, more than he'd thought at first. The artery seemed to be holding, but her pulse was weak. He didn't know if she could endure the operation, but he had to remove the tumor. It was foolish to leave it.
"That's all I can do," he said, after he'd removed the tumor and sewn up the cavity. "We'll have to depend on Mother Nature now."
<
br /> He stepped back. His patient didn't look good. Her breathing was shallow, her color almost gone. It would be touch-and-go, but she had a chance. He hoped her constitution was strong enough. No one spoke while he cleaned up and Felicity put all the instruments into hot, soapy water.
"We have to talk," Holt said to Felicity.
"You'll want to do it in here so you can watch Mrs. Farley," Felicity said. "I'll make some coffee while Papa goes over her case history with you."
Holt spent the next ten minutes questioning Dr. Moore about Mrs. Farley. But as soon as Felicity entered with the coffee, he brought the discussion to an end. Dr. Moore slumped in a chair, his head in his hands, but Felicity faced Holt.
"Talk," she said.
"I feel uncomfortable talking in front of your father."
"It's his career you're talking about. No one has a better right to hear what you have to say."
"That was a simple tumor," Holt said, "only two inches across, barely under the skin. Your father should have anticipated it would bleed. Yet all he was doing was applying pressure. He didn't even try to ligate a single blood vessel. Can't you smell him? He's been drinking."
"I know he drinks more than he should, but--"
Holt cut her off. "But what? He's a threat to patients. He did more harm to Mrs. Farley than help her. She might die from blood loss because of his carelessness."
"What are you going to do?"
"Notify his patients, other doctors."
"And what do you hope to accomplish by that?"
"To protect his patients."
"Suppose the patients don't listen to you. You're a Yankee, and they don't trust Yankees."
"They'll listen after I explain what happened."
"Can you prove it? Mrs. Farley only knows that my father operated on her. Unless my father or I corroborate your statement, you have no proof."
Holt couldn't believe his ears. Felicity couldn't mean she would endanger the lives of innocent people just to protect her father's reputation.
"How do you know other doctors in Galveston aren't incompetent?" Felicity continued.
"I don't, but I know Dr. Moore is. I might have to go to the police."
"The police will only be interested if somebody dies. Nobody has. Besides, half of the police force come to my father. He's always taken good care of them."
"Your father is an alcoholic," Holt said, unable to keep from throwing at her the one word she refused to hear. "Do you understand what that means? I do, because my father was an alcoholic. It means he can't help himself. He has to have a drink. And once he starts, he can't stop."
"I do drink too much," Dr. Moore said, "but I'm not an alcoholic."
"See. I told you--"
"No alcoholic recognizes his condition," Holt said, cutting Felicity off. "My father would come off a three-day drunk and tell me he could stop any time he wanted. But sooner or later he always gave in to the temptation to have just one drink."
"My father has never come home falling-down drunk, and he's never been drunk for days on end."
"No, he just drinks too much, then thinks he can operate without anyone to assist. Alcoholics are incapable of thinking through problems and weighing the risks. They think they can do anything they want. We can't keep this quiet any longer."
"So you're going to ruin my father."
"I don't make him drink. You can't blame this on me."
"If you ruin his career, his reputation, I surely will blame you."
"So you prefer to let him keep operating until he kills somebody."
"No."
"Then what do you propose we do?"
Felicity turned from him to her father. "I don't want to do this, but I must. You understand, don't you?"
He nodded.
"Have you talked about this already?" Holt asked Felicity.
"You told me before what you would do if anything like this happened," she said. "I couldn't just wait around and do nothing, so I talked to Papa."
"And what did you two decide?"
"That you should take over Papa's practice until he's better."
Holt looked from one to the other, but it was clear that Dr. Moore wasn't surprised by his daughter's proposal.
"My taking over won't change anything. It will only hide the problem temporarily."
"So you'd rather destroy my father."
"I'd rather not let him kill any patients."
"Then take over the practice."
"For how long? A month? Two months? What happens then? I just turn my back and walk away?"
"He'll be recovered by then."
"No, he won't. I know about alcoholics. They don't get better. They remain alcoholics forever."
"Then tell me what to do."
"He has to stop drinking completely. Not even one drink."
"He will."
"You can't watch him all the time."
"I will."
"This is a ridiculous conversation," Holt said. "You've got to recognize the situation for what it is."
"My father lost everything when the war ended. Without his practice, he has no way to make a living."
"That's not my problem."
"You think Vivian is your problem because your uncle left you his estate. Yet you intend to deprive my father of his living and you don't think you're responsible. Forgive me, but I can't follow that."
"Vivian couldn't help her situation. Your father can."
"Vivian did help her situation. She got married. She has family. That dress she was wearing cost three times what I paid for mine. We have only what my father earns taking care of the poorest people in Galveston. If you deprive him of his practice, we'll be destitute."
"So what do you propose?"
"As I said, that you take over his practice."
It was on Holt's lips to refuse. He wasn't interested in being a doctor, but he'd always wanted to know more about family medicine. After all, he'd have a family some day and he would want to know if they were getting the best medical treatment.
"Okay, but only on three conditions." What was he talking about? There weren't any conditions that would make this a good idea.
"What are they?"
"First, your father can't sit in his room brooding. I'm not a general practitioner. Your father knows twice what I know. The two of us will see every patient together. We'll consult on every decision. We'll operate together."
"Is that okay, Papa?" Felicity asked.
He nodded.
"My second condition is that your father never take even one drink. Not with dinner, not with friends, at a party, or at the hotel bar. Even one drink and the deal is off."
"Everybody has a right to have a drink sometimes," Felicity protested.
"Maybe, but that's my second condition."
"I can do it," Dr. Moore said. "I'm not an alcoholic. I'm just weak."
Felicity gave Holt a hard look. "What's your third condition?"
"That I move back into this house so I can keep an eye on your father."
"Next door is close enough."
"Those are my conditions. They're not up for discussion."
Felicity looked furious. For some reason, that made him feel better. He was glad to know he could shake her iron control.
"It's all right, Felicity," her father said.
"It's not all right with me."
"If he's staking his reputation on my behavior, he has a right to make sure I'm holding up my side of the bargain."
"It'd be like living with a spy in the house," Felicity objected.
"Try thinking of me as a friend and supporter," Holt said. "I'm doing this to help your father, not ruin him."
"You've threatened to do it often enough."
"In case you haven't noticed, you keep talking me out of it."
"Because you know it's not right."
"It's letting you talk me out of it that's not right," Holt said before turning to Dr. Moore. "You understand that even one drink and our agreement is off, don't yo
u?"
He nodded
"I'll do what I can to help, but I can't do it for you. You've got to do it for yourself."
"I'm not an alcoholic."
Holt didn't believe that, but he wasn't going to argue. "You two can go to bed. I'll sit up with Mrs. Farley."
"When are you moving in?" Dr. Moore asked.
"First thing in the morning."
"Good," he said. He got up and left the room.
"I ought to thank you for giving him another chance," Felicity said.
Holt smiled despite his irritation with himself and the whole situation. "Not if it's going to be given so begrudgingly. You sound as if saying the word would cause real pain."
Felicity's expression softened. "I suppose I do sound ungrateful, but you forced this on me."
"No, your father forced it on all of us. If you don't accept that, you won't be any help to him, and you'll just keep being angry with me."
"Why shouldn't I be angry with you?"
"Defending your father, protecting him, is just enabling him to continue drinking. He won't get better until you accept that he has a problem that's not going to be fixed by denying its existence."
"You've made your point. Now may I go to bed?"
"Sorry. I didn't mean to keep you, but I wanted to talk to you."
"Why?"
"We can't go on living as if we're in an armed camp. I want us to be friends."
"Is that your fourth condition, that I pretend we're friends?"
"No. It's just a wish. Try. Other people seem to like me."
"I could like you very well if it weren't for what you're doing to my father."
"Try to think of what I'm doing as helping him. His life and yours will be better."
She didn't look convinced.
"At least try," he said.
"Okay, but I don't guarantee I'll succeed."
"You may not have to do it for very long."
"Why not?"
"If I ask Vivian to marry me, I won't be in Galveston much longer."
He couldn't interpret Felicity's expression. Her gaze swung from him. "You haven't even talked with her yet. Her feelings might have changed. Yours might have changed."
"They haven't." But even as he said that, he knew it was not true.
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