Love Is Patient Romance Collection
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The Spinster’s Beau ©2006 by Jill Stengl
Lady-in-Waiting ©2012 by Erica Vetsch
Shining Armor ©2012 by Erica Vetsch
A Birthday Wish ©2013 by Darlene Franklin
The Spinster and the Cowboy ©2007 by Lena Nelson Dooley
The Spinster and the Doctor ©2007 by Frances Devine
The Spinster and the Tycoon ©2007 by Vickie McDonough
Harvest of Love ©2000 by Janet Lee Barton
Hope’s Dwelling Place ©2013 by Connie Stevens
Print ISBN 978-1-63409-661-4
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-63409-736-9
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-63409-737-6
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Published by Barbour Books, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, OH 44683, www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.
Printed in Canada.
CONTENTS
The Spinster’s Beau
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Lady-in-Waiting
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Shining Armor
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
A Birthday Wish
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
The Spinster and the Cowboy
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Epilogue
The Spinster and the Doctor
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
The Spinster and the Tycoon
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Harvest of Love
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Hope’s Dwelling Place
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
The Spinster’s Beau
by Jill Stengl
O LORD, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.
For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm.
ISAIAH 25:1, 4
Chapter 1
Mackinac Island, July 1823
Thump-thump-thump! The insistent noise roused Jane from her sleep. Blinking in darkness, she sat up. Someone pounded at the front door. Her brother stirred in the next room, grumbling to himself as his feet hit the floorboards.
As her mind cleared, she remembered—Mrs. Pennyfeather must be in labor! Jane flung on a wrap and poked her head into the hall just in time to hear Jordan say, “At this hour, Sergeant? The good doctor must be losing his sanity. Miss Douglas certainly will not—”
“Jordan, I told you about this days ago,” Jane interrupted from her doorway. “I promised Mrs. Pennyfeather and Dr. Beaumont that I would assist with her delivery.”
Candlelight flickered on Jordan’s frowning features as he turned, but before he could speak, Jane called, “I’ll be out in a moment!”
A voice answered faintly. “Doc says to bring bandages.”
Jane agreed and closed her door. In the square of moonlight on her bedroom floor, she changed into an old work gown. Bandages? She wound her hair into a tight knot and secured it with five perfectly placed pins. Why bandages? An old sheet from the linen press could be torn into strips when needed. She added it to her basket of supplies.
Jordan waited in the entry, lips tight and eyes cool. Even in his nightshirt and bed shoes, Lieutenant Jordan Douglas was an imposing figure.
“Jane, I strongly disapprove. Midwifery is a job for old women, not young ladies, and you have no need of employment—”
“Dr. Beaumont says I’m an excellent midwife. Granny trained me well, and I want to use my skills to help people.”
“Dr. Beaumont.” He snorted.
She hitched her chin higher. “You shouldn’t snort. It’s undignified.”
He growled something incoherent. “At least make an attempt to observe proprieties, Jane.”
“Always I observe proprieties, little brother. In this line of work, I seldom even speak with men. Please don’t worry. I imagine I’ll return home tomorrow.”
The moon cast black shadows across Fort Mackinac’s parade grounds, but its light glowed on the mane and rump of the doctor’s sturdy gelding. Jane climbed up to the carriage seat without help. Sergeant Fallon, Dr. Beaumont’s orderly, snapped the horse into a trot, and the little trap’s wheels crunched on gravel. After a wave from a guard, they rolled on through the fort’s north sally port and down the winding road to the village.
A breeze carried the pleasant humidity of summer across the Straits of Mackinac, picking up a hint of pine and cedar in its passage and sweeping away less-inspiring smells. A magical moonlit pathway sparkled across the lake’s rippling surface. Thank You for this little glimpse of heaven’s beauty, God. Had I stayed in bed, I would have missed it.
“Is Mrs. Pennyfeather’s labor far along?” She broke the silence.
“Uh, I w–wouldn’t know.”
She turned on the seat, trying to study the young man’s features. Even by moonlight, he looked guilty. “Sergeant, what are you hiding?”
“Doc told me to get you there one way or another. It isn’t Mrs. Pennyfeather. There’s been a f–fight in town, and Doc n–needs your help.”
; “My help? Sergeant Fallon, I am a midwife!”
“He knows that, but he says he needs you. One of the men got cut up bad—” Fallon gulped. “And the other’s got a broken jaw and a smashed nose. I c–c–can’t manage them. Doc says a w–woman might do the trick, and he knows you can endure”—he took a deep breath—“blood.”
Jane jerked on the seat to face forward and stare blankly ahead. Should she order the sergeant to take her back home? Part of her mind insisted “yes,” but an unexpectedly adventurous thump of her heart cried “no!” Dr. Beaumont thought she might be useful!
Dr. Beaumont lived in the officers’ stone quarters across the parade grounds from Jordan’s wooden quarters. Jane had made his acquaintance soon after her arrival at the fort. Although she thought the fort’s military surgeon somewhat eccentric, she greatly admired his medical skills. The knowledge that he valued her skills in return added starch to her spine.
“Very well, I shall endeavor to help. Who are the injured men, and where are we going?”
Fallon’s slim shoulders straightened. “They took ‘em to the Northern Hotel.” He sounded more cheerful. “It’s McNaughton and D–D–Durant.”
He sounded as if she should know the men by name, but Jane knew few people on the island besides pregnant women and new mothers. Since Granny’s sudden death last autumn brought her to live with her army officer brother, she had lived a quiet life. Not that her life with Granny had been social either. Young men had never sought Jane’s company and probably never would.
“Doc can save ‘em if anyone can,” Fallon said with solid confidence. “He saved St. Martin’s life, and that was impossible.”
Nearly a year earlier, a young man on the island by the name of Alexis St. Martin had taken a shotgun blast in his stomach from close range. Jane had not yet met St. Martin, but she had heard many renditions of his story. In all of them, Dr. Beaumont ranked as a heroic healer.
“I’ve heard that his stomach wound has not yet entirely closed.”
“No, but he’s alive. That’s a miracle in itself.”
“Dr. Beaumont is an excellent physician, yet life is in the Lord’s hands.”
“If you say so, ma’am.”
Fallon reined in the horse in front of the Northern Hotel. Unearthly shrieks and shouts seemed to descend from the dark sky above.
Fallon gazed upward, wide-eyed. “You’d b–b–best hurry.”
Picking up her basket, Jane climbed from the carriage.
The hotel’s owner met them in the entry. “Please try to quiet him,” he whimpered. “My guests are threatening to leave!”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Jane hung her bonnet and cloak on a hook and peeled off her gloves. A pleasant sense of importance swept over her. “Do we have hot water?” She always requested hot water for deliveries, but it should prove useful in any case.
“I took a kettle up minutes ago.”
“Good. Please boil more.”
The man bowed respectfully.
They climbed steep, dark stairs; then Fallon knocked on a chamber door.
“Enter.” Dr. Beaumont’s invitation pierced the uproar from within.
Fallon opened the door for Jane but remained out in the hall. “Good luck,” he said.
She straightened her shoulders and stepped inside. Despite an open gable window, the small chamber was stifling. Several men clustered around a table upon which something thrashed. Shouting numbed her ears. A lamp hung crookedly from a hook on the slanted ceiling; two others hung on the walls. A pile of bloody garments lay on the floor. Jane’s nostrils cringed at the stench of whiskey, tobacco, and unwashed bodies, along with the reek of blood.
Dr. Beaumont looked up from his bag of surgical instruments, his face flushed and sweaty. “Ah, you’re here. I need to begin immediately. Multiple lacerations and profuse bleeding, though no apparent harm to major blood vessels. Muscle sutures are needed, however. If the patient lives that long.”
Jane pretended complete comprehension, nodded, and rolled up her sleeves.
Another barrage of swearing and execrations rebounded off the crowded chamber’s walls. Steeling herself, Jane slowly turned. Four sweating men strained to pin down a man spread-eagled on the table, his torso draped in blood-soaked rags, his lower half clad in equally bloody deerskin breeches.
Jane blinked and swallowed hard. Durant—she remembered now. Mad Durant, he was called. Who could forget such a man?
Dr. Beaumont removed a blood-soaked rag from the patient’s abdomen. Jane focused on the patient’s injuries. Cuts and gashes marred his chest, arms, and shoulders. A fifteen-inch gash laid open his upper belly from one side of his rib cage to the other, a shallow wound, but ugly. White sinew and bone gleamed in the exposed flesh. A few inches lower and deeper and Mr. Durant would be dead … and perhaps the world would have been better off.
She removed towels and an old quilt from her basket, filled a basin with hot water and placed it near the doctor’s bag, then donned a serviceable apron. Her strong fingers ripped the sheet into long strips and rolled them neatly. Exactly what else the doctor expected her to do remained to be seen.
Dr. Beaumont brandished a needle threaded with gut and prepared to stitch. One of the assistants held a bottle to the patient’s lips. Durant took several swallows before spewing the liquor from his mouth. The bottle fell on his chest, and whiskey gushed out, soaking him and one of the helpers. Durant shrieked and swore again as the liquid burned in his wounds.
Jane’s knees quaked. The heat and the horrid smells made her head swim. If she fainted now, the doctor would never respect her again. She gave her head a shake and tightened every muscle in her body.
Nothing seemed to rattle Dr. Beaumont. Jane watched his lips in order to understand his orders through the cacophony of profanity. “See if you can calm the patient, Miss Douglas. Whatever it takes. He’ll die for certain if he doesn’t stop fighting me.”
Chapter 2
Jane circled the table, sliding along the wall behind two of the trappers to stand near the patient’s head. “Mr. Durant, please try to calm yourself.”
He met her gaze and spewed more blasphemy. Pity for his obvious torment blended with Jane’s fear and disgust. Such wounds would test the fortitude of the strongest man. Durant might be a wicked sinner, but he was God’s creation, formed in God’s image, and as such, he deserved her kindness and sympathy.
Dr. Beaumont began to stitch a partially severed muscle in the patient’s abdomen.
The man holding Durant’s left arm let go, staggered back, and crumpled. The other three trappers watched in surprise as their burly companion melted to the floor, his face gray. One of them looked at Jane and chuckled, though his eyes were frightened. “Fainted dead away, he did.”
Jane grabbed Durant’s arm before he could interfere with Dr. Beaumont and further injure himself. As soon as she caught hold of his massive forearm, she realized that, weakened though he was, she would never be able to restrain him should he thrust her aside. His skin was cold and damp to her touch, and he shivered. Blood trickled down his biceps from a shallow slash and dripped off the side of his shoulder from another cut below his collarbone.
His hand grasped at the air until she caught it with hers and held it firmly. Dirt encrusted his short fingernails and outlined every knuckle. He turned his face toward her, and she looked into his bleary, tortured eyes. Tears had traced pale streaks down his temples and cheeks. Despite the reek of whiskey on his breath, he appeared to be rational. Perhaps if she got him talking … “What happened?” she asked.
“He pulled a knife on me,” he gasped. “I didn’t have one. I would have beat him but … for one lucky swipe.”
“You’re lucky you ain’t fat,” one of the leg holders commented. “He’d have spilled your guts.”
Durant addressed more profanity at the trapper, addressing him as “Gerard.” Jane met Mr. Gerard’s gaze and received a nearly toothless grin.
Dr. Beaumont tugged at a st
itch to secure it. Durant howled and jerked Jane’s hand down to press against his mouth. For the first time, he was quiet, his eyes squeezed shut, his jaw muscles bunching.
“Give him something to bite on,” Gerard said. The yellow-haired man holding Durant’s other arm offered a plug of tobacco. Meeting Jane’s blank stare, he flushed and put it away. He then offered a dirty leather glove, but Durant refused it with a curse, pressing Jane’s hand close to his lips. Disturbed, she tried to ease her hand away, but he held it firmly in place. Reasoning that he was now quiet, she made an effort to endure.
Dr. Beaumont worked quickly, pausing only to rethread his needle. Jane watched his nimble fingers and studied the neat row of stitches across Durant’s hairy belly. Then her face heated at the realization that she was actually viewing a man’s bare torso! If Jordan ever discovered the details of this adventure, he would never allow her to leave his house again.