She had only taken this job to keep Ma alive, and now Joe was telling her it wouldn’t have mattered? She had signed her soul over to Ewan for a whole year, and it wasn’t going to make a difference. Ma was still going to die.
If there was a God, he was somewhere up in heaven, laughing at her.
When Charlotte arrived in Dixie’s dining room for the benefit planning meeting, which had been postponed to seven o’clock that evening, she was disappointed to see that despite all the excitement expressed about the box social at the afternoon gathering the day before, only seven women were in attendance, including herself, and two of those were Belle and Susan Kastain. She’d gathered from snatches of conversation heard through her door that they had stayed in one of Dixie’s rooms the evening before to be near William.
The headache that she’d been babying by lying in her room with a cool cloth over her eyes since last evening pulsed a little stronger on the right side of her skull. It hadn’t been so bad up in the dark quiet of her room, but the lanterns at either end of table gave her the feeling of blades being shoved into her eye sockets. She’d hoped that it would have abated more by now. She got them so rarely, now that she knew what foods to avoid, that she’d forgotten how debilitating they could be.
Dixie, who was sitting toward the head of the table near her mother, Rose, frowned at her. “Are you feeling well?”
Charlotte carefully sank onto the seat beside her so as not to jostle herself. “Just a small headache.” Small was an understatement, but she would survive. She turned to Mrs. Kastain, who sat with Belle at the other end of the table. “How is Mr. Kastain?”
The woman smiled, but the worry couldn’t be banished from behind her eyes. “Doc was over early this morning to report that he made it through the night. I’ve sat with him all day, and he’s done nothing but sleep, which Doc says is right good. Doc’s been giving him some pain medication to help him rest easy.”
“I’m happy to hear it.”
“Yes. It’s good news indeed.” She returned to the conversation she’d been having with Mrs. King when Charlotte had entered the room.
Since there were no eyes on her at the moment, Charlotte gave in to the urge to massage her temples.
Dixie laid a sympathetic hand on her arm and leaned close. “Remind me never to make you anything with chocolate.”
Charlotte smirked and then winced. “Or coffee. Or tea.”
“Can I get you a cold cloth or something?”
Charlotte shook her head, glancing down to where Belle doodled on a piece of paper with a stubby pencil. “That might raise questions, and I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”
“Well, you need something. You have about as much color as a barrel of flour.”
Charlotte laughed, but the action sent a bolt of fire through her skull. On its heels, nausea surged so strongly that she looked around in a panic. There was nowhere private to run should she find the need. “Much as I want to be here, I’m afraid I need to go lie down again.” She only hoped she would make it to her room in time. She stood, but the whole room swayed, and she leaned her palms against the table to maintain her balance.
Both Dixie and Rose surged to their feet, as though ready to catch her if she collapsed.
Rose nudged Dixie. “Bet Doc would have something that would help.”
Dixie gnawed her bottom lip and studied Charlotte with a worried expression. “Have you been this bad all day? You should have sent for the doctor long ago, if so.”
Charlotte’s mind was so preoccupied with fighting off the agony and nausea that she couldn’t form a reply. And despite the fact that all the women, including Belle and her mother, were staring in curiosity from the other end of the table, she was beyond caring about propriety at the moment. Why had she thought she would be okay to come down? “Dixie, I can’t… Can you please help me back to my room?”
Rose put an arm around Charlotte’s waist and nudged Dixie toward the door. “I’ll help her. You go get Doc.”
Without the need for more urging, Dixie hoisted her skirts and darted across the room. Only a moment later Charlotte heard the bell at the front ring, followed by the click of the door closing behind her.
There was no rushing her own movements. If she did anything too quickly, she was going to have an issue that would make all these women regret the fact that they’d made it to the meeting.
“Slowly, Rose. Please. Or I’m going to be sick.”
Rose tsked. “Poor dear. You set the pace. I’m in no hurry.”
The other women at the table leaned close in whispered conversation now, but all were still staring at Charlotte. Perfect. Just what she wanted—to be the topic of central interest. Maybe she could get them back on track. “I’m so very sorry,” she murmured into a lull. “Please be sure to give me some assignments. I’ll be feeling better again by morning.”
“Come on, dear. Don’t you worry none about that right now.” Rose gingerly draped Charlotte’s arm around her shoulders.
Charlotte gladly accepted the help. All she wanted to do was get away from the light and be able to stop moving.
From the other end of the table, she heard Belle sniff. “Pampered and sickly. Just what Wyldhaven needs in a teacher.”
“Belle Kastain!” Susan’s voice rang with indignation. “For shame. I’ll not have a child of mine speaking in such…”
The words faded as Rose helped her into the foyer and they started toward the stairs.
Behind them the bell above the front door jangled again. “Dixie said you needed some help?”
Charlotte winced as much from recognition of the sheriff’s voice as from the volume of it, which sent shards of light dancing across her vision and nearly took her knees from beneath her due to the surge of pain. That in turn reinvigorated her nausea.
“Rose…” She covered her mouth.
“Righto. Outside with you then.” Rose turned them toward the door. “Sheriff, carry her please. Quickly. Outside.”
The sheriff swept her up and cradled her against his chest. She might have protested the action if it wasn’t taking all her concentration to keep from being sick all down the front of him.
“What’s the matter with her?” Tension tightened the sheriff’s voice.
Eyes closed to shut out as much of the world as possible, Charlotte could feel that they were moving, but everything felt sludgy and distant.
“From what I can tell, it was the chocolate cake she ate yesterday.” Rose’s voice was a near whisper when she spoke, bless her. “She told Dixie she gets these severe aches in her head when she eats chocolate.”
“I’ll be fine by morning.” She tried to speak the words, but had a feeling they came out more like a moan.
Dixie folded her trembling hands before her and wished she’d thought to send one of the other women over for Dr. Griffin. The man had a way of looking deep inside her as though he could read all her secrets. And she would like to keep her secrets buried so deep they’d never surface again. But her concern for Charlotte had sent her out the door and running this way before she could even think twice about it.
Ewan looked up from behind the bar. He scanned her, doing nothing to hide the roving of his gaze.
Dixie squeezed two fistfuls of skirts and retreated until her back was pressed against the door.
Ewan smirked. He lifted a gray bushy brow in question.
“The teacher is right sick. We need Dr. Griffin. Would you mind going up and fetching him?”
Ewan tipped his head back and angled it toward the stairs. “Doc!” His yell could have lifted the roof off the place.
Dixie’s heart jolted. She winced and covered her chest with one hand.
Ewan grinned unrepentantly at her, shook a long shank of gray hair out of his eyes, and then spat a stream of tobacco toward the spittoon he kept behind the bar.
It was only a moment before Flynn appeared at the top of the stairs. He leaned over the rail. “What is it?” His dark curls were disheve
led, his eyes bleary. Had he already been asleep? She felt her heart constrict in concern, but immediately armored herself against it. What with taking care of Mr. Kastain, he likely hadn’t slept much the night before. Flynn would be fine.
Ewan gestured to where she had maintained her position by the front door. “She needs you.”
Dixie felt her face pale at the way Ewan had worded that, or maybe it was because of the way Flynn’s blue eyes lit up when he noticed her. Nothing good could come of the attraction Flynn did nothing to hide from her. She gritted her teeth. And best you remember that.
She forced her gaze away from his face and focused instead on the middle button of his shirt. “It’s the teacher. Something is wrong.”
He started down the stairs, lifting his black bag that she just now noticed he’d already had in hand. “Knew it would be a patient. Only time Ewan yells for me like that is when I’m needed.”
“Yes, well…I’ll see you over there.” Dixie made her escape. It would be best for the doctor—and for her—if she didn’t encourage his feelings in the least. But a wagon passing down the alley between McGinty’s and her boardinghouse slowed her flight.
“Dixie, wait!” Flynn caught up to her before she had gone two steps.
How did the man have the ability to make every inch of her feel helpless and yet hopeful simply by stepping to her side? She heaved a sigh, ready to rebuff whatever request he was about to make of her. He’d been making it plain for a couple months that he was interested in getting to know her better.
But all he said was, “What can you tell me of her symptoms?”
“Oh.” Symptoms, yes she could tell him that. If her mind was functioning at the moment. She forced herself to concentrate. “Pains in her head. At the social yesterday—well, she says it’s from the chocolate cake. She only took one bite to please Belle. Then she had Jacinda and I help her get rid of it so as not to hurt Belle’s feelings. I kept Belle busy getting water, and Jacinda had Reagan take the cake from her plate, but—” She took a breath and literally clamped her teeth over her tongue. She was babbling like the drunken monkey she’d seen at the circus two years ago.
“I see.”
A frown furrowed his brow, and she could tell he was attempting to diagnose Charlotte’s symptoms. He had a dedicated focus when it came to treating his patients. Her admiration of his care and concern for others was one of the things she had to battle most often. She swallowed and looked away from him.
The wagon passed, and he put his hand to her back. “Lead on then, please.”
She stepped out quickly. And if her rush was just as much to escape the warm shiver his touch sent through her as it was her concern for Charlotte, well, Dr. Griffin didn’t need to know that.
Flynn curled his fingers into his palm, not missing the way Dixie quick-stepped to get away from him. She walked just ahead of him, and he took the opportunity to study the side of her face silhouetted in the light coming from the boardinghouse windows. Her jaw was hard and tense, and he had a feeling it was only partially due to the teacher being sick. There were moments when he thought she might be softening to him. Moments when he would catch her watching him across a crowded room, or hear her soft intake of breath when he stepped up beside her unexpectedly. But always she shuttered the softness away and turned stony, leaving him longing for just one more glimpse of it.
She probably thought to rebuff his attentions and make him move on to pursuit of someone else, but the problem was, the more she rebuffed him, the more he longed to get to know her. She laughed when she thought no one was looking. She sang when she thought no one was nearby. He’d even seen her dancing in the wildflower field just north of the creek one time, but he hadn’t dared step out to let her know he was there. In the end he’d skulked home before she caught him watching her and figured him for an infatuated reprobate.
There was something more to her story. He only wished she would trust him enough to tell him about it. Instead he had to content himself with the rare and few glimpses she allowed him of her real self.
He wasn’t going to give up though. Not by a long shot. In fact, he figured it just might be time to ramp up his efforts at getting the fair Dixie to trust him.
But for now, he had a patient to deal with.
And some sleep wouldn’t hurt either. If he tried to talk to Dixie now, he was liable to yawn right in the middle of his speech, and that would certainly send her the wrong signal.
Chapter Twelve
Charlotte’s humiliation was complete. The sheriff carried her back into Dixie’s and helped her sit on the bench in the foyer.
Rose pressed a glass of water and a piece of toweling into her hands.
“Thank you.” She wiped her face and then took several sips of the water. Already the pain in her head had decreased quite a bit. She didn’t know why, but emptying her stomach often relieved the pain somewhat.
She opened her eyes. The sheriff was squatting on his haunches before her, his hat pushed back on his head and a grave concern etching his angular features. It was in that moment that she realized she hadn’t had her eyes open for several minutes, and the sheriff had guided her each step of the way.
Of course he would find her in this state. It would only add fuel to his argument that she ought not to stay. And was that such a bad thing since she was determined to go back home anyhow? She was determined, wasn’t she? The water was cool and soothing. She took a few more swallows, looking away from him.
He was not to be put off, however, and leaned in to her line of vision. “Are you doing better now?”
“Yes. Much. Thank you. Were you able to find Waddell’s trail?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Lost it after he let the Kastains’ team and wagon go. We’ll keep looking.”
The front door opened, and Dixie entered with Flynn Griffin. The doctor strode to Charlotte’s side and sank down beside her on the bench. Dixie went to stand beside Rose, wrapping her arm through her mother’s, a pinched expression of worry clinging to her. Charlotte squirmed under the collective scrutiny of so many pairs of eyes.
Flynn took up her wrist and pressed his fingers to the pulse point. “Dixie tells me you’ve had a severe pain in your head?”
Charlotte nodded. “But I’ve had them before, and I’m feeling a little better now. With rest, they always seem to diminish.”
He didn’t respond for a moment. He was staring at the ground, and Charlotte had a feeling he was counting her heartbeats. Finally, he lifted his head and released her. “I see. I’m glad to hear you are feeling better, but with your permission, I’d like to accompany you to your room and listen to your heart? Do a few other checks?”
Charlotte felt her trepidation rise. The money to pay for a doctor visit wasn’t a problem. But what if he found something wrong with her that would prevent her from teaching in Wyldhaven? Then she’d be forced to go back to Boston. She gave her head a little shake. What was she saying? She wanted to go back.
Her face must have paled because the doctor held up both hands in a reassuring gesture. “Dixie or Rose can accompany us to your room, if you like? And I promise not to stay long. After doing the surgery on Will, I spent almost the entirety of last night delivering a baby and then took a run out to one of the logging camps to check on a sick woman, so I plan to return to my own slumbers just as soon as I make sure you’re all right.” He offered her a smile of assurance and camaraderie.
Charlotte liked the man. He had a manner that she suspected put most of his patients at ease. Yet she knew she didn’t need to take up any more of his time. “Thank you, but I can assure you I will be feeling much better by morning.”
Dr. Griffin smiled tolerantly. “Why wait to start feeling better till morning when I can likely give you something to ease the pain and you can get a good night’s rest tonight?”
The sheriff stood. “Right. I’ll carry her up. You and Dixie follow.”
Before she could object, he’d once again scooped her up in
to his arms and started for the stairs.
“Sheriff, I must protest.”
He looked down at her and offered a wink. “Sure. Have at it.” There hadn’t even been a hitch in his step.
She rolled her eyes, somehow knowing that he would simply ignore anything she might have to say. And she was still in too much pain to argue with him, so she chose, instead, to simply drop her head onto his shoulder.
Reagan’s heart constricted in his chest, his concern mounting. He may not have known the woman for long, but he’d known her long enough to discern that giving in was not like her. She must be even worse than she was letting on.
He took the stairs as quickly as he could while still being careful not to jostle her. And when Dixie pulled back the covers of the bed and he laid Charlotte down, he couldn’t help but notice how closely her complexion matched the sheets. Stepping back so Doc could have access to her, he whipped off his hat and crimped the brim into his palms.
Unaccountably, he could feel his heart beating a tattoo against the inside of his ribs. How had this slip of a woman worked her way into his heart in such a short amount of time? Frankly, the realization terrified him. One of the reasons he was good at his job was because he didn’t have a family to worry about. He didn’t have to fear what those he was tracking down might do to loved ones. He could be a little more reckless because if he didn’t come home, there would be no great loss to anyone.
Sure there was Ma. But she’d been the wife of a lawman before she was the mother of one. And she knew how to take care of herself—the derringer she kept strapped to the inside of her ankle was the proof of that.
But this…this was something else entirely. This feeling brought to mind a cabin of his own, all aglow in firelight when he rode up at the end of a long shift. A woman with dark curls and beguiling green eyes opening the door to greet him. Wrapping willing arms around his neck and offering him pliant lips to—
Dixie laid a hand on his arm. “She’s going to be all right, Sheriff.”
Not a Sparrow Falls (Wyldhaven Book 1) Page 15