“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m sorry, there is. I wish you well, Jesse. And now I’d best be getting home.” She rose. The encounter—preceded by her busy morning of baking—had exhausted her, and she just wanted to reach the sanctuary of the cottage and lie down for a while.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nolan whistled as he walked across the muddy street toward the hotel. It had been a busy morning, but a good one. All of his influenza patients seemed to be on the mend, and there continued to be no more new cases. And just as the sun rose, he had helped usher a new baby into the world. He couldn’t wait to tell Sarah about it.
He glanced over his shoulder at the cottage, which sat diagonally across from the hotel, wishing he could drop in and see her right now, then decided against it, hoping Sarah was following his instructions and resting.
No, instead of knocking on Sarah’s door, he’d have his dinner and then return to his office, where he’d restock his bag and “redd up” the office, as Prissy would say. Perhaps he’d even get a chance to catch up on his professional reading.
He was still whistling as he walked through the hotel lobby and into the restaurant, nodding a greeting at the waiter as he headed for his usual table by the window, but then he stopped stock-still.
Sarah was just rising from a table against the wall, and as he watched, the rangy-looking saddle tramp who’d been sitting opposite her jumped up, too, and grabbed her hand with a familiarity only a man who knew a woman well would dare.
Had he been completely wrong about Sarah Matthews? He’d thought she loved him, too. Was it possible she had other suitors, just as in love with her as he was?
“Sarah, you can’t leave like this,” the man said in a disbelieving voice, his rough features stricken. “I left the boys and came all this way to see you—I even offered t’ leave ’em for good, and you’re going to just walk out?”
“Jesse, please,” Sarah said in a low, distressed voice, pulling her hand away. Her back was to Nolan so she hadn’t seen him, so he remained where he was. “Don’t make this harder than it is. Please just accept what I’ve told you, and go on your way. But I beg you, if I ever meant anything to you, leave those bad men and start your life back on an honest path. I don’t want you to die like outlaws do, from a bullet or at the end of a rope.”
The man gave a harsh bark of laughter and his features hardened into something ugly. “Leave them? You make it sound like I’m some homeless cur, Sarah, going along with anyone who’ll spare me a crumb. Sarah, I’m the leader of the Gray Boys gang. Me, Jesse Holt—the leader!”
Jesse Holt. Wasn’t that the name of Sarah’s fiancé, who’d died in the war? Apparently he hadn’t died. Had Sarah known that all along? Had they met in secret before, and now were becoming bold enough to meet in a public place?
“And I was willing to give all that up for you,” the man went on, his face hardening into an angry mask, “but you’re throwin’ it back in my face and tellin’ me you’ve fallen in love with someone else. Who is it, Sarah? That’s what I want to know, and I think I have a right.” He hadn’t been wrong about Sarah. He didn’t know where this Holt fellow had popped up from, or if Sarah had known he was still alive, but obviously Holt didn’t mean anything to her anymore, because she loved him.
By now, everyone in the restaurant was staring, townspeople and travelers alike. While Sarah had spoken quietly, Holt hadn’t bothered to keep his voice down, so everyone in the room was now absorbed in the dramatic scene.
Sarah’s voice shook, but her stance was no-nonsense as she said, “It’s none of your concern anymore, Jesse. Goodbye.”
The saddle tramp thrust his hand out as if he meant to stop her by force. It was time to step in.
“Is this man bothering you, sweetheart?” Nolan said, coming forward and placing a proprietary hand on her shoulder.
Sarah half turned and jumped, clearly startled. “Nolan! I’m glad you’re here. Please, just take me home.” Her face was flushed dully red with misery as she reached for his arm and took hold of it.
He looked down into her eyes, hoping she read the love in them. “Of course.” Then he looked back at Holt, making sure the man wasn’t going for a gun. He wasn’t, but if looks could kill, Nolan knew he would have been sprawled on the floor.
Clearly conscious of his enthralled audience, Holt’s face screwed itself into a mask of scorn as he looked him up and down. “This is the fellow you left me for? This Yankee swell in a frock coat? How could you, Sarah? Your ma an’ pa must be rollin’ in their graves, knowin’ their daughter’s cozy with a Yankee.”
“That’s enough,” Nolan snapped. “The lady’s leaving, and you’re not to bother her further.”
Holt cocked his head and drawled, “I declare, he talks funny.”
A few of the onlookers chuckled.
Nolan clenched his fists, but Sarah’s hand tightened on his wrist. “Please, let’s just go.”
They turned and started for the door, but Holt wasn’t done.
“You’ll be sorry, Sarah! This whole town’s gonna be sorry you threw me over!”
Nolan felt her shaking as they hurried across the road. Fortunately, Prissy still hadn’t returned to the cottage, for Sarah managed to hold it in only until they crossed the threshold before she threw herself into his arms in a torrent of tears.
“Oh, N-Nolan!” she cried, her whole body heaving with her sobs. “He j-just appeared out of n-nowhere!”
“Did he come here to the cottage, looking for you?” Nolan asked, chilled at the thought of that man knowing where his Sarah lived.
“N-no…” she said against his coat as he held her, her voice thick with tears. “I was coming out of the hotel—I’d delivered some baked goods, you see…”
So she hadn’t been resting as instructed, but Nolan hadn’t the heart to reprove her about overexerting herself.
“…And he was sitting outside the saloon,” she continued, still shaking. She told him how Holt had escaped to Canada during the latter part of the war and had been running with a gang of outlaws ever since returning across the northern border. “He thinks it’s all right because they’re ‘only stealing from Yankees,’” she cried. “Oh, Nolan, he’s nothing like the sweet young man I loved before he went to war!”
“Ssssh, sweetheart,” he soothed, still holding her and resting his face against her hair. “War has a way of changing men, and frequently not for the better. But it’s over now. You’re safe.”
“But you heard him! He didn’t just threaten me, he threatened the whole town!” she wailed. “What are we going to do?”
“We won’t have to do anything,” Nolan assured her. “Those were empty threats. Some men don’t take rejection very well, that’s all.”
“But it’s so unfair, Nolan! I mean, I’m glad he’s not dead, but he never sent a word to tell me he was still alive! And then to show up out of nowhere, almost a year after the war was over, and get angry because I’d gone on with my life. Can you imagine, Nolan, he tried to talk me into running off with him!”
Nolan wanted to growl in rage at the thought of that saddle tramp inviting Sarah to join him on the run. He was relieved to see that Sarah was no longer weeping, but angry.
“Or if I wouldn’t do that,” she went on, pulling away to pace back and forth, waving her arm in a furious gesture, “he very nobly offered to give all that up and take over the ranch!”
“I reckon Nick Brookfield would have something to say about that, as well as Milly,” he said drily. “Just picture Holt trying to waltz in there and persuade Milly to give up her ranch.”
She gave a watery laugh and swiped a hand at her eyes. “She wouldn’t even need Nick to defend it,” she said. “She’d get out the shotgun herself.”
“That’s the spirit,” he told her, stroking her cheek. “Now, don’t worry about Holt anymore. Likely as not he’s already ridden out of Simpson Creek and you’ll never see him again.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said,
twisting a fold of her grenadine cloth skirt.
“You weren’t tempted—even for a moment, before he told you what he’d been doing?” he asked her curiously, then wished he could call back the question as soon as he asked it. He had no right to probe her heart like that.
But Sarah apparently didn’t mind. She shook her head, her eyes unfocused as she seemed to look within herself. “Not for a moment,” she told him. “There was something about him that had just changed too much. And he wasn’t you, Nolan.” She went back into his arms and offered her lips for a kiss, and he was more than glad to take her up on it.
“But Nolan,” she began when he let her go at last, “seriously, what if it wasn’t an empty threat?”
He sighed. “Perhaps you shouldn’t go anywhere alone for a while, even in the daytime,” he said. “If I can’t be with you, take Prissy.”
“I meant his threat to harm the town,” she said. “After all, the sheriff is dead, and his old deputy, Pat Donovan, has never been up to anything more than whittling while he guards someone already locked up.”
It was a sobering thought. Nolan sighed. “I’ll speak to Prissy’s father. Now that the flu epidemic is over, we need to remind the mayor the town needs a new sheriff.”
The next morning, Sarah, accompanied by Prissy in accordance with Nolan’s request, headed to the mercantile to deliver the pies and cakes she’d baked yesterday.
“I feel silly asking you to come along like some sort of guard, Prissy,” Sarah said as they walked. “It’s not as if it’s even likely I’d see Jesse between the cottage and the mercantile, even if he did stay in town. And I don’t think he’d do anything more than ignore me, anyway.”
“Oh, just think of me as someone to help carry your wares,” Prissy said cheerfully. “Papa was wanting some peppermint drops at the mercantile anyway. And besides, it couldn’t hurt to be careful—why, you could have knocked me over with a feather last night when you told Papa and me about Jesse showing up alive, and then acting the awful way he did.”
“Yes, it was the last thing I ever expected,” Sarah said. “I was never so glad to see Nolan in my life!”
“See, I told you that he was the one for you,” Prissy said smugly as she held open the door of the mercantile to let Sarah in.
As they entered, Sarah spotted Mrs. Detwiler and Mrs. Patterson with their heads together at the counter.
“Good morning, ladies,” she called out. “Good to see you up and about, Mrs. Detwiler, after your illness. Mrs. Patterson, I have some baked goods for you.”
Both ladies jerked upright at the sound of Sarah’s voice, looking so guilty Sarah knew they must have been talking about her. She felt a sinking in her stomach as if she’d eaten one of Prissy’s early practice biscuits.
“Good, Sarah, I’ll be glad to have them,” Mrs. Patterson said quickly, trying to assume a businesslike manner. “It’s been so long since anyone dared venture out, even if they were well, and now they’re starting to ask where your cakes and pies have been. Of course, I told them you’d been very ill yourself….”
“Sarah, I was about to come see you,” Mrs. Detwiler said, as if perhaps she realized Sarah saw through Mrs. Patterson’s chatter. “There’s something Mrs. Patterson and I thought you ought to know—”
Sarah raised her chin as Prissy quietly laid her share of the baked goods on the counter. “That Jesse Holt is alive and came to town yesterday? Yes, I’m aware. We ran into one another.”
Both women looked distinctly relieved at not having to break the news to her.
“I imagine that was quite a shock, seeing him alive after all that time,” Mrs. Patterson said, peering curiously at her through her spectacles. “You didn’t have any idea? He never wrote to tell you?”
As if the whole town wouldn’t know if I’d received a letter from him, Sarah thought, remembering that Postmaster Wallace loved to gossip as much as the women did. “No,” she said quietly. “But of course I’m glad he isn’t dead, even if our lives have gone in different directions.”
“Then you don’t mind that he and Ada Spencer were cozyin’ up with one another?”
“Jesse? And Ada Spencer?” Prissy exclaimed, while Sarah was still trying to find her voice.
“They met in front of the mercantile yesterday—I saw it from that very window,” Mrs. Patterson said. “I thought he looked familiar but then Ada came along and went flyin’ into his arms and squealin’ in delight, callin’ his name.”
“Well, she knew him, too, of course, before the war,” Sarah reminded her. “We all knew Jesse—we’d grown up together.”
“Well, they came in here for a while, seein’ as it was a mite chilly outside still, and stood and talked for the longest time. I heard bits and pieces here and there—”
“You don’t need to tell me, Mrs. Patterson. I’ve already wished Jesse well, but explained that I’ve come to care for another very much—”
Mrs. Detwiler interrupted, “And that ‘another’ is Dr. Walker, isn’t it? Took you a while, but you always were a smart girl. I’m right happy for you two.”
But Mrs. Patterson was not about to be distracted. “Then you won’t mind that Ada practically threw herself at him, and Jesse Holt looked mighty pleased to catch her,” Mrs. Patterson said, as if Sarah hadn’t hinted she’d heard enough. “Miz Powell, the cook at the hotel, said those two took supper there last night, and Ada was all gussied up,” Mrs. Patterson said with a cackle that would have put one of Milly’s hens to shame. “Not a sign of mourning on that one. Scandalous! And when they were done eating, Miz Powell said, they went off down the street arm in arm.”
Sarah couldn’t help but wonder if Ada had told Jesse about her recent “pregnancy.”
“Ada’s had a rough time lately,” she said, aware that both ladies were waiting for her reaction and hoping this would satisfy them. “Perhaps she and Jesse would be good for one another.” And perhaps Ada can persuade Jesse off the outlaw trail.
Mrs. Patterson kept staring at Sarah with speculative eyes.
“That’ll be five dollars for the baked goods, as usual,” Sarah said at last, reminding the proprietress why she had come. She didn’t want to think about Jesse or Ada anymore, not when she had Sunday to anticipate, when she and Nolan would go to church together and then for dinner and a buggy ride.
“And Papa would like a half pound of peppermints,” Prissy piped up.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“This is indeed a day of celebration,” Reverend Chadwick announced, beaming from the pulpit as he looked out over the congregation. “Our first service since the influenza epidemic has abated, thanks to the goodness and mercy of the Lord…”
There were several calls of “Amen, preacher!”
“Thanks also in no small part to our dedicated physician, Dr. Nolan Walker,” Chadwick continued, gesturing to where Nolan sat in a pew close to the front, with Sarah, Milly and Nick Brookfield and Mayor Gilmore and Prissy, “and his dedicated corps of nurses, also known as the Simpson Creek Spinsters’ Club. Would you stand, Doctor, and you ladies, too, that we may show our appreciation?”
They did so, to the sound of loud applause, but to Sarah’s surprise, Nolan raised his hand as if he wished to speak.
“Dr. Walker, you have something to say?”
“Yes, indeed I do, Reverend. I want to add my thanks and admiration to these devoted ladies,” he said, gesturing next to him, where Sarah and Prissy stood, then around the pews to indicate Faith Bennett, Bess Lassiter, Maude Harkey, Jane Jeffries and Polly Shackleford. “Doctoring is my duty, and I accept it gladly, but these ladies volunteered to nurse the sick, going above and beyond anything that could have been expected of them and exposing themselves to the danger of contagion—” He caught Sarah’s gaze then. His eyes glistening, he seemed to have trouble going on.
“And we are very glad Miss Sarah survived her brush with death,” Reverend Chadwick finished for him. “Thank you, ladies, Doctor.” They sat down to more applause
. “And now we should remember those who the Lord chose to call home in the epidemic,” the preacher went on, “so that we may pray for their families—Mr. Parker, Mrs. Gilmore, her sister Mrs. Tyler…” As he began to speak, the steeple bell began to toll, one tinny bong for each name. “Mr. Patterson, Mr. Calhoun, Sheriff Poteet, Pete Collier—who had so lately come to live with us—Mr. and Mrs. Spencer…”
The preacher kept reading the list of the dead. But Sarah heard a muffled sob from the back of the church, and thinking it was Caroline Wallace, who’d been Pete Collier’s fiancée, turned around. She was surprised to see that the weeper was Ada Spencer, garbed in deep mourning, sitting with a black handkerchief to her eyes. None other than Jesse Holt sat beside her.
Their gazes met, and Jesse smirked at her.
They must have come in late. Quickly, Sarah turned around again, glad that Nolan hadn’t noticed her looking. But Milly had followed her gaze, and Milly’s wide-eyed, shocked face reminded Sarah that she had much to tell her sister.
Sarah told herself it was nothing to her if Ada wanted to put on mourning only when it suited her, and have Jesse Holt console her. At least Ada was no longer claiming she was pregnant, and accusing Nolan of fathering her child. Nolan was a much better man than Jesse had ever been, and Nolan loved her.
And then she felt ashamed for allowing herself to be distracted by less than spiritual thoughts in the Lord’s house, and resolved to keep her mind on the hymns and the sermon to follow.
“Let us now stand and sing the first hymn. Mr. Connell, if you will lead us? I’m sure Miss Sarah will be back at her piano next week….”
For the rest of the church service, Sarah threw herself wholeheartedly into worshipping God and being thankful for Nolan’s presence beside her, thankful too that he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the singing and listening carefully to the preaching.
“Would you and Nolan like to come out to the ranch for Sunday dinner?” Milly asked afterward, as the congregation filed out and spilled down the church steps onto the lawn. “Now that I’m feeling better, I’m finding I love to cook. I’d like to show you how accomplished I’ve become.”
The Doctor Takes a Wife Page 16