Loving Linsey

by Rachelle Morgan

  She reached into her sleeve for a scrap of linen tucked inside the lace cuff. “Everyone knows if your shadow falls on a passing hearse, you’ll be the next to ride in it.”

  He pushed away the hand reaching for his face. “That’s the biggest crock of bull . . . nonsense I’ve ever heard.” But not surprising, considering the source. He’d heard so many outrageous things spill from her lips over the last ten years that he could scarcely count them all.

  “Nonsense?” Her brows rose. She bit the inside of her cheek. “Mr. Haggar was the first person to die after a rooster crowed three times in his yard. That leaves two more to go, because death always comes in threes.”

  Daniel moved his face so close to hers that barely an inch of space remained between them. To her credit she held her ground, though a flash of wariness skittered across the bright green of her eyes. Enunciating each word so there would be no misunderstanding, he said, “Bleet Haggar died because he was sick, not because some stupid cock crowed in his yard.” The man had been wasting away for years from a liver disorder—one Daniel had done his best to treat—but beyond doses of roots and ash, and prescribing a morphine and quinine tonic to ease his discomfort, there’d been nothing more he could do. In the end, the wheelwright’s death had not only been inevitable but probably a blessing.

  Either Linsey Gordon had forgotten that little fact, or she had conveniently used the poor man’s demise to feed her crazy delusions.

  He suspected the latter.

  The two of them stood nose to nose and will to will for several long seconds, so close he could see the starburst design in eyes made greener by the sweep of thick dark lashes against fragile lids. A kernel of respect for her planted itself inside Daniel. This was no shrinking violet. Linsey held her own in a way that Daniel had always admired in a woman but rarely saw.

  As their gazes continued to hold, respect gave way to something deeper. A strange and uneasy sensation slithered through Daniel—as if invisible strings were weaving around the two of them, binding them together. In her ever-widening eyes, a vision began to unfold, of himself and Linsey lying together on a grassy carpet, he wearing nothing more than a loose pair of trousers, she wearing little more than a smile. Moonlight washed her skin in the palest of pearls, her eyes shone like emeralds, her hair glistened with amber fire. And as he watched himself bring her hand to his mouth, press his lips against her knuckles, and tuck her head against his heartbeat, an impression hit Daniel with frightening clarity that his future and hers were not only connected . . . but destined.

  He wrenched back with a hot chill. He didn’t believe in destiny. Or chance. Or fate. Cold, hard facts—that’s what he believed in. And the cold, hard fact was that he had never, nor would ever, lie in the grass with Linsey Gordon, or kiss her knuckles, or any other part of her, for that matter. He wanted nothing to do with this woman.

  Ever.

  As if needing as much distance from him as he did from her, Linsey stepped back a pace and folded her hands in front of her, striking a demure pose that contradicted the wild, wicked streak he knew she possessed. Her voice wavered as she told him, “I apologize for pushing you in the water, Daniel; that was never my intent. I only meant to save you from certain disaster.”

  He looked her up and down with unconcealed derision. “The only disaster around here is you.” Still shaken by his disturbing reaction to her, Daniel turned on his heel and stormed across the boardwalk into the apothecary.

  “I was only trying to help!” she hollered after him.

  Daniel’s jaw tightened. He needed Linsey Gordon’s help like he needed an outbreak of cholera. Her and her stupid superstitions. They—and she—had been an albatross around his neck for more years than he cared to count. Thanks to her, half his patients were convinced that charms would protect them from illness better than vaccinations, and the other half swore that paying a doctor’s bill in full was considered unlucky.

  Causing the stagecoach to flip when a damned rabbit jumped out in its path had only been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

  And now all this blather about saving his life from a hearse?

  Hell.

  Halfway across the shop, a harsh bellow stopped him in his tracks.

  “Junior!”

  Daniel’s eyes slammed shut. A muscle ticked in his jaw. Bad enough everyone in the county had dubbed him Doc Jr.; hearing his dad call him Junior felt as pleasant as a splinter under his fingernail. It was just one more reminder to Daniel that he’d never meet up to the old man’s expectations. He schooled his features and turned toward the curtain that divided the examination rooms from the main shop.

  The old man appeared a second later, pewter gray hair sticking up from his shiny pate, his sagging cheeks freckled with age spots. “Did you get that buggy—what the Sam Hill happened to you?”

  Daniel glanced down at the clothes sticking to his chest and thighs. He thought about putting the blame for his appearance at Linsey’s feet where it belonged, yet a strange compulsion made him say, “Hell, Dad, it was so nice outside I decided to go for a swim.”

  Daniel Sr. narrowed his eyes. “I’m going to assume that you’ve got time to stand there giving me lip because those crates sprouted legs and loaded themselves into the buggy.”

  Outwardly Daniel held firm under his dad’s disapproving scrutiny, yet inside he found himself battling that old feeling of failure. “I’ll finished getting them packed as soon as I’ve changed into some dry clothes.”

  “You best put some fire under those feet, then. I’m pulling out at ten o’clock and not one minute later.” Daniel Sr. poked his index finger into the air. “Efficiency! That’s a physician’s creed! If you ever want to make something of yourself, Junior, you’d do well to remember that.”

  As if he could ever forget. The words had been drummed into his head since he was old enough to slobber on his father’s stethoscope.

  “I’ve got half a dozen kids waiting on those vaccines and I don’t have time for—”

  The monotonous tirade broke off as suddenly as it started. Both Daniel and his father became aware of a third presence at the same time, and both turned their head toward the apothecary entrance.

  The first genuine smile Daniel had felt all day inched across his face at the sight of the stoop-shouldered woman watching them with amusement.

  “If it isn’t my favorite doctors sharing a tender moment of affection,” Louisa Gordon greeted them with a twinkle in her rheumy blue eyes. “Good morning, Daniel.”

  God, how he loved the way she could make an insult sound like a compliment. “Miss Louisa.” His mood improving considerably, Daniel met her halfway across the room, picked up a veined hand, and kissed her knuckles. No matter what he thought of Linsey, her aunt had secured a fond spot in Daniel’s heart. Not only was Louisa Gordon the only one in Horseshoe who didn’t call him by that annoying nickname, but she’d been nothing but kind to him his whole life. And at no time had he appreciated her unfailing warmth more than at the death of his mother six years earlier.

  “Took a little bath, did we?”

  “Something like that. How are you faring, ma’am?”

  Louisa frowned, making the wrinkles in her forehead multiply like pleats in a linen sheet. “Better than Granny Yearling, I fear. I found her lying abed this morning.”

  “She feeling poorly?”

  “She says her bowels are giving her a bit of grief. I was hoping either you or your father would have time to pay her a visit.”

  Daniel nodded. “If you’ll give me a minute to change my clothes—”

  “I’ll fetch my bag,” his dad said at the same time.

  Daniel sent a startled glance toward his father. “I thought you were heading out to Jenny Kimmel’s place.”

  “No reason why you can’t give those kids their vaccinations.” Daniel Sr. reached beneath the counter for a black leather bag as old as he was and retrieved his bowler from a hook on the wall. “Take the stanhope. I’ll st
op in on Mrs. Yearling, then borrow one of Oren’s nags and meet you later.”

  Daniel bit his tongue to keep from reminding his dad that the whole reason the old miser had forked over money for the plush-seated buggy was because riding horseback aggravated his sacroiliac. But a man didn’t argue with his father in the presence of a lady. Not that arguing with Daniel, Sr., ever did any good anyway.

  “What are you waiting for, Junior? A brass band?”

  Hell, Daniel thought, heading for his room to change his clothes, what else is going to go wrong today?

  “When you said you wanted to go out with a splash, I didn’t think you meant it literally.” Addie planted her fists on her narrow hips. “For Heaven’s sake, Linsey, what were you thinking, dashing in front of those horses?”

  “I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing when Daniel was standing directly on death’s doorstep.”

  “So you tried to drown him?”

  “Will you stop shouting at me?”

  “I’m not shouting; I never shout!”

  “Then stop yelling. People are staring.”

  Made aware of their audience, the bluster went out of Addie. As her body began to sink, Linsey hastened to guide her sister to the bench beneath the apothecary’s overhang before she landed in the mud. Then she joined Addie on the seat. All color had left her sister’s face, and Linsey worried that she was on the verge of swooning. “Breathe,” she ordered, rubbing her hand against Addie’s back.

  Gradually the trembling abated, and her back rose and fell in an normal pattern.

  “Better now?”

  Addie released a deep breath and straightened. “Yes. Though I think I’ve had ten years scared off my life.”

  “I’m sorry I frightened you, Addie. And honestly, I didn’t mean to push Daniel in the water, either. I’m trying to catch him for you, not kill him,” she added with a wry grin.

  “I know that, but from the look on Daniel’s face a moment ago, you won’t convince him so easily.”

  No greater truth had ever been spoken. The man seemed convinced that every misfortune that befell him did so because Linsey commanded it. Even if she had such power, she couldn’t imagine using it against anyone. Even Daniel.

  Still, why was it that every time she tried to do something good, it went so terribly bad?

  “I must get back to the children,” Addie said, leaving the bench.

  “Do you want me to walk with you?”

  “No, no. I’ll be fine now, truly. Just try and stay out of trouble, please?”

  Once Addie turned away, Linsey did the same, heading toward the livery to rent a buggy. Mr. Graves had led his horses away some time ago, much to Linsey’s relief, and though most of the townspeople had also dispersed, returning to their shops and daily business, several lingered behind. She hated looking foolish, which probably accounted for why she had such a difficult time dealing with Daniel. No matter how hard she tried to be civil to him, he seemed to bring out the defiance in her.

  Well, it really didn’t matter, since Addie would be the one dealing with him—not her, thank God.

  Which brought her back to the original problem. How did one go about matchmaking? That was one thing Aunt Louisa had never forced on them: finding a husband, settling down. Linsey suspected it was because Aunt Louisa had been blissfully happy as a spinster for many years before she met Wayne Gordon, and according to Aunt Louisa, he had been well worth the wait. She always said that when they found their destiny, they would know it. He’d make their toes curl, their breath quicken, and their heart sigh just by walking into a room.

  Addie experienced all those symptoms around Dr. Daniel Sharpe, Jr., no question.

  The problem was, how to get him to feel the same way toward Addie.

  The drive out to Jenny’s place gave Linsey plenty of time to ponder her plan. She spent the next hour inventing and discarding ideas until her head ached. The only experience she had with matchmaking was the misery she’d suffered at Mrs. Harvey’s hands. Linsey shuddered. She refused to put either Daniel or Addie through that.

  She’d definitely have to be more subtle. Addie, she was sure, would cooperate; but if she forced Daniel, he might run screaming in the opposite direction. It had to seem natural.

  Unfortunately by the time she reached the drive leading to the orphanage, Linsey found herself no closer to an answer than when she’d left town.

  The sight of the split-log house never failed to evoke fond memories. Mud fights . . . baseball games . . . sack races . . . but mostly of lavender-scented dresses and warm hugs on cold nights.

  As a child, Linsey had often been a visitor to the rambling house. Most times Aunt Louisa brought her, bearing fresh vegetables from the garden—something which a household full of children never seemed to get enough of. Later, when Addie came to live with them, they often stole away to the house to play with the other children.

  Yet it had been Jenny whom Linsey had gravitated toward. She’d been seventeen, an old and wise age to a girl of five, and so lively that Linsey used to sit in awe of her. So strong, so independent. She remembered wanting to be like Jenny when she grew up, not understanding then that the girl-turned-woman hid a deep longing to have someone to depend on herself.

  She’d found him, finally, many years later. Noah Tabor was a huge man with gentle hands, warm brown eyes, with a pair of motherless girls no one could resist, and who had seen past the wheelchair Jenny sat in to the heart no other man had cared to find.

  Wrapping the reins around the brake handle, Linsey gathered her skirts in one hand, the basket of horseshoes in the other, and hopped to the ground. Her heels clacked on the wooden ramp bordered by late-blooming asters making one last lacy showing before the first frost.

  As Linsey approached the front door, she could almost hear the walls echoing with laughter and secrets and childish squabbles. Closer, though, she realized that at least two—the laughter and the squabbles—were actually taking place.

  She hesitated briefly, unwilling to interrupt Jenny if she had her hands full.

  Then again, she amended with a twitch of her lips, perhaps an interruption was exactly what Jenny needed.

  Amanda Reed, Noah’s young sister-in-law, opened the door. Amanda and her sister Amy had often been mistaken for Noah’s daughters rather than the sisters of his late wife, Susan.

  An unmistakable sheen in the little girl’s eyes made Linsey’s heart melt in sympathy. She crouched low and brushed the bangs off the six-year-old’s brow. “Amanda, honey, why are you crying?”

  “Doc shot me.”

  “He did?”

  Amanda nodded, dislodging a pair of tears. “With a pricker this long.” She spread her hands an exaggerated distance.

  Linsey tugged a tatted hanky out of her sleeve and wiped the chubby cheeks. “Oh, I bet that hurt.”

  “But he said I was a brave girl, so I got a peppermint stick. Joseph won’t get one ’cause he cried like a baby.”

  “Joseph won’t have to feel alone because I’d cry like a baby, too.” She gave one last swipe to the wispy bangs, then straightened. “Is Jenny here?”

  Amanda nodded. “She’s in the front room with the doc.”

  She stepped back, allowing Linsey to enter the front hallway into the normal muss and fuss of a household more concerned with love than tidiness. Mud-caked shoes littered the floor; caps and coats hung at cockeyed angles on a row of hooks. It was the complete opposite of the painfully formal appearance of her own home.

  Linsey shook off the comparison and followed Amanda to a double-wide doorway gauged with the various heights of Jenny’s youngsters. The sight of the man on Jenny’s sofa made Linsey stumble to a stop. Why she had expected Doc Sr. instead of Daniel, Linsey didn’t know. But there he sat, a knot of children surrounding him, groping at his chest for heaven only knew what.

  He reached into the breast pocket of his coat and withdrew a handful of green-striped sticks. The children scrambled all over him likes ants on an appl
e core, driving him against the back of the sofa. A deep rumble of something sounding suspiciously like laughter struck Linsey dumb. No—she must be mistaken. Daniel didn’t laugh. He barked. He glowered. He even bared his teeth on occasion.

  But he never laughed.

  He managed to peel off the tangle of arms and legs, plucking children off his chest, then his back, flipping one little boy over his head and tickling him until he cried out that he’d pee his pants if Doc Jr. didn’t stop.

  Jenny rolled into the room just then, an eighteen-month old baby on her lap that Linsey couldn’t remember seeing before. He—or she, since it was hard to tell—must have come from the county orphanage.

  What compelled Linsey to conceal herself in the corner, she couldn’t say, except that catching the staid and dour Daniel acting almost human was a treat she didn’t want to miss. And she feared if he spotted her, the hint of softness would disappear.

  “I know you only came by to give the children inoculations,” Jenny told him, “but I was hoping you’d take a look at little Michael here. He’s got a fretful rash, and the cornstarch isn’t working.”

  “I’ll be glad to.”

  “I feel just awful asking you to do more when I can’t even pay you proper for all you’ve done already. But I’ll have John load a tub of butter in the buggy along with that crate of layers.”

  If Linsey hadn’t been watching Daniel closely, she might have missed the strained slash of his mouth, since the parody of a smile disappeared almost as quickly as it formed.

  “Let’s take a look at the little fellow.”

  As he took the baby, bringing him close to his chest, Linsey forgot all about the conversation.

  Her heart turned to mush. Daniel had always struck her as the type of man who kicked puppies and pushed old ladies out of his path. She’d never expected he would be so good with children. Oh, so he was a little gruff, his hands a little awkward as he examined Michael, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with the wriggling bundle of drool in his lap. Somehow it made him more endearing. What a confusing man he was: so hard-skinned on the outside, so soft-hearted on the inside.