With Autumn's Return (Westward Winds Book #3): A Novel

by Amanda Cabot

  “It’ll be a long time,” Gwen cautioned.

  “Maybe not as long as you think,” he countered. “I’ve already started looking for the right place.” He kept his gaze fixed on Gwen, his blue eyes sparkling as he asked, “Would you and Rose like to help me choose it?”

  As the words registered, Gwen gasped. “I couldn’t do that.” Just the thought was preposterous. A woman, even a widow like Gwen, didn’t accompany a man while he selected the site for his home. That was a privilege reserved for a fiancée or possibly a sister. Gwen was neither.

  “Why not?” he demanded. “You know Wyoming better than I do. I’d like a woman’s opinion.” He paused for a second, never dropping his gaze from hers, and the expression in them sent color flooding to her cheeks again. “I’d like your opinion,” he said. “Yours, Gwen.”

  “Please, Mama, please.” Rose added her plea.

  Wishing her face weren’t so warm and hoping that Harrison didn’t realize how flustered his words had made her, Gwen ducked her head. “We’ll see.”

  Later when Harrison had left and Gwen was brushing her hair, she replayed the evening. Elizabeth might not agree, but Gwen had found it extraordinary. Tonight she’d seen a new side to Harrison, and she liked it. She liked it very much. She drew the brush through her hair, smiling when it sparked with electricity. Oh, why pretend? She had liked the old Harrison too, even though she’d worried about Rose’s reaction to him. Harrison made her feel the way Mike had.

  When she’d met Mike, Gwen had been a young girl, untutored in the ways of love. It had been first love for both of them, and their marriage had been happy. But Mike had died, and then there had been that awful time with the man she thought had loved her. Gwen thrust those memories aside. She had been deluded, but she was wiser now. Harrison was not at all like that man, and when she was with him, she was different from the woman who’d been so easy to fool.

  When she was with Harrison, she felt like a young girl again. He was an attractive man, and though Gwen knew it wasn’t true, when he smiled at her, she felt as if she were an attractive woman. It was foolish, of course, to entertain such thoughts. Harrison regarded her as a cook, nothing more.

  Still . . . tonight had been different. Tonight it had seemed that Harrison was trying to win Rose’s affection. He’d made a pretty good start too. And then there’d been that glint in his eye when he’d said he wanted Gwen’s opinion. For a moment, it had seemed as if he cared about her as a woman. If only that were true. Gwen had no illusions. She knew that no man would find a woman like her attractive.

  She sighed and laid the brush on the dresser before she began to braid her hair. It would be different if she were tall and slender like Elizabeth. Gwen’s fingers moved swiftly, taming her hair into a plait. There was no point in wishing for things that could not be. She would never look like Elizabeth, and yet . . . She stared at her reflection, frowning at her plump cheeks. It was true that she couldn’t change her height, but perhaps she could do something about her weight.

  When she’d been at the market last week, she had heard two women talking about patent medicines. It seemed there was one for everything that ailed you, including extra pounds. The claims were amazing. Even if they were only half true, the potion would help her. Within a month, maybe sooner if the medicine worked the way it was supposed to, she would be as thin as Elizabeth.

  Gwen nodded, her decision made. It was too late now, but tomorrow morning she’d buy a bottle. Maybe two.

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Harding, or may I call you Elizabeth?”

  Elizabeth hoped her surprise didn’t show when she entered the waiting room and saw Tabitha Chadwick standing there. Impeccably groomed as always, the auburn-haired woman gave her a cool look that made the hair on the back of Elizabeth’s neck rise. Of all the women she’d met at Miriam and Richard’s party, Tabitha was the last one she would have expected to see in her office.

  “If this is a social call, Elizabeth is fine,” she told the woman who might or might not be a patient.

  “It’s not a social call. I’d like to see how you’ve set up your office, and then I need to consult you.”

  It was an unusual request, but Elizabeth saw no reason to refuse. “This is the infirmary,” she said, leading Tabitha into the long narrow room that held a bed on wheels and a comfortable chair. A tall screen blocked one corner and would provide privacy for patients’ personal needs.

  “Only one bed?” Tabitha raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

  “I hope I won’t have to use it very often. My goal is to keep people healthy so they don’t need the infirmary at all. And this,” she said as she opened the door to the small kitchen, “needs no explanation.”

  An expression of feigned horror crossed Tabitha’s face. “You cook?”

  “Not well,” Elizabeth admitted, “but if I do have patients in the infirmary, I want to be able to heat broth for them.”

  “I suppose.”

  Elizabeth crossed the hall. “As you can see, this room serves as my dispensary and office as well as an examining room.” She gestured toward the chairs in front of her desk, taking her place behind the desk and pulling out a sheet of paper. As she dipped her pen into the inkwell, she raised her eyes to meet Tabitha’s. “How can I help you?”

  Tabitha’s gaze moved to the tall cabinets that lined one wall, as if she were seeking a specific medicine. “I need a bottle of ergot.”

  Elizabeth’s hand paused. Her instincts hadn’t failed her. This was neither a social visit nor an ordinary office call. “Ergot is a very powerful medicine,” she said firmly. “I don’t dispense it or any medicine without assuring myself that the patient’s condition warrants it.”

  Tabitha’s green eyes narrowed, and her lips curled, leaving Elizabeth no doubt that this was not the response she had expected. “Dr. Worland used to.”

  Elizabeth noted Tabitha’s use of the past tense. That explained her presence here today. For some reason, the older doctor had refused Tabitha’s demand. “I am not Dr. Worland.” The phrase was becoming a refrain. “I would be happy to help you with whatever is wrong, but first I need you to describe your symptoms.”

  Her right hand fluttering in what appeared to be a dismissive gesture, Tabitha spat the words, “Female problems.”

  That was a wide category. “What sort of female problems?”

  “The kind that ergot helps.”

  Elizabeth knew of only two uses for the drug. Though some midwives employed it during childbirth to hasten delivery, that was obviously not the reason Tabitha wanted her to prescribe it. The second and more common use was as an abortifacient. Though she had no proof, Elizabeth suspected that was why Tabitha was here. The night of Miriam and Richard’s party, Elizabeth had overheard a woman saying that Tabitha was loath to ruin her slender figure with pregnancy.

  “I’ll need to take your medical history and examine you before I can prescribe anything,” she said, watching Tabitha’s face closely.

  The woman refused to meet her gaze. Instead, she stared at the wall behind Elizabeth. “You surprise me, Dr. Harding. I didn’t think you’d turn away a patient. From what I’ve heard, your practice is small. Very small.” Tabitha tapped her index finger on Elizabeth’s desk. “I can help you, you know. Many women in Cheyenne listen to me.”

  It sounded more like a threat than a promise, and that raised Elizabeth’s hackles. While she did not doubt Tabitha’s influence, she did doubt her motives. Under no circumstances would she dispense ergot to this woman. “I’m sorry, but I cannot give you what you want.”

  Tabitha’s laugh was as brittle as the smile that creased her face. “I suppose you’ve got scruples and principles. They’re all fine and good, but they won’t pay your rent or feed you.” She rose and gathered her reticule. “I thought you’d understand that I wanted to help you, but I was obviously mistaken. I’ll get the ergot from someone else.”

  Hours later, Elizabeth was still shaken by her encounter with the lovely woma
n. She stood in her waiting room, staring sightlessly out the window. How different Tabitha Chadwick was from Sheila Kerrigan! Tabitha was a wealthy woman with a husband who doted on her. Undoubtedly, she had servants who would care for a child, and yet she was so opposed to the idea of motherhood that she was prepared to abort her unborn baby. Sheila had no husband, doting or otherwise. She had no money, nor any servants to help her raise a child. She knew that motherhood would be a struggle, and yet she wouldn’t consider giving up her baby.

  “You look like you want to throttle someone.”

  Elizabeth’s head jerked to the side and she stared at Jason. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  He shrugged. “You were obviously lost in your thoughts. They didn’t appear to be happy ones, either.”

  “They weren’t.”

  “Can I help?”

  “I don’t know.” Suddenly aware that her legs were tired from standing, she sank onto one of the chairs and offered Jason another.

  “I can listen.”

  But she could not speak. Or could she? Though she could not divulge the details, there was no harm in discussing generalities. “I’m disturbed by some women’s attitudes toward children. They don’t seem to realize that they’re gifts from God.”

  A smile crossed Jason’s face. “The reverend used to say that.”

  “The reverend?”

  “My father. Mrs. Moran always referred to him that way, so I called him the same thing. He seemed to like it.”

  Elizabeth could not imagine herself or her sisters calling their father anything other than Papa. “It sounds so formal.”

  “He was a formal man. I can’t recall ever seeing him without his clerical collar. For him, being a minister was more than a calling. It was who he was.” Jason chuckled. “I never could picture the reverend as a boy, and yet he was good with the children in the congregation. He didn’t treat them as if they were too young to understand something.”

  Jason leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “Sometimes he’d take me with him when he visited parishioners. Most times I’d just sit in the buggy, waiting for him to finish, but I remember one time when he was called to a family whose baby was close to death. That time he took me inside with him.” Jason frowned at the memory. “The baby died almost as soon as we arrived. I’ll never forget the reverend telling me that children were a gift from God, even if the family only had that gift for a moment.”

  As tears welled in her eyes, Elizabeth nodded. “Your father sounds like a remarkable man.”

  “He was.” But Jason’s expression told Elizabeth that had not been enough.

  10

  July slid into August, with each day a few degrees hotter than the previous one. Occasionally a late afternoon thunderstorm relieved the heat temporarily. That was cause for thanksgiving, as were the days when a storm was followed by a rainbow. Though fleeting, the brilliantly colored arcs never failed to boost Elizabeth’s spirits, for they reminded her of her childhood and how her mother would stop whatever she was doing to gaze at a rainbow. “They’re a gift from God,” she told her daughters, “a sign of his unending faithfulness.” The day Mama had died, there had been a rainbow, and though her grief had been overwhelming, Elizabeth had found herself smiling at the thought that God and his angels were welcoming Mama to heaven with one of her beloved rainbows.

  Elizabeth capped the ink bottle as she finished the letter she had been writing to Charlotte. Though she was disappointed that Charlotte and Barrett would not be returning to Cheyenne as soon as they had expected, she understood that some things, including the schooling Charlotte was receiving, took longer than anticipated. “We’ll be there by Christmas,” Charlotte’s last letter promised.

  Christmas. Just the thought caused Elizabeth’s smile to broaden. It would be wonderful to spend the holiday with her family, especially after several years of celebrating alone. That thought, like so many others, raised questions about Jason. How did he spend Christmas? How deep were the wounds Mrs. Moran had inflicted? And, perhaps most importantly, had his father given him tangible signs of his love? Elizabeth did not doubt that the reverend had loved his son, but she feared he’d never demonstrated that love.

  Other than smiles and an occasional pat on the shoulder, Papa had not expressed his love. It had been Mama who’d dispensed hugs and kisses, telling her daughters with actions as well as words that they were loved. Without a mother, Jason might not have been so fortunate. His father had told him that children were a gift from God, but Elizabeth wondered if anyone he knew had described rainbows the way her mother had.

  Rainbows were one of the few similarities between Cheyenne and the other places Elizabeth had lived. Though she missed the mature trees that lined many of the streets in both Vermont and New York, she had to admit that the Wyoming sky was beautiful. It seemed bluer, and perhaps because there were few trees to block the view, it seemed bigger. The heat was different too. Wyoming was drier, making the heat seem less oppressive than New York’s. Equally important, the heat dissipated soon after nightfall rather than lingering all night. Though it had been difficult to sleep in New York during one of the summer heat waves, Elizabeth had had no trouble falling asleep and remaining asleep here.

  While she couldn’t say when it had occurred, Elizabeth felt as if contentment had settled over her like the woolen cloak Charlotte had given her for her last birthday, and like the cloak, it warmed her. There were many reasons to give thanks. It was true that patients were hardly stampeding to her door, but each week brought her one or two more, and it would soon be time to return to Phoebe’s for the girls’ monthly checkups and to remove Phoebe’s cast.

  Elizabeth was grateful for both her growing practice and the fact that Gwen seemed happier, perhaps because Rose had developed an attachment to Harrison. The little girl who’d once shied away from him now chattered about horses whenever she saw him, and every day she demanded to know whether he’d bought any. Elizabeth might have called Rose’s behavior badgering, but Harrison didn’t seem to mind. He just grinned, bestowing smiles on both Rose and her mother. In return, Gwen beamed with happiness whenever Harrison was around.

  Elizabeth couldn’t help wondering whether the plan to establish a horse ranch was a recent development, perhaps precipitated by Harrison’s desire to spend more time with Gwen, or whether he’d had it in mind when he returned to Cheyenne to assist with the store renovations. Regardless of the reason, she imagined that Barrett would be glad to have one of his brothers living in Wyoming. Family was important.

  Elizabeth leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, sending a prayer of thanksgiving heavenward that by the end of the year she would be reunited with her sisters. When she opened her eyes again, she tried not to frown at the reminder that Jason had no family. One day when they’d been sharing another of Mr. Ellis’s cakes, he’d told her that he had no aunts or uncles to give him cousins. He was alone in the world.

  There had to be something she could do. Before she could complete her thought, Elizabeth heard a woman shouting.

  “Dr. Harding! Dr. Harding!”

  Elizabeth sprang to her feet and rushed into the waiting room. Her eyes widened in surprise when she realized that she knew this woman, though the voice was so distorted by panic that she hadn’t recognized it. “What’s wrong, Delia?”

  When her maid’s hand had become infected, Miriam had brought the young woman to Elizabeth’s office. It had been simple enough to remove the splinter that had festered, more difficult to convince Delia that she needed to keep the hand bandaged for a week. Fortunately, when she had returned eight days later, Delia’s face had been wreathed in a smile, and she’d admitted that the bandage hadn’t curtailed her activities as much as she’d expected.

  Delia was not smiling now.

  “It’s Miss Miriam.” She paused, correcting herself. “Mrs. Eberhardt, that is. She’s mighty sick and she needs you.”

  Seconds later, Elizabeth had her medical b
ag in her hand and was climbing into Miriam’s carriage. “I’m glad you brought the buggy,” she told Delia as she settled the bag at her feet.

  “Me and Roscoe knew there was no time to waste,” the young woman said, gesturing toward the driver. “Miss Miriam wants you, but Mr. Richard called Doc Worland.”

  Elizabeth tried not to frown at the prospect of once again locking horns with the older physician. Fortunately, he had not yet arrived at Maple Terrace. Elizabeth was surprised when there was no sign of Richard as she entered Miriam’s room. She would have expected him to be at his bride’s bedside. Keeping her expression even, though the sight of Miriam sent waves of alarm pulsing through her body, Elizabeth greeted her patient. Her face was flushed, her eyes glassy. There was no doubt that Miriam was, as Delia had said, mighty sick.

  “I’m glad you came.” Miriam’s voice was as weak as she appeared. “I feel awful.” She laid her hand on her forehead. “I’m so hot. Oh, Doctor, I’m worried that I might hurt my baby.”

  One touch was enough to tell Elizabeth that Miriam had a dangerously high fever. “You do have a fever,” she said, neglecting to add that she shared Miriam’s concern that the elevated temperature might be harmful to her unborn child. There was nothing to be gained by adding to her patient’s distress.

  “Let’s see what’s causing that fever.” Elizabeth slid the thermometer under Miriam’s tongue and ran her hands along her patient’s throat. What she found disturbed her as much as Miriam’s fever.

  “I’m so weak,” Miriam cried when Elizabeth completed her palpation. Her green eyes were frantic with worry. “I tried to get out of bed, but my legs just collapsed. Oh, Doctor, I’m so afraid.”

  The symptoms were consistent with Elizabeth’s tentative diagnosis. All she needed was one more confirmation. She touched Miriam’s lips. “Open wide,” she ordered. “I want to look at your throat.” Miriam’s throat revealed what she feared. Elizabeth took a deep breath, then laid her hand on Miriam’s in what she hoped would be a comforting gesture. “There’s no easy way to tell you this. You have diphtheria.”