From the train. Did they all blame her? Did they think she could have saved them if she’d been here practicing her nursing instead of working so far away? What kind of miracle maker did they expect? This influenza epidemic didn’t have a cure. Not one doctor had a clue how to stop its spread. She certainly wasn’t God. She’d hoped to help her family with emergency leave. To bring her skills home for a short time.
Maila hadn’t caught the flu in Saint Paul. Perhaps she wasn’t meant to because the good Lord had other plans. The high fever, respiratory distress, and then fluid-filled lungs moved fast. A person lived or died in less than two days. Why these strong men and women in their prime? Why did God let this disease dash her family to bits like hail blasting across their crops? But Burton had recovered, though he appeared a bit thin for his six-foot-three height. Was it from the flu bout or from grief?
Guiding the horses to the curb on Lincoln Avenue, Burton slid off the hard bench, taking the blanket with him. “I’ll help you get your things inside, then after I’ve bedded the horses down I can bring up whatever you need.” He shook piling snow out of the rug, rolled it, and tucked the bundle back in its nook.
“I’ll be fine.” Maila peered at the flat stone on the general store before hopping off the front seat into the street. Utilitarian flat-front buildings marched up and down Fergus Falls’s main street. Smaller, simpler architecture contrasted with the more established elegance she enjoyed in the bigger city. The comparison fit Maila and her older cousin, Rose, too well. Maila dared a look in Burton’s direction. Such a young, handsome man to lose the one he loved. Who wouldn’t love a woman rich in heart, talent, and beauty? Maila had always wanted to be like the regal Rose when she grew up.
Resigned to her reality as plain and simple, Maila reached over the side of the sleigh. All her luggage had jumbled into the far corner nearest Burton.
“Yoo-hoo! Are you open, Mr. Rutherford?” A woman waved as she hurried toward the store. Not a small woman, she wore a man’s woolen coat with a thick shawl tied around her head and shoulders against the strengthening gusts. “I need a bit of honey, please.”
Burton ushered her in the dry goods store with half of Maila’s belongings hanging on one arm. “Of course, Mrs. Anderson, come out of the storm.” An electric lamp flared inside, spilling the golden promise of warmth out the window.
Left to wander in on her own as the sleet picked up speed and intensity, Maila collected the last two satchels. Didn’t he keep normal business hours? She huffed over to the closed door. At least he could have—
Burton swung the door ajar, bell jangling with the motion and then writhing on its rope in the snowstorm. He spoke discreetly, close to her ear, warming her skin. “I’m sorry, Maila. Mrs. Anderson’s husband already passed and now her little son has taken ill.” His hands brushed hers as he relieved Maila of the bundles. “I’ll just be a moment.”
Maila scuffed through the doorway, eyes down. Burton took care of someone else in the face of his own exhaustion while she groused. She deserved to be left out in the howling cold for her selfishness. Her face flamed. She couldn’t squeak out a word if she had to.
Burton set the bags on the floor near the back stair. He rounded the sales counter at the farthest end and plucked a jar of honey off the shelf. “What else can I get you?”
To Maila, the store looked more like the row houses she’d visited in a mill town during nursing training. Her professional focus became in-home patient care because of the experience. She loved caring for people one-on-one outside of the hospital setting. Here, glass displays lined both sides of the narrow aisle from front to rear. They seemed to run on forever, deep into the building. Shadows swallowed up the high shelves. She squinted to see the products in the lamplight while Burton served his unusually late customer. The store didn’t look as well stocked as she remembered.
“Some are saying the coughs are quieting with a little peppermint. Do you have any that’s broken? Some you can’t sell maybe?”
“Mrs. Anderson, I have just the piece for you.” Burton opened the glass jar holding straight sticks of red and white peppermint penny candies. He cracked the longest piece into thirds. “This appears to have broken.” He dropped all three pieces into a tiny paper sack. “Keep a little piece handy for him to suck on like a lozenge.”
“But you—”
“Want your son to get well?”
She smiled. “It’s most appreciated, Mr. Rutherford. We’ll be able to pay you soon.”
“I’m sure you will. Now go home and see to your family without another worry.”
“Thank you.”
“We’ll be praying for you and yours, Mrs. Anderson.”
Her face registered sadness. “We’ll miss your pretty wife, Mr. Rutherford. I’ve never heard another so talented on the organ, either. God keep you.”
Maila stopped her at the door. “If your son gets to coughing too hard, you might try cupping to help him clear his lungs.” She held her hands up to demonstrate. “Pat his back with some strength.” She clapped her cupped hand against her opposite flat palm. Air popped between them. “Be sure you cover his entire upper back while he lies across your lap. I’ve seen this procedure relieve chest congestion and help several people.”
“Thank you. I’ll do that.” Mrs. Anderson smiled at both Maila and Burton. In a flash of skirts, she scooted out the door and across the darkened street.
Burton took a deep breath. Then he motioned for Maila to come to the back. “Can you find your way upstairs? Second door on the right. I need to see to the horses.”
“I can wait. Don’t you need a moment to mark her account?”
“No, I’m not planning on remembering that order.”
“Oh.”
He put the lid back on the glass candy jar. “Sometimes other people need their pennies more than I do. She’s wearing her husband’s coat because she doesn’t have one. He’s no longer going to be able to provide.”
No wonder Rose had fallen in love with Burton. He cared about the people he served, not just the money they spent on his dry goods. Maila was surprised at her next thought. Would Benjamin have done the same?
Chapter 2
The hugs—no one gave just one—kept coming as her remaining family poured out of the small homestead cabin. Letters cheered her up, but to be with them now filled an emptiness she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. Mama opened her arms and Maila fell into them, inhaling the aroma of rye bread. Oh, how she’d missed Mama’s baking.
“Och, but it’s good you’re home. You’ll stay now, ja?” Mama held Maila’s cheeks with both hands and smiled into her daughter’s eyes.
Conscious of Burton nearby, Maila chose to answer her mother’s Swedish with muffled English through squished cheeks and puckered fish lips. “Mama, I have a job.”
“You’re needed here.” Mama patted Maila’s face before releasing her. “You can work at the new hospital when everyone is well, if Burton can manage the store. They need nurses.”
Needed. Everything hinged on being needed, not wanted. She could work at the Kirkbride, Fergus Falls State Hospital. Overcrowded conditions treating the mentally ill, though honorable and needed, wasn’t the kind of nursing she wanted to do. “In Saint Paul, I travel a home care route. I prefer rehabilitating patients from injuries and illnesses.” Work inside the sterile walls of a facility? It’d be especially tough since it wasn’t completed. Construction went on in one wing while treating patients in the other. Who knew how long it would take? “Mama, I enjoy my work. I don’t think I’m ready to move back yet. But I’m here to help now.”
“You’ll stay now.”
“I—” No, not my first day home. “Let’s enjoy being together today, Mama.” Biting back further defense, Maila put an arm around her mother’s waist and walked with her toward the small house. “How are Randa and her little ones? I should look in on them.”
“The fevers have broken, but they ache all over.”
“Any sign of p
neumonia?”
Her mother’s nose reddened. Tears glossed her eyes. “I couldn’t bear to lose one of those precious children or their mama.”
But you could do without me for nine years. Maila gritted her teeth then blew lightly between them, releasing pent-up pressure. “Mama, I’ll do my best, but prayers are more important. I’m a nurse, not God.”
“Ja. I know.” She led Maila to the cramped bedroom. “But Gud has brought you home to hjälpa.”
After examining her sister, niece, and nephew, Maila left them sipping on chicken broth Mama brought in on a tray. “Krya på dig,” Maila said before closing the bedroom door. She laid her hand against the white wood and leaned into it, eyes closed. “God, please do help them get well soon.”
“He will,” Burton’s low baritone responded.
Maila popped her eyes open and turned. This sense of faith from the man who’d lost two loved ones? She tipped her head back, looking into his compassionate face. “I hope so.”
He scrunched his brows and scrutinized Maila’s eyes closely. “They’re not blue!”
“What?”
“Your eyes. They’re…hazel?”
She giggled. “Yes? This is a surprise?”
He didn’t stop staring. “They’re…lovely.”
“Um,” Maila dropped her chin to her chest. “Thank you.” When had she last received a genuine compliment like that? Benjamin complimented her hair. Such thick brown hair. He’d asked her to take it down once to see the full length. But no one had ever used the word lovely about any part of Maila Holmes. Rooted like trees, her legs wouldn’t move. So why did it feel like squirrels raced up her spine?
“What’s this, you two blocking up the hall?” Mama said in Swedish as she pushed between them, hands full of bowls and spoons. She stopped, looked up into Burton’s face, and then swiveled to peruse Maila’s.
A flush crept over Maila under her mother’s inspection. “Nothing, Mama.” She switched to English. “Burton came to see if we needed anything.”
Her mother’s eyes squinted and she slanted her head ever so slightly. She took one longer look between the two before saying, “Ja, come eat now.”
Maila skirted Burton on her way to the table. She could feel his gaze following her movements. That little squirrel wreaked havoc in her rib cage.
The entire family of cousins, aunts, and uncles from the area, minus the three flu victims, gathered for the noon meal around the long plank table, with shoulders and elbows bumping. Down so many, yet twelve souls remained to banter at mealtimes on special occasions. Burton would miss this if he sold the store.
“I think they’re on the road to recovery,” Maila informed everyone. “Randa and Inga have some color returning and little James’s coughing is not nearly as deep as I expected. I believe they’re already past the danger.”
Randa’s husband, George, spoke with a pained expression. “I won’t lose my wife? My children?” Thick emotion clogged his words.
Maila placed a hand on his wrist in the tight space. “No. I don’t think so. I’m not seeing any signs of pneumonia.” She looked into his eyes. “They’re getting Mama’s chicken soup down. With rest and fluids, all should be well.”
“Thank you, Maila. I’ve expected… I—” George closed his eyes and wiped a hand over them.
Mama Holmes bowed her head and thankfully said the prayer in words Burton understood. “We’ve lost enough. Nej, not one more, dear Lord. You’ve asked so many of mine family already.” The family followed her lead for both a prayer of mercy and a blessing over their chicken soup and fresh bread.
“Mama Holmes.” Burton picked up his spoon. “I can leave Maila here to care for them. She has her things in the sleigh.”
Mama Holmes brightened at his words. “Ja, this is best.” Her head bobbed.
George looked up from his bowl. “Will you be able to stay long, Maila?”
She swallowed the hot broth. “I took a month’s leave.”
“Nej, Maila. You will stay now. No more working so far away.”
Spoons clinked on dishes like cymbals clashing amid the recent losses. No one would argue with Mama Holmes—except Maila.
Burton discreetly looked around the table. The only set of eyes not focused on a bowl, other than Mama Holmes and Maila, belonged to himself. He wanted to say something to ease the tension, but what?
Maila set her spoon down with a thunk. “I have a job and commitments, Mama.”
Mama Holmes’s eyes narrowed. “Family is commitment, and more important. We must care for one another now we have lost so many.”
“I will do what I can until I must go back.”
“I do not ask you to visit.” Mama Holmes’s voice rose. “I ask you to komma hem, Maila. Du behövsf!”
What in the world did “du behövs” mean? Burton closed his eyes. English!
“I know I’m needed, Mama,” Maila said quietly. “I’m willing to help in whatever way our family has need. But no one is ill enough to need a nurse.”
Ah, needed. That’s what those words meant. He shook his head as the argument escalated. The first day home and the two women were already at odds. But did this tinder and spark need to happen in the midst of heavy family grief? The coming month would be atrocious if mother and daughter locked antlers and couldn’t manage to get along in the same house.
Burton held up a hand. “Ladies, please.” But the two paid him no heed. The words flew in Swedish until he brought his hand down sharply on the table. The clatter of dishes caught everyone’s attention.
“I believe we need to have that family meeting right now.” Burton righted the saltshaker then straightened his fork and knife.
“You’re forgetting my family is resting.” George jumped in to support Burton while avoiding Mama Holmes’s shocked stare. “We must all talk civilly.”
Both ladies blanched.
Burton continued. “I’ve been thinking about our dilemma. We have a shortage of hands to do all the work both on the farm and in the store.”
Several set down their silver, a few leaned back in their chairs, and Maila sent a grateful smile his way.
“What suggestions do you have?” Mama Holmes asked.
“I have stock still in boxes because I’ve been coming out to the farm the last week and”—he swallowed—“because we’ve buried family.” The entire table crossed themselves. “I need help stocking the store and assisting customers. If someone worked in the store for me, I could help more on the farm with the heavy work of calving, preparing equipment for planting, and the like.” And a little time away from it would help me decide whether to sell or not.
George tapped his fingers on the table as he listened. Then he offered, “We could send Randa when she’s well. The children are good and can play quietly in the sitting room.”
Burton wrinkled his brow. “Well, that could work.” He turned to Maila and tried to warn her by widening his eyes. Would she catch his subtle hint? “How long will it take for Randa and the children to recover?”
Maila gave Burton a sideways look. “They’re already getting better. They’ll be weak for a bit. Nothing a bit more sleep and broth can’t handle. Once Randa’s feeling up to it, I think she’d do well to help here. She could rest when she wearies.”
George rubbed his chin. “She must recover fully. I won’t risk her health.”
Burton let out the breath he’d been holding.
“What can we do then?” Mama Holmes joined the discussion. “We need every able body working, or the farm will fail. Papa has been gone only a year. We need good, strong men.”
“If Randa and the children are recovering, what if Maila stayed at the store and Burton worked the farm?” Lars suggested. “It’s the muscle we need in the fields.”
Burton held back the grin and pasted a serious expression on his face. He needed to put the power of decision in the two women’s laps. Let them think they have to convince me. “I’m not sure about that. Maila has been away at coll
ege and nursing. What does she know about running a store?”
“Excuse me?” Maila’s indignant tone almost made Burton laugh. “You don’t think I’m capable?”
Mama Holmes dove in to the conversation with a shaking finger. “My Maila can do anyt’ing she sets her mind to, ja? Ja!” She folded her arms. Something Burton noticed she did when no one would sway her. “You chust be here to work, young man, and my girl will do her part. You take her back tonight and show what must be done.”
He held both hands up in surrender. “If you all think it’s the right thing to do…”
A chorus of agreement supported Mama Holmes’s decision. Even Maila agreed as she raised one brown eyebrow in challenge.
If he hadn’t intended the conversation to go this direction, the battle flaring in Maila’s eyes might start a tremor in Burton’s blood. But instead, triumph surged through his veins. The Civil War would not have a repeat in this household if he could circumvent the adversaries. Though judging from Maila’s icy glare, he might have some explaining to do.
On the stoop of the store, Maila whirled on Burton. The chilly drive, in more ways than waning light giving way to a frigid Minnesota evening, hadn’t cooled the fire in her eyes. “What do you think I am—a complete dolt?”
“Maila, calm down and we can talk.” Burton unlocked the door. “I thought—”
“You thought!” She fisted her hands on her hips. “You thought I couldn’t do something as simple as stock shelves? You thought I couldn’t add two plus two?”
“I thought you might like a little distance to make your own decisions,” he shot back at her.
“I’ve been making my own decisions for years. I don’t need you to—” A gasp on the sidewalk nearby caught her attention. Maila closed her eyes and pinched her lips into the finest line, forcing dimples to deepen at the edges of her mouth.
Two ladies quickly crossed to the other side of the street, casting disapproving glances back at Maila and Burton.
Burton held his tongue until the ladies passed out of hearing as he opened the shop door and pulled Maila inside. He closed the shade for privacy. “I thought it was very uncomfortable for you and everyone else this afternoon. I thought it might be better to have an intelligent, healthy woman help in the store rather than argue with her mother for the next month. And for your information, I couldn’t take one more word out of either one of you.”
The Lassoed by Marriage Romance Collection Page 7