Winning The Doctor's Heart (Mail-Order Brides of Salvation 3)

by Faith Parsons

  Anne smiled at her thankfully. “Do you know of any families in town that might have children in need of a tutor?”

  “Oh, dear,” the older woman laughed. “Salvation is a small town. Most people here know how to read and write, but I have to tell you that there’s no market for an expensive tutor here.”

  Anne flushed. It was clear that the other woman felt sorry for her.

  Mrs. Smith cleared her throat. “Do you have any other skills, my dear?”

  “I’m a passable cook and a poor seamstress. I can clean, though.”

  “Perhaps now that you’re here, someone will want a tutor. I’ll ask at the next Ladies’ Social Circle.”

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  Finally alone, Anne collapsed on the bed and curled up into a ball. What was she going to do? Daniel was clearly an honorable man. He felt obligated to pay her expenses. But his angry words still echoed in her mind. You won’t be inconvenienced. As if her fiancé’s death—his brother’s death—meant nothing to her.

  He was hurt, and he’d hurt her.

  She had more important things to worry about. Kenneth was lost to her. Had she loved him? She’d loved his letters, and she’d certainly respected the man who’d written to her so often. Her heart ached with the knowledge that she would never see him smile. That he would never take her on that hayride he’d promised her. That she’d never know if they could have been happy together.

  Why would God allow her to come all the way out here for nothing? Had she mistaken her own foolish desire for His will?

  Back home, she might’ve worked as a maid and gained a new reference, then used that reference to persuade another rich family to take her on as a tutor. But here…there was nothing for her here. She should accept Daniel’s offer of a train ticket home.

  After she’d seen Kenneth buried.

  Chapter 4

  Daniel stared at the floor, wishing he could be anywhere else. The whole town had turned out for Kenneth’s funeral, women sobbing into their kerchiefs, men stiff-faced and stoic as they gathered around the plain wood coffin to say their goodbyes. Sheriff Eisley had spoken at length about Kenneth’s heroism and his dedicated service to the citizens of Salvation.

  Beside Daniel, Aunt Beatrice graciously thanked mourners for their condolences. Kenneth was a good man, they said. A hero who’d died doing what he was meant to do.

  Meanwhile, Daniel had to live with the knowledge that he’d failed to save his brother. Everyone’s well-intended words just drove the wedge of guilt and grief deeper into his heart.

  Someone was talking to him. He stared at the floor.

  Aunt Beatrice elbowed him, hard enough to drive the air out of his lungs for a second. He looked up in surprise. Anne.

  Her dark blue traveling dress stood out among the stark blacks worn by the rest of the mourners. She’d been expecting a wedding, not a funeral, he reminded himself. It was probably the best she could do.

  She couldn’t help that she looked lovely in it.

  In spite of her carefully-composed expression, Daniel noticed the puffiness around her eyes. Crying over a fiancé she barely knew. Or had she been crying for her own situation, grieving that she would have to start over in attracting another husband?

  He should have felt sorry for her, but the sight of her only deepened his guilt. Kenneth was such a good person that he was mourned by a woman who knew him only through his letters.

  I’m the one who should be in that coffin.

  He watched out of the corner of his eye as Anne offered her condolences. She didn’t try to talk to him, like many of the other mourners had, directing her comments instead to Aunt Beatrice.

  “I didn’t know your nephew as well as I would have liked, but I’m deeply saddened for your loss.”

  “Thank you, my dear.” Daniel’s aunt took Anne’s hands in her own. “I could tell from the way he spoke of you that he regarded you fondly.”

  “If there’s anything I can do to help—“

  “There’s nothing you can do,” Daniel blurted. Did she think that because Kenneth had sent her a few letters that she was part of the family now? He was being petulant, he knew. But somehow the intrusion, however well meant, was too much to bear.

  Anne sighed. “Please forgive my presumption.”

  Aunt Beatrice clucked. “No presumption, my dear. It would do me good to have a little company.”

  Daniel glared at Aunt Beatrice, who ignored his look of outrage. It was his job to take care of his family, now that he was the only son left. And hadn’t he already offered to take care of Anne’s expenses while the woman looked for another husband?

  The thought of Kenneth’s fiancée— this capable, raven-haired woman who knew how to sterilize medical instruments and faced gruesome wounds unflinchingly—spending time in his home was unbearable.

  It was as if she taunted him with his brother’s death.

  No, he realized. It was his attraction to her that taunted him. Kenneth had loved this woman enough to propose to her, and the moment she’d picked up that needle to assist him, he’d seen exactly why. She was smart. She was capable. She was beautiful.

  If Kenneth had still been alive, Daniel would have been rabidly jealous of his brother’s relationship with Anne. I’m a terrible brother. I let him die, and now I’m attracted to the woman he wanted to marry.

  He gritted his teeth and focused on the floor once again. As soon as the funeral was over, he would insist that she leave. He’d pay for her ticket back home. Or wherever she wanted to go. What more could she ask?

  Anne turned to leave as Mrs. Henderson approached with her boy Tommy in tow. Before the woman could open her mouth to speak, the boy had a coughing fit. He sounded like a barking dog. Oh no. Croup.

  “How long has he been doing that?” Daniel asked.

  Mary, who’d been halfway through her condolences, blinked in confusion at Daniel’s interruption. But apparently losing one’s brother gave one some leeway in the manners department.

  “Doing what?” she asked.

  “Coughing like that.”

  “He came down with it day before yesterday.”

  Over the mother’s shoulder, Daniel saw Anne kneel before Tommy. She murmured, and the boy opened his mouth wide.

  Did she think she was going to take over as town doctor?

  But Daniel’s wounded pride turned to fear as Anne hurried back. “The boy has a white patch near the back of his throat, on the right side.”

  Not croup, diphtheria. How did she know to check for that?

  At least she’d been discreet. It did no good to start a panic. He’d treat the boy in isolation, keep the mother quarantined, and hope they’d caught it in time to keep it from spreading.

  He nodded and gestured Tommy closer. The boy approached slowly. As he got closer, Daniel thought he looked feverish. He crouched down and asked the boy to open his mouth.

  Yes, there it was, a big white patch right where Anne had said it would be. The boy’s neck was slightly swollen, too. There was no doubt. Diphtheria. If he didn’t act now, the entire town was in danger.

  If only Mary had brought the boy to him sooner. Instead, she’d brought him to a public gathering, exposing almost everyone who lived in Salvation to possible infection.

  “Tommy needs to come with me to the clinic immediately.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “We’ll talk at the clinic. Please go, I’ll meet you there shortly.”

  Looking terrified, the woman clutched Tommy against her skirts. “What’s wrong with my boy?”

  Anne stepped forward. “I’m sure that Daniel has just the thing to treat Tommy’s cough. Come, I’ll walk you to the clinic. I could use a little air.”

  Daniel watched gratefully as Anne led Mary and her son out of the church. Tommy’s mother tended toward histrionics, and the last thing they needed was to start a panic.

  He looked around the room and saw concern on every face. Clearing his throat,
he asked, “Has anyone else been suffering from a sore throat?”

  Ten minutes later, Daniel and the two other townsfolk who’d admitted to feeling ill arrived at the clinic. Daniel asked the adult patients to wait in the outside room while he examined Tommy.

  In the treatment room, Anne had Tommy settled on a cot with his mother at his bedside and was calmly talking with both. How had she managed to settle Mary down?

  It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he do everything he could to keep Tommy and the others alive.

  Daniel rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

  Chapter 5

  Anne awoke disoriented, in a room she didn’t recognize. Pale blue walls, a squat wooden dresser, a slice of sunlight cutting across the foot of the very comfortable bed in which she’d apparently slept. Fully-clothed.

  On the dresser sat a photograph of a beautiful woman with two young boys. One of the boys reminded her of…oh. That’s right. After quarantining Tommy and two other townsfolk in his clinic, Daniel had asked her to look after his aunt while he examined and treated his new patients.

  Beatrice didn’t just need help with household chores, Anne discovered. She also washed bandages, boiled water, and did other things to support Daniel’s clinic. Anne had insisted that the older woman rest. Then she threw herself into the tasks at hand. When she’d finished everything that Beatrice had mentioned, she’d tidied up in the clinic waiting room, sorting out that massive pile of papers and books as best she could.

  The last thing she remembered was sitting at the waiting room desk, reading a fascinating monograph proposing a method for determining the effective dose of chloroform when sedating a patient.

  How did she get up here?

  She blushed as she realized the only possible answer to that question. Daniel had put her to bed. At least he’d had the decency not to undress her.

  Rumpled, with her bun askew, Anne put herself to rights as best she could and headed downstairs, where she found Beatrice attempting to coax Daniel into eating breakfast.

  Daniel, slumped in a chair with a tin cup in hand, ignoring his aunt. He looked worse than Anne felt: hair tousled, eyes bloodshot and sunken. She wondered if he’d slept at all.

  “Let me brew some more coffee,” Beatrice said, retreating to the kitchen.

  “Last night—” Anne began.

  “I’m a doctor. I can’t be hampered by false modesty when there’s work to be done.”

  Anne blushed. Of course he would see it that way. He had an epidemic to stop, he didn’t have time to worry what others would think.

  Besides, she wasn’t staying. Probably. So it didn’t matter what the citizens of Salvation thought of her spending the night in the home of her dead fiancé’s brother.

  As if he’d read her mind, Daniel rolled his eyes. “Aunt Beatrice insisted on accompanying me when I put you to bed. Your reputation is safe.”

  Now she felt like a ninny for focusing on her own trivial concerns. So she changed the subject. “How’s Tommy?”

  Daniel slumped a little more and took a deep swig from his cup before answering. “Thank you for your help yesterday.”

  Oh no. Tommy must be worse. “Anything I can do, I will. Do you need more—“

  “This isn’t your problem.” Daniel looked up from his cup for the first time. “You’re not Kenneth’s widow.”

  His words were like a slap in the face. But she saw the agony in his eyes when he said his brother’s name. How could she be angry when he was still suffering so much? If he could set aside his grief for the sake of preventing an epidemic, she could swallow her wounded pride and help in whatever way she was able.

  “What’s the incubation period for diphtheria? Three days? Four?”

  “Up to five,” he responded glumly.

  “I’ve been exposed to the contagion. I can’t go anywhere until I’m sure I won’t be taking it with me.”

  He grunted. Drank more coffee. “Why are you so set on staying? We’re strangers to you.”

  “Kenneth once told me that you watched out for him after your mother died.”

  “He was my brother.”

  “And now that you’re a doctor, you take care of everyone in Salvation.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Who takes care of you?”

  “I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”

  Everyone needs someone to care for them. But he wouldn’t accept it even if she said it.

  Anne sighed. “Kenneth gave me hope. If I can repay his kindness by helping a few people here before I move on, I will.”

  Aunt Beatrice returned with a cup of coffee for Anne. “I, for one, am glad you’re staying with us. These old bones could use some help.”

  Someone knocked at the front door. Daniel gulped the rest of his coffee, then jumped up to answer it.

  “He doesn’t mean to be so sour, my dear.” Beatrice poured a little more coffee into her own cup. “He just needs time.”

  A rough barking sound interrupted Anne’s reply. Her heart sank. A new patient, already?

  She hurried to the front door, found Daniel helping an elderly man into the clinic’s waiting room. Several more townsfolk waited on the doorstep.

  “I want to help,” she insisted as she moved a chair closer for the sick man. “Let me help you take care of these patients.”

  “I don’t have time to teach you to be a nurse. This is only the beginning. There will be more. A lot more.”

  “When word gets out, the train won’t stop at Salvation. At best, they’ll drop medicine with the mail. You’re going to need all the help you can get.”

  “Inexperienced help is worse than no help at all.” He scowled. “Besides, Kenneth would never forgive me if I let you die of it.”

  “Kenneth is—” dead, she’d been about to say. But the expression on Daniel’s face stopped her. “—wherever he is, this is not his decision to make. It’s mine. And yours.”

  Daniel closed his eyes. She hated to bring up Kenneth’s demise, but the reality of an epidemic was brutal. One man couldn’t single-handedly care for an entire town, no matter how good his intentions. People would die for his stubbornness if he continue to refuse help.

  “I know I’m not a trained nurse, but I can make sure the patients take their medicine, so that you can do other things. I can sterilize your instruments. Wash the bowls you’re using to mix medicines.” He looked like he might be softening. She pressed her case. “If nothing else, I can keep the sick ones’ kin calm while they’re pacing in the waiting room.”

  “Fine.” He opened his eyes to glare at her. “You will keep out of my way and you will do whatever I ask you to do. Your first priority will be the welfare of my patients.”

  Anne nodded and followed him into the clinic. She hesitated in the doorway of the waiting room—all eight chairs were filled with sick townsfolk, and a dozen more stood in the center of the room. Most of them looked pale and weak. One, a matronly woman with dull eyes and fever spots on her cheeks, leaned against a worried-looking older man with a mustache.

  “If you’ll make yourselves comfortable, Anne will bring you tea while you wait. If you begin to have trouble breathing, let Anne know and she’ll inform me.” Turning to the woman with fever spots, Daniel gestured for her to enter the clinic. “Rose, I’ll see you first.”

  Once the clinic door closed, Anne smiled at the remaining patients. “Is anyone hungry?”

  Several were, so she retreated to the kitchen. The kettle wouldn’t be nearly big enough, so she found a large dented soup pot, filled it up with water from the drinking bucket, and put it on the cast-iron stove to boil.

  “So it begins,” Beatrice said as she handed Anne a canister of tea. “This one’s an herbal remedy from the Old Country. It’s a tonic. Nothing like Daniel’s medicines, but it’s soothing.”

  “Please, rest,” Anne said. “Stay upstairs. There’s no need for you to be exposed. I’ll take care of Daniel’s patients while he’s working.”<
br />
  “Have you ever experienced an epidemic, my dear?”

  Ann shook her head.

  “When I was a child, my father brought our family out West in a Conestoga. He wanted to settle in San Antonio. By the time we arrived at a settlement called Hearne, we were desperately low on supplies. The sheriff met us on the road, and he warned us away. Yellow fever outbreak.”

  Anne shivered as she placed yesterday’s biscuits on a tray. She’d read about the great outbreaks of yellow fever in the ‘50s. Horrible disease. In New Orleans, it’d killed more than seven thousand people in a single year.

  “Sheriff told my father to keep on until we reached Austin. But that was almost a week’s travel, and we’d run out of food the day before.”

  Suddenly, Anne was sure she didn’t want to hear the rest of this story. But she bit her tongue as Beatrice continued.

  “Mother kept us with the wagon while Father snuck into town to buy us some food. Or steal it. He came back with a round of cheese and several loaves of bread. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. Wouldn’t tell Mother what he’d seen, or how he got the food.”

  “Did you make it to Austin?”

  The older woman sighed. “Yes, and so did the fever. My father fell ill two days before we arrived. Mother made us sit in the driver’s seat while she walked next to the horses. Father was dying in the back and she was terrified we’d catch it.”

  What an ordeal for a family to go through. For the sake of hiding the horror she couldn’t keep off her face, Anne checked the pot on the stove—not quite boiling yet. She turned to face the older woman after composing herself.

  “Mother hung on until we reached town limits, but it was too late…” Beatrice dabbed at her eyes. “They took Mother and Father to a quarantine tent, where doctors tended the stricken. More than a hundred people lying head to foot, moaning and begging for help to anyone who’d listen. And no medicine to be had. You know, they used to call it the Black Vomit?”

  Anne’s hands flew to her mouth. “You went there?”

  “I had to see them. I had to say goodbye.”

  Propriety be damned. Anne put the last of the biscuits on the tray and hugged Beatrice fiercely. The older woman hugged her back.