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

by Faith Parsons

  “So, my dear, you see why you have to stay?”

  “I do.” To be the only doctor in a town taken down by plague, helpless in the face of so much suffering—she wouldn’t let Daniel face that alone.

  Once Anne had served the tea and all of Beatrice’s remaining biscuits to the waiting room patients, she excused herself and entered the clinic.

  All fourteen of the clinic’s cots were occupied. Daniel squatted next to the one in the far corner, coaxing a young woman to open her mouth. He didn’t look like he needed help at the moment.

  So Anne went straight to Tommy’s cot. The little boy’s skin had a bluish cast and he struggled to breathe. She gave him some tea and adjusted his pillow so that he could breathe more easily. His neck looked puffy, giving him the appearance of jowls. He was getting worse.

  The clinic door slammed open. Tommy’s mother burst into the room and hurried to his side. She wailed as she threw herself onto the tiny cot.

  “My boy can’t be sick. What am I going to do without him? Tommy, don’t die!”

  Tommy tried to say something. Nothing but a rough hiss came out. He turned frightened eyes to Anne.

  This wouldn’t do. “Mary, please, may I speak with you outside?”

  “I can’t leave my boy! What if he dies and I’m not here?”

  Tommy’s chest started heaving. He tried again to speak, but his voice was barely audible.

  “You want Tommy to live, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do!”

  “Come outside with me. I’d like to explain what you can do to help Tommy get better faster,” Anne used her calmest, steadiest voice. The sooner she got this hysterical woman away from Daniel’s patients, the better.

  The woman pulled herself together just enough to kiss Tommy on the forehead and tell him in a wavery voice that she’d be right back. Then she followed Anne outside.

  “You think he’s going to live?” Mary asked as soon as Anne closed the clinic front door.

  “Daniel is an excellent doctor. Tommy has the best chance anyone does of recovering.”

  The woman’s face lit up with hope. “I lost my husband when Tommy was only two. He’s all I’ve got. Please, you have to save him.”

  “We’ll do everything we can. But you’ve got the most important job of all.”

  “I don’t understand. What can I do?”

  “Tommy needs his mother to be strong for him. To show him how to be brave. If you have faith that he’ll get well, it’ll be easier for Tommy to believe.”

  “I know... I know...” the poor woman whispered. “But I’m so afraid I’ll lose him...”

  Anne patted the woman on the shoulder. “I want you to go back into the clinic and talk to Tommy about something you’re going to do together when he’s well. Can you do that?”

  Mary hesitated, then nodded.

  “After you’ve shown Tommy that you believe he’s going to get better, you need to go home and take care of yourself. Eat. Sleep. Pray and let God comfort you.”

  The woman nodded again, and Anne followed her back to the clinic. Once inside, she kept one eye on Tommy’s mother while she gathered up dirty instruments and bowls from Daniel’s preparation table. Only after she saw that the woman was talking to her son calmly did Anne carry it all out to the kitchen and dump everything in the sterilization pot that Beatrice had started for her earlier.

  A few moments later, Daniel joined her. “Whatever you said to Tommy’s mother, thank you.”

  “She needed to feel like there was something she could do for him. Nothing harder than sitting by feeling helpless when someone you love is suffering.” A feeling that Anne was sure Daniel had suffered as he fought to save Kenneth.

  His expression went tight, but not before a flicker of remembered pain confirmed Anne’s guess.

  “I wanted to ask if you’d be interested in learning to mix the tinctures and prepare a few doses.”

  Did that mean he was changing his mind about her ability to assist him? Not wanting to appear frivolous, she nodded solemnly. “Whatever I can do to help.”

  Chapter 6

  The plague spread quickly. Within days, almost every household in town had at least one afflicted member. The sheriff was quick to notify the railroad company, so that no train stopped at the Salvation’s station. By the end of the week the general store began to run short on supplies. Thankfully, Aunt Beatrice had stocked up on flour, and with the help of other ladies in town, had canned every bit of surplus vegetables from the tiny summer garden in their back yard. But the patients were still getting by on soup, augmented with whatever meals their not-yet-sick relatives brought while visiting.

  Daniel soon found himself low on iodine and several tinctures that he didn’t have the ability to make for himself. It was time to start doing triage, treating those who had the best chance of recovery with the remaining supplies, and do what he could to make the rest as comfortable as possible.

  He hated this part of being a doctor. He wanted to save everyone.

  As bleak as the epidemic had been, it could have been worse. Anne had made the difference. In spite of her obvious exhaustion, she remained steadfast. Feeding the patients who couldn’t feed themselves. Sterilizing his instruments and mixing bowls. Calming the little ones, who missed their parents and woke up frightened in the middle of the night. Even limiting visits from distraught family members, so they didn’t interfere with Daniel’s treatments.

  She looked gaunt now due to sleep deprivation and overwork. But beneath her tiredness, there was something else. A kind-heartedness that was determined to alleviate whatever pain she could.

  She would have been a worthy wife for Kenneth. Daniel didn’t deserve her. But he took comfort in her presence anyway.

  Sighing, he peeled off his last pair of rubber gloves—when train service resumed, he was going to order as many as he could afford—and returned to the clinic waiting room. Anne sat at his desk, hunched over a pile of papers.

  She started as he shut the door behind him. “Oh! I was just about to come get you. Look at this.”

  He frowned. “You said you were going to get some sleep.”

  “Tobacco smoke.”

  She’d been pushing herself too hard, and it was his fault for not noticing sooner. He should have been paying more attention. “Anne, tomorrow.”

  She picked up a journal and waved it at him. An issue of The British Medical Journal, to be exact. “Tobacco smokers are less likely to contract diphtheria.”

  “That’s not exactly—“

  “And this.” She picked up a different journal and held it out to him. “A Dr. Koenig claims that when he put tobacco on a live coal and had his patients inhale the smoke several times a day, their recovery rate doubled.”

  “Tobacco smoke.” Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s not medicine, it’s folklore.”

  “You don’t have enough iodine to last beyond tomorrow. What’s the harm in trying?”

  “Besides the fact that some of our patients are already having trouble breathing?”

  “There could be something in the smoke that kills the contagion.” She shifted from one foot to the other. “We could try it with Elroy, he’s in better shape than most, so he should be able to handle it.”

  “Bottom left drawer.”

  She frowned at him, but bent down and opened the door. Smiled. Pulled out the corncob pipe Daniel’s grandfather used to smoke in the evenings. “Thank you. I’ll see if I can rustle up some tobacco.”

  “You’ll go to bed. When Mr. James comes by to check on Sally, I’ll ask him to give us some. I’ve no doubt he’s got a stash of cigars hidden away somewhere.”

  “There’s still linens to wash—“

  “Tomorrow,” Daniel insisted. “You’re no good to me if you’re so tired you can’t see straight.”

  “You’ve barely slept yourself.”

  True. Every time he dropped off, he relived Kenneth’s last agonized hours. He’d been tempted to
see if a dose of laudanum would bring sleep without dreams, but if it didn’t work, he’d be trapped in the dream until the drug was out of his system. He’d rather work himself into a stupor than return to that nightmare.

  “When you wake, send Aunt Beatrice to let me know. I’ll take a nap once I know you’re rested and ready to take care of our patients.”

  “I’ll go to bed at once.” She smiled at him with what looked like—gratitude? Or something else? He couldn’t help smiling back.

  What kind of woman smiled gratefully for the chance to tend to several dozen plague-stricken patients by herself?

  Anne was still smiling as she trudged upstairs. She shouldn’t be smiling. Their situation was deadly serious. But…

  Our patients, Daniel had said. Before tonight, it had always been my patients. It felt like he had accepted her as his nurse.

  The room that Beatrice had made up for her was Kenneth’s room when he was a boy. As Anne undressed and settled into the bed, she wondered how things would have been if Kenneth had lived.

  Would he have allowed her to help Daniel in his clinic? Or would he have sequestered her at home, to protect both her reputation and her health? She would never know. But she wanted to think he would have understood her desire to help.

  The question that bothered her more was: If Kenneth had lived, would she still have been attracted to Daniel?

  She couldn’t deny that she felt drawn to him. Yes, he’d seemed hostile toward her at first, especially at the funeral, but she could forgive a man for mourning for his brother. It was Daniel’s bedside manner that revealed his true spirit: with patients, he was gentle and kind, always trying to make them as comfortable as possible while treating them. He never lost his patience, no matter how difficult the patient might be. He worked tirelessly, even in the face of his own exhaustion and grief.

  When he’d smiled at her, her heart had nearly stopped. Unburdened for a moment of the grief that had settled into his expression since she’d met him, Daniel had looked so…handsome. She’d barely resisted the urge to reach for him.

  If everything had gone according to plan, she’d be married to Kenneth right now. It would’ve been terribly wrong for her to feel this way about his brother.

  But everything didn’t go according to plan, her logical self pointed out. Kenneth is dead, and Daniel is alive.

  If Kenneth was watching her from Heaven right now, she hoped he couldn’t see what was in her heart.

  “Try to hold the smoke in your throat for as long as you can,” Daniel said as he held the pipe stem toward Elroy.

  Elroy was seldom seen without a cigarette between his lips, so Daniel felt more comfortable testing the smoke treatment on him first. As the article had suggested, his symptoms had been lighter than those patients who didn’t smoke at first. Only after being confined to the clinic, where he couldn’t smoke, had Elroy’s symptoms gotten significantly worse.

  Perhaps Anne was on to something.

  No, none of that. Fostering hope before it was justified always led to disappointment. Hadn’t he hoped with all his heart that he’d find a way to save Kenneth?

  He wondered why Anne didn’t hold it against him that he’d let her betrothed die.

  Elroy let out a wheezing cough, blowing smoke in Daniel’s face. “Sorry, doc. Water?”

  “Not yet. We want the smoke to coat the infected tissues of your throat. We’ll do it again in a few hours.”

  In a few hours, Elroy seemed no better, but it could be that multiple treatments were needed. Daniel was preparing the pipe for another dose when Anne arrived, looking marginally fresher than before.

  “I can do that. Your turn to sleep.” Her fingers brushed his as she plucked the pipe from his grasp. He reeled from the soft warmth of her skin on his. Or was he so exhausted that he was losing his faculties? That must be it. A few hours of sleep and his desire to touch her would disappear.

  He staggered out of the clinic, stuck his head into the kitchen where Aunt Beatrice was salting yet another pot of soup for the sick townsfolk.

  “Wake me up in four hours.”

  “Six,” Daniel’s aunt replied without looking up.

  “I can’t, they need me.”

  “You don’t trust Anne?”

  “Of course I do,” he snapped. Then stopped. When had he started trusting her to take care of his patients? Some time in the past few days, he realized. She’d proven herself a quick study in everything he’d shown her: mixing tinctures, swabbing the back of the patients’ throats with iodine, differentiating between a worsening of symptoms and the patients’ fears causing them to panic. And she was one of the best he’d ever seen at calming the frightened. She had an almost magical ability to bring them back down to earth.

  She brought him back down to earth. This week would have broken him if she hadn’t been here. She’d been caring for him almost as much as she’d been caring for their patients.

  He needed her. And it terrified him.

  Chapter 7

  Daniel awoke from a dream about helping his grandmother in the garden.

  In the dream, he’d been a young boy again, following Grandmother everywhere she went and asking questions, as he had when she’d still been alive.

  Grandmother looked at him and pointed to the far corner of the garden. Daniel turned and saw a plant, but he couldn’t make out what it was. He heard Grandmother’s voice, but garbled. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t understand what she was saying.

  Daniel took a step toward the plant, hoping to see it more clearly. Suddenly Grandmother made choking noises. Her throat started to swell. No, not Grandmother!

  Daniel jerked awake as he reached for her. He was a grown man. Grandmother was dead. The garden was no more.

  The sense of loss overwhelmed him for a moment. He hadn’t thought about Grandmother and her garden for years. Why now?

  He shook his head as he dressed, trying to remember her more clearly. He’d been five when she died, too young to understand what was happening. But she hadn’t died of diphtheria. Her heart had given out.

  No doubt the dream was an expression of his despair for the patients downstairs.

  So why did he have the feeling that Grandmother had been trying to tell him something important?

  In the clinic, he found Anne peering into Elroy’s mouth as she maneuvered tiny calipers between his teeth. What was she doing?

  But before he could ask, she gasped. “I must tell Daniel!”

  “Tell me what?”

  She gasped again as she jumped off the chair where she’d been sitting. “I didn’t realize you were up, or I would have waited.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Elroy’s patches are smaller.”

  “The tobacco?” Daniel strode to the cot where Elroy sat and instructed the man to open his mouth. The whitish patches on the back of the man’s throat had indeed shrunk. Had his luck—Salvation’s luck—finally turned?

  No, it wasn’t luck. Anne’s determination to find another treatment was the reason Elroy’s throat looked better.

  Daniel grinned at Anne. “Would you mind administering the pipe to anyone who can handle the smoke while I mix tinctures?”

  She smiled back. “Yes, sir.”

  The ‘sir’ felt odd. But if they’d been working at a hospital, a nurse might’ve called him that. So he nodded. “When you’re done, get yourself some breakfast. Aunt Beatrice is still sleeping, but Mary’s volunteered to cook for us today.”

  Once Anne was gone, Daniel went round the packed clinic to check each patient. Several had been too ill for more than a single inhalation of smoke, and those who were able to hold the smoke in their throats were still coughing from the irritation. But if it worked…

  Only after every single patient had been dosed with his tincture mixture—which was missing a couple of ingredients, thanks to the continuing quarantine—did Daniel take a moment to sit down and reflect.

  He stared at the pile of medical books
on his desk. He’d gone through all of them in spare moments since the plague had struck, mostly when Anne thought him sleeping.

  Was it God’s plan that had brought Anne to Salvation just when he needed her help most? The logic drilled into him by his medical training insisted that it was merely luck—bad luck that Kenneth had died shortly after proposing, good luck that the woman who’d caught Kenneth’s fancy happened to have a temperament suited to nursing.

  But could luck align events so perfectly? It seemed too great a coincidence.

  He’d gone to church his whole life, and he believed wholeheartedly in turning the other cheek. In the golden rule. In the power of forgiveness to make people whole. But never had he seen more clearly what appeared to be the touch of God’s hand in his own life.

  What if Kenneth was never supposed to marry Anne?

  What if it was God’s plan that Anne come to Salvation for Daniel?

  He wasn’t sure if he wanted to believe it because it was true, or because it would absolve him of the guilt he’d felt since Kenneth’s death.

  The only thing he knew for sure was that he missed her when she left the room. His clinic, begun as soon as he’d graduated from medical school, had felt like home to him from the beginning. But today, it only felt like home when Anne was in it.

  I’m tired. When this is over, I’ll get some sleep and everything will return to normal.

  But the next day, it seemed that the tobacco smoke treatment hadn’t been completely successful. The patients whose symptoms had been milder were definitely showing improvement, the whitish patches in their throats shrinking. But those in whom the contagion had been more aggressive—they showed no improvement at all. Some were even worse. Like Tommy.

  Who didn’t seem to be able to stop coughing.

  Anne hurried to his bedside with a couple extra pillows, which she used to prop the boy up into a sitting position. Of all the townsfolk, Tommy seemed hardest hit by the disease. His neck was even more swollen than before, and a deep flush suffused his cheeks.