Home by Morning

by Alexis Harrington

  She frowned. “That’s a nasty cough you have.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he gasped. “It came on fast. I swear everything hurts, every muscle in my body. And I’m freezing cold. I’m going home to rest, but maybe you could give me something for these aches?”

  Jess leaned back and considered him. It could be something as minor as a bad cold. Or something worse. Amy, who’d rushed off to a meeting of the Liberty Bond Committee, had said there were some medicines in the back, but there had been no time to investigate, and Jess knew she had aspirin tablets in her bag. “All right, let’s start with a simple treatment.” She flipped open the latches and pulled out the glass-stoppered bottle. Rummaging through a side pocket, she also produced an empty envelope and counted them out. “Here are ten tablets—take two every four to six hours.”

  He took the packet from her extended hand and gobbled down two pills before she could even search for a glass of water. “Thank you, ma’am. I mean, Doctor.”

  “Can your father give you a ride home?”

  “He’s busy in his office.”

  She nodded. “All right, then. Let’s see if we can find you a better place to wait for him.” She walked down the short hall that led to an examination room and an office. In the latter she found a horsehair sofa in decent condition that would be more comfortable than the straight-backed wooden chair in the front.

  “Eddie,” she called, “you come sit back here.”

  He struggled to his feet. “Just for a few minutes—I’ve had lots of marching drills at Camp Lewis, and I can walk home once the aspirin starts working.”

  She didn’t think that was a good idea but didn’t bother to argue. “All the same, I’ll get word to your father. I have some errands to run, but I’ll see to it that you get home.”

  Jess left him slumped on the sofa, and a nagging worry pulled at her. Still, she told herself, he’s a strong young man in the peak of health. But it seemed strange he should react so swiftly to a cold. It didn’t make sense.

  Weaving through people on the sidewalk, she saw the mayor coming her way. He strode along purposefully.

  “Jessica! I mean Miss—Dr. Layton. You’re just the person I’ve been looking for.” Horace Cookson was a heavyset man in his mid-forties, a dairy farmer by occupation, who bore a rumpled, homespun dignity. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows, the bottom button of his vest was missing, and his tie was askew. He had the look of a man who was always either one step ahead of or behind himself. Every weekday morning he rose in the dark, milked his cows, then put on his dress clothes and came to town.

  “If it’s about Eddie—”

  “I heard about your set-to with Granny Mae over him. He’ll be fine, won’t he?”

  “He’s resting in the doctor’s office, but he’s going to need a ride home. He said he’d walk, but really, he’s not up to that.”

  The mayor nodded, plainly unconcerned. “He’s strong and young. He’ll be fine and I’ll see to it that someone gets him—his mother will make a fuss over him. But right now, I’m interested in talking to you. Please,” he said, gesturing in the direction of Powell Springs’s tiny city hall at the end of the block. “Will you come on down to my office for a chat?”

  Jessica frowned slightly. “What about? The county isn’t still insisting that I owe them property taxes—”

  He waved off the suggestion. “No, no, I’m sure that’s not the case. Anyway, I don’t have a thing to do with tax collection. No, we have another subject to talk about.”

  “We do?”

  “Please—come and join me for a short meeting,” Cookson asked again and held out his hand in a gesture of invitation.

  Jessica glanced around, baffled and looking for an escape. There was none. “Well, all right.” She followed him, dodging a woman pulling along two children who clutched small American flags in their fists. There was a bright, holiday atmosphere on the street.

  When they arrived at city hall, Cookson whisked past his secretary. “No interruptions, Birdeen,” he said to the dark-haired woman sitting at a switchboard outside his door. Birdeen Lyons held dual jobs as the mayor’s receptionist and Powell Springs’s telephone operator, although as far as Jess knew, telephones here were not as common as they were in other places. Powell Springs was still a small town, and only a house or two per block had one.

  “Sure, Horace.”

  Breezing into his untidy office, he pushed a pile of papers off the chair next to his oak desk. He motioned to Jessica to sit. “I don’t have any tea or coffee here, but I could send out to the café. It would only take a minute.”

  “Thank you, no.” She glanced around. On the wall behind the mayor’s desk, she saw the same war bond poster that was in nearly every shop window in town. Next to it hung a small, framed photograph of Eddie, looking stiff and proud in his army uniform.

  The mayor sat down in his chair and turned to face her. “You’ll have to forgive me for herding you off the sidewalk. Believe me, I wouldn’t have done it if this wasn’t urgent.”

  Jessica nodded and waited for an explanation that was more urgent than giving his sick boy a simple ride to the family farm. His round face, though kind enough, gave away nothing.

  “This morning when I heard you’d arrived in town and then tended to my son, I called a special meeting of the town council.”

  She straightened in the chair, on her guard. How had word of her arrival gotten around so quickly? Then her brows met over the bridge of her nose as a thought occurred to her. “For heaven’s sake, did Granny Mae actually complain to you about it? Is that why I’m here?”

  “Now, now, don’t let Mae ruffle your feathers. She’s a fine woman and a fixture in this community. She’s been here since Methuselah wore knee pants, mixing potions and delivering babies.”

  Now now, there there…This was so typical of the kind of patronizing attitudes she’d endured since deciding to pursue medicine. “Mayor Cookson, my feathers are not—”

  “Mae is a fine woman,” he interrupted, “and she makes a chicken stew that would put my mother’s to shame, rest her soul. But I think we can agree that she is not a medical doctor.”

  Jess’s mouth, which she’d opened to continue her defense, snapped shut. Then she went on cautiously, “Well, no, she isn’t. That was why I stepped in.”

  “And I’m glad you did. We need a physician, and we’ve been without one since Doc Vandermeer was taken by the influenza last spring.”

  “I understood that you’ve found one.” Amy’s last letter to her had mentioned that.

  “Yes, Frederick Pearson. A presentable young graduate, as far as I can tell from his letters.” He shuffled through another few stacks of papers on his desk. “Well, I don’t see them right now. But presentable or not, I’m still not certain when he’ll be here. We’ve been expecting him for a while. With the war on, most of the doctors and nurses have gone overseas.”

  She already knew that. In fact, she wasn’t sure how presentable this Pearson could be since the army had drafted every physician who was even semi-competent. The only ones left were quacks without degrees and a few females like herself, in whom the army was not interested. “How does this involve me, Mr. Cookson?”

  He folded his big farmer’s hands on his desk blotter. “It was a short meeting. After some argu—I mean jawing, the council voted that I should ask you stay on in Powell Springs until Dr. Pearson arrives.”

  Jessica stared at him. “I’m sure this wasn’t a unanimous decision.”

  He shifted. “Well, not exactly. To be honest, there was a little doubt because you’re, well…” He paused. “Well, a woman.” Jess lifted her brows slightly and felt her cheeks grow warm. “But your father was an upright man—you know, well thought of. And most folks in town have known you since way back.” He brightened here. “Adam Jacobsen spoke up in your favor, and pretty enthusiastically. Of course, the opinion of Powell Springs’s minister, and a man so active in the American Protective League—well, he
won over the others.”

  The APL—she would expect that of Adam. Jess remembered him as a whiny little pip-squeak of a child who tattled on everyone to his own father, the minister before him. The American Protective League, an outgrowth of President Wilson’s Sedition Act, had over two hundred thousand volunteer members who made it their business to spy on their neighbors, report men they considered to be draft dodgers, stick their noses into everyone’s activities, find treachery where none existed, and harass people for not buying Liberty Bonds. They could have others arrested for expressing a critical opinion of the war, and viewed everyone with suspicion. So Adam’s endorsement was unexpected and probably unwelcome.

  “But I’m only staying a little more than a week, just to see my sister. I have a research position waiting for me in Seattle.”

  “Hmm, yes, that might be a problem, since we don’t know when Pearson is arriving.”

  “Not ‘might be.’ It is a problem. I’m expected in Washington, and I have to go. I don’t practice clinical medicine anymore.”

  He leaned forward, his expression earnest and open. “Dr. Layton…Jessica…I know this is a hell of a lot to ask of you, but you managed the situation with Ed so well. Granny Mae just isn’t qualified to take care of medical problems. She’s helped me pull a calf or two over the years, and I suppose she can handle little things. But some people around here have started to worry about what will happen the next time a real emergency comes up. Poor old Elvin Fowler just sits on his porch all day long now, since he broke his leg and had no real doctoring. It’s my job as mayor to see that the citizens of Powell Springs are taken care of.” He caught her gaze and held it fast. “And I think your pa would want you to help your own hometown in its hour of need.”

  “But—” Jessica tightened her jaw, feeling guilty and outmaneuvered. Yes, of course, her father would want her to help. In fact, she knew he’d demand it. She didn’t want to stay in Powell Springs or jeopardize her new job at Seattle General Hospital. Still, clever Mayor Cookson had known exactly what to say to bend her resolve. “Well, I—” she began, crumbling under the weight of duty, “I suppose—I’ve been given six weeks’ travel time, I guess I can stay for a month.” Then with more vigor she added, “But whether or not Dr. Pearson is here in thirty days, I’ll be leaving.”

  He sat back in his chair, and a shadow of either satisfaction or relief crossed his weathered face. “Sure, of course, I understand.”

  “Maybe I could use the empty office I borrowed this morning, since my father’s house is no longer available.”

  If he detected the note of bitterness she’d been unable to keep from her tone, the mayor didn’t let on. “That’s exactly the spot I had in mind! Of course, we’ve already hung Pearson’s shingle on the place, but that won’t matter. We’ll get you set up right away, don’t you worry about a thing. I don’t want to give you the impression that you’ll be busy—after all, you’re here to visit Amy. We’ll pay to put you up in the apartment that we fixed up for Pearson. In fact, we’ll pay all the expenses.” He stood and reached a hand across the desk. “Glad to have you back, Doctor.”

  She shook his hand, already doubting her decision. “Only for a while, though, Mr. Cookson. Only for a while.” She stood up. “And you’ll see to Ed? I left him in the clinic.”

  “Sure, sure, just as soon as some of this business is taken care of.” He nudged the piles of papers. Jessica never would have guessed that the administration of such a small town could be so time-consuming.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Cole Braddock held the mare’s hoof between his knees and nailed her shoe in place. Jeremy, the youngster who worked for him after school, had started the job, but Cole redid his work. The boy was still learning, after all, and he was bound to make his share of mistakes. Cole would have had him fix the problem himself, but he’d sent the boy home to tend his ailing mother.

  In the rafters, a row of house sparrows cheeped and flapped. Roscoe, Cole’s black-and-white sheepdog, yipped a comment and dropped to his backside to watch to proceedings.

  Amy had asked Cole to accept the lunch invitation, and damn if he could come up with a good excuse to get himself out of it. She’d looked up at him with her long-lashed green eyes and that expression that made him feel as if she hung on his every word, and he’d given in. Having lunch with her and Jess was the last thing he wanted to do. Why had Jess Layton come back? Each strike of hammer on nail emphasized the question. Why? Of course, he’d expected that she’d want to visit her sister, but damn it—

  Seeing Jess again got him all riled up in a tangle of feelings, the chief one being anger. She was still beautiful enough to make a man look twice. Yet she appeared more fragile than he remembered, maybe a bit weary. For a moment he wondered how she’d been. Then he thought of all that had passed between them and anger settled on him again. He pounded the nail until the horse made a grumpy noise and turned her head to the side to glower at him.

  He stared at the brown equine eye and drew a deep breath. He was acting like an idiot. “Sorry, Molly,” he mumbled around the nails he held in his mouth.

  He was lucky: soon he’d make Amy his fiancée, a wonderful woman, a woman who possessed all the qualities a man could ask for in a wife. Pretty, sweet-tempered, an innocent charmer, a good cook, eager to be a mother.

  Everyone loved Amy.

  She didn’t challenge him or try his patience to the breaking point before letting him off the hook, as Jess had. His plan to marry her was definitely a smart one.

  Then, after the wedding, he’d have all the good things in life that Riley had—well, except for joining the army. On that topic, the two brothers had been divided. Cole had wanted to enlist as soon as Congress had voted to declare war. He’d wanted to go to France and help topple Kaiser Bill. But Riley, who was two years older and had always gotten what he wanted, had enlisted first.

  Oh, and didn’t Pop just love to brag about his soldier son?

  Cole took another nail out of his mouth and fitted it into Molly’s shoe. He could hear Pop’s rusty voice, going on and on about Riley’s exploits, many of which he dreamed up in his own imagination. But the old-timers down at Tilly’s Soda Fountain didn’t know that, or maybe they didn’t care, and on days when his frozen joints thawed enough to let him saddle a horse and mount it, Pop would ride over to drink whiskey poured into a soda glass and tell the boys about Corporal Riley Braddock. Two years into Oregon’s passage of prohibition hadn’t done much to change the sale of alcohol at Tilly’s, only how it was served.

  Supplying horses to the Allies and the U.S. Army wasn’t a glamorous job worth free drinks at Tilly’s. But it was a big one, and Cole knew that his sister-in-law shouldn’t have to face it alone. When America entered the conflict, it sent 182,000 horses with the armed forces. Though miles of barbed wire had made a mounted cavalry impractical, the horses were needed to haul equipment and supplies. Animals were just as vulnerable to mustard gas and machine guns as the men, and replacements had to be shipped overseas. Whenever he thought of what they were sending the poor beasts off to, it made his stomach turn. A man knew he was walking into danger as a soldier. A horse didn’t.

  Concentrating on his task and mulling over his thoughts, he didn’t hear another horse and rider approach until Roscoe barked a short greeting and danced up to meet them. Cole looked up to see Pop riding in on Muley, a long-eared gelding who was nearly as old as his rider.

  His father climbed down stiffly, his one knee almost completely locked. He wore his ash-gray hair cut short, and his weathered face bore a history of every hot sun and stormy day the old man had ever seen. “So. Came back, did she?”

  Immediately on guard, Cole dropped Molly’s hoof and straightened. “Who?”

  “Who? Ben Layton’s doctor gal, that’s who. The one you almost got hitched to. They’re yapping about it over at Tilly’s. Heard she stole away one of Granny Mae’s patients, and you helped her do it.”

  Cole groaned inwardly. Those old f
arts at Tilly’s were worse than a bunch of church women with their gossip. And leave it to Pop to hurry over here to talk about it. “Yeah, Jess took care of Ed Cookson. He’s got a bad cold or something—flopped right over into the street. But she didn’t ‘steal’ Mae’s patient. Mae isn’t a doctor.”

  Though Cole stood a head taller than his father, Pop still tried to make him feel like a ten-year-old with a withering glare from his coffee-bean eyes. “You got the right woman now, a fine woman, so don’t go getting any ideas about the doctor gal.”

  Cole couldn’t hide his irritation. “Jesus, Pop, she came home for a visit. That’s all. Whatever was between Jess and me was over a long time ago. Anyway, Amy told me she wrote about going to a job in Seattle.”

  The old man tied Muley to an upright with gnarled hands and hobbled over to a stool that stood next to a bucket of nails. He eased himself to the seat with a loud grunt and continued, “Well, I remember how you moped around like a calf looking for his mama when she told you she was going back to New York.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  With his gift for beating a subject to death, Pop went on as if Cole hadn’t spoken. “By God, the house was like a damned funeral parlor for months, between Riley’s wife’s droopy sulking over him leaving and your moping. So you just let Ben’s doctor gal ride on. She’s fine to look at, but too smart for her own good. Always was, with all that book learning. That’s a bad thing in a woman, too smart.” He went on for a few minutes, declaring his opinions about women, horses, and a number of topics in between.

  Cole suppressed a sigh. “Pop, isn’t it time for your medicine? You know Susannah likes you to take it at the same time every day.”

  He made an impatient gesture. “Bah, medicine! That stuff tastes like turpentine and it don’t help at all. I’m still as stiff as John Brown’s body.” But he heaved himself from the stool and shuffled over to Muley. “I’ll just amble back to Tilly’s. The medicine they serve works better.”