Laurie Alice Eakes - [Midwives 03]

by Choices of the Heart

  Esther sank her teeth into her lower lip.

  Griff rubbed it with his thumb. “Your eyes are about twice their usual size, and that’s right big. Now tell me what’s happened this week.”

  “Nothing. That is—since his fever broke, he’s gotten too insistent.”

  “Then slap his face.”

  “I can’t slap a patient.”

  “You sure can if he’s bothering you.”

  “If it’s my fault, though . . .”

  Griff’s face tightened. “You been petting him like you did me?”

  “No, I never—I wouldn’t. But I’m certain it must be something.”

  “You should have your hair pinned up.” He lifted a handful of the loose strands and allowed them to flow through his fingers. “It gives a man notions about seeing it spread out on his pillow.”

  She swung her palm toward his cheek.

  He caught her wrist, laughed, and kissed her palm. “That’s right. I shouldn’ta said it. Even if it’s true, it’s the sorta thing a man keeps to himself until he’s married to a girl. Just like his hands if she says no.”

  She didn’t say no to him, not before, not then. He pressed her palm against his cheek, and she remained still, a two-day growth of his beard prickling her palm, his skin warm and smooth beneath. If they’d been anywhere but on the Brookses’ front steps, she would have brought her other hand to his face and kissed him. For being understanding, for being kind, for being there.

  She’d missed him. Now that he was there, she felt where he’d been lacking, the empty place in her heart now filled.

  Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. She. Did. Not. Love. Him.

  But of course she did. Why else had she let him kiss her? Why else had she so desperately needed him to let her down when she knew she couldn’t walk on her injured foot, needed to get away from her own wish to have him hold her closer?

  She couldn’t love anyone. He was a good man who deserved a respectable wife. He was a Christian man who deserved a wife who still believed God cared.

  Yet had God not shown He cared with Zach?

  Zach was good and kind and hardworking. He too deserved a wife who wasn’t sullied by scandal.

  Scandal. Her parents. The Dochertys.

  She jumped back from Griff. “Did you meet Dr. Docherty?”

  “I sure did.” He smiled. “And his wife and daughters.”

  Esther narrowed her eyes. “Both of them?”

  “Both of them.” Griff winked. “Miss Janet is a right pretty girl.”

  “She’s a minx.” Esther tossed her hair back over her shoulders and rose. “Let me guess. She looked you up and down like you were her luncheon, and all the while her fiancé is off seeking his fortune at sea.”

  “Not anymore. She was right happy to tell me that he’s on his way home.” He took her elbow and started her toward his tethered horse by the gate. “After she finished looking me up and down like I was her luncheon.”

  Esther kept her gaze on the roan gelding and its bulging saddlebags. “And her parents? What did they tell you?”

  “That you’re their dearest friends’ runaway daughter.”

  “Like I’m a child.”

  “You shouldn’t have come without telling them where you are, you know. Mommas worry about their young’uns.”

  “And so do fathers, but mine are better off—” She drew her lip between her teeth to keep it from trembling. She couldn’t stop the tears from springing to her lashes. “Are they coming here to drag me away?”

  “Naw, they don’t want to drag you away.”

  “What?” She flashed a glance up at him. The unshed tears scattered.

  He caught one on the pad of his thumb. “They said it ain’t—” He let out a sigh of exasperation. “It isn’t their place to do anything of the kind to a woman grown. And it sounds like we need you here.”

  Esther’s knees wobbled with her relief. She didn’t need to run after all. Not yet. Not unless she couldn’t manage her feelings for Griff.

  “But they will write to your parents and send it by special courier,” Griff concluded.

  “Of course they will.” Esther rubbed her eyes.

  “And they’ll come to get you?”

  Esther nodded. “Not that they can make me do anything, but my father can be . . . persuasive.”

  “Esther.” Griff laid his hand on the small of her back.

  She wasn’t wearing her corset and jumped at the heat through only her gown and petticoat.

  “Dr. Docherty said you didn’t need to run off,” Griff continued softly.

  “Did you tell him about the letters?”

  “No, of course I didn’t. What kind of man do you think I am?”

  Honorable, kind, generous, loyal, and far, far too good to look at.

  They reached the gelding, and she stroked his neck as though he were her long-lost pet. “He must be weary. Will you take him home now?”

  “I want to take you home now. After what I saw in the sickroom there, I think it’s time.”

  “I think it’s time too. He won’t believe me. Perhaps if I go.”

  “Then go fetch your things, and we’ll be gone.”

  Esther hesitated, not wanting to enter the house, hear Mrs. Brooks or Hannah pleading with her about how much Zach needed her still. He didn’t. They were fine nurses. All he needed now was nourishment and strength. If she wasn’t around, perhaps he would come to his senses.

  She laid her hand on Griff’s arm and gazed up at him from beneath her lashes. “Will you go fetch them for me? There isn’t much, and—”

  Griff snatched her hand from his arm and stalked toward the house, his long legs eating up the ground, his back stiff.

  Esther stared at her hand, still curved as though gripping Griff’s muscled forearm, and a verse from the fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel kept running through her head. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

  Why did she think she needed to cajole and flirt and tease to get someone to do something for her? She never used to be so bold. Before January, she simply smiled and asked, and half a dozen men appeared to do her bidding. Then Alfred Oglevie ruined her reputation, and if she needed help with a parcel, with finding something, with mounting a horse—anything—men expected a reward from the pastor’s wanton daughter.

  Like the kiss she had given Griff after he rescued her. Could it truly have been nothing more than her believing she needed to reward him for his aid? No, surely not, not when she felt about him the way she did.

  And she knew how deeply those feelings ran for certain the instant he reappeared, her satchel in one hand, a small bundle of her things in the other. Unkempt and dusty from the journey, he was still a fine sight to her. Her ears ached to hear his gentle, deep voice. Her whole being yearned to be close to him, feeling his strength of mind, spirit, and body.

  But she dared not. She was ruined, not good enough for him.

  Choking down a sob, she turned on her heel and headed out of the compound.

  29

  Griff stowed Esther’s gear onto the saddle and swung onto the back of the horse. He needn’t hurry. She couldn’t get far walking. She still limped. He noticed that as she turned and headed out the gate as though a mountain lion pursued her.

  Aunt Tamar pursued him. “Griff, why are you leaving so quick? Where’s Esther?”

  “She left.” He hesitated, then decided he may as well tell the truth. “Zach is making her uncomfortable with his courting talk.”

  “That boy.” Aunt Tamar shook her head. “I told him not to, but can you blame him for falling in love with her?”

  “No,” Griff said. Raising his hand in farewell, he wheeled the gelding around and set out after Esther.

  He reached her in less than a mile. She had slowed her pace and her limp was more pronounced, but her head was high, her long waves of
hair lifting and drifting in the afternoon breeze.

  He didn’t give her a choice about riding with him. She’d say no, the stubborn woman. He simply rode up beside her, leaned down to grasp her around the waist, and swung her onto the saddle in front of him. She shrieked and managed to deal his knee a painful kick. Her skirt billowed, showing a bit of lace on the edge of a petticoat ruffle and trim ankles in white stockings, but she sank into place at once, shoving down petticoat and gown as far as she could manage. A bit more of her lower limbs showed than was decent. Griff tried not to look.

  Her hair helped in that. It caught the wind and veiled his face, tangled in the buttons at the neck of his shirt, wrapped itself around his neck like a ribbon or a noose.

  Laughing, he took the reins in one hand and gathered the shining mass of waves into a queue. “No wonder females scarce ever carry weapons. They can kill a man with this stuff.”

  “There’s a Scandinavian legend about a king who killed his enemy with his hair. Strangled him.”

  “I believe it was the truth.” He smoothed the tail of her hair over her shoulder. “Hold it. You think Hannah or Aunt Tamar could have given you some pins.”

  “They offered, but I hated taking from them. They have so little.”

  “They have so little?” Griff laughed. “They’d have twice as much as us even if they didn’t have the mine too. That ferry brings in a tidy income.”

  “But their house. It hardly has any furniture.”

  “Aunt Tamar is frugal and keeps her hand firmly on the purse strings. But she’ll give Zach whatever he wants.”

  “That won’t be me.” Her tone was cold, her spine stiff.

  “Why not?” Griff drew her back against him with one arm around her waist, a more comfortable way for them both to ride, more secure for her precarious perch ahead of him.

  She didn’t relax into his chest as she should, and Sunset tossed his head, snorting, feeling the tension atop his back.

  “Settle yourself,” Griff murmured into her ear. “You’re upsetting the horse.”

  “How can I when you get upset with me for—for touching you?”

  “Miss Esther, I don’t get upset with you touching me. I like that maybe more than I should. I get upset with you using your pretty eyes and soft hands to do what you want. I think it right tawdry of you, like—like—”

  “Like those letters are true?”

  If she behaved like that with the men of Seabourne, they probably held some truth. But why would she? The Docherty family so obviously loved her. Her own parents must too. Yet she’d run from that love to the arms of strangers.

  Only something awful would drive a body away from family who cared. Like Bethann waiting for him to return with money so she could flee the mountain and her disgrace, even though they all loved her and told her she could stay.

  Bethann had strayed on her own this time, but before it hadn’t been that way, and it had started a war between families.

  “Esther?” No, he couldn’t ask a female such a thing. He could only protect her. “I don’t care about what those letters said.”

  She said nothing in response, but her back relaxed, her head nestled into his shoulder. He kept Sunset to an easy pace, not caring how long he took to get them home.

  Esther fell asleep against him. She trusted him enough to sleep in his arms. He would settle for that.

  They reached home at dusk. The air smelled of frying pork and rang with the joyous shouts of the children swarming out to greet them.

  “You brought her home.” Ned hugged Esther the instant Griff set her on the ground, then backed off, blushing.

  She smiled down at him. “That’s the nicest present I think I’ve ever gotten.”

  Ned glowed, and Griff loved her all the more.

  “Did you bring us presents?” Brenna asked Griff.

  “Why’d you have to go anyway?” Jack asked.

  Esther shot him a look with arched brows that asked the same question.

  “I had business to see to. As for presents”—he tugged Brenna’s pigtail—“maybe.”

  “But you promised,” Brenna wailed. “You’d think we were as poor as the Neffs, my ribbons all look so shabby.”

  “Brenna, that ain’t nice,” Liza said, then clapped her hand to her mouth.

  Esther smiled. “I see I’ve been gone too long.”

  “Why are you wearing your hair down?” Brenna turned her big eyes on Esther. “Did my brother do that? It’s indecent that you—”

  “Brenna, go inside,” Griff said with quiet firmness. “If you’ve done all your chores, I’ll see what I brought you and if you can have it. But only if you apologize.”

  “But it’s true. Momma says—ouch, Jack, why’d you kick me?”

  “All of you, inside.” Griff clamped a hand on Jack’s shoulder and steered him toward the house. “I’ll be inside as soon as I rub down this poor beast and give Miss Esther her things.”

  “And kiss her good night,” Brenna shot back as she slipped in through the back door.

  Griff glanced at Esther, couldn’t stop himself from looking at her lips. A kiss would please him greatly. She might even kiss him back again. But decency said he shouldn’t now any more than he should have on Independence Day.

  He swallowed down disappointment. “I bought some new pins for Momma and Liza. She’s getting old enough to start putting up her hair. I expect there’s enough for you too.”

  “Thank you. I seem to have lost a number of them since getting here.”

  “I’ll bring them by later.” He glanced at the darkening sky now that the sun had dropped behind the western mountains. “Or maybe it should wait for tomorrow.”

  “Yes, it probably should.”

  “Will you come to the house for supper?”

  “No, thank you. I’d like to go to my room and sleep.”

  “Then I’ll see you in the morning.” He satisfied himself with a brush of his fingertips across her cheek, as soft as the petal of a flower, then stood beside his horse while she crossed the yard to her house. Once she was inside and the bolt shot home, Griff took the gelding to the barn and unloaded it. He had plenty of excuses to go see her in the morning. He still carried her satchel, as she’d forgotten it for once. He also had the basket of herbs and oils from the doctor.

  He stowed the things for Esther in an empty stall, then carried the other packages to the house. Momma and Pa greeted him with nods and questions about his journey. The children clamored for whatever he had brought them, and from the far doorway, Bethann scanned his face with anxious eyes.

  He inclined his head and dropped one hand to his breeches pocket. Bethann half smiled before slipping away. She could be gone in a day or two, and maybe, with her presence away from the ridge, the families could forget about the cause of the feud. Griff could correspond with her—she wrote well enough to do that—and ensure she had enough to support her and the baby if the father wouldn’t support her.

  Conscious of the money burning in his pocket, he realized he shouldn’t give it to Bethann without telling Momma and Pa. Yet if he told them, he would break Bethann’s trust and she might disappear from them forever. For all the trouble she had caused, Bethann was kin. He couldn’t lose Bethann as Esther’s parents had come so close to losing her.

  Esther crawled into the bed and slept until past dawn. She hadn’t been able to sleep in a real bed for more than a few hours in over two weeks. She had enjoyed no privacy. This was coming home.

  To cap off the impression, the cats greeted her outside her cabin door, twining themselves around her ankles, purring like steam engines interspersed with squeaky meows.

  She stooped to pet them, the skirt of her pink muslin gown billowing around her. “You two need more cedar. I hope I can find some. And you’re going to have those kittens any day now, aren’t you, momma cat?”

  “Meow. Meow.”

  She rubbed chins, promised them breakfast, and glanced up to see Griff smiling down at her, h
is hands laden with parcels.

  “May I help you?” She intended to sound cool; she sounded breathless.

  “I can help you.” He held out the packages. “Let’s take ’em inside. Some of this is for the schoolroom.”

  “Chalk?”

  “And new slates.”

  “Bless you.” She sprang to her feet and flung open the schoolroom door. “That was so kind of you. The children probably haven’t missed their lessons. I know Sam and Mattie haven’t. But I’ve missed teaching them.”

  “They have, though. Even Brenna.” Griff set the chalks and slates on the table, then returned to stand directly in front of Esther. “This basket is from your doctor friend. I think he suspected it was you the minute I mentioned you, ’cause he started filling this basket with all sorts of stuff.”

  “Uncle Rafe did?” Esther fairly snatched the basket from him and began to plow through it, lifting up the packets and sniffing them, looking at the labels on the vials of oils. “Cloves, cinnamon, thyme. Lovely.”

  “You going to cook or heal people?” Griff’s eyes glowed like the sun-washed sky outside.

  Esther laughed. “I could do both. These are sovereign remedies for many things. Oh, a whole gingerroot. I suppose I’ll have to write to thank him. And you for carrying it back.”

  “I’d have carried more.” Griff ducked his head, his curly hair sliding across his brow. He tossed a smaller parcel from hand to hand, then thrust it at her without looking. “This is from me.”

  “Griff, you shouldn’t. That is . . . is it all right?” Her hand shook, making the wrapping crackle.

  “Momma said it was.”

  “Your momma has ideas I—well, thank you.” Esther kept her own head bowed as she set the package on the table and pulled the knotted string apart.

  The paper fell away to reveal half a dozen ivory hairpins and a length of ivory satin ribbon embroidered with purple violets. Simple. Elegant. Probably the most precious gift she’d ever received. Her throat closed, and she couldn’t speak.

  “It’s the flower you use for your scent,” Griff said tentatively. “Violets, I think?”